I noticed a design conference had an open call for talks this week and this is what I wrote as an application.
Let’s Get Serious
For the last decade, ideas of play and gamification have been prevalent in the design of services and workshops.
That playfulness and fun were the methods of engaging and enabling people to do what they needed and what was demanded of them. Over the last two years, Alastair Somerville has been working for clients, including the Design Council and the Royal Academy of Engineering, on workshops and projects related to Beyond Net Zero design and Climate Crisis. Working with activists, professionals and citizens, what has become apparent is that seriousness is more valuable than playfulness. That the techniques developed in the last few years are not helping communicate ideas or provide meaningful discussion or deliberation.
This talk is about what was discovered during the workshops and how different approaches, some old and some new, to public engagement and research might work better in a world where a shared sense of reality, let alone purpose, is hard to define.
Workshops over the last decade
The power of Seriousness is something I was surprised by. I have spent the last decade doing experiential and playful workshops on many topics. I am known for providing workshops that people enjoy.
What has happened in the last 2 years is I have been working in climate crisis and sustainability projects. More particularly, working with people who are not professional designers but people who live and care about their neighbourhoods and families. People who know of changes but don’t know who is dealing with them. The gap between citizens and professionals and politicians.
I have also a lot of experience in public consultations thru work designing accessible materials for projects like new railways stations and light rail systems. How government thinks about engagement and how it frames those encounters and questions is something I am well aware of. The sense of constricting and controlling who is asked and what can be discussed to maintain a project’s momentum.
All of this has shifted my viewpoint in seriousness and fun. I think both are usable methods. However, I didn’t realise how, with some critical adjustments, seriousness was a better public engagement tool.
Three takeaways
Conferences like takeaways. They provide trust that what will be spoken will have value. Audiences attend talks that they anticipate will provide meaning.
Here they are
Start
Take people seriously. Give them space to be heard.
Let them hear their resentments out loud.
Middle
Bring serious people in. People with knowledge and power need to be in the place.
Serious people enable serious debate.
End
Show serious consequences. If people are asked to be part of process, show they have meaning and value.
Some books
This is just a short list of books from the last year that I have found helpful.
• How to win an information war
• Stories are weapons
• Disaster nationalism
• Activated citizenship
Happy to chat
Hopefully, I will give this talk in 2025.
If this sounds like a talk that your organisation or conference would appreciate, do contact me for a chat.