Three signals to the future 008
Welcome to the eighth edition of "Three Signals to the Future", a newsletter where I share resources that I find useful and thought-provoking. Let's dive into the latest discoveries.
Continuing the trend of being extra-scarce today I am bringing you the eighth edition of this newsletter. This time, we will turn our gaze to the future through hopeful experiments. In 2024 my theme of exploration and a personal goal has been around hope and reimagining. Well, dear reader, this edition is all about that.
On calm tech
The Calm Tech Institute is a new design organization dedicated to creating standards for technology that respect users' time, attention, and humanity. Inspired by historical safety certifications like UL, the institute aims to establish a "CTI" certification for tech products, ensuring they do not demand excessive attention, fail gracefully, and integrate seamlessly into users' lives. The institute, led by a multidisciplinary team including author Doug Rushkoff, seeks to address the detrimental impacts of current tech design by developing and promoting principles of Calm Technology. This initiative will collaborate with various industries, particularly those focusing on connected home products and hospitality, to certify and promote human-centric tech designs that enhance well-being and reduce stress.
We want everyone asking of every high tech product: Does it demand more of our attention than is needed? Does it become “pass-through” when we use it, so that we can focus only on the task, not the tool? And when it breaks, does it fail gracefully — or force us to install an app update or do another time-consuming chore when we’re in the middle of a project?
▶︎ Designing Tech That (Finally) Respects Our Time & Humanity - Amber Case
On infrastructures of care
The MAIA team is exploring how to embed a culture of care within their organization, recognizing care as a complex, political act essential for collective liberation. They focus on integrating care into their infrastructure through various practices like wellbeing days, therapist support, and structural changes, emphasizing adaptability as needs evolve. Their approach views care as reciprocal and multidirectional, addressing the systemic violence and neglect present in current social structures. The team is committed to continuous learning and resilience-building, fostering accountability, and expanding care beyond human relationships to include more-than-human kinships. They draw inspiration from diverse sources and practices, aiming to create sustainable, regenerative care systems within their organization and community.
Under the gravitational pulls of capitalism, consumption logics, a preoccupation with ‘self’hood and the conditioned tendencies shaped by sustained and structural violence, it is easy to drift into care and caring as transactional endeavours, as something that you are either the provider or the recipient of, rather than reciprocal and abundant flows of exchange.
▶︎ What does it mean to grow an organization as an infrastructure of care? - MAIA team
On recipes of hope
Over three months, a group called Huddle explored the concept of Hope in the context of the Climate Emergency, defining it as pathways + goals + agency thinking. Their journey revealed that Hope is a practice requiring continuous nurturing and community engagement. They found that digital spaces can effectively foster a sense of belonging and agency, emphasizing that collective imagination and shared emotional spaces enhance Hope. Key insights include the importance of community, rituals, and embracing uncertainty and experimentation. They developed a nuanced understanding of Hope as a dynamic, collective process and provided a "recipe" for cultivating it through deliberate actions, community building, and maintaining an open, imaginative mindset.
In communities “half the job is done when you have people who really want to be there”. There is a need for spaces of Hope in the world, and you can have this too. Go out, put a message out in the world and find the people around you who you can build a community with.