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source: Cathy Parker via venessa on pinterest
OK, OK, I don’t really subscribe to anything being “the most” of something… the headline was just a bit of sensationalism to capture your attention. 😉
*gently slaps self on wrist*
However, now that you’re here, I want to make a case for a new field of design.
I read a paper over the weekend called Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System, which lists the most effective strategies for making large-scale shifts in complex systems. #1 on the list was “the power to transcend paradigms.”
How timely, as our discussions of late have been about culture hacking, technologies of culture, and conscious evolution. It made me wonder –
What would it look like if we had a discipline called Awareness Design?
Like many design fields, the focus would be on behavior. The approach would be on ‘shaping digital and social tools that increase people’s awareness of themselves, their environments and systems.’ (so, expanding people’s capacity for self-awareness and systems-awareness).
The idea is to satisfy people’s needs and desires within a context of deep self-knowledge as well as a living systems perspective. By creating more awareness in one’s inner world, people would become aware of a larger range of options in how to respond to situations and make decisions. By creating more awareness to the outer world, people would gain a more thorough understanding of the impacts of their choices and behaviors on themselves and the world at large. These feedback loops would encourage more creative and empowered behavior.
Let’s further explore the what and why of awareness design!
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The Characteristics of an Awareness Designer
These fearless navigators have broken the shackles of a singular perspective, and learned how to see things from not just a different point of view, but multidimensional views. At some point they rejected consensus reality and took the path of free inquiry, discovering the liberation that comes with the capacity to interact with the world from a position of agility and adaptability. Aware of options, aware of patterns, aware of the interconnectedness of things, and unencumbered by the blinders of a single point of view about how things work.
They’re capable of taking the jump into new ways of thinking, experimenting with emerging social and cultural patterns by *embodying* those models, and then helping construct the mental bridges necessary for others to walk on if they’re to cross and join the party.
They act as guides and sources of inspiration, to not just explain new modes of thinking and being, but to *show* what it looks like to live in worlds that operate on different rules.
They can glide fluidly between states of identity, states of mind, and states of practice, because they are awake and aware.
As it’s put in the Leverage Point paper:
“There is yet one leverage point that is even higher than changing a paradigm. That is to keep oneself unattached in the arena of paradigms, to stay flexible, to realize that no paradigm is “true,” that every one, including the one that sweetly shapes your own worldview, is tremendously limited understanding of an immense and amazing universe that is far beyond human comprehension. It is to “get” at a gut level the paradigm that there are paradigms, and to see that that itself is a paradigm, and to regard that whole realization as devastatingly funny. It is to let go into Not Knowing, into what the Buddhists call enlightenment.”
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Why Do We Need Awareness Design Now?
More and more people are walking to the edge of their mental models and belief systems, preparing to take the leap into a more expanded view. They “get” very deeply that the ‘system is broken,’ and despite how they may have lived their lives in the ‘old world,’ they see that something’s gotta give and are willing to participate in the next thing.
But how?
How do we begin embodying the new social agreements, even as we are unfolding them?
If we’re birthing genuinely new forms for how civilization could operate, how do we mentally prepare for that? How do we guide ourselves through the transition that requires not just using new tools, but a restructuring and reorientation of our awareness, and how we contextualize ourselves within the greater whole?
For example, when we talk about using alternative currencies as new tools for exchanging value and building local living economies, it’s not about just using TimeBucks instead of dollars, and therefore showing The Man who’s boss now.
We don’t get to just switch out tools, while remaining the same kind of people, thinking the same things about how things work, and acting the same, and expect that some external fix is going to magically make things change.
The reality is that a shift in awareness happens first, and the new behaviors and practices grow from that.
So we’re not necessarily looking for a lateral shift in thinking from one camp of thinking to the next, from an old paradigm to a new one. (ie – transaction-based to relationship-based, scarcity-based to abundance-based, competition to cooperation).
It’s more about widening the frame and to be aware of as many lenses as possible, attaching to none, to have deep self-knowledge, and to be open and inquisitive towards the unknown.
We might think of the journey as being one that seeks to transcend from confusion to awareness. Both self-awareness and systems-awareness.
source: Contrari wise via venessa on pinterest
Are Science and Spirit Converging to Awareness?
I feel a sense of urgency for us to actively participate in awareness design, as it would seem that both our species and our technologies are on this trajectory anyway.
On one hand, we’re rapidly integrating into a technological and computational world, with ever more powerful tools for mapping, tracking, simulating and decision-making. We’re revealing ever more complex maps of our inner and outer worlds. What my friend Alvis Brigis calls “total systems quantification.”
On the other hand, people are awakening to the greater potential of what it means to be fully alive, and choosing to build creative lives infused with meaning, values and purpose. We’re looking to harness our tools and technologies to expand the human condition, unleash creativity and innovation, and take quantum leaps in our personal and social evolution.
Now, from an optimistic perspective, we can preemptively celebrate the birth of connected global consciousness, where we’ve developed more advanced forms of social life, opened new frontiers in human empowerment and creative expression, and are intentionally on a path towards a more intelligent and empathic kind of human civilization.
From another view, there is a danger that we will not be prepared to think and behave in the world that’s unfolding around us – one in which the notion of identity and the human condition is altered by connected technologies, by artificial intelligence, by biotech and genetic engineering, by the ecological realities of a growing population on a finite planet, and so on.
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Awareness Design for a Wiser World
It feels as if we are in a window of opportunity that is rapidly closing, where choices made now without sufficient awareness, critical long-term thinking and wisdom may lead to unfortunate results.
How do we move forward in a world of accelerating change with sharp clarity in our intentions, a capacity to envision multiple outcomes, and discernment in how we make choices?
How might we design enabling technologies that put us into an integrated state of harmonious balance and creative flow with ourselves, each other, and our surroundings?
How do we lead from the human spirit, and infuse this process with passion and fun?
When are we gonna wake up?
emergent by design 
I’ve been reading “Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself” by Dr. Joe Dispenza and wonder if it isn’t necessarily waking up, but creating a new you. In order to have a paradigm shift we have to get rid of who you think you are and discover the quantum you.
yes, that’s definitely one way to look at it. i guess i see it as waking up to your human agency – realizing that you have a choice of who you are and what you believe – which sounds like the same thing you’re saying.
we can treat our life like a canvas, and make it a work of art. 🙂
spot on dear. waking up. now. no more waiting. there is an urgency.
here’s a look at where we are up to: http://visionvideos.tumblr.com/
thinking the vision you’ve been emerging for years now.. funneled through public ed.. via cities/communities.
today.
these are fantastic, Monika! how old is the girl narrating the most recent video? are these your students?
she’s 12.
and yes…. they are our youth.. ready to emerge. emerging.
Great piece Venessa. I think one consequence of better awareness design would be the ongoing spread/deployment of the Empathy Web (like mycelium) throughout our system – a measurable strengthening of the existing network enabled by the expanding digital pathways. This could/would catalyze a more fluid info economy, more effective/efficient communication and even collective consciousness in the Nova Spivack-ian and Jeffrey Stibel-ian sense. I can see Awareness Design emerging as a very real discrete field, with practitioners that help orgs and people to become more effective and efficient as the socio-info-economy transforms. It’s already key to lots of other fields, but now that we’re generating new language and awareness, it makes sense as a category and a goal. So meta… 😛
oooo, i ❤ "Empathy Web"!
i don't know if you're familiar with the Metacurrency Project (http://metacurrency.org/) by @artbrock & @zippy314, but they are focused on building social DNA in the form of new currencies…. as we know, what we measure tends to be what we then focus our attention on, so –
how do we begin measuring other types of 'currents' and flows, so we can notice and build other forms of wealth besides money? (ie – reputation, trust, empathy, cooperation, etc)
i'd be curious to know the types of things they would recommend measuring to build out the Empathy Web
Yes, I def concur w/ the metacurrency projects core assumptions that 1) currency is a measurement & transaction technology, 2) that as more projects are measured in different ways that those currencies will become transferable, thus reducing externalities (from perspective of contemporary economics, like Stiglitz’s neo-Keynesianism) and helping to create the infrastructure for a superfluid meta-economy. It lines up with my thinking on relentless, inexorable quantification.
i think the answer(s) to your question is 1) we are already doing it, instinctively via human interest / business / art – ebay, amazon, social network links/points, etc 2) new mapping tools and systems thinking paradigms will help transform / amplify / formalize these measurement efforts – big picture: emerging info/physics theories will accelerate the economy in the metacurrency sense and inform new better tools / systems.
the empathy web can be measured by sampling individuals around the globe and surveying them on 1) what systems they are aware of (social, planetary, cosmic), 2) what pieces of those systems they demonstrate empathy for (other individuals, rain forests, the moon, etc). The Facebook Friend Wheel is a super simple version of this. Think about how that wheel would look to a modern person versus a caveperson – the modern empathy web is greatly extended through tech (reach) and science (realizing how certain systems are interconnected). Akin to Thomas Barnett, I see this empathy web as key to global stability, especially during accelerating times. It’s spreading quickly and initially contributing to destabilization, a la “Arab Spring” – really just the very beginning of a deep, profound Awareness Shift.
Here’s a nice TED piece (RSA animated) by Rifkin in 2010 on the potential for global empathy spread and the need to rethink human narrative / nature to lay the groundwork for empathic cilization. It applies perfectly here.
Love this theme – it’s what my book, “Make A Life” is all about – encouraging people to look inside themselves, examine their lives, and discover how to make a life by reaching their full potential. The unexamined and unintentional life is not worth living. http://www.L-evate.com
very cool! how did you come up with the 7 steps of the development process?
Teacher viewpoint:
In schools today, teachers have a responsibility to wear more hats than ever. If we want kids to “wake up,” teachers must let go of the idea that they only teach math, for example. The time is now- if we want to see positive change in the future, we must model and teach tolerance, empathy, and compassion in classrooms today. We need to advocate for TIME and RESOURCES to embed character education into our curriculum. Students need to engage in valuable experiences in which they practice kindness, tolerance, and forgiveness. Instead, teachers are trapped in a world that revolves around standardized tests scores and data and number crunching while kids are shooting other kids or killing themselves b/c of bullying. There isn’t a free moment to connect with students…it’s all data and score driven and it’s sad and scary. In order to promote awareness among the youth I work with, I need TIME to make meaningful connections and relationships with my students. I need more opportunities to teach multiple paths to learning and self advocacy and discovery. I crave more of those moments when I watch a student’s eyes light up as he “gets” it.
I like how you think. I also think that the concept of awareness design might need further qualifiers & clarification if it is distinguish itself from PR, spin, propaganda, etc.
I think you are talking about a genuinely “reality-based” awareness design, but one could argue that Karl Rove, Frank Luntz, are also engaged in “awareness design” – on behalf of nefarious interests, to be sure, but designing awareness to deceive the public into supporting their elite interests.
As far as I can see, their side has been kicking our asses in “awareness design.” I dearly hope that a more reality-based awareness design can figure this stuff out. Quickly.
Awareness Design…I like it. I think there are many similar fields in design emerging: social design, ecological design, collaborative design, transdisciplinary design. It will be interesting to see which terminologies win out.
I was very excited to see you cite the Leverage Points article. In my first year of grad school, that has definitely been one of my favorite readings. You can see that I was so excited after reading it, I decided to whip up an info-graphic: drodesign.com/2012/05/04/info-graphic/
Nice post, Venessa. You should know that the concept of awareness is ripe for innovation and design, particularly become of the rise of context-aware technologies.
Anyway, I wanna share insights from Nemetics, which sees awareness as a nSphere, or nField with a size determined by the volume of neme exchange. These spherical bodies of exchange may encompass, or be contained within a nemiShape, or paradigm, that constrains capacity. In this instance, think of nemes as ‘information tokens’, or cultural artefacts, media, monies, statements, and gestures around which individuals perpetuate a paradigmatic narrative.
So an enabling technology might harmonise our awareness with an extended nemifield in a scenario like this: throughout the day the user engages in his/her normal exchanges with their environment and peers, but with mobile sensors logging behavior patterns over time. The users quantified-self could reveal constraints which could then be redesigned with fellow participants in the system.
Eventually, users might come to recognise where patterns of narrative scarcity influence their lives and so write new stories, with a heightened awareness. Although, there may be some very risky assumptions involved that could do more harm than good and the privacy implications could be seriously complicated.
It seems to me that moving forward in a world of accelerating change requires we paradoxically slow down to identify these potential risks and our behaviours that constrain our awareness. We would involve diverse minds in challenging our nTubes, and assisting us in designing ‘authentic constraints’ that draw us away from perpetuating the ‘wicked problems’ of yesteryear.
At this stage of life my awareness is being expanded thanks to deep-dialogue and the co-creation of Nemetics with fellow ‘NemiHeads’. Together we notice, engage, mull, and exchange nemes from various fields of study which examine nemes from the marco to the mirco, ad infinitum, quantum fracticality, etc. It’s rather fun.
Hi, Venessa
This line of thinking is very consilient with my own. Its exciting to encounter synchronicity.
You wrote: “…building social DNA in the form of new currencies…. as we know, what we measure tends to be what we then focus our attention on, so – how do we begin measuring other types of ‘currents’ and flows, so we can notice and build other forms of wealth besides money? (ie – reputation, trust, empathy, cooperation, etc)”
Exploring exactly that along with broader issues of awareness design, self-discovery, and group intelligence within the scope of current science and technology is the objective of a near-future university/village I describe in xTopia. Although I use a semi-fictional narrative device It isn’t an exercise in imaginative fiction — its a serious experiment design (from a sort of “executive summary” level) for maximizing the synergy of the most advanced ideas, tools, and techniques at our disposal in an open, flexible, and empirical way. A fundamental principle is “measure everything.” xTopia is not just a self-sustaining university and village economy–the idea behind the experimental format of the xTopia University and eco-community is that we don’t have to see all that far ahead — we only have to decide where to start and how to take the first few steps in the most rational and conscious way.
Is that pretty close to what you mean by “Emergent by Design”? (That’s why xTopia is not a U-topia, although one friendly critic dubbed it “utopia light”. It isn’t, really…but that could be a local brand of beer…)
I’ve added a link to EBD in the resource list for xTopia and I hope you’ll visit and give me your frank opinion.
http://almanac2010.wordpress.com/2012/05/26/xtopia/
Regards, PR
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“awareness designers” are called mystics and have been with us forever on this earth …
why we don’t hear much about them is that their work makes us actually confront our self-concepts, and no one wants to do that.
nice try, though 🙂
and further …
if the mystic cannot verify it, the science is not true … goes for academics too
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Lovely post. How did you come across the paper? I use a lot of Dana Meadows’s writing in my own work, which includes teaching systems thinking workshops and a course in systems thinking and leadership. Have you also seen her book, Thinking in Systems? The paper you cite is also contained in the book. Sadly for all of us, Dana died in 2001.
And, I just returned from a deeply satisfying experience at the ALIA Summer Institute in Halifax, N.S. I think some of these folks are definitely working in the field of Awareness Design.
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Tools are needed to be aware of the world and this could be one:
Yannick Rumpala, Knowledge and praxis of networks as a political project, 21st Century Society, Volume 4, Issue 3, November 2009, http://www.scribd.com/doc/85760369/Rumpala-Knowledge-and-Praxis-of-Networks-as-a-Political-Project-21st-Century-Society1
Extract: “Tracing networks means reducing the feeling of elusive complexity that any individual today can have when faced with the world around him, the feeling of an inability to grasp this world. The feeling of overwhelming complexity leads to passivity. The visualisation of networks can be a way to make the world perceptible again and improve
the comprehension of it.”
I enjoyed this article, but there is one line that doesn’t ring true.
“The idea is to satisfy people’s needs and desires within a context of deep self-knowledge as well as a living systems perspective.”
The process of shedding paradigms isn’t comfortable. IMO, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs doesn’t fit in this context. Making sure ego’s needs are satisfied is what keeps us stuck with our paradigms / sacred cows. The process described here is more one of stripping away, rather than reinforcing and feeling good. Shedding our attachment to these beliefs we have unquestioningly held for years is more like losing our best friend.
Have you come across Robert Kegan (“In Over Our Heads”) or his predecessor, William G Perry? Seems like your “awareness” has a lot in common with Kegan’s 5th order consciousness. Nice thing about Kegan is that he puts it in a comprehensible context. Reading that book was the first time I grasped what people were really talking about when saying “post-modernism”.