think&drink7: The day that Syinc tackled some of the shittiest issues on Earth

Or a night at the friendly Pigeonhole with WTO founder, Mr. Jack Sim.

That’s right. WTO.

World Toilet Organisation.

Jack told us about his childhood, about talking too much in class and getting caned on stage. He thanks it for not making him too comfortable – having no other opportunity after leaving school, he went into business.

So “good things come from bad things too”. Since then he has started 16 companies in his 40+ years of life. And other things like his founding of the Restroom Association of Singapore and the WTO, organisations doing us all very very big and dirty services by campaigning for cleaner public toilets!

By self-admission, he wants “everything” in life. Why live life as a scoreboard, and “buy chocolate coloured Louis Vuitton to piss off each other”? He’d rather do something that he likes with other … chocolate coloured stuff.

That white shirt he’s wearing in the photos? He bought it because it reminded him of toilet tiles.

Jack SIm "the shirt"

And why would he not? Why trade dollars for minutes – especially after you’re already satisfied. Why be a prostitute that sells your body for money to your Boss, company or whatever?

No, says Jack! You must be a lover.

If you’re doing something you like, you’ll have the energy for life. And, as Jack says, what you like doing should be doing good. Because celebrating alone is just drug shots for happiness – it soon wears out and then you’re tempted by another Louis Vuitton.

But by celebrating with others, “you make the world your family”, says Jack. And that is permanent.

Jack talks about enjoying every moment in his life – including on the toilet. And whether his business, his wife (he thanks her for “forgiving him for what he is”, to his upcoming Toilet films and toilet museum under the WTO, he clearly likes what he is doing. And he advises us to do the same.

After all, in his words, “if you don’t shit, life has no meaning.”

Getting in the shoes

29 Dec 2011

... of our users, that is.

We continued on our journey to find ways to improve the quality of life of migrant workers in Singapore. A quick recap from previous episodes: we did interviews. And created a "User Journey Map".

How we did it: Extracting insights from the interviews. Putting both observations and the insights into a chart that visually shows the user's experience chronologically (and then refining it some more). 

This served as a great foundation of inspiration (the first, and often the most important, phase of design thinking), and preps us for the next stage - ideation. Typically in conventional innovation, this is the point where you do brainstorming/solutioning (if not much earlier). But, we figured - why design for them, when you can design with them? 

And that’s how we ended up sitting in front of our whiteboard with a group of Foreign Domestic Workers, employers of FDWs, people familiar with the Ministry of Manpower and some more people from HOME (Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics). All armed with yellow, orange, blue and pink post-its of course. And a carpet. We love the carpet.

As you can see below, we ended up with … something that looks like the upcoming MRT Downtown Line.

What was amazingly useful about it: enabling us to identify points of tension from various perspectives to create opportunity areas for further exploration. 

What were some (other) things we learnt? 

The process of design thinking is meant to be iterative, not linear. Through our conversation, we found certain knowledge gaps and interesting areas of exploration not identified during our interviews, and we never hesitated to pause the ideation session and turn it into an insight-gathering one. 

Facilitation is useful, but good facilitation is invaluable. We didn't just listen to what people said, but also what they didn't say, and what their body language showed. This got us asking relevant questions to gain even deeper insights to certain points of tension. 

Also, designing with our users doesn't mean they know what design thinking is about. But users don't have to be design thinkers - the steps of DT are intuitive enough to understand without the jargon. Instead, we focused on using good facilitation (which reinforces the above point) to bring the process through with clear communication and action. 

More to come. Watch this space.

Previous post here. 

drawing inputs from our different stakeholder perspectives

constructing our user journey map - collaboratively. 

voila.

PS. Our next Think&Drink features none other than Singapore's Toilet Man, Jack Sim! 

... of our users, that is.

A quick recap from previous episodes: we did interviews.

So we were thinking – why design for our users when we can design with them?

That’s how we – and we mean SYINC – ended up sitting in front of our whiteboard with a group of Foreign Domestic Workers, employers of FDWs, people familiar with the Ministry of Manpower and some more people from HOME (Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics).

All armed with yellow, orange, blue and pink post-its of course. And a carpet. We love the carpet.

As you can see below, we ended up with … something that looks like the upcoming Downtown Line.

But Design Thinking is not meant to be linear, it is meant to be branchy, complex and maybe with a few thorns. Like a Christmas tree. So thus all the feeder bus services branching out from the main line from the main line.

Not that the users all knew what Design Thinking was about of course but you do not need to know what Design Thinking is to give ideas. Certainly not all of them -  given the different groups they were from - were of the same viewpoint. All the better – more clutter and post its on our wall!

We wanted to slap ourselves for not thinking of this earlier. Because here in SYINC, we realized that many cooks make rich broth. So Happy 2012 everyone! And we hope that those Christmas Trees of ideas are growing too.

think&drink6

Davide Bonomi showing us a picture from the Shawshank Redemption17 Dec 2011

Syinc held our last think&drink for 2011 at The Pigeonhole - and it was a night of some introspection and lots of conversation.  

We opened with Davide Bonomi from Dufresne Research sharing his experiences organising the EV Li-ion Battery Forum and the Energy Storage Forum. Davide talked about the need for greater collaboration to spur innovation - hence, Dufresne specialises in creating networks and stimulating co-creation through their events. What was particularly interesting? Well, Dufresne's events are often highly technical - with each event having a certain niche that attracts select users. By doing this, Davide is able to move the industry discussion deeper on those specific niche areas. And did you know that Andy Dufresne from the Shawshank Redemption was the source of Davide’s inspiration for this company? Because of his fierce optimism in the bleakest of moments, because of his moral fibre, and of course, his eventual triumph. Perhaps a spirit that will resonate with many, many change makers.

Then, we tried something new to think&drink. We had 2 special guests make pitches on projects they were working on.

(This is an idea we're testing out: that people not only want to see those who've done impressive stuff, but also get a whiff of stuff that's still brewing and in the works.)  

Vincent Perrier-Trudov 

First off, we had Vincent Perrier-Trudov from Citizens for Social Business and he shared with us that social businesses are sustainable businesses dedicated to tackling poverty or an alleviation of an issue related to poverty. Vincent's goal is to promote the concept of a social business worldwide. And it seems the triple bottom line is fast becoming the new black and if you aren't on that train... well, it's never too late. Check them out if you want to learn more!

Right after that, we had Tan Hang Chong, an active environmentalist in Singapore, come up to spread the message regarding a petition for Bukit Brown to be conserved. He gave an impassioned speech about the history behind the site and preserving the local flora and fauna - even throwing out the wild idea for it to be sited as a tourist attraction. We're curious to find out what happens with the petition! 

And in typical think&drink style, lots of conversation continued after. And hey, don't fret if you missed this one; stay tuned in the new year coz we have lots lined up! Till then, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!