Smart City Vigilance Case Study
Smart Road From City Vigilance to a Magical Crest, From Big Data to Emotional Learning, From 5 Fingers to 1 Hand!
The story began with 5 students located all around the world: 1 in Japan, 1 in India, 2 in France and 1 in the US. How to transform the difficulty of gathering these brains into a strength for ideation? It first comes from a COMMON goal: resolving the Smart City Case Study, and a COMMON motivation: have the best possible team experience! And then it’s easy: you find a common hour and day which suits each time zone, you choose digital tools which will ease collaboration (shared documents with editing possibility for everyone, video conference tool with recording and screen sharing functionalities, group messaging platform) and the magic begins… We were able to gather 4 times in 4 weeks. During these meetings, we discussed, exchanged ideas, tried to convince each other, found compromises, laughed, felt frustrated, felt happy, relieved, tired. All these emotions, what a human experience! Between these meetings, we had some personal work to do for the Smart City Vigilance Case Study that we would present to the rest of the team at the next meeting. And the magic grew…It became a learning experience. We learnt from each other. All of us had something to bring to the group: not only ideas and skills, but also the way we would behave that would relaunch the motivation, model role, etc.
We succeeded in transforming the difficulty of gathering 5 people all around the world into leveraging a strong team, rich and efficient because of diversity, because of a mix of thinkers, makers and doers.
What was the process that we followed to achieve our objective? Here is a video showing our ideation process journey. I used the sketchnoting method in order to enlarge the vision to not only words but also to open creativity with visuals.
And here are some more details for explaining each stage.
1. Big Data for Decisions as a Main Tipping Point
Guadalajara is the capital of the state of Jalisco in Mexico. It is located in the Atemajac Valley, near Lake Chapala, not too far from Mexico City (1 hour and 20 minutes by plane North-West) but with all the charm of a provincial city. Its +5 million inhabitants (including suburbs) makes Guadalajara the second biggest city in Mexico. Its educated workforce has made it become the “Ciudad Creativa Digital” (Digital Creative City). Guadalajara is a dynamic city in many industries. However, this success has also brought urban delinquency and crime such as bad public transportation conditions, drug-related crimes, personal identity concerns (femicide), kidnapping threat, etc. This is the reason why the government of Jalisco has hired our 5 ideation expert team to offer futuristic products such as a wearable device for improving trust and safety among the members of the community of Guadalajara. We are aiming at all 18 to 23 year old citizens including girls and boys, students, workers and unemployed, etc.
During our first meeting, we quickly all agreed that our device would need to be supported by the disruptive technology of Big Data. Why? Because the target of 18 to 23 year old citizens of Guadalajara is huge: it is around 425,000 individuals (around 8.5% of the population). All the datas that we could collect would be multiplied by 425,000. Big Data, when ethically and seriously collected and analyzed can bring support to Decision making for improving the safety of people. Big Data for Decision is key for futuristic devices.
During our discussion, it became obvious that other tipping points would serve our goal: Wearable Internet because of the instructions from the government of Jalisco, but also the Internet of Things because of the power of intelligent sensors that could add value to our wearable device and the Implantable Technologies because of the physical possibilities the devices connected to bodies would bring. The 5 of us also had rich discussions about the societal disruption that the Sharing Economy technologies are bringing. Many young citizens aged 18 to 23 are touched by community and sharing systems possibilities. At this stage, we did not know how to include this shift in our device but we kept it into our mind.
2. Framed Swarming Inspiration Stage
This stage is the funniest part of the process because it is when all could happen but it can also become a nightmare if the discussions are too passionate and time is flying… That is why we chose two very different methods among the IDEO’s Design Kit for leveraging this stage. We chose to brainstorm and to Frame our design Challenge in order to canalize our swarming talking. To do so, we started by working on the problem we were trying to solve: safety and security for 18–23 year old Guadalajara citizens. We used the Frame Your Design Challenge worksheet and the Impact Ladder worksheet. We framed the problem we were trying to solve as a design question. Design questions such as “How to create a community to build an environment to foster trust and safety?”, “How to develop an app to contribute to a safe community where we have a sufficient number of people registered as users and volunteers?”, etc.
What helped me during this stage was to virtually immerse myself in a concrete situation. I chose to immerse myself in a university campus and I could visualize concrete issues such as a girl walking at night to go back to her building in the campus, stolen bikes, bullying during classes, students mental depression during Covid, etc. These virtual immersions inspired me and could easily be applied to any other place or community, not only students.
3. Bundled Rewarding Ideation Stage
This stage is the most rewarding and hectic stage of the process because it‘s when the ideas are transformed into solutions. But it can also be frightening as we can all fear for the “blank page”. What if we could not find any solution at all? I love this stage because that’s when the magic of the group happens. You think that you have reached the limit of the ideation process and someone will throw a word or a behavior and another ball of yarn/idea starts being unrolled.
For this stage, the group experimented different methods for processing:
- Theory of Change — how to create positive change.
- Brainstorm Rules — lots of good ideas to choose from.
- Bundle Ideas — combine ideas into robust solutions.
- Create a Logic Model — clear narrative to turn solution into positive change.
I focussed on the Bundle Ideas method as follows.
Step 1: many ideas on the wall
Step 2: clustering similar ideas into groups
Step 3: building groupings out of the themes and patterns
Step 4: thinking about systems
Once our ideas are grouped, we can change our angle and think about them as systems or solutions or products or devices. That’s when we started talking about a volunteer platform, a sensor to put on our skin, a device hidden in a community crest to be sewed on clothes, sensors to measure emotions.
4 or 5. Describing our Magical Crest of Emotions
At this stage of the process, we came with a solution proposal that we could describe as a product.
Product Name Proposals:
Waze© Platform of Emotions OR Magical Crest of Emotions
OR MagiCrest of Emotions
Description:
Our solution is a chip and sensor-based system aimed at both locating young people’s position (GPS) and collecting data about their emotions (stress, anxiety, excitement, etc.). The device is put on a round crest which can easily be sewed or pinned on clothes, not far from the skin. The emotions are detected by the sensors gathered in the device which measure symptoms such as muscle contractions, dilation, heart beating, etc. Through the chip, the device is connected to a platform where datas are gathered in order to detect unsecured places i.e. the ones where young people are having stressful experiences. The crest is visible so that it protects the person who wears it as an alarm for criminals to be aware of. The small device (chips and sensors), which collects the data, is not visible for aesthetic purposes. In order to respect privacy, there is an option for the users to decide to what extent their data are to be shared. Users can choose from different designs for the crest which represent communities (university, neighborhood, sport club, company, etc.).
Because drawings sometimes explain better than words…
5 or 4. Shaken Implementation Stage
This stage is the most structuring stage of the process because it is when you experiment your solution, when you test it, but it can also be a sad stage as it seems close to the end of the story or at least a chapter of the story…
For this stage, the group chose three different methods:
- Keep Iterating — testing, getting feedback, to always get better.
- Create a pitch — to communicate and promote.
- Pilot — longer-term concrete test.
What I like with the pitch as a marketing tool is that it is the perfect exercise for finding the issues you may have in your concept, in your solution. Because you need to express your solution in words, sum up as much as you can, adapt to your audience (you won’t have the same pitch for your partners or financial support or clients or friends…). This adaptation exercise makes you look at your solution through different angles. Your solution is shaken until the unnecessary is gone. The solution is refined, polished and matured. You need to iterate as often as possible.
6. Ideation Process and Emotional Learnings
What I learnt through the Smart City Vigilance case study is that there are many different tools and methods to funnel and leverage the Ideation process. It is not only a question of gathering the best brains on earth but also stimulating, gathering, leaving space for reflection, creating caring and benevolent work conditions, leading them in directions without putting too many limits, structuring, visually helping the reflection, managing emotions, and more. Freedom for creativity can be framed.
The other point that I learnt is that the diversity of the team members is key as it enlarges the viewed angles for the same challenge. Collaborative creativity can be stronger than an individual one: 1 hand is stronger than 5 fingers!
During our discussions, I understood that, in a team, you can find compromises more easily if it does not hurt your values. Everyone is ready to be convinced if it is related to a task or a precise particularity. As soon as you touch the values, you need to transform your words back to tasks and particularities. Personally, I’m glad that, as a group, we went to a solution to the case study which was related to emotions and communities as they are important values to me.
References
Bureau of Diplomatic Security. (2020, June). Mexico 2020 Crime & Safety Report: Guadalajara. https://www.osac.gov/Content/Report/c6e51dd2-8669-4715-a0cc-190287243878
DataMEXICO. (2020). POPULATION AND HOUSING. Datamexico.Org. https://datamexico.org/en/profile/geo/guadalajara#population-and-housing
Gobierno de Jalisco (2014). Digital Creative City, Guadalajara. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UDWfU_wDq0
Ideo.org. (2022). DESIGN KIT. DESIGN KIT. https://designkit.org
Rohde, M. (2017). Le guide avancé du sketchnote: Techniques et pratique de la prise de notes visuelles (EYROLLES) (French Edition). EYROLLES.
