Diversity > Expertise: The Design World and Beyond

            Though the values of independence our society asserts help build us into competent, productive people, these notions often become absorbed and interpreted over time to cultivate mindsets that insist, “I alone can fix any problem”.  Self-confidence is good and needed to function well in life.  Arrogance and single-minded thinking, on the other hand, can yield unwieldy problems in circumstances that may affect many other peoples’ lives.  And so, though experts in different areas can make huge positive impacts on the world, oftentimes the best solutions are generated through collaboration with other minds from other backgrounds.

            Of course, there are bundles of benefits to developing expertise in particular subjects, both for the expert themselves and for those impacted by an expert’s work.  For experts, as they continue to expose themselves to their particular disciplines and fields of specialization, their cognitive maps of how to operate with and through such mental environments grow incredibly rich.  With time, they become increasingly skilled at discerning what details may be considered significant to given situations; they’ll shed off unneeded details and concisely compact information held in their minds.  Along with this, their frequented actions become habitual and automatic with time, as these processes come to feel so natural to them that they need no longer heed much, or any, directed attention to perform such certain activities. 

This all being said, every person holds different levels of expertise in some fashion or another, whether they be in areas and actions that may include commonplace activities, such as driving, or in skills scarce to the general public (such as welding).  Accordingly, we all hold different interests, skillsets, knowledge, and beliefs about the world for a reason—so that we can coexist and thrive through cooperation.  We humans are social, political animals who draw meaning and wellbeing from life through deep social connections to others.  Yet despite this fact of our nature, so many people maintain that only they have the power, skills, knowledge, and status to fix this or that problem.

In some cases this mindset is fine since we need to grow able to sustain and manage ourselves in the world as individuals—asking others how we should consider every action we take would be inefficient and unproductive.  However, in other larger cases, especially those that involve other people in some manner, detrimental effects could result without further consultation (e.g. an expert may assume they understand the needs and desires of the people they attempt to serve, only to find they miscalculated peoples’ concerns—ending up with a project that nobody needs or wants at all).

Let’s take a look at the world of product design to illustrate:

Product designers design objects and tools to help people operate more smoothly in their environments, so that people will not have to drain their directed attention through trying to figure out how to use items to meet their goals.  This explains why so many of the everyday objects we use take the forms and shapes that they do: the objects instructively “explain” themselves to users.  For example: the bowl shape of a coffee mug will communicate to a user that it can hold some sort of object or substance (such as hot coffee).  The handle of the mug will then lead a person to deduce the loop as a good place to grasp when using the mug (useful when trying to carry hot liquids so as to not burn one’s hands).

The process for designing products can be very long and laborious, as designers will typically follow a multi-step process that involves making numerous models for each stage they consider—this will inevitably involve a proliferation of testing and chucking results.  To produce an effective design, a designer will make many efforts to get to know their users not only at the beginning the design process, but also through to the end of production.  Designers may engage in an exercise called “empathetic reflection”, attempting to place themselves in situations their users typically face by role playing as the users themselves.  To exemplify: if a designer wants to make a knife for a one-handed person, they may try tying one hand behind their back or putting their arm in a sling while attempting to chop different kinds of food.  Along with this, of course, the designers will seek feedback and gather information from the users themselves, allowing users to explain their experiences and concerns with regards to the object(s) in consideration.  Designers may also have their clients test out their designed products throughout various steps of the project to ensure success of the design.

Here’s a video from ABC about a famous design company called IDEO (a design team that strives to hire people from all sorts of disciplines, including psychologists, artists, and engineers):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taJOV-YCieI

These ideas presented in the product design process can be seen as analogous to many other situations encountered in life, as we should always remain mindful to include and hear out the voices of others we may impact with our actions.  This will prove most effective in circumstances that allow us to gather wide-ranging, representative samples of people.  This, however, does not necessarily imply that ‘more is better’.  Rather diversity of input can create stronger, more comprehensive solutions.  This can be seen in cases where companies will seek to hire people from a diverse array of backgrounds, as just hiring more ‘good’ people will often mean hiring more people that hold the same (or very similar) cognitive maps of the problems they hope to confront.  Instead, many employers now make more efforts to seek out (intellectual) people that can provide different vantage points of situations (meaning much variation with regards to prior experiences that make up their employees’ mental maps).  With many minds included, such a diverse crowd will become wiser and reduce error in calculations (peoples’ errors end up cancelling each other out).  Moreover, additional background information generated from greatly varied perspectives can fill in gaps in knowledge and enrich mental maps for all involved.  This can, in effect, can further improve the experiences of those who are exposed to and affected by their works.

Coping with Depression (Post-Presidential Elections)

Earlier in the month of November, we as the United States ended a long election cycle that takes place every four years. As I was proud to finally get to exercise my right to vote, I was in disbelief by the results of the presidential election. The actually disbelief I had was not any surprise. I figured that since Donald Trump made it so far in the election, people are actually supporting this man to be our next president. I knew right after the results of the election that this was something we (as everyone who did not want Trump in office) would have to cope with. Right after the results, social media and news media outlets have been teeming with election-related articles, memes, videos, pictures, and posts with overwhelmingly negative messages. The following day, just from seeing how depressed people were, I knew that I needed to provide some coping strategies to deal with this depression.

As I thought about it before, it usually takes time for legislation to change. It doesn’t matter what party or political views you may share with the winning presidential candidate and other newly elected government officials, you have time to adjust to the upcoming changes that will be implemented. President elect will not enter in office until the end of January. If he does try to set new policies in place, it still takes time to be decided on and implemented. I used my home territory to think about this. That territory is private space and it allowed me to restore myself and my thoughts. This is a very helpful strategy to use, because territory coping helps you process information. It’s a place of refuge. A place where you can easily make predictions.

People that was on Trump side will start to feel some empowerment, but don’t let your nerve desert you. Keep your posture and stay away from harmful situations. That also includes harmfulness to your mind. I also recommend to stay off social media for a while to cope. Social media isn’t going anywhere and it’s inevitable that post-election coverage will drown media outlets for some time. Be sure to take care of yourself, and partake of social media in moderation at least until post-election conversation calms down. Coping is just something that we will have to do to come in-tune with stressful situations. Have strategies to be able to cope with things more easily and you’ll be able to stress less. Coping, it’s a part of life!

How to be the Best Urban Planning Expert - Facilitating Community Participation

Those who claim to be experts in urban planning have likely devoted years of schooling, researching, observing, and even teaching the concepts. But, through that process of repeated of experiences, internal representations and cognitive maps are made and refined. These IRs and CMs are compact, dense, and rich in connection, have multiple results, including confidence, influencing perception, reducing attentional demands, as well as ease in creating predictions and thinking about the future and ease in dealing with complexity and abstract thoughts. But, being an expert also makes it hard to remember what it was like to be a novice. In the urban planning sense, it is hard for experts to realize that those involved in their projects, say the community or other stakeholders, may not have to same insight as the experts do, often causing friction. To avoid this, it is important for urban planners, and all experts, in general, to realize a few things about novices.

For one, the community likely lacks the same basic units, or internal representations, that urban planners have when approaching a project, like, for example, building a road in a neighborhood that will cause increased traffic flow in the area, but will help alleviate traffic problems in other areas of a town. It is hard for the community to see the bigger picture when their internal representations cause them to fight for their own benefits. In addition, new information can often overwhelm novices. If the urban planners come in with an entire new plan for their neighborhood where many people have likely lived for years, it can be a lot for the community to process. Change is not always favorable. Experts like urban planners have trouble realizing this when they have no connection to an area. Experts often take the “common knowledge” approach when dealing with stakeholders, which is probably the most detrimental effect.

When sharing information with stakeholders, it is important to consider some of the following pointers and tactics. 

• Start where the novice is at by building on previous knowledge and considering existing internal representations and cognitive maps.

• Think about existing positive/negative thoughts they may have on an issue and attempt to present information in a way that focuses on these thoughts. 

• Provide a variety of concrete examples, including past projects that have been successful and imagery like pictures or videos.

• Focus on two to seven ideas, as that is the “special number” to keep in mind considering how much information humans can process at one time. 

• Limit distractions and allow novices to go at their own pace, and take breaks, when needed. 

• Provide a structure that is easy to understand, usually best done with a linear approach that provides an overview and distinct landmarks along the way.

• Using a story to explain something is an option and can often put things in perspective.

• Encourage active participation and engagement, welcoming input and conversation. Participation is key!

Participation is extremely valuable in problem solving, especially in cases like urban planning where a project directly influences the surrounded community, like the example of the road through a neighborhood. When dealing with communities, local knowledge is a huge factor because it contributes what has been done in the past, what has and has not worked, what history, culture, customs, and traditions are involved, and what constraints and resources exist. As humans, we have an innate desire to be involved and to share our ideas and opinions. In urban planning, it is important to have neighborhood meetings with communities where a supportive setting is created that allows for maximum sharing of information. People hate feeling optional or easily substitutable, as well as feeling overwhelmed or incompetent. By using the pointers above, an environment conducive to exploring solutions and sharing ideas can be created. Below are a few suggestions for creating this environment.

• Start early

• Invite many people

• Keep stakeholders involved throughout the process

• Be sure to make clear sense and consider what stakeholders may not and may already know (may seem obvious, but is often overlooked when dealing with large projects)

• Provide options and alternatives

• Invite feedback 

• Keep it small and simple, including physical space, amount of people, and time 

• Always consider future meetings

As planners and as stakeholders, it is most important to remember that public participation is extremely beneficial, when done right! But at the same time, public participation, or too much of it, can be detrimental in urban planning cases. Why might this be? Could it eliminate the role of the expert?

The Problem With Higher Education

  
 We start out in Preschool and elementary immersed in math, reading, and language. The goal of this primary education is to create well rounded citizens who can go on and support a community. In middle school the heat is turned up; more English, Spanish, and some Calculus. However, in my district when we reached high school our options concerning class schedules became much more rich. Metal working, painting, pottery, wood shop, musical theater, Psychology, Intro to Law, Sociology, etc etc. Our district was getting us ready for college and creating well rounded students by providing us with a plethora of class choices.

Come Sophomore or Junior year of college we are "encouraged" to pick a major in our area of interest. We are forced to specialize, and this is where higher education creates experts. But you may say " I remember taking all of those dumb classes that weren't remotely related to my major!"   Well I remember taking those as well. In my case my upcoming winter schedule is jam packed full of Psychology classes bar for my one Greek class. Where has the variety gone? Sure, I can pry out subtle differences in the takeaways from each psychology course, but that would dilute my point.

                    So what Can Higher Education do About Experts?

 
"If you recall from class"; a statement that implies a previous knowledge of a subject, indicating or reaching for the idea of some level of expertise. Anyhow, if you recall from class we expressed the idea that experts can have difficulties expressing ideas concerning their expertise to non-experts secondary to technical jargon. The idea that communication and idea sharing is hindered because of a gap in knowledge between subjects should not be the determinate of a dialogue.

So what if everyone was forced to take more communication focused courses? Our society believes that the budding economist or businessperson should have an entire toolbox full of communication techniques. Never mind the lay engineer or music student who will depend on interpersonal communication on a daily basis. To be forced out of a comfortable mindset is to encourage learning and growth; because I know of many people who fear the 'get to know you questions' at the beginning of the semester.

 Classes can only go so far to facilitate skills. We also need real life applications of our communication skills. So go out to that (Those) party(-ies) and explain your concentration and what you find interesting in your field. If needed conservative use of a social lubricant can remove any hesitation you may have!

                                      A Meditation on Sharing: 

                     Keep these notions in mind when communicating!

•  5 + or - 2 ideas presented at once
•  Use a story, antecedent, or an example to deliver ideas
•  Relate to your subject and their interests 
•  String together ideas into a coherent digestible thing 
•  Recap ideas and their relation to each other in the grand scheme of things 
•  Try to prevent DAF as much as possible 

To end my rant; Yes, we need experts and colleges are creating them! And being a non-expert is fine. Many of people survive and communicate well with just a high school degree or less. But I'm concerned with institutions of higher learning, these institutions need to focus on instilling effective communication techniques into these budding experts. Otherwise how are the portfolio managers going to explain Stock and Market options to their clients who have no more than a high school education? In no way does the notion of effective communication include a condescending delivery of information to the non-expert. Instead effective communication is conducive to a coherent and productive society. So get out of your comfort zone and take a few extra poetry, writing, or partying* classes to satisfy those electives.

* Read: communication

 

Why Is "The Onion" So Effective?

"The Onion" is an American news source that creates satirical news that are meant to make people laugh. They also are known to call out the hypocrisy of popular culture. I remember the first time I was fooled by "The Onion". I was 16 years old and had just recently created a Facebook. I was scrolling through my Facebook feed when I saw "Vatican Reverses Stance On Gay Marriage After Meeting Tony And Craig". The title of the article immediately caught my interest because it was around the time the current pope had been ordained. I clicked on the article excitedly thinking about how important this news is to the world and how it would be a huge revolution of the ideology in the Catholic church. It made me excited to think that soon members of the LGBT community could finally be married through the Catholic church. As I read the article, I immediately caught the sarcasm and face palmed to myself real hard for falling for the satirical news article. Below is an example of the satire from the article.

                                                  

I closed the window and read the comments on the link that was shared and saw hundreds of people commenting happily and angrily over "the Vatican reversing their stance on gay marriage" and was surprised at how many people actually fell for the article like I had. It appeared that people had not caught onto the satire and took it very seriously. It made me wonder how "The Onion" was able to tell a false narrative that many people believe. 

                                    

In class, we learned about how stories are incredibly valuable because they simplify complex situations, can be shared and remembered easily, and are compatible with the way people think. "The Onion" uses all of the valuable qualities. Their articles use language  that is easily understood, meaning that there aren't any big, difficult words that only Ph.D students can understand and their platform is on a website where each article can be easily shared when clicking any of the social media links at the bottom of the page (Facebook, Twitter, Etc). "The Onion" is also very successful at sharing information. They follow the guidelines for sharing information that we learned in class. For example, "The Onion" bases their articles on current events that are receiving a lot of attention in the media (such as the pope being ordained). In other words, they are building on their reader's prior knowledge of current events while also creating content that is relevant to what people are caring about at the current time. "The Onion" provides visuals (usually photoshopped) to help the reader visualize what their narrative is about.

                           

As you can see above, "The Onion" limits distractions on the site by not posting any ads and keeping the formatting pretty neutral. The site posts the titles, giving an easy to find overview of the information in the article. Typical articles from "The Onion" include a somewhat small paragraph of the satirical news (unlike sites such as The New York Times that have many pages of information), which makes the article a quick read. All of these qualities make "The Onion's" content highly shareable. Thinking about all of the qualities that "The Onion" has in terms of shareability and storytelling, it's easy to believe that so many people read the satirical news site thinking that it is real. Whether their narrative is real or fake, their site's content and visual aesthetic does a great job of creating a good story that is shared by a click of a button all over the world. 

How Can Dreams be Real if our Eyes Aren’t Real

Do you remember the dream you had last night? If you don’t: good. Scientists have concluded that most people who tend to remember their dreams tend to wake up from external stimuli, like an alarm clock or someone pouring water on their face. But let’s say you remember many of your dreams and have a dream journal, or even if you could care less about your dreams: we can all agree that it’s really f*cking weird. Somewhere up in our brains, something has decided to make us start thinking about sword fighting our 3^rd grade English teacher in a squirrel costume.

The human brain is one of the most complex things known to man, so let’s stay away from explaining why it happens. The fun part is trying to explain what our dreams mean. Many famous psychologists and neurologists like Sigmund Freud have tried to interpret what our dreams mean and how dreaming can benefit us. Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, explained that dreams were the road to the unconscious mind and that they could help us explain what our values and desires were.  

So let’s look at some common interpretations of weird stuff that shows up in our dreams:

• ·      A cake usually indicates a happy time in your life and is associated with confidence and good luck.
• ·      A dream where you’re falling typically means that you’re having a bad time in your life or something is bothering you and you want to escape from it.
• ·      Dreams about taking hard tests in a classroom usually indicate that there is an upcoming “test” in our life that we need to overcome using past mistakes and experience.
• ·      Dreaming about Darth Vader typically signifies that you’re currently facing a dilemma in life that involves picking between good and evil.
• ·      If you see a baby your dream, it usually signifies something new or something positive that you have started for the first time in your life.
• ·      If you dream about a badminton game, it could mean that you have to make a quick decision about something crucial in your life.
• ·      If there is a bagel in your dream, it usually points to a sexual desire.
• ·      Seeing a hammer could signify that you’re looking to or were recently “hammered”; as in being intoxicated.
• ·      Water is one of the most complex symbols, which tends to represent your unconscious mind. If you see calm water, then your life is relaxed and peaceful. If you’re walking on water, it means that you have total control over your emotions. If you dream about black or muddy water, then it points to an undesirable point in your life.
• ·      If you see lasagna in your dream, it usually resembles warmth and comfort.

These interpretations can help us, as information processors, cope with life's obstacles and give us meaning to do something. Despite these explanations, there are hundreds of other interpretations for common dreams (even though the ones above may not be very common). So next time you’re dreaming about a lawn mower, don’t run outside in your pajamas during the middle of the night to check if your front lawn grass is too long.

Making Sense of the Unexpected

Throughout our lives we encounter many situations in which we don't have control of the outcome. We constantly deal with unpredictable situations, whether that be natural disasters, car accidents, or elections. Unpredictability is the only prediction we can soundly make. Through re-framing and interpreting these events we have created mechanisms to cope with the unexpected. 

We rarely have all the knowledge we need to fully understand why things happen. So we make up stories. We rationalize why things happen by filling in the gaps with plausible events. This is the power of interpretation. 

We all struggle to make sense of tragic situations. For Calvin, the death of baby raccoon caused him to think about reasons why this would happen to an animal so young and so new in the world. He fills in his knowledge gaps until he can make sense of it all. Death and illness are often issues we need to cope with. Why did that person of all people have to suffer. Why to someone that has already been through so much? Why someone so young?

No matter the scale or the seriousness of the situation we cope with,  interpretation is always necessary for reducing the stress we feel. Interpretation is something that we can share with others. It's any easy action to take to put our life in order, to help us control our own behavior in light of the uncontrollable. 

Life can seem unfair and sometimes even the most mundane events can seem unjust. It's important to take a step back, take a breath, and re-frame the situation so we can find clarity in the situation. Instead of running, screaming from the classroom, take a breath and think that without an education we cannot become the Spaceman Spiff that's awaiting us all.