The billion-dollar failure of U.S. Government

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U.S. government is giving a great lesson about how not to listen to users, spend billions of dollars and finally regret about that. Creative Good pointed it out in its blog through a video from 60 Minutes. The project regards building a gigantic fence to secure the national border with Mexico against illegal immigrants. The project is so huge that it has started with Bill Clinton, continued with George W. Bush and now it is just in its early phase.

The technology has been developed by Boeing, but so far it is far from what was expected. The interesting thing is that this project is a very good one to show the difference between final users and stakeholders. It is not clear, but Boeing may have talked to the high officers from the American Security Dept, but forgot to talk to the border patrol, those who are there in the border daily trying to detect people crossing the border and consequently people who know what are the needs of that job. It is never too much to remind that who pays the bill (of the project or signs the project) normally is not the same who will use the system.

Currently the implemented part of the project is considered a failed prototype (By the way, the intention was not to have a prototype at this point. But apparently “prototype” is a good word to describe anything which is not well done as expected). People from different departments of the U.S government are trying to find where is the responsibility for this situation. Boeing does not want to talk about it. Hopefully we all learn from this kind of experience.

Fun as the shortest path to change human’s behavior

This week I found the The Fun Theory by coincidence. That theory says that “something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behavior for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or for something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better”. If you watch the video above, we will see a inspiring example which took place in Stockholm. Apparently The Fun Theory is just a strategic advertisement from Volkswagen. That is fine for me. Advertisement or not, I am a follower of the The Fun Theory. Since a few years ago when my adviser told me that he makes science and fun, I realized that fun should be in everything that I do for work. Often I hear people saying that my job sounds fun. That is true! In Brazil, Australia and now in The Netherlands I had tons of fun while working.
Going back to the The Fun Theory, it makes special sense for me at this moment because of the research I have been working on. As I said in a previous post I am working on a project about the sleeping experience. As the research findings have shown, bringing people to bed is not really easy since people are full of stimuli asking them to stay awake. My group is not sure yet about the strategy we are going to take about that, but surely fun could be a powerful weapon in convincing people to go to bed.

Here we go!

This is my first post in my new blog. How should I start? Maybe the best way I could start is starting itself. I am proud of myself because the idea of having a blog to share my thoughts is now a reality.

As a first post I offer you this interesting video from IIT Institute of Design. IIT is a well-known school of design dedicated to advancing the methods and practice of human-centered innovation.

In this interesting 30-minute video, ITT people talk about ethnography and interview techniques. As many people have noticed relevant innovation often starts with the observation of users’ needs, so ethnography is nowadays one of the big trends when we are talking about innovation.

Enjoy the video!

Getting People to Talk: An Ethnography & Interviewing Primer from Gabe & Kristy on Vimeo.