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Mixed Media, Mixed Feelings, Thoughts and Ideas for the (Social) Media Coverage of the Youth Olympic Games

Fergus Bisset — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 22:17:34 +0000

One of the most interesting aspects of being involved in inaugural Youth Olympic Games and the development and promotion of the Culture and Education Programme which was part of it, was the insight my role provided into the relationship of the media to the Olympic Movement. This is a relationship that is integral to the IOC’s ability to fulfil its principle function of event managing the largest multi-sport events in the world in the form of the Summer Olympiad and the Winter Games. The Youth Olympic Games, brainchild of incumbent IOC President Jacques Rogge is part mission to educate and indite the world’s elite sporting youth into the Olympic Movement, and, part mission to attract a younger audience to the Olympic Games through the media with all the commercial benefits such a lucrative market presents.

Tom Degun from insidethegames interviewing Georgie Harland, GB and Modern Pentathlon's Athlete Role Model for the Youth Olympic Games

If this seems a tad cynical, allow me to express both my utmost belief that Rogge’s vision is first and foremost a personal and, for want of a better word, a moralistic one. The origin of the Youth Olympic Games lying in the European Youth Festivals he devised in his previous role as President of the European Olympic Committees, to bridge the Iron Curtain and the disparities it created in access to ‘fair’ sporting competition and education.

This fact, the ‘business model of the IOC’, according to a representative from the Olympic Solidarity department of the IOC (the department that distributes the funds to each National Olympic Committee and to International Sports Federations to ensure their support and participation in The Games), reinforces how integral a part the media play in sustaining the Olympic Movement.

The IOC is justifiably proud of the fact that it distributes 92-93% (I’ve heard both figures used recently) of its commercial revenue “back into sports development” via the Olympic Solidarity and Olympic Scholarship Schemes. The IOC claim that their model is sustainable, despite the average age of an Olympic TV viewer being something in the region of 40+ years old. Its clear that the addition of some younger audience members would do the sustainability of the IOC’s business no harm at all – hence the Youth Olympic Games.

One of the big parts of my role was to act as spokesperson for the media for the Youth Olympic Games in the buildup to The Games this saw me participate in a number of media days principally organised and managed by PR firm Ogilvie who were acting for Visit Singapore – the Singapore Tourism Board (the host nation, also looking to recoup some of the $300-400M investment it made in staging the Youth Olympic Games).

Anyone, who watched the BBC’s weekly highlights programme from The Youth Games, would have noticed that the programme, fronted by Blue Peter presenter Helen Skelton and Newsround presenter Ore Oduba, focussed predominantly on Britain’s 5 key medal prospects for The Games. It was scathing in the idea of the athletes “having to live and eat with 3,000 other people”, described by the athletes themselves as one of the best parts of the experience. The programmes described the Culture and Education Programme, another integral component to the Youth Olympic Games experience as sounding “boring”. Not a sentiment expressed by any of the athletes that I’m aware of.

Hardly, representative coverage then of The Youth Games ambition to be a celebration of the Olympic Values of Friendship, Excellence and Respect, nor representative of the opinions of the athlete’s through whom the BBC team were trying to tell their story. The BBC coverage instead concentrating on the Excellence of little more than a handful of the British team. Not even so much as conversing with many of the athletes on the team who despite being amongst the best in the world and having given most of their youth to reach this point, weren’t fortunate enough on this occasion to stand on the podium or indeed begin their competition on the first day of The Games.

Needless to say, no one was going to bite the hand that feeds them and suggest that the BBC might want to paint a more representative picture of The Games. It was also clear that no press officer was going to advance any story unless it involved talking about shiny bits of metal around athletes neck’s, or bizarrely, shiny bits of metal in the form of pin badges. This doesn’t say much for the BBC’s interpretation of how, in fact, athletes can and do more generally contribute back to society and can offer more practical inspiration to folks back home. Because apparently all we the mere mortal public care about is medals. Incidentally, the IOC were adamant that no official medal account be kept of The Games, was anyone advising or correcting the BBC of this? I highly doubt it. The medals are an important part of The Games, but they are not The Games. Would anyone watching the BBC coverage back home have been reassured of this? Again, I highly doubt it.

“As the Olympic Broadcaster, did the BBC take this unique opportunity to make the wider experience and values of The Games more accessible to the British public who will host the next one, no of course not.”

Model of the Financial and Social Capital of The Olympic Games (c) Fergus Bisset

All of which is a shame of course and something of a wasted opportunity to truly give voice to the stories that all of these remarkable young people can tell and the inspiration they can provide their nation. This might also explain why the IOC is, and should be, seeking to better exploit other channels of communication, that to put it bluntly, enable more representative coverage of the experience of The Games and in the words of Alex Huot, IOC Head of Social Media “connect as many people as we can with athletes“.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Social Rewards of The Olympic Games (c) Fergus Bisset

Remembering something I’d seen on David Armano’s awesome Logic + Emotion blog, which was exploring the role that social engagement can play as part of a broader PR strategy. I was also interested in how this might integrate with the IOC’s presently ‘sustainable’ business model and using a model I co-created with colleagues at the International Olympic Academy in the summer (thanks guys!) explore what new opportunities social engagement offers in terms of more representative and democratic media coverage of future iterations of the The Games, including of course London 2012 and Innsbruck 2012.

How Social Engagement Fits into a Potential Olympic PR strategy (click to enlarge)

What do you think of the coverage of The Games? Does it make you any more enthusiastic about London hosting The Games? What about the role of social media in sport – do you follow any athletes through social media?

Learning for London 2012 in Singapore

Fergus Bisset — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 04:46:26 +0000

There is an interesting article on insidethegames around what London 2012 can learn from the events out here in Singapore for the Youth Olympic Games. Indeed, for me one of the most striking things I’ve of observed in the past few days, which includes watching GB’s Jade Jones win Gold in the 55kg Taekwondo and Sarah Milne’s inspirationally hard fought and atmospherically electrifying bronze medal final yesterday, is in fact something so obviously brilliant its amazing that it is not a fundamental part of every games.

The activity in question wasn’t directly a sporting event either, but rather as part of the Culture and Education Programme of the Youth Olympic Games a chance for all the young Singaporean primary school kids who, having just watched either Taekwondo or Wrestling could then come and take part in some coaching in either of those sports – most likely for the first time ever in Singapore. Alongside these activities is also a museum showcasing replica torches from previous Olympics and explaining a little bit of the history and values of the Games. This museum, situated as it is in the International Conference Centre in Singapore, is accessible to members of the public who happen to be passing or who might be visiting the adjacent shopping centre. I’m not aware of this sort of thing being integral to the experience of previous Games but it strikes me as something both so brilliant, and in fact so obvious, that any host Olympic city in future, serious about public engagement and ensuring a legacy for the Games, should consider it mandatory at every venue.

Indeed, I think that given that all the athletes from these competitions will be staying in Singapore for the duration of The Games, it would be great to try and negotiate a situation in future where a few of them, or perhaps all of them, devoted a couple of hours post-competition to come and take part in these coaching activities. This would, I think, be a mutually beneficial situation for them at such a young age to get a taste of coaching others, promoting sport and like some of the other Culture and Education activities such as Community Drumming – serve as an introduction to them of getting involved in community work and social development through sport.

Over the past week of the inaugural Youth Olympic Games there have been many highlights and the final week will doubtless contain many more. But for me, seeing this activity and witnessing the potential for activities such as these to become part of the future of the Olympic Movement is as exciting as witnessing the young sports people who in London 2012 and Rio 2016 will come to embody it.

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August 11th, 2010 -- Services Supporting Singapore Sporting Success (2)

Services Supporting Singapore Sporting Success

Fergus Bisset — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:14:35 +0000

As you might have gathered from some previous posts, I’ve been working as a Young Ambassador for Team GB at the Youth Olympic Games which are due to start in two days time in Singapore. As one of 30 such Ambassadors from 30 different National Olympic Committees – it was a great experience to be part of my own National Olympic Committee’s ‘Kitting Out Day’ on Monday ahead of Team GB’s departure to Singapore. The day consisted of the distribution of the kit to all athletes, coaches and officials as well as lots of media interviews before we got on the plane to Singapore on Monday evening. For an interview with one of Britain’s top prospects for the Games Victoria Ohuruogu you can click here. You can also find a related interview I did recently with another of the members of Team GB Eli Thorogood about her expectations for Singapore a few weeks ago.

Athlete kitbags waiting for collection, Team GB Kitting Out Day, Heathrow

The kitting out day itself was but one facet of the huge number of support systems and services that would be called into play throughout Monday and will yet be relied upon throughout the athletes stay in Singapore. All of these ‘services’ and ‘systems’ are critical to ensuring athlete participation and success in Singapore but are unfortunately rarely seen by spectators or viewers at home.

The kit itself, fundamental to ensuring that the athletes have a consistent and visceral sense of team and national identity, was delivered on six pallets on Sunday morning and sorted by a volunteer team all Sunday into the 75 or so kitbags that accompanied us out to Singapore – that’s nearly 7000 individual pieces of clothing – thanks have to go to Adidas of course but also to those in the BOA Office who gave up there Sunday and who have spent months in the co-ordination of the design, sizing, manufacture and delivery of all this gear.

The athlete's kit - a fundamental touchpoint in the sporting experience

The next major piece of logistics that came into play on Monday was of course transportation – there is something quite amazing about the ability of British Airways and Heathrow Airport to cope with being descended upon by 70-odd athletes and staff, with huge amounts of gear and fragile sporting equipment – in addition to being able to deal with the thousands of other travellers flying in and out on Monday night.

Team GB Checking in at Heathrow

And collecting it all again at the other end...

Needless to say all the kit (and team members) made it to Singapore safely, but it is to me fascinating all the details that go into running a international multisport event such as the Youth Olympic Games – an area for the outsized fencing, pole vault, cycling and kayaking equipment to be dropped off at the airport and taken to the venues for example. Or the hundreds of young Singaporeans and international volunteers between the airport and the Olympic Village to meet, greet and escort athletes and officials through their accreditation and to the accommodation. All of whom must have been trained in the past few weeks and months. All working together seamlessly to help ensure that the 3,600 athletes from 205 different nations can congregate in anticipation of the start of the Games. Indeed, the value of the kit is also affirmed in simply being able to distinguish yourself and your team mates from everyone else in such a high concentration of people, processes and equipment!

If you haven’t sussed it already, the theme of this post is support and there are a few things really that have really struck me so far in this experience relating to the idea of support services. 1) All of the logistics support mentioned above and the tireless – often unnoticed – care and energy that goes into ensuring that the team get from a to b intact and in the right state of mind. 2) The unique relationships and support between parents and athletes and coaches and athletes that have enabled and empowered these talented youngsters to achieve what they have and that continue to help support and prepare the athletes ahead of their imminent competitions. Its also interesting to observe the way the relationships between athletes are shaped by the experience of travelling together and living with each other in the fist couple of days in the Youth Olympic Village – Team GB is taking shape. 3) It’s also interesting the way that the media helps cultivate support for the athletes with the folks back home, on the behalf of whom they are of course competing and 4) the amazing way that Singaporeans have come together to support the Olympics coming to their home city and country and the staggering efforts that have been put in by them all here to shape the accommodation and the competition venues and to make sure they are all running smoothly at Games time.

I’m looking forward to the next two weeks of doing my bit to support the performance of Team GB and I’m looking forward to sharing it with you. For latest updates you can either follow me on Twitter or Team GB on Twitter and Facebook. The whole team looks forward to your support.

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October 28th, 2009 -- User Needs are Outdated, We Should Be Designing User Goals… (1)
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December 17th, 2009 -- You Say You Want A Revolution… a Service Design Revolution (2)
March 31st, 2010 -- Simultaneous Translation – The Olympics and Communication For A Better World (2)
April 1st, 2010 -- Do you value the Olympic Games? How can the Olympic Games be designed better? (2)
December 9th, 2009 -- Modelling Motivation in the Design of Products, Systems and Services (0)
September 5th, 2010 -- Mixed Media, Mixed Feelings, Thoughts and Ideas for the (Social) Media Coverage of the Youth Olympic Games (0)

Olympic Day 2010 – An update from the International Olympic Academy

Fergus Bisset — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 18:10:18 +0000

Well first of all, apologies for my recent social media hiatus, particularly from this blog, I’ve been trying to cut back in an attempt to finish writing up my MPhil dissertation on Measuring Motivation and Engagement, there will be more on that once it’s done. For this past week and for the next, I’ve also had the privilege of being able to attend the International Olympic Academy (IOA) in Olympia, Greece, as part of my work as GB’s Young Ambassador for the Youth Olympic Games. Today, the 23rd June is also Olympic Day, so where better a place to celebrate?

Ahead of the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore in August The British Olympic Foundation and The Get Set For London 2012 Team are marking Olympic Day with a challenge to all school age children to blog about five new things they have done for each one of the five Olympic rings, so within that context I thought I’d let you know five of the highlights of International Olympic Academy so far, and hopefully within that, some interesting reflections on the Olympic Movement. Details of the Get Set Competition can be found here.

1. First new thing must be the 200 new people under the age of 30, from 95 different countries that have descended upon Greece for this year’s IOA, just like the inaugural Youth Olympics coming up in the Singapore this summer and London in 2012 – the Olympic Movement and the Olympic Games wouldn’t exist without participants. In fact that was the subject of IOC Member Peter Tallberg‘s presentation yesterday, which gave an overview of the different ways that the IOC is seeking to open itself up as an organisation, become more democratic and better support it’s athletes. This is with a view to increasingly better support and seeking guidance of members of public and the communities that host The Games. This was a frank presentation that acknowledged that the IOC has plenty to learn in this area. The discussions that followed covered some of the controversy over the coverage of both the Beijing Games and Vancouver protests and what the participants feel the IOC can do differently in future in this respect. The great thing about being part of such a diverse and energetic group of people, as I am here, is that there are no shortages of people to challenge your perceptions, whether in discussing the role of sport in resolving tensions in Sudan or in ensuring gender equality and empowerment all over the world there is plenty to learn from this great bunch of people!

2. The second new thing this past week was attending an open air classical music concert and opening ceremony at the top of the hill of Sphyx in Athens for the opening ceremony of the IOA, it was a stunning setting being overlooked by the Parthenon, various awards were bestowed on eminent Greeks for this contribution to the Olympic Movement, with awards also being made to Sir Philip Craven head of the International Paralympic Committee and to Irena Szewińska who also presented to us later on in the week.

3. The third new thing this week has been visiting the site of, and understanding more about, the Ancient Olympics. The ancient site of Olympia, of which I can’t help but admit I am now mayor on Foursquare, is fascinating and helped us all gain a clearer understanding of the inspiration behind the Modern Games, particularly the ideals of the Olympic Truce which called for an end to hostilities between Greek states during the Ancient Games. This truce is something that the IOC campaigns alongside the UN to uphold every time The Modern Games is hosted. The role of sport in creating global peace is the title of the proceedings of this session of the IOA and the focus of most of our discussions.

Bumball from a2activity.dk

4. The fourth new thing this week been playing bumball, this is apparently a Danish game which involves wearing pieces of velcro on your chest and bum and using them to catch and carry a velcro ball – in effect it is a cross between touch rugby, netball and nothing you’ve ever played before but it’s really good fun and made up one of our early morning physical activities before breakfast this week.

Team Scandinavia on the start line at Ancient Olympia

5. The fifth new thing this week is in some respects not a new thing at all, but rather, confirmation that the Olympic Movement, celebrated today on Olympic Day is far more than the Olympic Games. The Olympic Movement headed by the IOC aims to place sport at the service of humanity and thereby to promote peace. This was backed up by a surprising statistic from Peter Tallberg’s presentation that 92% of the IOC’s revenue goes to the development of sport worldwide. It has been inspiring spending time understanding what the Olympics and the Olympic Values of Friendship, Respect and Excellence mean to so many young people from all over the world. Perhaps if we all work together, as we have been over the past week, we can all help make the Olympics that little bit better for everyone. Happy Olympics Day!

Visualising Performance; What can Designers and Olympians learn from each other?

Fergus Bisset — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 17:38:06 +0000

I immensely enjoyed (late) last night’s first episode of Olympic Dreams, which you can catch on BBC iPlayer here and follows a number of young British athletes and former and future Olympians as they prepare for London 2012. The documentary gives a fascinating insight into the balancing act that is the life of an elite athlete, particularly an upcoming elite athlete. I’ve talked often on this blog about some of my own experiences performing this balancing act and a big part of my role as Young Ambassador for the Youth Olympic Games is assisting the members of TeamGB with this balancing act of juggling training and a social life with the demands of education.

These challenges are far from unique to elite athletes however, I’m sure all of us are familiar with the pressures associated with ensuring good performance in either our personal or professional lives or indeed in our hobbies or sporting commitments. For me as someone with fairly a dominant kinaesthetic and visual learning style, visualising performance was always a huge part of ensuring I achieved what I set out to do. I was excited to see Tom Daley talk and demonstrate his pre-dive visualisation process in last night’s documentary and it reminded me of my undergraduate dissertation project ‘Insight‘ a mobile phone and augmented reality environment to aid athletic performance.

Canadian Cross-country skier Chandra Crawford using music to help prepare her performance at the Vancouver Games (c) Vancouver Sun

I’ve often found however, that visualisation (and supporting performance preparation with music) can also be really effective in terms of helping prepare for lectures or presentations that I’ve given, thinking through in my mind where and what I’ll be presenting and how I anticipate the audience to react.

This is an approach that is also increasingly employed in the design world and by service design consultants to help their clients achieve innovative and creative insights or ensure effective service design and delivery. Vocal proponents of these theatrical, role play and embodied approaches to service design include Adam Lawrence (who is well worth following on Twitter, if you don’t already).

Fast Company also covered a related notion a while back, talking about how standup comedy helps design and creativity. As one of the coaches in last nights documentary pointed out – its really about standing up and delivering your performance when it matters – how different they is this to so many other aspects of life? What can the way sports people deal with this pressure do to help us inform our own processes and (quite literally) practice? These principles are similar in justification to why experience prototyping and test-rigs are such effective tools for new product and service development – as just like Tom Daley they allow stakeholders to act our their performances whilst developing them. This process in turn makes those performances ‘more real’ every time they are iterated or evolved – making the experience more realistic every time it is enacted. The outcomes of this aren’t always positive however, and the downsides of realistic training environments and visualisation is something that @georgejulian has blogged about recently.

Prototypes - another form of visualisation (from Ergonomics - Real Design at The Design Museum

One of the big attractions for me of Service Design as a discipline is the myriad ways, tools and processes that it affords practitioners and participants to help people visualise their needs and demands from a service or the complex socio-technological systems and relationships that make up the service. I wonder how Service Designers and designers more generally, might be able to collaborate with sports psychologists and athletes to share practice and experiences on new and creative approaches to visualisation and expression. Would this be of reciprocal benefit – in other words would sports people benefit from more creative and collaborative approaches to preparing for competition?

I also wonder if there is a career pathway or opportunities for athletes to support the design and development of user experiences and the design of products, systems and services after, or in order to support, their careers as full time athletes?

What the Olympic Values Mean to Papua New Guinea

Fergus Bisset — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 20:13:15 +0000

A few days ago I asked people to submit any reflections or thoughts they were willing to share on what the Olympic meant to them personally. To get the ball rolling I thought I’d share some video I took last week when I was in Singapore as part of the Youth Olympic Culture and Education Programme Seminar. I asked my fellow Young Ambassador from Papua New Guinea Shannon Andrews what he thought he and his team of athletes could gain from competing in the Games in Singapore this August. The interview took place as we were walking through Chinatown.

I think this an awesome insight and a really honest reflection from Shannon and would like to take this opportunity to thank him for sharing it. It is clear that Singapore is a fascinating example of a multi-racial community being united by a common sense of identity, this can act as a role model to a country such as Papua New Guinea which Shannon told me has over 800 different dialects and many tribal identities and affiliations.

I think for me this is part of what I really admire about the Olympics and excites me about my role as a Young Ambassador for Great Britain (itself, uniquely, a nation formed of four other nations) is the power of sport and the Olympic ideals in uniting people irrespective of political, social or religious background. I also think that, as Shannon alludes and as I mentioned a few days ago, the power of the Olympics in bringing people from all over the globe together with shared aims, ambitions and interests can offer us much cause for optimism.

What do you think about the Olympics and its values of friendship, respect and excellence? Do you share the optimism they offer or do you think they are too idealistic? Do you feel that you can point to examples of these values in your local communities? If you can I’d be really interested to hear about it and help the Team GB athletes competing at the Games this summer bring their Olympic experiences back to their local communities. Please use the comments box below or contact me on Twitter.

Simultaneous Translation – The Olympics and Communication For A Better World

Fergus Bisset — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 16:50:42 +0000

Simultaneous Translation Booths at the Chef de Mission Seminar, 25th March, Singapore - (c) SYOGOC 2010

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been fortunate over the past week to have been invited to Singapore to participate in a Seminar ahead of the inaugural Youth Olympic Games to be held there this August. I was invited in my role as Great Britain’s Youth Ambassador for the Games – it was a great experience and a chance to meet my colleagues in this role from 29 other countries from all over the globe. Some of the other Ambassadors from other nations have already recounted their thoughts and initial reactions from the trip elsewhere; Florian from Austria, Erin from the United States and Callum from Canada are all in agreement that this was a fantastic and memorable trip. It didn’t seem to matter where each of us came from or whether our backgrounds were as youth worker, designer or Olympic medalist, or whether we spoke English, Spanish, Khmer or Mandarin. The power of the activities and the spirit and idealism that had brought us to Singapore and that the Olympic Games provides, ensured that it did not take long for us to build a strong understanding and friendship with each other.

It was also a great chance to understand more about the host nation of Singapore and in the company of 60 local ‘Youth Champions’ last week we were immersed in the activities and rich culture that await the athletes and visitors to the Youth Olympic Games in August. The cultural diversity of Singapore itself makes it an ideal venue for such an ambitious venture in cross-cultural understanding and expression.

Speaking with president of the IOC Jacques Rogge, 24th March 2010

The Culture and Education Programme (CEP) is a new initiative, the brain child of current International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge to, in his own words, “reinvent the Olympics.” This sounds dramatic but in effect this is an inspired move on the part of the IOC to attempt to reconnect the modern day Olympic Games with its founding vision of the Olympics as a celebration of not just sporting achievement but also of international cultural, social and educational activities. Over the next few months I will elaborating and promoting these cultural and educational activities to and on behalf of the young athlete members of Team GB, through this blog and a number of other initiatives both online and offline in the build up to the Games. It is an exciting and challenging prospect – helping communicate the hundred and sixteen year old Olympic values and developing and supporting activities that encourage others to embody the values and their idealism.

YOG CEP Seminar, Singapore, March 2010 (c) SYOGOC 2010

I understand that it would be easy to write off this role and its responsibilities as too idealistic and unrepresentative, either of the wider challenges facing the world today or on account of the Olympics potentially seeming like the frivolous entertainment of a privileged, able bodied few. However, one of the most striking experiences of many last week was attending the Chief de Mission Seminar, which was attended by representatives of 205 National Olympic Committees. My guess is that you probably need to visit the UN to have another chance to sit in a room with that many other nationalities – the power and potential of sport uniting nations in pursuit of common goals and ideals, communicating in only two languages (English and French) is an awe inspiring phenomenon and it was a privilege to be part of it.

The good news is, that with the addition of a Cultural and Educational Programme to the Youth Olympics this summer – the opportunities for broader expression and for creating greater global understanding, collaboration and participation, is not limited to sport nor simply to dry meetings and discussions. The Youth Olympic Games will open up the Olympic movement to the full range of human capability, expression and communication and in turn provide inspiration and opportunities for millions of people both young and old to participate in and appreciate something ‘youthful’, fresh and exciting.

I look forward to sharing my experiences with you. Check back for more updates on my journey as Great Britain’s Young Ambassador and in the meantime for a bit of taster of the activities of last week check out this video from the Singapore Youth Games Organising Committee – my thanks to everyone who made this week so memorable and who are working so hard to make the Singapore Youth Olympic Games a fantastic success.

What do you think – can the Olympics, enable better communication and understanding between nations and promote a more peaceful world?

Managing Motivation

Fergus Bisset — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:05:26 +0000

Julian Birkinshaw from the excellent Unstructure blog has asked me to contribute to the discussion he has eloquently started on the role of employee motivation in the changing dynamic of today’s business environment. This in part follows on from Arne van Oosterom’s Made With Care discussion on Wenovski.

In support of his discussion of how managers might support employee Motivation, Julian leverages the same Self Determination Theory (Deci and Ryan, 1985, 2000, 2004) that has formed the basis of my own research. His coverage of the Material, Social and Personal drivers of Motivation need little further coverage as I’ve referred to them on my blog and associated discussions using Deci and Ryan’s original terms of Autonomy, Relatedness and Competence. Julian suggests that managers should utilise these three aspects of human psychological capability to help turn ‘extrinsically regulated‘ organisational objectives into ‘identified‘ personal motives of employees. In otherwords, managers should use the prospects of material, social and personal rewards to encourage employees to take ownership of organisational objectives and become more personally intrinsically rewarding. I would also supplement this with Valerand’s, (2003) definition that motivation occurs on “global, contextual and situational” levels of recursion.

As I’ve mentioned in the discussion on Wenovski a great example of an organisation doing this is Zappos, an American online retailer, that uses it’s employees to amongst other things model the clothes they sell. Specifically this example is appealing to an employee’s underlying Relatedness and Competence ‘needs’ and allowing them to fulfill those ‘needs’ on behalf of the organisation, which in turn benefits the organisation’s own Relatedness and Competence objectives, by providing customers with a familiar, down to earth and empathetic marketing touch point. Literally in this case the employee is embodying the organisation. This, if successful, and it is proving very successful for Zappos, will in the long term also enhance the organisations global Autonomy by boosting sales (the material outcome) as well as it’s social outcome (what customers think) and its personal, or personnel outcome by enhancing its relationship with its employees.

Motivational Framework v0.1 cc Fergus Bisset

As one of the commenters on Unstructure Marc Buyens said, “these are not new concepts”, but I think the difference is that re-conceptualising these as motivational constructs or regulatory mechanisms can have quite a powerful effect on the way an organisation manages them. The above diagram indicates another few ways from the literature of conceptualising both how and why to target ‘management interventions’. For example, these help determine at what stage you are energising as opposed to directing employee/customer behaviour and whether or not you are doing so to instil awareness of issues or to reaffirm employee confidence or satisfaction.

Indeed, motivation is all around us, it is the root of our every behaviour and that’s a critical point I’d like to bring to this conversation, motivation whether positive or negative (demotivation) will occur whether you want it to or not. Within your organisation, your staff and colleagues, and yourself. Deci and Ryan’s theory is an organismic one, that is, it perceives that we as humans are naturally predisposed to grow and organically adapt to our environment, seeking out new challenges, responsibilities and recognition in order to fulfil these underlying psychological needs. The question to managers is perhaps best asked, not might you support motivation, but rather how are you currently regulating motivation within your organisation? How are you directing or maintaining the energisation of the behaviour in your organisation?

A very innovative approach to this I discovered yesterday, came via the Swedish TV Licensing Authority with their Tack (Thank You) campaign. Allowing individuals who upon paying their tv licences to submit a picture of themselves and be integrated to a well highly produced and aspirational “thank you” video. Actually, anyone can have a go, which does kind of undermine the point a little, but its powerful stuff – underlining the point that for managers the best way to motivate your employees is to integrate them into the middle of the organisation and allow them to take ownership and participate in the critical issues of the organisation and become an evangelist for them.

From a Self Determination perspective at least, every employee has those Personal ‘Material, Social and Competence ‘Needs” Julian mentions, fulfilment of these results in happiness for the individual. However, because of the nested and recursive nature of self determined behaviour and societies, organisations also have ‘Material, Social and Competence‘ ‘Needs’. The obvious question for managers then is how are you facilitating the fulfilment of both of these first order (happiness) and second order ‘needs’ (success) and in doing so creating a motivated, energised and purposeful organisation? As I shared on Twitter yesterday:

“Success is getting what you want (contextual/global – extrinsic). Happiness is wanting what you get (situational – intrinsic).”

Five Minutes of Fame at the Nordic Service Design Conference Dinner

Fergus Bisset — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:43:50 +0000

20091130NordicSDC_dinner_34, originally uploaded by Nina Lysbakken.

Thanks to Nina Lysbakken for this picture taken during the presentation from team from Livework Oslo talking about the results of the Service Design Challenge. This was a great co-created dinner, during what was a fantastic conference – more to come on all of it later, just as soon as I get a chance!

Other Insights...

September 5th, 2010 -- Mixed Media, Mixed Feelings, Thoughts and Ideas for the (Social) Media Coverage of the Youth Olympic Games (0)
October 1st, 2009 -- Framework of Motivated Behaviour (0)
September 12th, 2009 -- Experience Service Design (3)
June 22nd, 2009 -- Design for Change (0)
June 14th, 2009 -- The Logic of Design Thinking (1)
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December 3rd, 2009 -- Managing Motivation (0)

Design for Self-Service – A motivational psychology perspective

Fergus Bisset — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:22:50 +0000

Jason Cooper (@jasecoop) fired out some quick Twitter research this afternoon inquiring after people’s perceptions of the self-service checkout machines we are increasingly faced with at supermarkets these days. These have been in the press this week as Tesco announced that it is to open it’s first ‘automated’ store in Northampton.

I have been meaning to write about these for awhile, so thanks Jase for pushing me in that direction.

M&S Self Service Checkout from jaygooby on Flickr

These machines as most of us will doubtless testify are incredibly frustrating. Not once have I ever used one without the human operator having to be summoned to remedy some sensor malfunction or barcode scanning problem. Yet, every time I see one available, even if simultaneously offered the option of a human operator I seem inexplicably drawn to the automatic machine and it’s purgatorial system processes.

Apart from a potential underlying masochistic streak, the only logical explanation I can find is that it is the perception that it will save me time (efficiency) that drives me to persist with these things. Doubtless this is the win for Tesco too. Yet, no sooner have I pressed it’s big green greasy start button and started scanning than it fails to register me place one of my items in the ‘bagging area’. This usually results in a near instant increase in blood pressure and me swearing blind I’ll never use one again.

Indeed, it is always an issue with the ‘bagging area’ on these machines – with either the sensor not registering that you have placed the item there after scanning it or the sensor detecting that somehow there is “an unidentified item in the bagging area.” In either eventuality it stalls and requires someone to come and prod your shopping or swipe their golden keycard until it is satisfied again. Urghh – even thinking about it makes me tense. No wonder that some of the responses that Jason’s questions were generating this afternoon on these machines were strong in their tone.

From a motivational design perspective however, these machines should really be a hands down winner, as I discussed here and again yesterday. The literature would suggest that anything that promotes our autonomy – our ability to do our shopping ourself, should be a strong motivational tool. The fact that at least until this week in Northampton, customers had a choice between machine and human was also a strong piece of motivational design as it offered otherwise inclined service users the chance to further their relatedness (social) goals for the shopping experience. If they preferred to have someone scan their shopping for them instead of scan their own shopping autonomously.

As I perceive it where these ‘self-service’ checkouts fall down at the moment is in how they fail to fulfil our competence needs. Every time the sensor fails or the barcode is dirty or scratched, we can’t help but take it personally. The machine and it’s support processes make us feel incompetent. Not so much the fact it doesn’t work, as Eddie Izzard highlights brilliantly that has always been a integral part of supermarket shopping.

No, its the fact that in the majority of these ‘problem’ situations we require some other (usually slouching and disinterested) bod to come and fix it for us that these machines leave us feeling so drained and bitter. Further, it is the fact that they usually have to do this three or four times in one transaction that makes us want to burn effigies of the things. And yet next time round, and for me at least, the allure of autonomously being able to scan my own shopping is enough to suck me back into it’s beeping, monotone voiced vortex.

How could all this be made better then? Well, I’m quite keen to open that question up to you…I also kind of think that this is what Jase is away working on right now…

But, first things first Tesco could sort that ‘bagging area’ sensor out, either by eliminating it completely and demonstrating a bit more trust that users aren’t going to scan one item whilst sneaking others into their bags – surely that sort of behaviour is far more effectively prevented by the humans in Tesco’s employ. Indeed the more I reflect on it, this really seems like a engineering function (feedback process) that looked great on the system flowchart and in the product presentation pitch but that simply is not up to the demands of real world, non-expert operation. Probably as a result of a complete and utter lack of real world testing prior to installation, and the fact that the product development process clearly doesn’t accommodate an iterative design process or user feedback even now the product is in operation.

Most of all, and the biggest design issue from a Motivational Design point of view, is the fact that when this flawed functionality inevitably fails, the staff should look us in the eye and explain to us why the machine is having this problem as they solve it for us. Such increased transparency (or supported user skill and knowledge acquisition) will empower users to at least feel like they understand the technology a bit better. Such understanding or ‘mental model’ will help users in the event of a problem feel superior and more capable than the machine. Such an enhanced perception of capability will help restore a little of the behavioural equilibrium within the human-product interaction and ensure that we are just as motivated next time we visit to use the self-service systems. This is indeed, the paradox of automation – the more automated a process the more we rely on non-automated components of the system. Its also why all the unions, consumers groups and sensationalist press should stop their moaning about the so-called “death of the supermarket operator”.

In summary, if Tesco plan to introduce these machines nationwide, they will have to take a more holistic view of the service these machines are supposed to provide as well as realising the fundamental role that their human staff play in ensuring a smooth and seamless consumer experience.

What do you think? How would you redesign these machines to motivate more people to use them?

Ferg's Blog » Fergus Bisset

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