Project Updates

May 28, 2024

We held two kick off Zoom calls with those who volunteered for the project, one for each collection of time zones.

Here’s the recording of the call.

The meetings started with Karel Vredenburg and Carly Williams introducing the agenda, which included the origin story, guiding principles, brainstorming, and next steps. Karel Vredenburg highlighted the initiatives taken in response to global challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and the future of design education.

Carly Williams shared her passion for making the world a better place through film and discussed her projects, "The Garden of Secrets" and "The Color of Biodiversity." Karel Vredenburg presented three books relevant to the initiative, emphasizing the importance of long-term thinking, small habit changes, and humanity-centered design in influencing individual behavior and contributing to broader system change.

The meeting included instructions for the whiteboard activity, detailing the creation of challenge groups and the brainstorming of sub-challenges using sticky notes. Carly and Karel provided guidance on using the Zoom whiteboard and the voting process for selecting challenge topics.

The meeting concluded with discussions on collaborations with various organizations, the approach to be taken, and the project timeline. The next steps were outlined, including forming teams, brainstorming tools, and holding an education session.

Organization & Education Call

The second major call with all volunteers was held two times on July 30, 2024 and focused on organization and education. Here’s the recording of the call.

July 30, 2024

Project Communication Tools and Leadership

Karel and Carly discussed the project's team assignments, tools, the approach and methods to be used, and how communication will be handled. They announced that all communication would be facilitated through Slack, with team information available on this website. They also introduced the use of Google Workspace for document storage and Mailchimp for communication, with a plan to create a newsletter for updates. The other tools to be used were also described, including Doodle, Mailchimp, Squarespace, Slack, and Zoom. Carly and Karel emphasized that team leaders would be responsible for coordinating their own meetings using Slack and Doodle.

Team's Research Approach and Behavior Change Strategy

Karel outlined the team's approach to the research initiative. The aim is to inspire behavior change to address six identified challenges, with a focus on using existing solutions to effect change at the individual level. Karel will provide a link to a Google Drive folder containing articles and resources for desk research. After the initial desk research phase, team members will conduct self-research and then interview each other to capture insights and understand challenges and successes. The goal is to identify inhibitors and strategies for successful behavior change.

Climate Change Solutions and Design Thinking

Karel discusses the plan to use dscout's tools to identify target populations for research and to conduct some of the research using their tools. The team will use design thinking to summarize findings as personas, empathy maps, and scenarios in templates on the Zoom Workplace. After developing behavior change strategies, they will present winning ideas to inform a documentary and social media content inspiring adoption of solutions. Carly notes teams may pursue divergent approaches while respecting unique ideas. Karel highlighted the value of diverse cultural perspectives informing a unified set of deliverables.

Perspectives on the Research Approach & New Members

Karel outlined the approach for the upcoming research phase, emphasizing the importance of learning from real-life transformations given the trend of mistrusting expert opinion. Carly confirmed that 20 more people have signed up for the project and will be notifying them with their Slack and team names by the end of the week. The communication will primarily be asynchronous in Slack, with additional Zoom calls for leadership updates. The teams will decide their own meeting times based on their needs.

Enablement Team, Film Funding, and Research

Carly and Karel discussed the progress of the project, highlighting the importance of the enablement team's role in meeting challenges and the need for additional funding for the film team. Karel emphasized the importance of adhering to research guidelines and encouraged the team to suggest innovative approaches to their work. The discussion also touched on the focus on plant-based issues, with Karel reassuring the team that they are not talking about and all-or-none solution but rather atomic behavior change.

Evidence-Based Decision Making and Climate Change

Karel discussed the importance of basing decisions on research evidence, particularly in areas like climate change and health. He emphasized the need to consider individual perspectives and tailor approaches accordingly. Zeal, a member of the climate change group, asked about the process of selecting a specific topic within this vast field. Karel advised starting with the problem and then exploring potential solutions, while also considering the behavioral changes needed to make a difference. They agreed on the importance of plant-based solutions and the need to understand the unique motivations and challenges of different individuals.

Integrating Behavior Change Strategies and Collaboration

Karel and Carly led a discussion on the importance of integrating behavior change strategies and solutions. They emphasized the need to consider factors such as gender and education in their approach, drawing on research that shows these factors can significantly impact adoption of plant-based solutions and other behavior changes. The team also discussed the importance of collaboration across different topics, with Karel suggesting regular meetings to share insights and ensure all teams are on track. The discussion concluded with an emphasis on the importance of any movement towards more plant-based solutions as a positive step towards addressing climate change and other global challenges.

Please Note

The foundations of this blog post came from an AI summary provided by Zoom and corrections made by Karel. The AI summaries aren’t all that good and require a lot of additional work. We may go back to writing the summaries fully ourselves.