Mo Duffy is a senior interaction designer at Red Hat, a billion dollar company that is the world's leading open source and Linux provider. I met Mo this past spring when we spoke on a panel at SxSW. I was struck by her insights into her profession and how those insights relate to all design professions. Not only does she get into the nitty gritty of the politics of the workplace and the realities of usability testing, but she is a passionate advocate for open source and the democratization of design.
To read the interview, follow this link to industrial design super site Core77.
NOTE: If you are able to read and listen to music at the same time -- I cannot -- then I suggest playing this video while you read. The music is quite good.
We gave our SxSW panel on women in open source today. It was fun. I’ve really enjoyed talking with Red Hat designer, Mo Duffy, these past few days and Andrea Hickerson is always a pleasure to work with.
Our panel was about encouraging women to participate in open source and open collaboration projects. By ‘open collaboration’ I mean any project that isn’t directly regulated by the market or government but instead relies on a group of self-organized volunteers. Yochai Benkler writes about this at a very high level, but I’m looking for something a little simpler. Also I’m not as interested in how the work is arranged, which is what Benkler articulates well, but how the entry experience for a newbie is designed.
During the discussion, I think we all agreed that when a host of an open source or open collaboration project extends an invitation for newbies to join, that invitation isn’t enough to encourage a diverse group of people to participate. We articulated that problem well, I think, and the audience nodded their heads in agreement. But solutions are hard to come by. Several audience members scratched their heads and asked, “Why is this still an issue?” To which I humbly replied, “I don’t know. That’s what I’m here to find out.” (I know panelists aren’t supposed to say that, but I’m on a “show your vulnerability” kick these days. But that’s another story).
One answer I thought of during the panel comes from what I'm learning in my grad strategy course. In strategy, we learn that it’s common for an organization to articulate a grand vision yet not clarify an execution plan to achieve that vision. “Why is that so common?” you may ask. Again, I don’t know but I suspect it’s because executing a vision is freaking hard to do.
So in trying to figure out how to add some walk to our talk, how to offer some actionable steps toward getting closer to the vision of more women participating in open collaboration, I called on my first love, music. In music, we engage in something called “Call and response.” The caller can be thought of, in this instance, as the host of a collaborative project. And the responders are potential participants.
Here are the steps for engaging people in a “call and response” collaboration. 1. Offer them an invitation to collaborate (good start, but not enough) 2. Show them how to participate (sing a simple line of a song) 3. Practice the line with them (until they feel comfortable) 4. Take a leap of faith together and sing the song
Now, I know the skeptics out there have been burned by engaging in a process like this. More than once I’ve heard a host of a project say, “I spent 10 hours training that person and they just abandoned the project.” This is a valid concern. That’s why it’s so important to find an easy task for the newbie to learn that won’t take too much of your time. Now, the other skeptics are saying, “Well, if I spend that much time with a newbie, won’t I just be training them to depend on me to lead them? That’s not what open source is about.” This too is a valid concern.
To come back to music, a newbie starts off with an instructor, but eventually learns how to play on her own. She may even outgrow her instructor and will have to find a new one that is more challenging. Finally, she goes on to perform solo and in ensembles and may even become an instructor herself. This is how you scale participation in open collaborative projects. Extend an invitation to a newbie; model for them how to participate; practice with the newbie until she feels comfortable; then, most importantly, take a leap of faith together and sing that song. And when you get really good at this process, you may end up as good as Miles.
Back in November I had the privilege of speaking at TEDx Rochester about the convergence of two of my favorite topics: social business and rapid prototyping. Here's the video with transcript below. Enjoy!
TRANSCRIPT Hi, I’m a designer, and I want to talk to you about making better stuff. When designers make stuff, we don’t just make one thing; we make thousands of copies of it. Often these things are manufactured abroad, using poor labor practices under substandard environmental regulations.
Then the stuff gets shipped to big box stores all around the world where we buy it cheap. To top it off, this stuff that we make and then buy isn’t even making us happy. Research shows that once we reach middle class status, the stuff we buy doesn’t add much to our happiness (Gilbert). There has got to be a better way. As a designer and a want-to-be anthropologist, I believe that objects & products--that STUFF--mediates human relationships in both negative and positive ways. So when I say MAKE BETTER STUFF I mean stuff that strengthens our relationships with people in our communities and stuff that creates local jobs.
It’s NOT easy to do. But it IS getting easier. So I want to point out to you two encouraging trends. One is about meaning. The other is about means. First, MEANING. Businesses increasingly want to offer meaningful products for two reasons:
1. more customers want them
2. creating them is rewarding for employees
Tom’s Shoes, Method Soap, and Patagonia are large firms that make meaningful stuff. But I want to illustrate this phenomenon of meaning closer to home using one of my favorite examples: the local food sector.
The number of farmers markets in this country has doubled in the past five years. Not because the food is cheap or convenient, but because more customers now want relationships, both personal and economic, with the people making their food and their stuff. And the farmers and makers? They aren’t getting into these businesses to become millionaires. They do it because they want to do work that is meaningful. Now, the business model of the farmers market is not fully evolved, but it’s a good start to building an economy around better stuff that builds meaningful relationships.
Which brings me to my second point: THE MEANS. I cite the local food sector as a venue for better stuff, but meaningful markets can be hi-tech too. Engineers here are probably familiar with rapid prototyping tools like “3D printers” and “laser cutters.” Having these tools is like a having a mini-manufacturing plant on your own desktop or garage. Engineers have used them for years to make and test prototypes of their designs.
What’s new about this technology is that it’s becoming remarkably accessible. Just as music production software is readily available now, anyone with an internet connection and a camera phone can now upload a drawing of a product to a manufacturer in the location of their choosing that will manufacture that product on demand. And then of course the internet is an effective tool for marketing, selling, and distributing product. Ponoko is one of several platforms where we can already do this. When I want to buy a gift for my friend in California, I no longer have to go to the big box store and buy her something that was made halfway across the world. Instead, I can get online, design something of my own or pick something out, and that thing can be “printed” by a small manufacturer in her neighborhood and delivered a short distance to her home. The product is meaningful because it’s made just for her, by a small manufacturer and business owner who lives in her community who has the means to make and deliver product. Now that’s a simple example but the last industrial revolution started in a simple way too, with textiles. So I’m here to ask of you, when this technology becomes ubiquitous, let’s not mess it up. Let’s not repeat the 20th century mistake of manufacturing ourselves out of jobs. Instead, let’s make stuff that creates jobs and strengthens the relationships between makers and customers in our own towns and cities.
We live in a time when there’s an increasing demand for meaningful products. And we live in a time when more and more of us have the technological means to create and distribute these products. So please, MAKE BETTER STUFF. MAKE BETTER STUFF by Xanthe Matychak is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
NOTE: I used a photo by Ed Burtynsky in the slide presentation for this talk.
Designers are kind of addicted to putting themselves into unfamiliar situations. Why? Well, as Allan Chochinov says in a recent interview with Rachel Singer, “It helps you to be fresh.” Staying true the behaviors of my clan, I'm immersed in several unfamiliar scenarios at present and, collectivity, they’re really keeping me on my toes. They are:
1. Designing local food products & systems for main-stream customers
2. Going for an Executive MBA
3. Preparing to speak at SxSW about Open Source Communities
LOCAL FOOD FOR THE MAIN STREAM. I've been an early adopter of local food systems for years now, shopping at farmers markets and joining CSAs. And while these systems have been growing in popularity as I've been a part of them, there seems to be a steady divide between those who eat local and those who don't. So I'm stepping out of my brain, my perspective, and leaving it to my students, who don't shop or eat local, to figure out what will make local food interesting or delightful to them and thus, we hope, to mainstream customers? Why? Because adoption by main-stream customers will give the local food movement wings. Current food systems the students are borrowing from are CrackerBarrel, BirdsEye, and Top Chef. Love these ideas. Love them all. I especially enjoy how the students are deconstructing these known models to figure out what parts make sense for a local food application and what parts don’t.
EXECUTIVE MBA. I am blessed to be in the EMBA program at RIT's Saunders College. As I've mentioned before, the math part is a real challenge for me, so challenging that sometimes I wonder if I'll make it through. But I'm in love with the conceptual stuff. As a designer interested in sustainability, I love learning about how firms make their make/buy decisions, the decisions to either make their own products or buy ready-made from a supplier. Most of the time these are strictly financial decisions though we've already studied one case in which, even though it made financial sense to transition to making a product, the firm found later that it did not make sense from a personnel perspective. My larger point here is that it's so great to get out of my design brain and into a business brain to look at supply chain issues. Another gem is this one from my accounting class: "The Role of the Firm is to Generate Owner Wealth." Fact. The flexible part of this definition, however, is in how the owners define wealth. A very useful piece of information for me. As much as I complain about the math, learning how key concepts are defined is just priceless.
And one more insight is from the many management cases we have to analyze. In case after case, the issue isn’t that management doesn’t understand the problem or doesn’t know the solution. The issue is that they don’t know how to implement an effective plan of action. Fascinating. This is a problem space that designers can offer a lot of value, I think, with their attention to human behavior and reactions to props and prompts. This is probably why behavioral economics is so appealing to designers. (I’ll write another post about his last point, me thinks).
SXSW INTERACTIVE. OMG, just a few months ago my friends and I were sitting around bitching about how "boys club" Open Source Communities are and now we're headed to SxSW to talk about it in front of a bunch of people. Like I said, I'm addicted to stepping out of my comfort zone. I believe that that's when we learn the most. So if by going there I learn how to be a better participant in Open Source Communities, and if I can model that vulnerability and learning process for other women in my situation, well then, I've done some good. If nothing else, I get to work with my super bright colleague in the RIT's Journalism Department, Andrea Hickerson. And Andrea just recruited Mo Duffy (!) as another panelist, in addition to Sara Brown. It should be super fun and if you're in Austin and if you're willing to think outside of your brain, then you should come. You are more than welcome to our club.
The number of farmers markets in this country has almost doubled in the last five years. From a customer's point of view, this increased access to locally produced food is fantastic. And from the producer side, the increased demand for their products feels like a good thing. However, the “tools" that these farmers depend on to grow, process, and sell their food are in dire need of a makeover.
While small scale farmers are definitely not in their business for the money, make no mistake about it, if they don't have enough money to operate and pay themselves, the small scale farm won't survive.
Here are some areas in which I’ve observed that a lack of proper tools seems to be causing problems: While the farmers find the vintage tools they use charming, they are frustrated by the lack of new tools available that fit the scale of their operations. And while farmers enjoy meeting their customers at the farmers market, the farmers market as a tool-for-sales is a drain on their time.
There’s a great opportunity here for entrepreneurs, especially those interested in local economic development, to create the tools that small farmers need. Here in Upstate New York, we’ve already seen some entrepreneurial efforts in local distribution and sales beyond farmers markets. Both Good Food Collective in Rochester and Garden Gate Food in Ithaca have started businesses that connect local producers with customers providing locally grown produce, dairy, meats, bread, and even soap. These entrepreneurs don’t have brick and mortar stores but have instead retro-fitted refrigerated trucks that function as mobile “pop-up shops.”
As for farm tools and processing tools, I’ve seen many great inventions on the farms I’ve visited. But moving these inventions (technologies that work) to innovations (technologies that scale) is the challenge that I’m hoping entrepreneurs will rise to. And rather than offshore production, I hope we take advantage of local, manufacture-on-demand technology and local talent.photo: on the left, Farmer Erin with a home made tool for marking seed beds and on the right, a spring-tooth-harrow, made by Leroy Plows, that she pulled out from the woods surrounding Mud Creek Farms.
I made this video for a design competition and, even though I'm not using it for the competition (I've decided to highlight another project instead), I'd like to share it with you.
As you may already know, this past year my design-thinking class has worked with visionaries in the local food system - folks from Foodlink, FreshWise Farms, and the Good Food Collective. Recently, Chris Hartman from GFC brought a project to my attention. It's called the Global Village Construction Set. It's a project put forth by Marcin Jakubowski that offers open source plans for 50 tools that are essential to farming. The idea is that anyone who wants to farm anywhere in the world can if they are able to build these tools. Most of tools are comprised of off the shelf parts and come at a fraction of the cost of buying and maintaining similar tools from large manufacturers.
I'm just thrilled about this project. It brings together two things that I am very passionate about - the local food economy and DIY culture. So have a look at the video - make sure the captions are on and try to ignore the rough spots and anonymity at the end. Just let me know what you think. And if you are a student at RIT and want to get involved, please do sign up for my class!
This morning I caught a workshop at RIT with CMU artist & technologist Golan Levin. The workshop was centered on an open source tool called "Processing" that lets you create and manipulate objects. You can use it for creating and manipulating anything from simple shapes on a digital screen to tangible objects in the physical world. It's powerful stuff and pretty easy to learn the basics (it didn’t hurt that GL is a great teacher).
I was attending this workshop along side an entire class of fashion photo students and like me, they had little to no programming experience. Some of them could see right away how Processing was relevant to their work. Others did not. And it occurred to me, right there, that these kids have to learn the basics of programming while in school. If they don't, then they will die out there in a media environment that is rapidly moving to tablets and apps. I had already known this in my mind -- that these kids have to learn this stuff. But today I felt it. Profoundly.
I thought back to last June when WIRED magazine's Chris Anderson spoke at RIT's "Future of Reading" symposium. Anderson told us all about WIRED's failed web experiments and how important these failures were to shaping their approach to the iPad app. Apps aren’t tracking clicks, they are tracking our thumbs. Therefore, the content has to be dynamic. It follows that students in design, photo, marketing, and journalism need to know enough about programming to, at the very least, engage programmers in creative conversations and collaborations. And if an old broad like me can learn the basics in two hours, then there's no excuse for these kids not to.
On a similar strain of thought, I've been having a conversation on Quora about the absence of 3D printing in design and business education. In this discussion the experts assure me that our students will be working in firms and businesses that look similar to the ones we're seeing today. But wow, really? I'm not so sure. As gas prices go up so do all of the costs related to our traditional methods for production and distribution. All of this change points to a significant rise in 3D printing as a method for producing and distributing goods. So it would be nice if the kids coming out of school today knew how to work with some of these technologies as these technologies are bound to be a part of their career.
Of course, most professors aren't comfortable exploring budding technologies in class because they feel pressured to be the all-knowing expert at the front of the room. Perhaps what we need are more profs who are comfortable being curious and enthusiastic explorers working along side their students. But that's another post.
Check out some Processing projects here
Golan Levin’s work here
And 3D printing explained by a ten year old here
