Behavioural Economics at Barcampnfp

Barcamp presentation from mickstravellin

I was lucky enough on thursday 21st to go along to the unconference Barcampnfp. It was an unconference as there was no organised speakers and everyone has to participate. It was a great day at the lovely mozilla offices in Covent Garden. It had a great list of 'conversations' with some people asking to discuss certain topics as well as people bringing along topics to discuss. As I was unaware how the day worked ... it seems I over prepared. Considering I wrote it at 4am with jetlag in the morning before.I wasnt too worried

I discussed a topic that I love talking to people about in social media or technical roles. That is the idea of people's behaviour or a little behavioural economics. That all the technology in the world doesnt matter if it doesnt work with people's behaviour (Internet fridge anyone ???). It seemed to go down relatively well with some interesting questions / comments made.

A couple of points I made if people are interested

Dr Nick at Warwick University is actually Dr Nick Chater who runs their Behavioural Economics unit that works with companies, as well as governments and not for profits.

I also highlighted that Warwick and the Design Council have also come together to create the Behavioural Design Lab. This is taking behavioural insights and coupling it with a subject I am currently studying 'design thinking'. A design led methodology to create innovation

Hope you found it useful

Reflection note for myself: write down notes from what people discussed. Questions asked, comments made to share here for future use

Crudeness of initial ideas

'“If you freeze an idea too quickly, you fall in love with it.
If you refine it too quickly, you become attached to it
and it becomes very hard to keep exploring … to keep looking for better.'
I love the angle here about the process an individual goes through in working through ideas. No one really talks about that much on the way to great work.I love the idea of keeping it crude enough to almost keep the door ajar a little bit to keep exploration to evolve or even destroy the idea

Every company should have a Self Destruct button

They say quite of few people have self destructive personalities which are seen to lead to very negative behaviour from the individual. But what if you used a self destructive personality in a positive light to constantly evolve. What if your company constantly self destructed and started again.

I was recently in a meeting and we were discussing how to implement a new ethos and framework into the company. I made the comment 'we have to implement this process so everyone works to it, then start to pull it apart again'. I just kind of blurted it out. After everybody laughed and kept on with the meeting I realised that's now what companies have to continue to do to survive. 


I started reading Idris Mootee from Ideacouture's blog Innovation Playground quite a few years ago and forgot how concise and loaded with positive rhetoric his posts are. He made a great statement within his post How to forget creatively

'We all create our own environments and are then constrained by them'

The environment you create for big companies often works to that time, that place, that talent and that cultural context. But how do companies play to the speed and agility of the start up communities that could change their market in a matter of months.


We have all been there. Come up with an idea that worked in that particular situation. We got praise from the people around us, collegues, friends and maybe even the industry we work in. So if it worked, it made you feel good and everyone is happy. Why on earth should we change anything. Why ruin a good thing. Thats how we see it as individuals. Think about that on the scale of management to investors or shareholders. 'Yeah everything is swimming along great ... but we dont believe it anymore so we are going to completely change everything we do'... wouldnt go down well would it.

The speed of change (or velocity as people like to use to throw some drama in) doesnt play well with the consistent use of old techniques. But there is a fine line between when too and when not too. I believe 99% of innovation these days is just iteration. A slight change on something that everyone feels comfortable with and has quantifiable justification. Which I can understand from a company's perspective because most are run by people with economics background and feel their job it is really to mitigate risk. Dont lose what you already have. But what if their is a greater risk that isnt immediate but is still eminent.

To quash the immediate negatives of a self destructive behaviour (ruining what you currently have) You almost need to create a team within the company whos job it is to test the current model to destruction. The objective is very simple. 'If you wanted to ruin our business model, how would you do it'. Identifying the holes in their strategy or execution. It really plays to the first three R's of Idris's transformation model

It makes sense to completely separate the team from the process. Completely different talent, place and just leave them to it. Im sure there are many movies that have government black ops squads who are off the radar and there job is to pull apart the system. It could also work to evolve your systems, innovate into areas you never thought about and generally make your company better for the long run.

Like when you are a little boy. Destruction can always be fun in understanding that now you need to rebuild it in your own special way. But the more interesting bit for companies is how you deliver the final R from Idris's model

Design thinking to solve bigger problems than selling more stuff

Ive been interested in the guys at sidekick studios ever since Asi announced his new job over there earlier in the year. I think their point of view is amazing and they have created some awesome products/ services that start to address some pretty big problems that our society is dealing with now and even more so in the future. I was lucky enough to see the head of Sidekick Adil Abrar at the Google Firestarters event last night where he talked through a product/service that they had developed for people with mental disorders.

It really struck a cord with my on a multitude of levels. I have been quite interested in design thinking for a while following the likes of Tom Hulme over at Ideo who I have seen present before on the topic and who funny enough presented at a previous Google Firestarters,. The agile process of identify opportunities, creating prototypes and continually adapting to refine is very interesting from a work perspective and has huge possibilities for all types of innovation. But what really caught me about last night was tackling bigger problems. I have a very close family member who has mental health problems that I have to deal with for a large percentage of my life. As Adil went through how they addressed the problem, the failures they had, how they adapted and in turn refined the product to cater for the needs of the three users. I started to realise the assumptions that we all make in life, but also the assumptions made at work with the feeling of comfort behind research and numbers. Which can often completely miss the actual reality of the situation. The explanation of the process he went through and how close it the problem he was addressing is to me personally really brought to life the power of design thinking in a very practical way.

What really struck close to home is that his observations also helped address some problems I have had with communicating with this family member. So not only does his product start to address the issues of mental disorders, but also his observations could help all the people involved in the lives of people with mental disorders. Family, friends, therapists etc. Really tackling the problem head on... not just creating a product that could make a slight dint in the issue.

It also made me realise ... maybe Im not tackling big enough problems.

I just want to be heard

Hello World! or: How I Learned to Stop Listening and Love the Noise from Christopher Baker on Vimeo.

I love seeing art that portrays and dramatises things that are stuck in my head. Everyone loves to talk about participation. The consumer is in charge, 15 mb of fame. But this starts to show the reality. Above is a video of an exhibition from Christoper Baker an ex scientist come artist who has an exhibition over at the Saatchi Gallery.

Connecting weird things

I have always been a huge fan of connecting weird things in life to create something even better. But I was reading an article over at fastcodesign which had an amazing connection for the iPod that I wanted to share.

Here’s another example of how bringing two seemingly unrelated thoughts together. One morning, a designer sprang into the frog studio. “I know why everyone says the iPod looks clean!” he exclaimed. Ask anyone what’s so appealing about the design of the iPod, and, almost without exception, they answer, “I like it because it looks clean.”.................

“So,” the visiting designer said, “as I was sitting on the toilet this morning, I noticed the shiny white porcelain of the bathtub and the reflective chrome of the faucet on the wash basin, and then it hit me! The iPod is ‘clean’ because it references bathroom materials.”

There were a few seconds of silence, followed quickly by laughter. We were laughing because we knew that Jonathan Ive, who designed the iPod, came to Apple from a London- based design consultancy where he worked on a lot of lavatory basins.

Coincidence? Perhaps. But, at the very least, it’s an example of how anything, no matter how unconnected, can spark new perceptions. Often, the more incompatible the connection, the more useful it may be.

Hahaha ... brilliant. Check out the rest of a great article on what hinders innovation here.

Grass Roots Innovation

Two years ago I wrote a piece on what I saw as a more resourceful group of individuals that innovated with what they had in front of them. I called it the MacGyver formula. If you know of the 90s TV show this guy could get himself out of anything situation with a pen knife and what was in front of him. I highlighted how I saw this on a recent trip to South Africa when I spent some time in the townships working on a pitch. It seems that in the light of the economic situation that the world is starting to look to the developing nations as a smarter way to innovate with what you have already

The video above is for a great magazine called Makeshift that has just launched thanks to some help on kickstarter which delves deeper into this trend of DIY innovation. It is something that is utilised across the world by different societies to push against scarcity to make things to enable them to survive.

The interesting thing is that now the global consultants are also jumping on it and highlighting it as a way to innovate the western world out of the current crisis and gain growth from what we already have.

What interests me about it, is boundaries. Everyone talks about freedom to innovate but actually creating boundaries is what makes people maximise what they have in front of them. Simon Waldwell highlights it in his book Creative Disruption where when he was running the digital innovation team for the Guardian actually having freedom in time and opportunity made the team somewhat lazy.

So go out make some boundaries and see how resourceful you can be. Im thinking about buying a swiss army knife just in case.