DEE at UNICEF

About I.U

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 05:42:00 -0400

The Innovation Unit brings together many strengths: design, engineering, business, exciting new ideas and ventures that emerge from the mix. There are many interesting things about my team that inspired me, but within them there are two that have inspired me the most.

First, I was surprised when I found out how small and dispersed my team was when first starting. The Innovation Unit had only 3 members—including me—in the headquarter in New York, while other members were located in the field. It was a different approach to our teams around the world that would communicate using e-mail, Skype and conference calls. The plan was to be smaller. In a way, my team seemed as if it was fighting for its own extinction rather than aiming to thrive as a group by centralizing its force and expanding its size.

Considering the characteristic of the work—trying to come up with sustainable solutions which could be managed by the end-users, while avoiding outcomes which need to be operated directly by us—I started to understand why the team would hold in this way; but it took time. Our ultimate goal was to help the end-users be the creators by letting them identify their own problems and build their own solutions; and to develop a framework for this would be our next challenge.

Secondly, the network of partners my team has developed surprised me with its diversity. We’ve worked with many others from software companies, design companies, students to institutions that may seem unrelated to the work of UNICEF. The reason behind this collaboration was because there are different problems weaved together in developing countries that aren’t solvable neither by us nor by a single group or profession.

This active array of network has been possible because of the openness of my team: their willingness to share information, their impulse to carry forward a scheme, and more importantly, their belief to not confine this mission to themselves, but to transform empathy of others to a form of responsibility.

We’ve gone through mistakes and successes with partners, and now we have an eye: to overview the processes, to leverage different approaches to be implemented, to guide the partners, and to identify the right future partner to work with. I think our next step is to merge these partners to work together and form an interdisciplinary team—hopefully consisting of end-users themselves.

A PLACE FOR CONFESSION

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 22:49:00 -0400

Among the numerous conversations I had at UNICEF, one account from a staff member stood out to me: “I want to go to the field.” That Sunday at church, I was listening to the experiences people had during their missionary work in the past weeks. Most of the content was about people regaining their one-on-one connection to god through having a time away from their place of residence. For most of the people involved, the story of interactions with the local people they directly worked with was of secondary importance in the speech. As a listener, I was waiting to hear the ‘before and after’ of the local people who were exposed to a new religious view; or a grain of fact that proved the work they’ve done in education, health or literacy. And I found something lacking.

What lacked in the presentations of missionary people could be easily found in UNICEF field reports. The aim of the fieldwork report seems to be the opposite of what I heard that Sunday, especially in the case when you belong to an organization like UNICEF. There should be statistics, numbers and evidences to prove that your being in the field had an effect on changes, and the assessment of the report is crucial for sequential plans. It certainly had ‘before and after’ effect, but then this time, I was missing the inner voice of the writer. I had an image, at that point when I finished reading the pages, of myself in a sacred place listening to confessions of the writers of the reports. Of course, there are some people who recapture their personal feelings in blogs. What I think is interesting is not just individual and fact-based field note, but a voice about how the experience reshaped their relationship with a bigger force similar to what I heard at my Sunday church session.

Since UNCIEF is a strong community consisting of 135 country offices and numerous passionate field workers accomplishing tasks in the field, I strongly believe that there is a unified, somewhat spiritual feeling that is shared by whoever is in the field under the name of UNICEF. As people in missionary work had a unique experience to interact with god, reaffirm their relationship with god and come back, I am sure UNICEF members will also have a chance to encounter a bigger force, which could be the force of UNICEF, the country, the local people or maybe the god that the person believes in. And rather than reading it, I would like to hear the voices resonating in the space. If there is a UNICEF church, temple, shrine, or any kind of sacred place where you can share your confessions from the field, I would be filled with inspirations there.

Maybe there is really nothing spiritual there, but only facts. However, I can see people who have yet experienced the field, have his or her own myth of the field. Seeing the myth being retained, I do believe there are indescribable accounts that are indeed crucial in the decisions of young UNICEF members and other people who support UNICEF around the world. Facts are important, but a stronger narrative, in my opinion, should be the combination both—facts and confessions.

My view of my team structure

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 21:30:00 -0400

My view of my team structure

My job

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 21:04:00 -0400

I’m here as a designer in a team where there are no other designers. The Innovation unit is my team, but at the same time it is my client. Perhaps, I could be called a temporary in-house designer.

I have come to realize that a lot of people here are interested in what I produce for them. Yes, I mostly produce pieces based on request, but I have to say that more absorbing has happened than producing, in turn bringing me to call this experience an apprenticeship rather than an internship. A lot of my work here starts from a reflection of the place I’m working for. For instance, learning about the culture, the history, the approaches, the problems, the people and the stories of the organization, and then of course, the team I belong to.

While other members in the organization have a daily duty to fulfill and with extra time that my team provides me, I have a chance to spend days looking, thinking and asking around to have a better understanding of UNICEF and the Innovation Unit.

My position here is characterized by ambivalence, with perspectives coming from both that of an outsider and insider’s point of view. This ambivalence encourages me translate my observations to designed outcomes which isn’t possible by pure insiders. It could be anything from designing a map of partnership, drawing illustrations of a plan, creating design proposals to linking UNICEF to seemingly unrelated concepts. I’m not sure how these experimentations will be used, however, my hope is that these design investigations could be a starting point to more fulfilling projects.

Finding new problems

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 21:01:00 -0400

Finding new problems :

An article by Andrew Hargadon—which in my opinion—aligns well with the general approach of Innovation Unit.

"a long “DON’T” list. no “DO” list?"

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 20:00:00 -0400

“a long “DON’T” list. no “DO” list?”

UNICEF Innovation Unit Resource Materials -Full document...

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 03:43:00 -0400

UNICEF Innovation Unit Resource Materials

-Full document available upon request

DESIGN & COOKING

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 02:39:00 -0400

At UNICEF, one of my projects is creating a book titled ‘innovation cookbook.’ We started this project because we thought our work is analogous with some fresh approaches employed in the culinary field. This has been a meaningful time for me to rethink about cooking especially the complexity of it.

The magic behind cooking a dish is neither easy to trace nor easy to learn. Once a dish is served, even after it is tasted, it is difficult to logically assess a food or to derive the technique, recipe, and intention of the chef. When I think about the difference between design and cooking, entropy and negentropy are the fist things that come into my mind.

Simply put, entropy is a measure of uncertainty in a chaotic state. Designers are mostly against entropy; instead they aim for negentropy focusing on a final product of an organized form with its own order. Similarly, an entropy level of food on a dish is as low as a designed object. But, when a person tastes a cooked meal, it melts in the mouth and transforms into a state of entropy. The person is then filled with ineffable emotions.

Designing is similar to cooking, yet Design cannot imbue sensation to people who are experiencing it as much as cooking does. In that sense, would it be possible for design to navigate through entropy and negetropy as in the processes and ideas in cooking. I believe that the depth of cooking depends on its creator’s ability to manipulate entropy and negentropy; and I recognize a need for designers to adopt from this.

IMPACT

Mon, 04 Jul 2011 18:35:00 -0400

The head butt by Zidane in 2006 World Cup was quite a shock and it’s one of few things that comes to me when I think of the word ‘impact’. Some people might not even remember it, but to some extent I’m sure it has changed the behaviors and thoughts of soccer players on field from all around the world who have followed him.

At UNICEF and many NGOs, the word ‘impact’ is a set goal for various projects in many different levels and scales; regional, national and global. If done properly, a single project can have a positive impact on people in a global scale while one thoughtless idea or choice can impact the nation and the beyond in a negative way. There is a range of possible reasons for a failed project, and it will be discussed in more detail in a different post. But for now, I’d like to talk about the impact of a not-so-successful project.

There are limitations on the extent to which it is possible to measure the impact of projects, and even when measured properly, it’s hard to openly share the failure. What happens if it is undiscovered? What is the impact of it? In my opinion, it poses a new level of threat, because the next group of people who have a similar idea and beliefs would go and make the same mistakes.

Playpumps, a project by Water for People, is a water pump connected to a merry-go-round which children spin on. It seems like a great idea derived from a relatively new perspective compared to not-so-fun traditional hand pumps. Indeed I also thought that the intervention complemented what was missing in aid approaches toward developing countries—playfulness. A post by Ingrid Fetell, called In Defense of Delight, indicates that we’re on the same track:

“Designers use delight in clever ways to facilitate collaboration. One of my favorite examples is PlayPumps, an economical water pumping system that uses the power of children playing on a merry-go-round to bring clean water up from underground for use.”

Unfortunately we were both losing sight of the real problem of Playpumps which was clearly stated, for example, in Laura Freschi’s post: Some NGOs CAN adjust to Failure: The PlayPumps Story. She points out flaws of Playpumps, especially quoting a statement from an aid worker and engineer in Malawi who witnessed multiple problems of the intervention. A lot of comments and twitter debates were generated by Laura Freschi’s blog, and it was also noticed by PlayPumps. PlayPumps website changed the “Donate” page to no longer steer money to that project.

This could be an interesting case study of the power of social media, however, Ingrid Fetell and I wasn’t aware of this debate. Still, it’s hard to perceive the overall problem of Playpumps when visiting the Playpumps website. Unless a failure was broadcasted like Zidanne’s head butt or elucidated by the main organization, there are certain limits in terms of how far a failure can reach people. The lack of transparency in vocalizing a failure is linked to the collateral of failures, however, attention should be paid to reason behind the initial failure.

One thing I would like to point out is that by no means I doubt the good intentions behind projects like Playpumps and there is nothing wrong about having a playful approach; there is no need to change it. We just need to remember that it can be applied, only when the focus is on the main issue at hand; the main issue being impact. When the main issue is distracted by secondary perspectives like playfulness, we’ll lose sight of the first principle— to solve a real problem of people in critical situations.

Photo

Mon, 04 Jul 2011 03:10:00 -0400

DO YOU DO WEB-DESIGN?

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 11:36:00 -0400

I attended a casual meeting of Korean Interns who work in UN and UNICEF New York Headquarters last Thursday. We had to go around and introduce ourselves, so I simply introduced myself as a design intern working at the innovation unit. One of the instant questions I got was, “Do you do web design?” In that moment, I was a little disappointed the way they associated ‘design’ with just ‘web design.’ Then, I started to wonder what did this question actually signify?

Is web design the most perpetuated perception of design among people who work here?
Is web design the most dominant medium of design used in UN or UNICEF?
Is web design the most urgent area in need for improvement and re-design?

I think that the question was posed because they were curious about my area of focus in design, not because of any of the starting points above, so I answered, “Yes, I can do web design, but I’m not good at it.” Given the time limit, I stopped there. Another question about design came after that, “What do you think about the design being done at UNICEF?” That I had an answer: “It’s like the West which hasn’t been reclaimed yet.”

My task is mostly focused on designing for my team. However, I have a chance to observe how design is being approached in UNICEF. I have met people from different departments who straight off think design is limited to making things look good. For example, after talking to members from a different unit and getting a brief about their idea for internal communication, I got an impression that they were expecting me to critique their work in terms of visual aesthetic, because I hold a designer position. I have been trained to deny this norm by saying design is more than visuals for the purpose of not limiting our role to it. However, denial is not a solution to the underlying situation since it is discriminating against the valuable aspect of visual design in a place where majority haven’t experienced the full potential of it yet. Why not instead prove the value of visual design as a starter if that’s what’s expected of designers?

Making things look better through design is not just an aesthetic choice, but also a thoughtful process of leveraging visual language, structure and context to communicate with the viewer. A well designed layout has a better potential of being developed into different interactive mediums, too. I can easily see a designer getting on board with communications teams and start designing a platform for internal communication that not only looks better but has credibility of its own—which UNICEF members madly want to be featured in. There are so many opportunities here for designers to explore; brand identity, print, digital, interface and numerous other mediums. The move will start with internal communication design and then will lead to design for outer reach. This is a gradual process and the optimal way is to always be open-minded to potential clients who are not exposed to our way of thinking of design and start surprising them by showing how design can offer more than they thought through so-called ‘web design.’

GOOD, but...

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 11:07:00 -0400

Muac Band

India Mark II Handpump

RUTP Plumpy’nut

Polio vaccination

Oral Rehydration Solutions

These are past innovative solutions—some not by UNICEF—which achieved the key objectives of UNICEF: to come up with accessible, sustainable, adaptable and scalable answers to a problem.

Art of Co-lead

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 10:42:00 -0400

There are many ways to make a story interesting, and one of them is to have two opposite main characters in it. The storyline is simple: they push and pull each other in their journey; and the healthy tension created from their daily interaction holds the story. Sometime this tactic could be applicable in real life creating a legacy and I’ve watched two cases until now.

Last summer, I worked with Ingrid Hora and Daneil Salomon—two contrasting characters working as a team for several years—on a project called ‘Suspension of Disbelief.’ To me, the personalities of the two researchers were as interesting as the project itself. Watching how they complement each other when working and witnessing how a consensus is reached was another learning experience. While spending time with them, I couldn’t help thinking of how much they resembled Nodame and Chiaki from a famous manga ‘Nodame Cantabile.’ (I would call a series famous when it is adapted to a TV series and a movie).

This is the description of the ‘two’ from wikipedia:

”Nodame” is a piano student at Momogaoka College of Music. An extremely talented pianist who wants to be a preschool teacher, she prefers playing by ear rather than reading the music score. She is messy and disorganized, takes baths several days apart, loves to eat, and sometimes steals her friend’s lunchbox when it is filled with delicacies.

Shinichi Chiaki is Momogaoka’s top student. Born into a musical family, he is talented in piano and violin and has secret ambition to become a conductor. An arrogant multi-lingual perfectionist who once lived abroad in the music capitals of the world as a young boy, he is trapped in Japan because of his childhood phobia of airplanes and the ocean.

The story is about their journey in the field of music—but without the funny interactions generated by two characters—the story would not have lasted in 23 volumes with huge support from the fans. Again, it’s not a story about two rivals fighting for one grand trophy: Nodame’s specialty is piano, while Chiaki’s focus is on conducting and they influence each other smoothing out the friction derived from their characteristics and performances in an unusual way.

By fate or by coincidence, this summer I’m meeting another real life version of these two characters—Erica and Chris, co-lead of the UNICEF Innovation Unit (Chris as Nodame and Erica as Chiaki)—who are radically different beings interesting to be with. Unlike Ingrid and Daniel, but more like Nodame and Chiaki, they are not working on a single project together, but have their own area of study. They have made a legacy of their own in UNICEF as co-lead of the team. While working with them, I not only reaffirm the power of synergy in this type of working environment, but also feel that the trust— which is taken to be intrinsic to the partnership—is strong enough to be extended to the future regardelss of the situation they’d face. This kind of feeling is rare.

Unlike Nodame, Chiaki, Ingrid and Daniel who are individual artists, Chris and Erica belong to an organization with its own HR system. They will progress along in a certain trajectory in UNICEF standing separately at a different place 10 years from now. Even so, I still believe that they will keep this interesting interaction while serving as a valuable asset to their area and create something meaningful from the remote collaboration. There is no straight logic behind this belief, but it’s similar to the moment when you finish reading the last chapter of that manga, you still know that the characters will be connected in the way they have been.

D.E.S.I.G.N?

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 21:08:00 -0400

D.E.S.I.G.N?

UNICEF Emergency Simulation

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 12:06:00 -0400

UNICEF Emergency Simulation

Prize model in the context of UNICEF

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:51:00 -0400

Prize model in the context of UNICEF

Innovation Lab Cookbook WIP

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 22:59:00 -0400

Innovation Lab Cookbook WIP

E

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 23:05:00 -0400

Where did you get your inspiration for this season’s collection?” This has become a common question to ask fashion designers each season. Many of them often say travel destinations or non-western cultures as their inspirations. In a way, it is the designer’s duty to not be too literal with the sources of inspiration. The designer needs to reconstruct an inspiration with his unique perspective; they erase the trace, but leave a hint of it

In the main fashion world and the market, ethnic, oriental, and traditional forms are not that welcomed because they are too straight-forward; and we as customers would rather pay for designed items which show the progress of the designer and his experiments in conceptual thinking. Sometimes exotic items are devalued to a tacky caricature imitating an inspiration. (This claim is valid for certain cases though)

In that sense, it was quite refreshing when Erica’s accessories caught my eyes and she said, “I got them from India.” The beautiful well-made piece she wore looked as if it came straight from the East. There was no clear touch of a designer, but it invoked a mystical feeling about the maker. It evoked an image of a group of people working with the purpose of conserving a tradition. It was a moment of good contrast to the way we think of (fashion) design right now. It does not aim for progress, newness and future; instead values conservation and past.

S

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 22:49:00 -0400

Usually I get my morning coffee and bagel from a street vendor. One day when I opened my brown bag, along with the bagel and coffee, there were napkins with a starbucks logo on them. I sometimes take starbucks napkins, straws and sugar packs, but it’s for my own use, not for a business purpose. It struck me because this act was going against his identity of a street vendor-which is non-identity. Did he take them to cut budget? How much could be saved from this choice? What was he thinking of when conducting this activity? I’ll never be able to ask these questions, though.

I wonder why this word ‘inventor’ is no longer...

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 12:31:00 -0400

I wonder why this word ‘inventor’ is no longer widely used among us. Differentiation and classification of job professions happen all the time, but somehow…