[Music]
[Applause]
hello brilliant to see you all this
morning thank you for being here I want
to try a small experiment can I get you
all to stand up please thank you I know
you’ve done a bit of clapping but can
you clap again imagine you’re giving me
a standing ovation ha ha ha ha
thank you thank you that’s done my TEDx
talks is done you know zero zero crunch
time
I’ve managed to get a standing ovation
and that’s the end of my talk please sit
down I wanted to do that because I
wanted to visualize the outcome of my
talk so I could relax I’m the first
speaker so I wanted to like say okay I’m
going to get a standing ovation so now I
just reverse engineer what I just did
there I’m going to be talking about
decisions and how we make decisions
because I have a confession to make I
hate making decisions I prevaricate I
procrastinate I just try and avoid in
the last moment and this also happened
for the TEDx talk
my poor organizers they did not know the
topic of my speech you know when I was
arriving when I was supposed to be here
because I just couldn’t deal with the
logistics so I think that’s quite
interesting because I don’t think I’m
alone many of us hate taking decisions
and why is that the reason I made you
guys stand up and clap for me is I’m I’m
scared of the outcome so when I take a
decision I’m worried about the result
the outcome and today what I want to do
is make us step back and think about how
we take a decision how does it make you
feel so when you’re taking that decision
you actually feel happy with the result
so we’ve all been here right like every
morning imagine you put on your alarm
you have this great idea of getting up
at 6:30 in the morning and go for a jog
or a run
I’m from London it’s always raining
outside and I should confess it’s pretty
hard to motivate myself to get out so
6:30 in the morning the alarm goes off
I’ve subscribed to all this amazing
Instagram motivational quotes about
being positive changing yourself going
and doing it and alarm goes off it’s a
bit warm in bed I want to stay in it’s
raining outside I’ll just have a bit of
snooze so put it on the snooze it’s
eight o’clock I still haven’t got out I
haven’t gone for a run I haven’t changed
myself I’m still the same human with all
the bugs
nothing has improved and this happens to
own fuss we all striving to become
better change our behavior but you know
what the problem is the problem is we
don’t know who we actually are so if you
decide to change yourself you think
you’re changing yourself for somebody
else in the society on how some
motivational positive guru things you
should be successful see you in the
morning and make your morning crunch
time really work for you that’s not who
you are
you trying to be somebody else so the
first step to take a good decision is to
understand who you are because if you
understand who you are that’s half the
battle one because the problem is we are
humans and humans are unpredictable your
emotional via random and being human
these days is seen as a bad thing
our whole society is geared about making
us feel more productive more efficient
there’s algorithms and BOTS taking over
our jobs machine learning it’s all about
predicting your behaviors so with that
issue being human being random messy
late for work all of these things
becomes a bug and that’s really bad
because us our whole society is geared
towards productivity inefficiency and
trying to get away from those buggy
human features so one of the things that
I find quite interesting as a designer
so I have a company called design for
social change where we work with data in
the cities is
how do you actually capture the human
quirks our intelligence and bring that
as a positive force to change cities so
just last evening I heard the bad news
about the attacks in London and that’s
very close to my house I go running and
cycling by West Minister and one of the
things that made me think a lot about is
what could I have done to prevent
something like that happening as a
citizen in my own city of London and
this is quite important because
sometimes as humans we feel helpless we
feel like we have no choice we have all
these amazing technologies but when
something like that happens you feel
like I can’t do anything about it and
that’s where I want to challenge this
idea that you as a citizen of Warsaw can
actually keep your city safe as well
so how would you do that you do that in
a simple wave so first of all how many
of you guys use some kind of app or some
kind of map or technology to find your
way to this conference centre can I have
a show of hands brilliant so we’re all
pretty much data-driven so that’s your
first interaction right you either took
your phone out or you took event online
you looked at Google Maps or some kind
of mapping thing you looked at my taxi
you try to use these services to get
here so that’s your first interaction is
actually using your data so how could
you use their that data of you commuting
from your home to the state X conference
place in a way that could have improved
your commute or could have made your
experience of worse or traffic much
better and that’s what I want you guys
to start thinking about is how we have
the power and access of our own data to
improve our everyday life in cities and
the reason this is important for
decision-making is two things first of
all if you are able to figure out all
those data points that you have every
day with your interaction the city it
becomes very easy for you to decide what
you’re going to do with that data and
how you can use a data to actually
improve something with your own opted-in
it’s not somebody’s like
snooping on you and trying to take your
data away from you you as a citizen are
sitting on this massive gold of your own
data you decide what to do with it the
second thing which I would challenge we
ask people keep giving away our
decision-making capability every one or
four years to other dodgy humans called
politicians who decide on our behalf
what should happen every day in your
life I know this is a slightly
contentious topic because we’re all
supposed to believe in democracy but if
we step back and look at the fact that
we are all intelligent people here we
all collectively can do something we
don’t need to necessarily give away our
idea of responsibility to somebody else
who decides on your behalf on how you’re
how to improve your commute to come
Hawaii here to this conference center or
how many hospital beds extra hospital
beds needs to be there you can decide
based upon your own interaction of going
to the hospital having a bad time there
being waiting and sat down for a long
time before you’re seen by a doctor that
is your personal experience it’s not
your president your prime minister or
your local councillors experience they
are not in your shoes so why do we give
away that decision-making capability of
you deciding for yourself on how to
improve that experience with the
hospital to somebody else to do that for
you and this is what gets interesting is
in our current day we have so much
access to technologies which can take
that data that you are using as a part
of your own activity in order to improve
the hospital experience so what I’d like
to do is step back and think about how
every day your interactions with what
you do with the city the data and
activities you do are actually actively
used to improve those services that you
would like to see improved in the city
itself so what’s the reason of doing
this what’s the purpose behind this I
have two inspirations one is my own
culture like I come from India there’s a
concept of Karma
and in karma we believe is you
what you do is not what you say it’s
your actions and the second is my
grandmother she is 98 and she’s a
fiercely independent woman living alone
in in Mumbai and I have a lot of
inspiration from some of the things she
did independently but coming back to
karma I think very important that when
you look at our actions every day when
you decide not to get up and go for that
run do you decide to help somebody on
the street to cross the road to being a
better citizen and actually paying your
taxes all those actions add up to become
who you are and that actually impacts
and changes the society around you so if
you consciously start thinking about
your actions versus what you say on
Facebook what you say on Instagram what
you see on Twitter
you actively start seeing what is it
they’re actually doing every day as a
human to improve yourself or to improve
the situation around yourself those
actions add up and those actions can be
tracked and this gets interesting right
now you think oh my god bigbrother
surveillance no if you have a phone if
you have a Fitbit if you have other
devices on you these things are actively
tracking your data and that’s what gets
beautiful because that data if you
decide as a person to opt-in and work
with somebody else that data can have
some marvelous effects which can improve
in general the overall society so my
grandmother coming back to why I brought
her up had another notion she said every
time you are taking a decision
don’t be invested in the outcome and
that’s quite difficult isn’t it because
we all try to look at a result if you’re
going for an exams you’re worried about
the results if you’re doing a software
you’re doing a/b testing you are trying
to figure out what the results of your
work is she said the best way to be
happy and happy with your decision is to
be in the present not think about the
past there is no past not think about
the future but actively be here right
now so I’m grateful that all of you are
listening to me and giving
your attention to me because we are all
present right now and this present has
an amazing moment because if you
actively are there at this present
moment listening to me or your present
wherever at your work or when you’re
commuting in the city that present
moment and the data of what you’re doing
is what will become your conscious way
of giving back to the city once you’re
actively following what you’re doing so
what that means is and I’m not probably
making much sense is if you think about
data is just the way you eat food like
you’re worried about the provenance of
food you wouldn’t just eat junk food for
the sake of it you won’t understand
where your food is coming from so the
similar way every interaction you do
whether you go on to like Facebook and
decide to like something and those guys
are going to take your profile
information store it on the cloud
somewhere and then start profiling you
you don’t have any agency or
decision-making capability of how that
data can be used by you because suddenly
your Facebook feed shows very very
specific kind of information all those
little paper cuts of how you interact
with different services if you start
consciously measuring that you could use
your interactions in a very different
way so first step of hacking the system
is to be conscious of your own data
interactions with the system so once
you’ve done an audit whether you use
your oyster card in London and tap it in
and out in in the tube or whether you’re
interacting with Facebook once you’ve
done a full audit of a day in the life
of me and all my data interactions you
find somebody to use that data and do
something interesting a partner in crime
now how do you find a partner in crimes
a very nerdy concept it’s not like
you’re dating on tinder and say hey I
want to find a data partner can you know
swipe left and find somebody I can do
something interesting this data but why
why not you could create a profile and
you can say let’s go and actually hack
our dating activity and see all the kind
of things are going to do together just
to step back and look at who we actually
are or you could look at a freedom for
information act where you can look up
some of the policies of your city or of
what the
was doing and find other partners in
crime so one of the important things
which I believe we can do is do an audit
of your data find a partner of crime and
third thing is basically change the
preference file for yourself so every
time you think Facebook Twitter or a
cookie on your on your computer knows
exactly your preferences you can also
change your preferences so I used to
drink coffee a lot and I stopped
drinking coffee and suddenly switch to
tea and I start stop getting all these
advertisements was trying to sell me
various kind of flat white offers
because suddenly I became a tea person
so it’s important that you can gamify
the system and at the same time change
your preferences so nobody can really
predict you as a human saying this is
who you are these are your behaviors you
are able to put the system away and come
up with a new way of a new preference
file so the reason I’m saying these
things because I really believe that we
as humans have lost our own creativity
because we believe that there’s
algorithms and machine learning and they
will decide for us the outcome and what
I would love to leave you guys with is
to take back control be Punk be human be
random embrace serendipity
you don’t need to decide you can change
your mind but it’s really important that
you remain in a way unpredictable
because you can’t design predictability
very well it doesn’t systems thank you
don’t run away no no no no no you’ve
come come along where you don’t get
don’t get to just run away just like
this come on stay in the red circle for
a while longer serendipity is my
favorite word ever if you guys were here
last year we had a thing about
serendipity you don’t know if you recall
humans are very good at serendipity we
so long as we open up to other humans
machines just don’t get it
this is not a thing that the machines
understand how as a designer who whose
job really is to to be empathetic that’s
kind of the bottom line right yeah how
do you expand your your relationships
how do you work with your circle of of
the people you work with your your
friends how do you create more space for
seven dbt to happen in your work and in
your life
excellent question Ralph I think one of
the things I love in software is Easter
eggs you actually create like things
that people can discover which is
outside the standard feature set so you
find things almost where people can come
across a function like this one on last
night calm which has like a when an
Excel spreadsheet which comes up if your
boss is watching when you are actually
planning for holidays it’s a fake thing
just to make pretend that you’re not
doing something which is planning a
holiday and office times are thinking
that’s as a designer what you’re trying
to do is you’re trying to figure out all
those little quirks and humanity that
you can put into small interactions like
the cost of coffee mark has got extra
ribs on it so that it spreads the heat
around the same time it feels really
nice to hold I think it’s a little
insights of human interaction which you
introduce in a very kind of subtle way
which can give the products and services
a certain kind of personality and
character I think that’s what designers
ultimately try to do is put yourself in
the shoes of somebody else try to
understand from their perspective and
introduce a little quirks in the system
to make things feel a lot more human
with character rather than just
mechanicals I hope that’s what I tried
to do in my work as well and you and it
takes a lot of effort it takes a lot of
effort but that’s why you work with
people and groups and it constantly
tests things and at the same time you
don’t try and predict the overall
feature set you try and introduce what
people are already doing as part of the
existing behaviors and put that back
into the system thank you thank you for
your Prakash what
[Applause]
hello brilliant to see you all this
morning thank you for being here I want
to try a small experiment can I get you
all to stand up please thank you I know
you’ve done a bit of clapping but can
you clap again imagine you’re giving me
a standing ovation ha ha ha ha
thank you thank you that’s done my TEDx
talks is done you know zero zero crunch
time
I’ve managed to get a standing ovation
and that’s the end of my talk please sit
down I wanted to do that because I
wanted to visualize the outcome of my
talk so I could relax I’m the first
speaker so I wanted to like say okay I’m
going to get a standing ovation so now I
just reverse engineer what I just did
there I’m going to be talking about
decisions and how we make decisions
because I have a confession to make I
hate making decisions I prevaricate I
procrastinate I just try and avoid in
the last moment and this also happened
for the TEDx talk
my poor organizers they did not know the
topic of my speech you know when I was
arriving when I was supposed to be here
because I just couldn’t deal with the
logistics so I think that’s quite
interesting because I don’t think I’m
alone many of us hate taking decisions
and why is that the reason I made you
guys stand up and clap for me is I’m I’m
scared of the outcome so when I take a
decision I’m worried about the result
the outcome and today what I want to do
is make us step back and think about how
we take a decision how does it make you
feel so when you’re taking that decision
you actually feel happy with the result
so we’ve all been here right like every
morning imagine you put on your alarm
you have this great idea of getting up
at 6:30 in the morning and go for a jog
or a run
I’m from London it’s always raining
outside and I should confess it’s pretty
hard to motivate myself to get out so
6:30 in the morning the alarm goes off
I’ve subscribed to all this amazing
Instagram motivational quotes about
being positive changing yourself going
and doing it and alarm goes off it’s a
bit warm in bed I want to stay in it’s
raining outside I’ll just have a bit of
snooze so put it on the snooze it’s
eight o’clock I still haven’t got out I
haven’t gone for a run I haven’t changed
myself I’m still the same human with all
the bugs
nothing has improved and this happens to
own fuss we all striving to become
better change our behavior but you know
what the problem is the problem is we
don’t know who we actually are so if you
decide to change yourself you think
you’re changing yourself for somebody
else in the society on how some
motivational positive guru things you
should be successful see you in the
morning and make your morning crunch
time really work for you that’s not who
you are
you trying to be somebody else so the
first step to take a good decision is to
understand who you are because if you
understand who you are that’s half the
battle one because the problem is we are
humans and humans are unpredictable your
emotional via random and being human
these days is seen as a bad thing
our whole society is geared about making
us feel more productive more efficient
there’s algorithms and BOTS taking over
our jobs machine learning it’s all about
predicting your behaviors so with that
issue being human being random messy
late for work all of these things
becomes a bug and that’s really bad
because us our whole society is geared
towards productivity inefficiency and
trying to get away from those buggy
human features so one of the things that
I find quite interesting as a designer
so I have a company called design for
social change where we work with data in
the cities is
how do you actually capture the human
quirks our intelligence and bring that
as a positive force to change cities so
just last evening I heard the bad news
about the attacks in London and that’s
very close to my house I go running and
cycling by West Minister and one of the
things that made me think a lot about is
what could I have done to prevent
something like that happening as a
citizen in my own city of London and
this is quite important because
sometimes as humans we feel helpless we
feel like we have no choice we have all
these amazing technologies but when
something like that happens you feel
like I can’t do anything about it and
that’s where I want to challenge this
idea that you as a citizen of Warsaw can
actually keep your city safe as well
so how would you do that you do that in
a simple wave so first of all how many
of you guys use some kind of app or some
kind of map or technology to find your
way to this conference centre can I have
a show of hands brilliant so we’re all
pretty much data-driven so that’s your
first interaction right you either took
your phone out or you took event online
you looked at Google Maps or some kind
of mapping thing you looked at my taxi
you try to use these services to get
here so that’s your first interaction is
actually using your data so how could
you use their that data of you commuting
from your home to the state X conference
place in a way that could have improved
your commute or could have made your
experience of worse or traffic much
better and that’s what I want you guys
to start thinking about is how we have
the power and access of our own data to
improve our everyday life in cities and
the reason this is important for
decision-making is two things first of
all if you are able to figure out all
those data points that you have every
day with your interaction the city it
becomes very easy for you to decide what
you’re going to do with that data and
how you can use a data to actually
improve something with your own opted-in
it’s not somebody’s like
snooping on you and trying to take your
data away from you you as a citizen are
sitting on this massive gold of your own
data you decide what to do with it the
second thing which I would challenge we
ask people keep giving away our
decision-making capability every one or
four years to other dodgy humans called
politicians who decide on our behalf
what should happen every day in your
life I know this is a slightly
contentious topic because we’re all
supposed to believe in democracy but if
we step back and look at the fact that
we are all intelligent people here we
all collectively can do something we
don’t need to necessarily give away our
idea of responsibility to somebody else
who decides on your behalf on how you’re
how to improve your commute to come
Hawaii here to this conference center or
how many hospital beds extra hospital
beds needs to be there you can decide
based upon your own interaction of going
to the hospital having a bad time there
being waiting and sat down for a long
time before you’re seen by a doctor that
is your personal experience it’s not
your president your prime minister or
your local councillors experience they
are not in your shoes so why do we give
away that decision-making capability of
you deciding for yourself on how to
improve that experience with the
hospital to somebody else to do that for
you and this is what gets interesting is
in our current day we have so much
access to technologies which can take
that data that you are using as a part
of your own activity in order to improve
the hospital experience so what I’d like
to do is step back and think about how
every day your interactions with what
you do with the city the data and
activities you do are actually actively
used to improve those services that you
would like to see improved in the city
itself so what’s the reason of doing
this what’s the purpose behind this I
have two inspirations one is my own
culture like I come from India there’s a
concept of Karma
and in karma we believe is you
what you do is not what you say it’s
your actions and the second is my
grandmother she is 98 and she’s a
fiercely independent woman living alone
in in Mumbai and I have a lot of
inspiration from some of the things she
did independently but coming back to
karma I think very important that when
you look at our actions every day when
you decide not to get up and go for that
run do you decide to help somebody on
the street to cross the road to being a
better citizen and actually paying your
taxes all those actions add up to become
who you are and that actually impacts
and changes the society around you so if
you consciously start thinking about
your actions versus what you say on
Facebook what you say on Instagram what
you see on Twitter
you actively start seeing what is it
they’re actually doing every day as a
human to improve yourself or to improve
the situation around yourself those
actions add up and those actions can be
tracked and this gets interesting right
now you think oh my god bigbrother
surveillance no if you have a phone if
you have a Fitbit if you have other
devices on you these things are actively
tracking your data and that’s what gets
beautiful because that data if you
decide as a person to opt-in and work
with somebody else that data can have
some marvelous effects which can improve
in general the overall society so my
grandmother coming back to why I brought
her up had another notion she said every
time you are taking a decision
don’t be invested in the outcome and
that’s quite difficult isn’t it because
we all try to look at a result if you’re
going for an exams you’re worried about
the results if you’re doing a software
you’re doing a/b testing you are trying
to figure out what the results of your
work is she said the best way to be
happy and happy with your decision is to
be in the present not think about the
past there is no past not think about
the future but actively be here right
now so I’m grateful that all of you are
listening to me and giving
your attention to me because we are all
present right now and this present has
an amazing moment because if you
actively are there at this present
moment listening to me or your present
wherever at your work or when you’re
commuting in the city that present
moment and the data of what you’re doing
is what will become your conscious way
of giving back to the city once you’re
actively following what you’re doing so
what that means is and I’m not probably
making much sense is if you think about
data is just the way you eat food like
you’re worried about the provenance of
food you wouldn’t just eat junk food for
the sake of it you won’t understand
where your food is coming from so the
similar way every interaction you do
whether you go on to like Facebook and
decide to like something and those guys
are going to take your profile
information store it on the cloud
somewhere and then start profiling you
you don’t have any agency or
decision-making capability of how that
data can be used by you because suddenly
your Facebook feed shows very very
specific kind of information all those
little paper cuts of how you interact
with different services if you start
consciously measuring that you could use
your interactions in a very different
way so first step of hacking the system
is to be conscious of your own data
interactions with the system so once
you’ve done an audit whether you use
your oyster card in London and tap it in
and out in in the tube or whether you’re
interacting with Facebook once you’ve
done a full audit of a day in the life
of me and all my data interactions you
find somebody to use that data and do
something interesting a partner in crime
now how do you find a partner in crimes
a very nerdy concept it’s not like
you’re dating on tinder and say hey I
want to find a data partner can you know
swipe left and find somebody I can do
something interesting this data but why
why not you could create a profile and
you can say let’s go and actually hack
our dating activity and see all the kind
of things are going to do together just
to step back and look at who we actually
are or you could look at a freedom for
information act where you can look up
some of the policies of your city or of
what the
was doing and find other partners in
crime so one of the important things
which I believe we can do is do an audit
of your data find a partner of crime and
third thing is basically change the
preference file for yourself so every
time you think Facebook Twitter or a
cookie on your on your computer knows
exactly your preferences you can also
change your preferences so I used to
drink coffee a lot and I stopped
drinking coffee and suddenly switch to
tea and I start stop getting all these
advertisements was trying to sell me
various kind of flat white offers
because suddenly I became a tea person
so it’s important that you can gamify
the system and at the same time change
your preferences so nobody can really
predict you as a human saying this is
who you are these are your behaviors you
are able to put the system away and come
up with a new way of a new preference
file so the reason I’m saying these
things because I really believe that we
as humans have lost our own creativity
because we believe that there’s
algorithms and machine learning and they
will decide for us the outcome and what
I would love to leave you guys with is
to take back control be Punk be human be
random embrace serendipity
you don’t need to decide you can change
your mind but it’s really important that
you remain in a way unpredictable
because you can’t design predictability
very well it doesn’t systems thank you
don’t run away no no no no no you’ve
come come along where you don’t get
don’t get to just run away just like
this come on stay in the red circle for
a while longer serendipity is my
favorite word ever if you guys were here
last year we had a thing about
serendipity you don’t know if you recall
humans are very good at serendipity we
so long as we open up to other humans
machines just don’t get it
this is not a thing that the machines
understand how as a designer who whose
job really is to to be empathetic that’s
kind of the bottom line right yeah how
do you expand your your relationships
how do you work with your circle of of
the people you work with your your
friends how do you create more space for
seven dbt to happen in your work and in
your life
excellent question Ralph I think one of
the things I love in software is Easter
eggs you actually create like things
that people can discover which is
outside the standard feature set so you
find things almost where people can come
across a function like this one on last
night calm which has like a when an
Excel spreadsheet which comes up if your
boss is watching when you are actually
planning for holidays it’s a fake thing
just to make pretend that you’re not
doing something which is planning a
holiday and office times are thinking
that’s as a designer what you’re trying
to do is you’re trying to figure out all
those little quirks and humanity that
you can put into small interactions like
the cost of coffee mark has got extra
ribs on it so that it spreads the heat
around the same time it feels really
nice to hold I think it’s a little
insights of human interaction which you
introduce in a very kind of subtle way
which can give the products and services
a certain kind of personality and
character I think that’s what designers
ultimately try to do is put yourself in
the shoes of somebody else try to
understand from their perspective and
introduce a little quirks in the system
to make things feel a lot more human
with character rather than just
mechanicals I hope that’s what I tried
to do in my work as well and you and it
takes a lot of effort it takes a lot of
effort but that’s why you work with
people and groups and it constantly
tests things and at the same time you
don’t try and predict the overall
feature set you try and introduce what
people are already doing as part of the
existing behaviors and put that back
into the system thank you thank you for
your Prakash what
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