(highlight:: What is "the government" or "policy", really? A disambiguation
Summary:
The problem lies in the ambiguity of the words 'government' and 'policy'.
Government can refer to elected officials while also encompassing public servants in operational units. Similarly, policy can mean legislation, regulations, or the operational systems of executive agencies.
This lack of clarity leads to confusion in discussions.
For example, someone may dislike politicians but still value public services like trash collection.
The ambiguity makes it difficult to accurately assess people's preferences.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
Well, it feels to me like we have this problem both with the word government and also the word policy, which is there are many possible ways of understanding that word. Like, government can mean elected officials, elected politicians. And in this country, we both elect members of our legislatures, you know, Congress, both houses, state legislatures, city legislatures, you know, what's the old joke about America, Americans elect even the dog catcher. We have a huge number of elected roles. And those folks are politicians and they have both a responsibility to their constituents, but they also have a response, a personal responsibility often to get themselves reelected. Meanwhile, you have executive agencies that agencies of government that actually deliver stuff. And that's the Department of Sanitation that comes around and picks up your trash. That's the Department of Transportation that pays the pomels in your street, perhaps not as quickly as you'd like, but they're doing it. You know, like, like, there are operational units of government that actually deliver services. So I think that one thing that happens is people don't like disambiguate between when they're talking about government, are they talking about politicians, or are they talking about Public servants operating inside of these, these like functional units of government? Same thing with policy. Like, we talk about how we, we apply design to policy. And policy can mean legislation and statute law, like the laws passed by those legislators. It can also mean the rules and regulations that are developed based on those laws. It can also mean the sort of operational systems that emerge inside of executive agencies, which are essentially the operating systems of different programs, which are nowhere written In law, but nonetheless have to be, have to be defined and used to actually deliver on some public policy or public program. So I think part of the problem first is that we, we don't have specific and upwards. So maybe that guy at your cafe doesn't actually hate having his trash picked up, but he doesn't like his elected representatives. I mean, maybe he hates having his trash picked up, although, or maybe doesn't like paying taxes. Maybe, but, but does he want to pick up his trash?)
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(highlight:: Understanding the Different Meanings of Rules and Regulations
Transcript:
Speaker 1
Well, it feels to me like we have this problem both with the word government and also the word policy, which is there are many possible ways of understanding that word. Like, government can mean elected officials, elected politicians. And in this country, we both elect members of our legislatures, you know, Congress, both houses, state legislatures, city legislatures, you know, what's the old joke about America, Americans elect even the dog catcher. We have a huge number of elected roles. And those folks are politicians and they have both a responsibility to their constituents, but they also have a response, a personal responsibility often to get themselves reelected. Meanwhile, you have executive agencies that agencies of government that actually deliver stuff. And that's the Department of Sanitation that comes around and picks up your trash. That's the Department of Transportation that pays the pomels in your street, perhaps not as quickly as you'd like, but they're doing it. You know, like, like, there are operational units of government that actually deliver services. So I think that one thing that happens is people don't like disambiguate between when they're talking about government, are they talking about politicians, or are they talking about Public servants operating inside of these, these like functional units of government? Same thing with policy. Like, we talk about how we, we apply design to policy. And policy can mean legislation and statute law, like the laws passed by those legislators. It can also mean the rules and regulations that are developed based on those laws. It can also mean the sort of operational systems that emerge inside of executive agencies, which are essentially the operating systems of different programs, which are nowhere written In law, but nonetheless have to be, have to be defined and used to actually deliver on some public policy or public program. So I think part of the problem first is that we, we don't have specific and upwards. So maybe that guy at your cafe doesn't actually hate having his trash picked up, but he doesn't like his elected representatives. I mean, maybe he hates having his trash picked up, although, or maybe doesn't like paying taxes. Maybe, but, but does he want to pick up his trash? No, I mean, I think that what we do at a representative democracy is we essentially pay taxes and those taxes go to run a whole set of operations, which then individual people don't have To run. You don't have to take your own trash, you know, to the, you know,)
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(highlight:: I + You = We - A framework to get audiences engaged with your talk
Summary:
I encourage authors and speakers to quickly establish a connection by using a silly formula: 'i + u = we'.
Together, we are on a journey!
Transcript:
Speaker 2
I think about working with, let's say authors or conference speakers, and I try to encourage them to get to we very quickly by establishing a, it's a silly formula, i plus u equals we. Who am I? Who are you? Together we are we and we're on a journey together.)
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(highlight:: How Context Influences One's Perception of Government Regulation
Summary:
I want the government to regulate building codes to ensure safety and prevent disasters like fires or collapses.
However, in some areas, it may seem excessive to require inspections for small structures. Our different contexts shape our expectations for government regulation and citizen interaction.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
And what my expectations are about government regulation of something like building codes, like I don't want the building next door to me going up in flames or collapsing or having A gas leak or something. I want there to be a buildings department that comes and inspects that building because I'm living right next to that building. If something bad happens with my neighbor's building, I'm totally going to be affected by that. But I know for my relative who lives in Oregon, it's a little crazy that anytime somebody builds a thing, you have to get an inspector from 150 miles away to come and do a building inspection. When if that backyard shed collapses, no one will even know because someone's living on an 88 per property and it doesn't create problems for people other than them. So like just to give one example, our contexts make us have very different needs and expectations of what is reasonable government regulation. And what is a reasonable level of interaction between the government and individual citizens in that context?)
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(highlight:: The Role of a Designer: Identifying the Shared Needs of Users in a System
Summary:
Using a human-centered approach, we engage with government partners to understand all the people involved in a project.
This includes the program directors, the public, frontline staff, and operational personnel. We collect stories and immerse ourselves in people's experiences to understand how policies are delivered and what mechanisms are used.
By synthesizing different perspectives, we identify shared needs, which becomes the focus of our design.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
We use a human centered methodology in our work. So fundamentally, when we begin to engage with a government partner about some project, we ask, who are all of the human beings who are involved in the creation and delivery of whatever This policy enabled thing is. And that means, of course, the people inside of, you know, directing or running the program, who are often our partners, and also the members of the public who are using or experiencing The public service, which is being enabled. But also everybody in the middle, the frontline staff who are the kind of point of interaction between the public and the service, the operational folks who are completely invisible, Really, to the public, who are actually operationalizing the program. Collecting stories. And we try to do this in, you know, we are inspired by the methods of ethnographers. We try to go to where people are and hang out there with them and see what is their life experience and what is happening when this policy is being delivered to people, or what is the mechanisms That people are using in their work to actually make this thing happen. When we do that, we end up collecting all these stories from different points in a system. And the work of the designer in that context is to do synthesis of all of those different, sometimes conflicting points of view and say, what are all of these people's share? What is their shared need from this system? Because if we can identify that, then that becomes a site for design. That becomes what we design to.)
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(highlight:: Finding the Goldilocks Zone in Design Research
Summary:
When collecting diverse stories, design researchers look for edge cases and extreme outliers.
The goal is to gather a wide range of human data. After analyzing this data, they prioritize ideas that offer both value and feasibility, similar to finding planets in the Goldilocks zone.
The projects in the Goldilocks zone are the ones that strike the perfect balance.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
So I think part of that assessment after the collecting of all of those divergent stories, looking as design researchers do for edge cases, looking for points of divergence, looking For the people who are at the extremes, so that you get the broadest possible range of stories. Then it's about saying, okay, when we take all of this, this human data and look at it, what's the stuff in there that both has the potential to deliver the most value value while being Within the zone of feasibility? They talk about with planets, this idea of the Goldilocks zone, that like, if a planet outside of our solar system is too close to that foreign sun, it'll burn up. But if it's too far, it'll be too cold for life to emerge. So that they're looking for the gold, the planets in the Goldilocks zone. And in some ways, we're looking for the projects in the Goldilocks zone.)
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(highlight:: The Public Policy Lab's Organizational Model
Summary:
The Plorg Mod is a three-part organizational model that encourages transparency and collaboration.
It includes a transparent pay scale, a project execution model based on agile software development, and a costing model. All team members have access to this information, including internal books, to understand project profitability and revenue generation.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
So we have something that we call the Plorg Mod. It's the PPL organizational model. And it's a three piece thing, each piece of which interacts with each other piece, one of which is a pay scale, which is transparent. Everybody in our organization knows how much everybody else in our organization makes and why. It's based on the set of objective criteria so that we can figure out how to pay people and how to get people raises. Additionally, we have a project execution model which is based on an agile software development framework which allows us to scope out projects based on standard sprints and releases In order to conduct the work over a given period of time. And then we have a costing model that allows us to essentially say, okay, depending on the size of the team who's going to work on this project and the duration of the project and its level Of intensity, that tells us how much a project needs to generate in terms of revenue for it to be affordable for us to execute it. And that also is transparently available to every member of our team. We also make our internal books. Our internal bookkeeping is completely available to every member of our team. So that everybody on the team knows how much a project is bringing in, how much time we're dedicating to it, how their billable hours relate to the profitability of the revenue generation Of that project, all of that.)
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