Slowing Down

What have we been up to? This week in the Design Lab we've been wrestling with the challenge of giving people a sense of momentum --  while also getting them to slow down.

Our programme is under way, the Lab participants are attending workshops and we’ve been beavering away on structure and support for the programme. The Design Lab has officially kicked off.

A lot of this activity had happened before I joined the team -- so to “get up to speed” I’ve been meeting participants and talking to the funders about their hopes and fears for the programme. 

All in all, I’ve been trying to get a sense of everyone's understanding of the programme; and how we can provide support to them over the next 10 months. There have already been some fascinating workshops and speakers, and hearing from the different organisations about the work they do has been inspiring. 

Trying to speak to as many people as possible (from funders to participants) -- my initial conversations with them all have sought to clarify the expectations of the programme and to hear what hopes and fears everyone has for what the Design Lab might explore and learn.

Why is Slowing Down Important?

I still have a feeling that we need to do more to “kick off” the sense of togetherness and group identity for the Lab, something which I’m conscious of wanting to support due to not being able to meet physically in person.

On the group's hopes and fears, one such hope is that this is an opportunity for organisations who don't normally get the luxury of slowing down, to have the time to go at a pace where we can be explorative and reflect on the wider reach and implications of being an "Emergent Infrastructure”.

As convenors and facilitators, our aim is to be gardeners, creating the conditions for growth so that everyone can flourish.

This ambition to grow is coming from the complex challenges the participating organisations are trying to address. The term “Emerging Infrastructure” itself, has different meanings to different organisations participating in the lab, throwing up an element of complexity in determining what specifics the Lab is exploring.

Some have described their “emergence” as being a new leader in their local context, or a facilitator of a network of other organisations, some have talked about “emergence” as being a need to prove the value and worth of their infrastructure to their local communities. All of which mean there are potentially themes which will feel more or less relevant to different organisations taking part in Lab activities.

When researching some of the challenges around technology; there were the expected fears around dystopian futures that I read about, but also the more human challenge of inter-dependency with technology that resonated with some of the thinking behind the Lab.

While the ethical challenges of automation might be proving difficult to solve (maybe something too ambitious for this Lab to address); a more human undercurrent concerns our dependency on these systems and how they can give us more information but ultimately end in less depth of knowledge.

Without slowing down and thinking this through, organisations are more prone to failures or hiccups, particularly when thinking about using data to support their services. They don't have as yet the time to think about the use of such tools “well” before racing to keep up with the volumes of information that could enhance their understanding. They may end up with more information (capacity) but less depth of knowledge.

Slowing down is integral to the programme as it will allow us to go at a pace where we all can think about the intended, and the potential unintended consequences, of designing and implementing community technologies in certain ways.

On a personal level, slowing down is uncomfortable as I'm conscious this programme has already begun; and I'm keen to get up to speed as quickly as possible to help support and develop the structure of support for the lab.

However, racing ahead would ultimately mean I might miss the obvious or potential moments to make this programme more unique and impactful for those taking part. It's a balancing act to mobilise quickly and yet resist the urge to make snap decisions. At the very least it's important for the lab, as it's exactly the sort of thing we're asking our group not to do!

For some of the participants in the Lab, the idea of slowing down also feels uncomfortable, for very good reasons. Some are working towards hard deadlines for emerging as independent organisations or feeling the pressure to demonstrate their impact in their local contexts to ensure further investment and support.

To feel like the support from the Lab is heading in the right direction- there has been discussion around how we might move towards more tangible and applicable things which they can take back to their organisational contexts.

These pressures exist pretty much around all of us involved in the Lab- which means that the idea of any of us then slowing down to have a deeper think about what we might want to explore, can feel anxiety inducing as it introduces ambiguity and complexity into the space.

Learning to be Comfortable with Slowing Down

Thinking about these challenges further, there are some similarities beneath the surface; these organisations are all new and have something to prove. 

Establishing a stronger sense of a group exploration through the Lab could give more opportunity to learn from one another. As well as an opportunity to learn from expertise, the opportunity to learn from one another’s unique contexts could be equally as valuable to the group.

This also allows us to go on a journey together where the programme and it's participants can mutually learn from one another; and empower the group to look beyond the orthodoxies around them in larger infrastructural organisations and innovate in a more bespoke manner to their own unique local contexts.

What this means is we are then able to work with the group and not “do to”; something which is an important value for Careful Industries beyond the Design Lab. Putting human considerations into the structure of the programme will also help us to address the human issues at the centre of community technologies.

Moving into Ambiguity

Time to slow down and properly think is usually the one thing we all want, until we get it (this debut weeknote is proving to be a useful case study example).

When we do, it can feel uncomfortable and unproductive; however, without the possibility of deeper, more critical reflection we end up playing the odds against introducing unintended and potentially negative impacts into communities and society; it's not hard to find examples of this when looking around at organisations racing to implement that shiny new thing.

The cohort have already reflected this; talking about their interest in the programme being that they can implement longer term and more sustainable innovations without having to go back to the drawing board in "two years' time" and replay the process.

This might signal the first test of becoming more comfortable in exploring a more ambiguous space; we are starting to catch a glimpse of the more complex nature of the landscape we're introducing change into.

This is where we're going next- sensing this is an opportunity to find ways to make this part of the journey a more comfortable and collaboratively resilient endeavour. Most importantly, it's an opportunity for us to design this together.

As we get into testing what rhythms and rituals we can establish for providing resilience for the Lab structure; we'll be sharing how it's all going and what we've come up with.