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Why work life balance needs service design

Once upon a time....

I want to tell you a story about work life balance, about working men and women, about kids and the platitudes that 'women cannot have it all'.  This story is about what happens when you use a wide angled lens and when we use tools like service design to generate a work life balance of the adjacent possible... 

The adjacent possible is a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself.

The strange and beautiful truth about the adjacent possible is that its boundaries grow as you explore them. Each new combination opens up the possibility of other new combinations. Think of it as a house that magically expands with each door you open. You begin in a room with four doors, each leading to a new room that you haven't visited yet. Once you open one of those doors and stroll into that room, three new doors appear, each leading to a brand-new room that you couldn't have reached from your original starting point. Keep opening new doors and eventually you'll have built a palace.

Work life balance succeeds or fails on the dedication of the individual and the support of the business...

I have 2 children and I work for one of Australia’s big 4 banks (the break up one).  I work full time.  My employer is very supportive of flexible work options and work life balance. 

So why do I feel so stressed... ?  It MUST be my fault huh...

The value of my employer's flexible working options are diminshed because my city does not support work/life balance and flexible work.

The facts

I live....

• 9 km from Melbourne City Centre 
• 12 km from home to work...
• ...in one of the world's most liveable cities.
  

The choices 

 

Travel time : up to 1 hour and 20 minutes 

Parking:      $15 - $30 per day 

Cost:           -  2 1/12 hours of wasted time doing nothing

                    - environmentally costly, pollution, noise.. 

                    - Communities choked by traffic, reduced family and social time.

Personal:    up to 2 1/2 hours a day sitting in a car instead of being at work or with family. 

Then there’s evenings – in peak hour it can take up to 50 minutes just to get out of Docklands, and then there’s the tunnel, the eastern suburb tram/bike and car loaded roads… To be sure of being at school by 6 I MUST leave work at 4.30 at the latest. 

Travel time :        7 mins to station, 25 mins to Docklands – 35 ish mins.

Parking:               $0… but...

                           have to get to the car park by 7.25 to get a park.

 

Cost:       - Long days at work

                 - Very early starts that don’t line up with school hours or care hours.

                - Stressful – lack of parking, crowded trains, poor facilities for ticket purchase. 

Travel time:        Up to 1 1/2 hours depending on traffic 

 Cost:                   - Long days spent neither at work or with family. 

...and it's not just transport  

 

 

 

School starts at 9 and finishes at 3.30.

Before school care starts at 7, and after school care finishes at 6…

 If I drop my children at 9 - the earliest I can get to work is really 10. 

• Can’t take the train – no parking. 
• Tram – doesn’t get me to work until 10.20
• Driving, well I’ll get there, in about 50 minutes.  I may miss early bird parking, parking now $30 /day.

The Experience 

None of the services integrate - it's like they operate in different worlds and the user pays... 

Maximum stress, always worrying about being late, unfocussed in meetings as it gets close to time to leave…  Not quite feeling like I'm doing anything well... complex work and childcare arrangements to cater for…um.. who..??

All the benefit of my employer's flexible work offerings are diluted... 

Communities….? Families…? Workplaces…? Sustainability..? um nope…..

Weird huh…?

 We've designed a service landscape that:

• Reduces productivity
• Increases anxiety and stress
• Has gridlocked our cities
• Created clogged roads and dirty polluted streets
• Reduces time that families and communities can spend together.
• Works against flexible workplace initiatives put in place in industry

Dream dream dream... 

Imagine if service providers, councils, corporations, communities used integrative thinking to design solutions to whole problems…dyamic solutions – again a prototype ecosystem.

The story might look something like this..... 

 

I wake up on a work day.  My kids can choose to attend their base school (in the community) or their other school - in Docklands.  The Interwebs mean that the curriculum is the same, but they get a broader range of teacher, friends and belonging - a new resilience.  They belong in two communities. 

The public transport system considers families and investment takes place to support it.  It takes a 20 minute trip on a tram with my kids to eat breakfast by the water.  We eat lunch together in my workplace and instead of after school care and rushing across town, they come to a space at work.  Because we're in town we go for a meal in one of the many restaurants to talk, laugh and miss the traffic.  Local businesses have whole new opportunities for business, city based schools use city facilities.  Then we’d travel home together with time to talk about the day and arrive home with a spare – well at least 1½ hours in our day….

What if.....?

• School didn’t start at 9 and finish at 3.30
• School/community/business better integrated their efforts to produce a dynamic adaptive system.
• Education and transport and business worked together to look at new patterns in the complexity.
• Councils built multi storey car parks so that more people could take trains?
• State built rail links and supported trams.
• Kids in docklands meant a flourishing and rediscovery of the area?  
• Workplaces had children in them? (sometimes)
• Corporate investment in work life and flexible work initiatives was fully supported by courageous and integrative thinking around services…

The Experience

Happy families, happy workers, happy businesses...... 

What a world this could be, better for families, better for business..  Which is why i think I think
the iterative, holistic thinking of service design can build better ‘stuff’ and easier lives… 

And imagine the opportunities we might uncover with the extra time! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Big Issue and NAB - one coffee a week to create change and jobs for women

 

The Big Issue, us, you and a challenge for change

The other day at our whole of team meeting (I work for NAB) we were posed a challenge by The Big Issue (@thebigissue).  Help us with our Women's Subscription Enterprise.   We need your help to create employment opportunities for homeless and disadvantaged women ready to make a change in their lives. 

What you can do...use our code... 

It costs less than $3.30 per week - less than one cup of coffee to create long term change for women...

• $78 for 6 months -$155 for 12 months

Buy a subscription either by downloading and using the form below...

 Download WSE NAB Volunteer challenge 12 or... by using this link https://womens.thebigissue.org.au/store/ using code CVC/NAB12. 

Don't stop buying from a vendor, but perhaps buy one for a friend/a workplace/a family member... 

Help us sell 100 (or more) subscriptions to the Big issue - to build strenth in numbers - use the collective purchasing power of our networks to make a real difference to the lives of homelss, marginalsied and disadvantaged Australian women. 

What the Big Issue did

The Big Issue wanted to understand why women weren't taking on vendor roles selling the Big Issue despite being almost half of the homeless population. 

They asked homeless women (46,000 are homeless every night)  and discovered that many of the issues that created homelessness in women (domestic violence, abuse etc) made the streets a dangerous and unsafe environment. 

What is the Women's subscription Enterprise?

The Womens' Subscription Enterprise creates employment opportunities for women who are ready to make a change in their life.  

It enables homeless, marginalized and disadvantaged women to earn a regular income while they develop their skills in a safe, secure and supportive work environment.

By selling 100 subscriptions to the Big Issue you create 1 role for a woman in a safe working environment with the opportunity to learn anything from how to speak appropriately on a mobile phone in an open plan office, to how to build constructive working relationships - to how to build a future. 

What's in it for us @NAB

Nothing... 

We're working in small teams which have each made a committment to help sell subscriptions in our free time.  

What's been done so far... 

So far 92 roles have been created with a waiting list much bigger...  

How much do the women get paid? 

The women are paid the award rate, plus get access to further training pathways, work experience placements and flexible work arrangements.  

The initiative provides them with work experience and easily transferable skills to help prepare them for entry into other more mainstream jobs.  

Questions?

The Big Issue have put together this great FAQ if you need more info - otherwise - donate a coffee a week to make change...why not...? 

 Download WSE FAQ_2012 - 070212

 

 

 

 

 

 

3 Tiny Habits - reinvent yourself with motivation

New Year's resolutions, a new me, financially responsible, fit, slim and organised...  By January 20 will I be one of the 80% of resolution makers who fail, or will I make it through to September and be one of th 92%?

Thomas Pychyl's attributes this failure to us being unprepared to change habits, particularly bad habits.  He uses the beautiful description of 'cultural procrastination' to describe our annual stampede towards reinvention.

Just before Christmas I was lucky enough to particpate in B.J. Fogg's research into behaviour change through the 3 Tiny Habits process. Through his work at Stanford's Persuasive Technology lab he has identified 3 factors that will cause long term behaviour change:

Option A. Have an epiphany
Option B. Change your context (what surrounds you)
Option C. Take baby steps

3 Tiny Habits

3 Tiny Habits started for me as an option C, but actually evolved into Option A.  Basically you comit to make 3 tiny changes a day with each one requiring no more than 30 seconds.  You choose a trigger in your day - may be getting up, having a coffee or cooking dinner, and then fit your new habits in after one of these regular habits.

The committment is minimal, but the experience is powerful, motivating and exciting.  Successfully doing 3 new things each day with minimal impact to the day made me feel like superwoman.  

My usual experience of motivation to change is a burst of enthusiasm, followed by failure.  It's got to the point where I expect to fail.  Using 3 Tiny Habits made me feel like I could change and inspired me to continue.  This year, my only New Year's resolution was to make 3 Tiny habits each week.  I've committed to mixing new and ongoing habits, and somehow I've started to tame my challenges with work/life balance, fitness etc. 

I feel motivated, powerful and successful, instead of bumbly, hopeless and on a highway to failure.

3 Tiny Habits at work

In my day job as a CX Designer at NAB I'm looking at how we can use 3 Tiny Habits to support change.  If it can do this for me - a serial procrastinator - what could it do to say, capability development at work, pursuit of excellence etc.  

Give it a go - it's fun and it works!

 

Please Mr Councillor can we have a lack of everything..? (or Hays Paddock ftw)

Once upon a time there was a boy and a girl.  They lived near a large open space with trees, corners and spaces, it was a land of discovery.  Once upon a time as well there was an old man who used to walk his dog in the land of discovery oblivious to the fact that he was navigating his way through a saharan desert with moon landing facilities and secret passageways.

Neither the boy the girl or the man thought about the exercise they were taking as they used their space, neither thought about the calorie burn, the team bonding, the skill development, but they did used to say hi and wave as they traversed each other's landscapes.  

As the boy got older he stopped making moonscapes and started sitting under trees - both to ponder the meaning of life and to watch girls walk dogs.  As the man got older he walked slower and woudl rest near the boys' tree.  They would discuss life, progress and the superiority (or not) of Collingwood.

The boy and the girl grew up and went off to travel the world,  the man grew older.  The girl returned from her travels and had children of her own.  She returned to her park but it wasn't a land of discovery any more.  Now it had an enormous pavillion, shelters, barbecues... The land of discovery faced a big brick wall, and 3 of the corners were paved car parks.  It was no longer a place to be human it was a place to do sport, to arrive for a purpose, complete a purpose and leave.  Her children played soccer at 12 on a Saturday, cricket at 5 pm on on a Friday and she and her partner attended the odd function in the multi-purpose centre. 

The boy came to visit the girl.  They tried to describe the magic that had been lost, but their own children didn't understand.  They understood exercise in terms of organised sport, they did not have the space to listen to the ducks or sit under a gum...  In their sports sessions they mixed with other kids their age, and rarely had need or opportunity to talk to the old people doing their laps of the park.......

The girl and the boy suddenly realied the beauty of absence,  the opportunity of space to simply be, where random encounters with community members could occur.  More importantly they realised that their place was now just like everywhere else, bound by rules and defined by starts and finishes...

The moral of my story is to ask Boroondara Council whether true public consultation shouldn't consider some of theses questions? 

• Why does development always mean adding things, couldn't development mean taking things away, or a lack of things.. Why do we always have to have MORE - more of everything - tables, shelters, huge social rooms and car parking. How do we  store and maintain value of existing facilities and why does improved always mean more? All the inputs on the steering committee were from special interest groups and infrastructure related.  Whats wrong with not much!!!!!

• Isn't good development that which builds and does not detract from a spaces' assets.  What has happened to public consulation and service design when the needs of young people to have a place to experience natural environment, when the needs of parents to walk with their children and feel sunshine and pick up leaves, the needs of retirees to meet friends and walk and run - are subordinate to the need of organised sport to have custom grounds.  

• Doesn't local mean community generated.  What if the community doesn't want another sports ground, but is quite happy with their shabby a bit scrubby place of beauty.  We have a unique asset different from all of the other sports grounds.  Do we really want to paint the big brush of uniformity across all our spaces...

• Why does everything need to be structured? What is wrong with unorganised sport.  As we struggle with obesity and fitness I sometimes wonder about the organised structured nature of activity - I want my kids to learn the joy of an aimless walk, the feeling of sunshine on their faces and the pleasure of a stolen nap under a tree..  So they grow up wanting to be fit, not wanting to be a brilliant sports person.

City of Melbourne have strong debate and consulation on the public use of land, Boorondara seems set on a process of 'improvement because it's good for you'.

..and the background to my story is..... 

 Yesterday I went to a strange and somewhat 1970s like meeting of mainly older activists wanting to stop development in my local park (they even had a megaphone), I arrived sceptical and left puzzled and touch angry.

Hay's Paddock is an anachronism - a unique pice of natural bushland with an old fashioned oval and a play space designed for able and disabled kids -  full of discovery..  It has a couple of barbecues a couple of tables and a lot of beautiful trees, corners and spaces.

2% of the park users play organised sport, 98% of park users amble, walk, play, sit under trees, walk their dogs, bump into neighbours, (run around like maniacs - those under 14...).

Boorondara council wants to build a $1.5 million pavillion for these 2%.  8 sporting groups were present on the steering committee, organised and used to lobying.  5 general park users attempted to represent people who like to amble. There was no playground representation. 

The pavillion will provide 28 toilets for 'special' sports users, and 3 public toilets...

Every proposal put forward by the sports committees was accepted, without debate about adding new facilities and maintaining value.

They also want a high speed networked bike path....

First, I'm very happy that we are providing more bike paths, but why does the high speed commuter route run right through a park?  There is plenty of space for it to run around or behind the park.  I see some problems in the co-existence of high speed commuter cyclists and children.  Council's response  "You are getting a networked bike path like it or not". (Gee thanks guys for the consultation).

 

When it's wrong it's not right.. Politics and ethics

I've been increasingly annoyed by the political propaganda spewing forth from devices across Victoria.

I'm tired of hearing how little silos of need will get a little of what they need.. just enough to inspire gratitude in fact.. Tired of politicians being 'real', of millions of dollars being spent to ensure the 'real' polis get in till next time..

Problems don't run in 3 year cycles, vision can't be contained in campaigns.. More importantly real collaborative solutions take courage. Ethical solutions.. - more teachers for schools that need them most - are not vote winners..

Since when did it become right to do wrong?

Community - a universal need for greater local connection...

Why washing dishes, playfulness and shared food are metaphors for an holistic community

I have long been concerned by our 'efficient', solution focussed society, rushing from A to B, priding ourselves on 'outcomes' and 'solutions':

Intoxicated by technology and pride, humanity is often oblivious to the folly that comes with cleverness and power: a perpetually unprecedented condition we might call "modern stupid" — the stupidity of ease.  Leunig, The Age, 13 November 2010

I have often wondered about the value of reflection, and where it fits in our perpetual refinement.  I know from my 'day job' that rapid prototyping, design thinking and creativity produce messier, but more exciting approaches to wicked problems.

Guest in a converation

This weekend I was lucky enough to be invited as a guest in a converation hosted by Adrian Pyle (who has the enviable title 'Director of Relationships Innovation' for the Uniting Church).  At this conversation was a diverse mix of entrepreneurs, online communicators, designers, psychologists, historians, theologians.  Our only connection was Adrian.

We met to talk about community, mess, voices, conversation, spaces and what a connected, holistic neighbourhood could be.  We arrived not sure of exactly why we had been asked, but prepared to offer our  authentic (messy), selves to discuss provocative ideas about what a neighbourhood could be.

I was moved to tears, laughed, heard stories, and reflected on wisdom that I would one day love to posess. I was perplexed, challenged and safe. 

Otto Scharmer's U Theory

We were asked to consider Otto Scharmer 's  U theory of organisational and societal change. This notes that change that identifies a problem at and tries to implement an immediate fix to reach solution is not sustainable.... it doesn't recognise the people, places and things involved in a scenario and is not, in Sharmer's words 'present' to the whole....

He suggests that by becoming 'Present' to the whole (going via C) we can better implement authentic change (thanks Adrian, I borrowed some of your succinct words!).

Essentially, A (1) - B (2) is the modern paradigm which assumes things can be acted on objectively to solve outcomes based problems.  Let's say the 'OUTCOMEs' based conversation.

We were asked to consider what a 'U-shaped' approach to community and neighbourhood building would look like.  To take the day to retreat and reflect... 

For me my immediate take outs are below - there is much much more, but I need to let it bubble around...

Actions don't create relationships, but relationships often create actions 

Playfulness

Playgrounds are a wonderful metaphor for healthy community.  They are inherently playful, they support legitimate risk.. Kids meet, form groups, negotiate, play, fight, split and then regroup.  Separate groups create temporary mergers for the purpose of a grander scheme...  People go home when they've had enough.  They support individual and group play and people with ideas can share them and then move on.   They are different every visit..  The community is yet supported by structures which at their best spark imagination, but don't control it.

Frameworks that use real life tasks support conversation

My second metaphor is washing dishes.  As a child my sisters and I were often on dish duty.  Again this structured activity provides a reason for people to come together.  I have had many conversations over dishes.  They provide an opportunity for conversation, for relationship, for laughter and more serious conversation, and often for cross-generational discussion. 

Sharing food and drink allow people to be both host and guest

My third metaphor is around shared meals.  It is important to be both a host and a guest.  So many 'projects' and organisations focus around a small group of people being hosts, and forgets about the importance of being a guest.  Yesterday I was a guest, It was rich, humbling experience where I learnt so much from those around me.  Surely strong holistic communities are about periods of both give and take.

I love the ritual of shared meals, another structured, everyday activity as enabler of a richer more reflective experience.

It's about being where people are, and not making people go to a purpose built place or environment.

Opposites

All these metaphors are in the U.  They are ordinary and remarkable, about action and space, about authenticity and presence, about participation, and voluntary exclusion.  They are about the temporary, the ephemeral and about the bubbling up of things. They are about being able to give what you have, whether that is short term or long term, it is about the confidence to value who and what you are within the world, which encourages sharing.

It's trial and error, short term, constantly bubbling up new clusters, each as lovely as the last, however long it lasts.

So what did I learn:

• It is the relationships which are important.
• Conversations are not constant, they have lapses, quiet patches, patches where some people lead and others listen, but this can change in an instant.
• Structure and space is important, but only in as much as it provides a structure and a framework for inherently playful conversation. 
• We are not equal or the same and a truly spiritual holistic path acknowledges this.
• One size cannot and never will fit all.
• Playful doesn't mean trivial or flippant, it enables creative discovery.
• Solutions can't be rushed, they need to emerge out of rich, authentic communication.. so.. a 1 year funded project, just won't cut it.
• An iterative, prototyping approach to community is more likely to enable relective and contemplative thinking.
• Nobody likes 'meetings' everybody loves stories.
• People opportunities to feel secure and safe enough to see the value in who and what they are.  Only then will the really powerful connections emerge.
• Stop rushing for the outcome.

Yesterday with a bunch of strangers I was truly myself.  I felt excited and empowered and very peaceful.  I did not feel driven to 'reach a solution' but excited by a vision of community which supported people to create the skills and the frameworks to be like this.

I felt immensley grateful to have been 'invited', and blown away by the generosity of spirit I encountered.  I have no idea what we achieved, but I know I want to carry on! I have had my own reality reframed by the remarkable people I met - and surely that is true community.

Most of all I thank Adrian for enabling a framework which supported people he knew to learn from each other, share each other's fears, and possibly move some ideas at some point - when we have been through the U - to somewhere else..... and for having the courage to ask what and where the church can be...

 

Interesting concepts around influencers and social networks

The Real Life Social Network v2

View more documents from Paul Adams.

If you're not present, you're absent...

..creativity's dark corners that networks need...

Today @mpesce talked on Twitter about the need for protocols for online networks.  It made me think about a convention and a process for being neither present or absent, but processing.

I have recently been through one of those 'life reinventions'.  Unlike the current 'sexy' portrayal of creativity the process was absorbing, consuming and sometimes dark and scary.  During the process  I switched off from my networks. One minute I was talking, the next I was disconnected. 

It was however a rich and a valuable time, productive and exciting, if challenging and complex.

                                                                                                Photo:  Mark Ramsay @ Flickr

Suddenly one morning...

[Deep in the heart of my insecurities]

"Panic, stress.... I haven't been talking to anyone, I'm a leech, when did I last contribute...

So much has changed, what a chasm...how am I ever going to explain where I've been and how I got here..

Does it even matter?"

photo: Fotolog @ Flickr

...and the question is...???

Networks add value by building on individual capacity, stretching peoples' thinking and then empowering  people to explore their own capacity. So, why, in a period of deep contemplation, did I decide not to share, when surely this would be exactly the time not only to ask for advice but to make the best use of it?"

The creative process is wonderful - at the end.  In the middle I found it complex and contradictory.  My online networks felt too public a place to expose such fragile thinking.  Do online spaces in their ephemeral nature provide pressure to present finished thought?  Is it really ok to be fragmented and indecisive?  How does an avatar portray developing thinking?

I have always thought that networks are non-linear.  Am I wrong though, are they very linear, our online social places being,  not places where thought can evolve, but a place to report the results of the thinking process?

There is no word, no hash tag, no convention for being present but processing.  If you are not 'present' then you are 'absent'. 

I have seen very few people I admire talk about the dark spaces of the creative process. 

My question: are our online networks missing an important facet?  Are they 'safe' enough for  emergent thoughts, or do we do our 'composting'  alone only presenting when we have visible evidence of growth...?           

Seems to me that would be a sad place falling well short of our expectations of ecosystems...

I don't know the answers, but I'm very interested in continuing to explore, what do you think?

I'm not sure - over to you.

(Photo:  seir+seir @ flickr)

Most Saturdays I spend some time in parks with small people. I sit still, peaceful under a tree in the midst of a whirl of perpetual motion..... It's an unusual place for me - usually i'm one of the whirling ones.

Colours sounds, things that make me giggle. Because I'm an observor my mind is free to make random associations, to link events and ideas and to make sense. By being away from my world I understand it better.. Oh, and if I take it all seriously, there's always the flying fox!

No No, not the high rise (aka...Melbourne, where are the design thinkers?)

Last year I moved to Melbourne from London (via Perth, Karratha...etc).  Melbourne captivated me from the first moment, it took me 5 years to get here, but I did. It has a creative, innovative quirky approach to grandeur and liveability....  I loved the coffee, the spaces, the buildings (old and new) and the way the new accommodated the old.

I moved my family here secure in the knowledge that I would experience innovative approaches to high density living - surely there would be Jeb Brugmanns in Melbourne....  I was excited to be moving to a  city that famously transformed the City of Melbourne headquarters into a 6 star energy rated building (CH2), surely here I'd see new paradigms of City living, a vibrant place for my kids to grow up...to live healthily, engaged with their surroundings.

CRASH and BURN.... wherever this thinking lies, it is not within the planning department of the City of Melbourne.  This weeks' Age High Rise Push to Halt Urban Sprawl took me full circle from innovation to repeating the mistakes of the past.  From the destruction of the tight communities of Carlton and to the sterile wasteland of Docklands  the pattern is repeated globally across the UK, Canada, the US. After several hours of research I could not find one report lauding the type of high rise development suggested, other than by developers.

I can't bear the thought of this approach winning out.  Why would such an innovative city take such a half hearted, lazy approach to its' community...  We know how to do this:

This focus on collaboration was critical to the achievement of an integrated design concept for CH2. The CH2 design and development process was documented to enable others to learn from the experiences.  

I don't give up, I'm an optimist, but I am deeply puzled and deeply concerned.  I want to be proud of my beloved new city, not ashamed of an old-fashioned paradigm, and old-fashioned view and a deep disregard for those that love it. Give me new ways of looking, not old ways recycled.