Patagonia's Passion for the Planet

            When Yvon Chouinard founded Patagonia, his vision was to establish a company that creates the best outdoor and recreational gear.  However, shortly after Patagonia had just opened their new Boston store, the employees working there began to complain about getting headaches.  After further investigation, the company discovered that the same air in the store was being recycled, and there was formaldehyde in the air from the cotton clothes.  This is when Patagonia began to question their business practices and changed their company mission statement:

            “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions the environmental crisis.”

This mission has led Patagonia to implement a variety of policies and initiatives to help the environment.  Patagonia turned to making all of their clothes with 100% organic cotton and only using recycled polyester.  This was only the start of these types of programs and initiatives.  Patagonia has been able to make serious changes and impacts, not only because they are a large legitimate corporation, but also because they were able to embrace and understand the Reasonable Person Model.  They have been able to support people’s effective functioning by helping them truly prospect about the future of our planet. I broke down the Reasonable Person Model into it's 3 components and how various policies and initiatives at Patagonia fulfill those...

1.     Model Building

            Patagonia knows that people need to have the opportunity to understand and explore.  Patagonia attempts to convey the message that our planet is facing severe effects because of climate change caused by humans.  They want to help people understand.  Being such a legitimate company, Patagonia has been able to teach employees, customers, and other companies about implementing sustainable practices and cleaning up their supply chain.  For example, Patagonia has paired up with Wal-Mart to teach them how to integrate environmentally friendly solutions in their supply chain.

2.     Being Effective

            In order for their message to really catch people’s attention, Patagonia’s message must be clear and coherent.  They can do this by making a strong statement.  For example, Patagonia makes the promise to donate 1% of all their sales to environmental organizations.  Another example is Black Friday, in which they donated 100% of their sales to environmental groups, bringing in more than $10 million.  By doing this, Patagonia is able to make a strong statement that they value the environment over profits and that they are not going to do "business-as-usual".

3.     Meaningful Action

            I feel Patagonia embraces this part of the Reasonable Person Model the best.  Patagonia provides employees tons of opportunities for them to feel that they are truly apart of something bigger.  For example, employees are allowed to take up to 60 days of paid leave to volunteer at a grassroots organization of their choice.  This opportunity allows employees to feel as if they are truly making a difference.  Patagonia also allows customers to feel like they are making a difference simply by buying their products.  Customers are supporting a company that they feel makes an actual impact and difference.  It is important for people to believe that they are contributing to the planet, because these small steps can lead to larger ones.  Even small efforts can make difference.  However, we know from Jevon's Paradox that as products become more efficient, there is an increased rate of consumption.  Patagonia battles this by keeping their prices higher and developing ads that say "Don't buy this jacket" to help discourage over-consumption.  They even came out with a recycling program for old Patagonia gear.

Patagonia has been able to enhance the prospection skills of their customers to make them more aware and concerned about the future of our planet.  Slowly Patagonia has made an impact by incentivizing the future, or more specifically, demonstrating the wonders of our planet and how we should preserve these for future generations to enjoy.  Even though Patagonia would be considered an expert in their field, they are able to communicate stories on an emotional level that affects most people.  This strategy has worked immensely in their favor, as they continue to be extremely successful and contribute to sustainability efforts.

How to be the best Expert

The world functions by experts of different topics working together to create the best world possible for human kind.  A person becomes an expert by continuous experience in one domain.  Through consistent, repeated work a person creates internal representations and these representations then work together to create cognitive maps.

Being a professional is beneficial because you're knowledge and experience allow you to work quickly and efficiently.  You have created maps that allow you to notice what a problem is and then predict the outcome of your various possible decisions.  An expert is more confident in their decisions than someone that only knows a bit of information about the specific domain because they have worked with this before and have seen many successes and failures.  It is important that others in the same domain become just as confident as the expert.

An expert is important in a field of work or study, but having a limited number of experts means that limited work can be done.  In the environmental field, having a limited number of experts in climate change means that only a select amount of scientists can run tests or create plans to prevent climate change.  It is important that experts pass on their knowledge and expertise to those in the same domain so that the knowledge can be passed on and built upon for many years to come.

It can be difficult for an expert to teach a novice about their domain.  Experts have such complex internal representations and cognitive maps that many simple things just come to them quickly and they do not necessarily know how to explain it to a novice.  Experts also have a wealth of knowledge and this can be overbearing on a novice trying to remember all of the things they are learning.  A novice trying to learn the science of climate change might get overwhelmed because the expert may not always take time to explain the different natural processes of the earth because the expert has worked and studied these processes for so long that it is second nature to them.  In order to solve problems such as climate change, the expert needs to learn to share their expertise with the future experts in their domain.  The novice must use directed attention to try and learn as much of the new information as possible but their directed attention can become depleted and after this they will not retain any useful information.

There are many ways for an expert to efficiently educate a novice and be the best expert possible.

1. The expert should think back to when they were learning about the domain and consider some of          the basic topics they learned and some of the things that were difficult for them.

2. The expert should get a sense of the level of knowledge that the novice has in the domain.

3. If there is a gap in basic knowledge in the novice, the expert should carefully explain the needed         information and give it in context to the domain and how it will be beneficial.

                    *Giving specific examples related to the work is beneficial

4. It is important not to overwhelm the novice, focus on between 2-7 main ideas.

5. Make sure the learning environment is good
                    *No distractions
                    *Allow for breaks and times to restore directed attention

6. The expert should use stories from their experience to help the novice relate all of the new                   information to their own life.

By doing these things, many novices will become experts in their own way.  This will allow future generations to continue working together to create a better, well functioning world that will continue to grow and prosper.

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.