In search for ‘sustainability’ in journalism
The Disruptive Design Method (not design thinking) as a new tool for editorial innovation.
Failure is the best platform for innovation. Nobody knows what works and what doesn’t without giving a try.
However, a recent study by Julie Posetti has pointed out, the current model of “random acts of innovation” in journalism are causing “significant change fatigue and burnout that risks impacting on journalism innovation efforts (…), in part caused by relentless pursuit of ‘bright, shiny things.”
Methods like design thinking, empathising and identifying ‘pain points’ that audiences are experiencing, have helped the process to get closer to the people who consume journalistic products.
However, if the mission is to seek sustainability, we need to see things not as ‘parts’ but as a ‘whole’. Instead of applying conventional design approaches, journalism community could take advantage of ‘systems thinking’ in various aspects of newsroom innovation.
The limitation with Design Thinking
I’ve been a big fan of design thinking, and applied the method to develop programmes like the Lookout360° Accelerator with Global Editors Network and the News Impact Academy in my previous role at European Journalism Centre.
Design Thinking or any other user-centric approach is a great tool not only to develop better products and services but also to have better understanding of and engagement with a specific group of people.
But the critics point out that the method is “conservative”, “preserves status quo” and “no match for changes that we cannot yet imagine or fully comprehend.”
“We fail more often because we solve the wrong problem than because we get the wrong solution to the right problem.”
— Russell L. Ackoff
In fact, the problem with Design Thinking is exactly that it only focuses on serving the needs of ‘people’.
Our recent past tells the real truth of the challenges with the human-centered design approaches. Businesses and industries have designed and developed products and services based on what we, ‘humans’, want to have. The result? We’ve created a wasteful, throw-away society and an economic model which is all about buying more and having more in order to stuff our closets.
Human-centred approach, as we see in our real-life situation, does not look at a bigger picture. Sustainability is not at all in sight.
Journalism is challenged to find a sustainable innovation model more than ever. We beleive that journalism community needs to look beyond design approaches to find sustainability in different aspects of innovation. Systems thinking will help journalists address some of the complex issues in a completely different way, and has its potential in supporting editorial innovation.
Seeing the issue from a birds-eye view.
Designers have slowly but gradually started to recognise that the conventional way to design products and services is no longer working. We have limited natural resources, and whatever we have been doing over the last century has led us to cause the climate to change. Initiatives like the Circular Design Guide by IDEO and Ellen MacArthur Foundation are spearheading that movement that encourages product designers to consider ecological footprints.
Back in the summer of 2018, while searching a new method to help journalists, I came across with a TED talk by Leyla Acaroglu, UNEP Champion of the Earth and the founder of Disrupt Design.
It has blown my mind.
“ The world is made up of beautiful interconnected and complex systems. Learning to identify and design within the social, industrial and ecological systems at play in the world around us is a critical toolset for activating purpose-driven change.”
The Disruptive Design Method developed by Leyla is a tool for (literally) everyone living on earth. It combines systems thinking, design thinking, life cycle thinking, cognitive neuroscience to help understand how different elements are interlinked to each other, and identify the cause of the issue, not symptoms, so that we can effectively intervene to make a positive change.
Together with Leyla Acaroglu and her team at Disrupt Design, the Lookout Station jointly developed the Solution Hack for Journalists so that a group of selected journalists can master some of the tools and techniques offered in the Disruptive Design Method over a 2-day bootcamp.
How the Solution Hack for Journalists helps editorial innovation
What we focus on in the Solution Hack is to help journalists get hands on experience with systems thinking and life cycle thinking, so that they can identify the cause of the problem in our social, industrial and environmental systems, and analyse the cause and effect between different variables in the system. Ultimately, the method helps journalists to spot how to measure the effectiveness and value which a solution is offering to solve (any type of) an identified issue on their own.
Journalists apply different mapping techniques during the bootcamp, and will also explore some examples of real life solutions. The end goal is not to have journalists get to know about a specific solution, but to equip them with the methods and tools, so that they themselves can assess the offered solution through the Disruptive Design tools.
At the Solution Hack, Marcus Wendin will provide training on the Disruptive Design Method. As an experienced life cycle assessment expert, journalists will get science-based insights into sustainable solutions.
Here is what the journalists said about the Solution Hack in Barcelona:
Leyla hopes that through the Solution Hack for Journalists,“we overcome this ‘hope deficit’ in the media, where there is lot of tuning towards the catastrophic rather than sharing the possibilities and opportunities” (quoted in Journalism.co.uk post here).
Our next Solution Hack will take place on 26–27 March 2019 in Helsinki, in partnership with Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund to assess how Finland is building a sustainable future.
Interested? Apply below before 26 Feb 2019.
Flights, accommodation and most meals are covered and paid with the funding from City of Joensuu, Sitra and the European Forest Institute (optional to pay everything on your own too).
