The Art of Human Centered Design - Shashank Khandelwal

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Hey, everybody.
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We are here today with Shawshank Candela as really cool to talk with Shawshank.
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He's currently the CEO of a firm called Blue Tiger.
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What Blue Tiger does they help agencies.
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They help organizations design software.
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They help create powerful experience.
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Is that really impact lives?
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So when you think about any of those agencies out there, they're helping them develop intuitive, easy to use services.
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And before that, Shawshank has a career working for 18 S and if you don't know about 18, F 18 F is a government organization that was set up to do, just as I said, to help organizations in the government, the help agencies, architect and design experiences that not only will be okay, but will be powerful and dare I say it, that people have a joy or a love of using it so that they can do their mission better.
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So it's so cool today to talk with Shawshank Shawshank Man.
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Welcome to the show.
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So glad to talk with you today. Awesome.
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Good morning, Eric.
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And I'm so glad to be here.
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Yeah.
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So you were at a art studio recently and I was telling you, my mom is into art and I think all of us connect with art in different ways.
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And that's one of the amazing things about it, because in our world of business and software and so forth.
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Okay, what's that? Show me how to do this.
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But there's a whole other world out there outside of left brain that allows people to experiment and interpret differently.
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And I was curious, Shawshank, when you were telling me about your recent visit, Hirshhorn Museum.
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There was a particular piece that moved you.
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Can you tell me what that particular piece was and why it might move you?
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Yeah, Yeah.
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Let me tell you about this. This is.
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This is pretty cool.
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You can still see it.
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So it's still on display at the Hirshhorn, and it's a piece called Four Talks by an artist called Laurie Anderson.
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And it was it was installed in 2020.
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Switzerland stalled peace.
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And let me describe it a little bit to you and then I'll tell you about why I enjoyed this particular piece.
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It's essentially you. It's an entire room.
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So you you're you're in this room and the the floor and the sea, all the walls are painted black.
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And then there's just like graffiti, text and images all over saying different things.
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And it's, it's immersive, right?
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It's, it's everywhere.
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So it's not sparse.
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It's very maximalist. And yeah, so you know, you can go and and there's different phrases and the different phrases one would like speak to you in different ways, right?
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Because we all have different life experiences or whatever, different thoughts going through our heads.
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I don't know if there's one about tennis.
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Maybe there is.
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I never.
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But the one on one of the walls, there's this quote and Laurie and Anderson credits her meditation teacher with this quote.
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And what it says is, if you think technology can solve your problems, then you don't understand technology and you don't understand your problems. And, you know, the reason this like, really like struck a chord with me is because this is something I've sort of been like feeling and seeing a lot in in my career is that the problems we solve aren't actually about technology, right?
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Like, we focus on, oh, let's use A.I.
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and I do this or I don't know, whatever the last buzzword was, right, Let's use blockchain to that.
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And it's not about the technology.
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It's really about what's the problem you're trying to solve.
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Mm hmm. And, you know, when you see something like that, you're like, Oh, I now see a physical manifestation of something I've been thinking about or I've been feeling.
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And I think that's what has the power to do, right?
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In this case, it was words, a wall. Mm hmm.
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Which is a little bit easier.
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But there's other things that can make you do that, right?
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Like, shapes and colors and stuff can kind of reflect your mood or you see yourself in them.
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And I think that's the.
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The power of art, right?
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To make you feel something or to validate your feelings.
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And when you saw that piece of art, what did you feel?
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I get? It struck a chord. But.
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And you were with your wife, I assume, when you were at the museum.
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What did you feel and did you say something to her about the piece?
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Yeah.
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I mean, it was it was it was sort of this like, Oh, my God, I've been saying this this entire time, right?
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It was sort of this excitement and a little bit of joy at seeing something.
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And I was like, This is amazing.
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I have to, like, immediately take pictures of it because that's what we do in the modern era, right?
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We see something like we have to take a picture of their phone.
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So I did that and and it was really nice.
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It was sort of this like that, someone who is an artist who is not steeped in technology all the time, although she is right, like Laurie Anderson does use a lot of technology, but she's not maybe not building it every day like we are, you know, as is sort of recognizing that it's about these other problems.
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Right.
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And and I think a lot of folks in civic technology, which is the field I work in.
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Right. Don't don't think about it this way.
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Right.
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Like don't necessarily think about their problems as problems independent of technology.
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You know, I, I think about that piece of work that you described and the power of it and as we've talked about, my mom is an artist and I don't have that gift, but I certainly have the ability to look at the pieces of art and to think about what what's that moving or stirring within me.
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And I love this notion that if you think technology is going to solve your problems, think again.
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But so often we don't see that approach with the federal agencies that you and I work with or companies that are working with agencies.
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We don't see that approach.
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And this notion of, all right, well, what is the problem and what experience are we trying to achieve?
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And how would that make you feel?
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So my question is, why is that?
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Why is it that we don't see more of what you've communicated in the software development in the architecting process within our federal agencies?
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I think there's a number of reasons, right?
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Like, but let's let's talk about one of the most important ones, which is like we still aren't at the point where everybody in the government is doing the right amount of user research to figure out the problems.
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Right.
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And what I mean by that is going out and talking to the users of your service, whether they are internal users that might be at an agency where you might be building software for other folks, your agency or you're building software for the public and being able to is the way to do this is to go out and talk to a diverse selection of folks and ask them about their problems.
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Right.
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Don't ask them if they want a website to do something.
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They want, you know, ask them that.
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What they want to do when you're you know, a great example for me is sort of like when you're going to Home Depot and buying a drill, you actually do not care about the drill, Right?
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What you really care about is making a hole.
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Yeah.
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Right.
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So let's talk about the hole in the wall and maybe there's a better solution than the drill, right?
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Maybe it's it's a pre drilled pieces of wood or something is what you really want.
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Mm hmm. Right. But I would never know that unless I talked to you.
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And I think in the federal government, and I'm going to say that there are pockets that do this well, but we just don't do it enough.
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We just don't do that user research and design enough.
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And why is that?
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I mean, what you're saying makes total sense.
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Now. A lot of times by the time I go to Home Depot, I've already tried to take a screwdriver or something and put the hole in the wall and I've made a mess.
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And my wife Beth, is saying, Good Lord, I've seen this happen 400 times.
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Please go to the Home Depot and get that drill.
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But why is it that this notion of research makes total sense?
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Why are we doing that?
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Yeah, well, let's talk about a couple of different things there.
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Right.
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So one is government still struggles with hiring the right people for a lot of technology building and and especially early for designers and researchers.
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They haven't for many of the years they haven't known that they had.
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That's what they've needed. Right.
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And what that means is we don't have enough people in the government who can champion these methods. Right.
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So the way the government builds technology is essentially it says, I want I want you, the vendor, to do X, and they put out an RFP and then you respond to it.
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Right.
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But if they don't ask you for a user research, you're not going to maybe you're not going to put that as part of your response.
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Right.
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And so so that's that's the first part.
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But the second piece of it, I think, is is kind of more important.
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And it's really to do with like the culture, right?
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And there's a few myths that I've heard over the years and I'll tell you a little about about those.
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So one thing that people believe is that doing research with users is going to slow the project down.
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Hmm. Right.
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If you know, let's talk about making a hole in the wall.
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Does your wife really need to do research?
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Would the owner figure out what type of drill you need and what type of holes you need in the wall before she goes out and buys you a drill that's going to slow the process down, Right?
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She could just go out on her way home from work and just get you a drill right.
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Much, much faster.
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But then she gets the wrong one, Right.
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Because she got one for I don't know, she got her drill bit for concrete, but she really needed it for one. Right.
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Because she didn't ask the questions.
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And so people think that it slows you down and what they're not thinking about, but it's actually reduces your risk like you don't you are spending maybe a little bit more time, but what you're doing is you're saving time later, right, when they have to redo something because it wasn't the right thing.
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And we all have examples of government projects that have failed.
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The other thing, the other myth I've heard is that the users are too busy.
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Let's not bother them.
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Right?
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I was on a project with CMS a few years ago and they wouldn't let us talk to medical providers who provide data to us, and that's because they were like, Oh well, doctors are too busy, right?
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But no one asked the doctors and we weren't even allowed to try.
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Right.
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And I've talked to doctors since then.
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They're like, Yeah, we'd be happy to help out, you know, carve out some time and talk to you may not be a ton of time, but, you know, that's the thing with user research, you just need a few conversations.
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You don't need like one piece of all our conversations, right?
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I could talk to you for 20 minutes and learn more about your problems If I ask the questions, great.
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So essentially, that's this is a long way to say, like there's a lot of like fear, uncertainty and doubt when it comes to working with users.
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Right.
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And I think that's a cultural problem.
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And it's it's possible that it's harder to change because you're changing how people are working. Right.
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You talk to, you know, many years ago I talked to somebody from the USDA and they were like, oh, no, no, no, you don't need to talk to our users.
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I've been doing this job for 20 years.
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I know exactly what they want.
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Mm hmm.
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Ten years is a generation, right?
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Your users can change. Right?
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And just to say that one person.
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Wow, that's a pretty audacious statement to say.
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I know what a group of people wants.
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And, you know, when you're talking, there's a couple of things that really connect with me.
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A lot of people talk about within federal agencies, there's a lot of risk aversion, and I am in no way trying to put people down that are serving the country and doing incredible things.
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But it's also known, if we're being honest, that you know, if you're the one that led a major project that failed, it's not good for your career yet.
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There's an irony there that some of the basics that you're talking about can help take that risk out of it.
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Right.
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And and this notion of risk and I'm just curious your thoughts on risk.
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And sometimes we don't even like to mention the word and contractors don't want to mention it.
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Oh, that will scare people.
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How should we be thinking about risk?
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Oh, my.
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Oh, my.
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That's a that's a whole other podcaster.
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That's a whole other broadcast.
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Here's here are my two thoughts on risk.
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Right.
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The first thought is that when you build with your users and I'll explain what I mean by that in just a second, you're going to reduce a lot of your risk, right?
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Because you're eliminating the guess and a lot of the questions you might have about how someone wants to interact with a particular website or where are they doing it on the grocery line or are they doing it at home or whatever?
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All of that.
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You can just you can answer those questions when you're on a team by just going out and talking to your users.
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That greatly reduces your risk because now you've validated something that you have, right?
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So the more you talk to users, the the less the fewer risks you take.
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And I think that's very important.
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Right?
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And what I would say to that is a dozen have to be this huge effort. Mm.
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Right.
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Some of the folks on my team, like one of the folks on my team, she did research really recently at VA and she was like, Oh, for this round of research, I'm just going to talk to seven veterans. Hmm.
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And that's all I need to answer the questions that I need answered.
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Right.
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So it's it's not an expensive process.
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Mm hmm.
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The second thing about risk, and this is maybe something that gets talked about a lot, but has never been implemented.
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Right.
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And you shouldn't be afraid of failing either. Hmm.
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Right. So it's okay to do things that don't work out.
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It's okay to take take a little bit of a leap.
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What the important part is, how quickly do you recover from that?
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Right. Like, how nimble are you to say?
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Like, oh, this wording didn't work out, so I'm going to change the text on the website or the colors are not inducing people to like click this button or go through the flow or the forms too long, right?
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Like, let me change those things and, and what that comes down to is it's controlled failure in some sense, right?
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It's it's making sure that you have all the feedback loops and in place and then making sure that you're able to react to things. Right.
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So I think there's a little bit of letting go and saying like everything, because I think what happens is in a very conservative government agency, what happens is that they're like, Oh, it has to be perfect all the way through.
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We can't tolerate failure.
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And what that means now is you're not doing anything out of the ordinary, right?
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You're going to planet out being an engineer and exactly like that.
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And then who cares if the users don't like it, right?
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Because it's it's up and running and I can I can see that it's done.
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And I get the headline that says that I got released.
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You know, there's there's a couple of things that strike me as so powerful in what you're saying.
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One is you talked about the VA and just seven interviews and how that could be profoundly impactful and change what's going to be developed for those users.
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And it goes back to, I think, some of what you're talking about for culture, the right people champions, yet just seven interviews could steer something in a totally different way, de-risk a project, actually make sure that the project is getting done.
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And yeah, we might make some mistakes and we're learning.
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And so I got to tell you, Shashank, if I'm being just incredibly candid, it's frustrating to me.
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So when I think about and I've been in this space forever for 25 years, and when I hear people like you, experts at what you're doing, sometimes the answers are so insightful, yet so simple, and yet we're not doing them.
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But I like to be an upbeat type of guy.
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So I'm curious, is there an example of where you've been on a project that really embodies the right way to develop software?
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Because I almost need to hear these things because I think I've got two kids.
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One is graduating from JMU on Friday.
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My daughter is at JMU. She's a junior.
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I think about China.
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I think about I think about the pace of where the world is going.
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And I need to hear some positive stories of how you can do this.
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So is there an example man of the right way to develop software that you've either participated in or you led that project?
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Yeah, I'll tell you about that before.
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Let me let me give you some hope, right.
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Like like before we talk about that, which is like an older project in my absolute favorite one, the Iris.
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We recently did a pilot called Direct File where they actually built software to file your taxes and they they built it in-house and Ucsd's built it, and they ran a very small pilot with it.
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And it has been an incredible success.
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Right. And this is happening right now.
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They did it for I forget how much it how many taxpayers filed with it.
00:18:48.839 --> 00:18:51.720
I think it was maybe 100,000, something like that.
00:18:51.720 --> 00:18:53.519
Don't call them that.
00:18:53.519 --> 00:18:54.720
But they did it successfully.
00:18:54.720 --> 00:18:56.039
They loved the experience. Right.
00:18:56.039 --> 00:18:58.440
So this is happening right now.
00:18:58.440 --> 00:19:01.240
It's happening in pockets. And they did.
00:19:01.319 --> 00:19:04.759
Apparently, the team just did a fantastic job of that software.
00:19:04.759 --> 00:19:12.599
I didn't qualify because I live in a state where it doesn't work, but we're doing this pilot and it's working and it's it's a great it's a great thing.
00:19:12.599 --> 00:19:14.319
And it's happening right now as we speak.
00:19:14.319 --> 00:19:16.000
Right. So, okay.
00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:18.880
So there is reason for hope, right?
00:19:18.880 --> 00:19:22.640
Like like folks in the government are using the right techniques.
00:19:22.720 --> 00:19:23.920
It's just not as widespread.
00:19:23.920 --> 00:19:27.680
But I want what I really want to talk about is my absolute favorite project.
00:19:27.759 --> 00:19:31.960
You're going to love this one because it's a field of project, right?
00:19:32.039 --> 00:19:37.960
And so many years ago I got to work on something which is now called every cat Outdoor, so you can go to every kid outdoors.
00:19:37.960 --> 00:19:41.279
Scout But it was called every kid in the park at the time.
00:19:41.279 --> 00:19:43.720
And let me tell you the program first.
00:19:43.720 --> 00:19:55.799
What it was is basically it's a program that provides all fourth grade students and their families with free admission to national parks for a full school year.
00:19:55.880 --> 00:19:56.119
Right.
00:19:56.119 --> 00:20:00.240
And this was intended to get kids and their families out to the parks and outdoors.
00:20:00.240 --> 00:20:02.160
Right.
00:20:02.160 --> 00:20:05.319
Instead of sort of being indoors in front of their computers.
00:20:05.319 --> 00:20:07.960
Right. Like we were talking about.
00:20:07.960 --> 00:20:10.640
And so great program.
00:20:10.640 --> 00:20:13.240
Great, great feel good program.
00:20:13.240 --> 00:20:19.640
We by the time the project came to me, they were like, can you build a website to issue these passes?
00:20:19.640 --> 00:20:28.519
And pretty much you okay, Which since we've all worked with the federal government, you will know that that is lightning fast.
00:20:28.599 --> 00:20:29.480
Yeah.
00:20:29.480 --> 00:20:33.920
And so because we were naive, we said, Yes, of course we can do it.
00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:36.359
But that's, that's I wasn't talking.
00:20:36.359 --> 00:20:42.960
I wasn't going to talk to you about the speed of it, but I wanted to talk to you about is we built a website for fourth graders.
00:20:43.039 --> 00:20:44.400
Mm hmm. Right.
00:20:44.400 --> 00:20:53.000
And we did research with fourth graders, which was really fun, because that's not a demographic you wouldn't normally think of, like doing user research with.
00:20:53.079 --> 00:21:07.119
And so, you know, we'll talk a little bit more about the details of it, but we kind of had fourth graders come into the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is part of the part of the White House complex.
00:21:07.319 --> 00:21:09.680
And so, you know, fun field trip for them.
00:21:09.680 --> 00:21:11.000
We were in this big room.
00:21:11.000 --> 00:21:13.519
They were all hanging out on the floor doing activities.
00:21:13.519 --> 00:21:19.200
And we got to like, you know, a lot of it was them doing activities and kind of getting into the flow of stuff.
00:21:19.200 --> 00:21:23.559
But also like getting to ask them a few questions and stuff about about different things.
00:21:23.559 --> 00:21:31.880
And that is absolutely like my favorite example of doing this, especially doing this with fourth graders, right?
00:21:31.960 --> 00:21:38.079
And what we did, what ended up happening was rebuilt an entire website.
00:21:38.160 --> 00:21:39.000
It's very small.
00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:52.480
Remember, it was only three months. So but the whole thing is is written at a fourth grade level so that as a fourth grader, you can even click on the teacher section or anywhere else and you can understand everything that's on there.
00:21:52.559 --> 00:21:54.359
And we got obsessive about this, right?
00:21:54.359 --> 00:21:56.640
We were like, Kids love to explore.
00:21:56.640 --> 00:21:57.480
They're curious.
00:21:57.480 --> 00:21:59.680
We learned that through our user research sessions, right?
00:21:59.680 --> 00:22:01.079
They were always asking questions.
00:22:01.079 --> 00:22:08.160
And so we built the whole thing for fourth graders, which is which is kind of a long link for a government website, right?
00:22:08.160 --> 00:22:10.559
You wouldn't think that a government website would be that simple.
00:22:10.559 --> 00:22:12.519
But here we are.
00:22:12.599 --> 00:22:17.680
And on the website, just what does it look like?
00:22:17.920 --> 00:22:20.880
You know, when the kids get on there?
00:22:20.880 --> 00:22:24.279
I mean, our do we see pictures of national parks?
00:22:24.359 --> 00:22:29.640
Do you know how how is it that they can actually get their park pass and all that type of stuff?
00:22:29.640 --> 00:22:30.200
Yeah.
00:22:30.200 --> 00:22:43.440
So when you go to the website and you can go to it right now, every kid outdoors, one of the things is some of the concepts where we wanted to show a picture of National Park.
00:22:43.480 --> 00:22:49.079
So there's a big hero image up top which shows one of the parks and then remember which one that is.
00:22:49.079 --> 00:22:50.640
But it's it's cliffs, right?
00:22:50.640 --> 00:23:02.079
So it's a little bit like who I want to go there and sort of lower down on the board are pictures of kids doing outdoor things.
00:23:02.079 --> 00:23:07.000
So sort of like evoking this, like, I want to go do that thing type of thing.
00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:09.200
Like I'm seeing a picture of a kid.
00:23:09.200 --> 00:23:11.759
There's, you know, kids with binoculars looking at something.
00:23:11.759 --> 00:23:18.359
So maybe if you're a fourth grader, you're like, oh, I want to go somewhere and go look through binoculars or or I'm a wall or something.
00:23:18.359 --> 00:23:20.000
That sounds fun.
00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:20.799
So that's what we did.
00:23:20.799 --> 00:23:23.279
We sort of like did a little bit of inspiration.
00:23:23.279 --> 00:23:24.559
It's a very simple site.
00:23:24.559 --> 00:23:32.720
If you go to it, there's very few words in the front and what you can do is basically, essentially we talk about three things, right?
00:23:32.799 --> 00:23:47.079
How the whole thing works, explaining how it works, how you get your pass and how you get entry to the parks and then get your pass, which is you do a couple of activities before you're given your pass.
00:23:47.079 --> 00:23:50.319
And they're very, very simple. Right?
00:23:50.400 --> 00:23:59.440
But one of the things we learned from user research is that they the kids didn't want to just be given something.
00:23:59.519 --> 00:24:04.000
They wanted to feel like they'd done something for it.
00:24:04.079 --> 00:24:09.640
And so we built just like a little like, oh, I'm interested in this and this other thing.
00:24:09.640 --> 00:24:12.640
Just a very simple couple clicks game.
00:24:12.839 --> 00:24:22.000
Not too complicated at all, but at least it made them feel like they were thinking about the parks, thinking about what they wanted to do, and then they kind of like earn the, the parts of the.
00:24:22.079 --> 00:24:28.000
Yeah. And so as I listen to you, it's simple.
00:24:28.079 --> 00:24:30.599
It's an experience that they connect with.
00:24:30.599 --> 00:24:33.079
And I want to dig deeper into this.
00:24:33.079 --> 00:24:36.079
I'm not worked with a lot of fourth graders yet.
00:24:36.079 --> 00:24:45.839
I would tell you a lot of the conferences that I've been in, when we're deep into some sort of project, there can be behavior that's not at the fourth grade level.
00:24:45.839 --> 00:24:47.319
It's somewhere in the kindergarten level.
00:24:47.319 --> 00:24:50.240
So I think I do have experience in that way.
00:24:50.240 --> 00:24:53.640
But I want to dig into this.
00:24:53.720 --> 00:25:01.960
First off, when you're when you're talking about a site like that, that you're wanting kids to have an experience, you're wanting it to be on their level.
00:25:02.039 --> 00:25:06.599
I mean, how did you even pick the group of the kids.
00:25:06.680 --> 00:25:08.599
The kids to do research with?
00:25:08.599 --> 00:25:10.119
Yeah, Yeah.
00:25:10.119 --> 00:25:16.200
So we were very fortunate in that we were working with the Department of Education on this one.
00:25:16.200 --> 00:25:20.279
So so, you know, they have a, they have a decent amount of reach with schools.
00:25:20.359 --> 00:25:25.400
But the thing that we did was we, we picked and, and I can't take all the credit for this, right?
00:25:25.400 --> 00:25:29.079
I worked with some like awesome people that did this.
00:25:29.160 --> 00:25:33.640
We picked a a diverse group, right.
00:25:33.720 --> 00:25:45.000
We picked kids from, like affluent areas that maybe take a lot of vacations and we picked kids from from areas where maybe they don't get to take a lot of vacations, right?
00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:47.440
Maybe they've never been out to a park.
00:25:47.440 --> 00:25:52.880
And we wanted to sort of like grab all those different opinions. Right.
00:25:52.880 --> 00:25:57.240
Because everyone's everyone's perspective and everyone's experience matters, right?
00:25:57.240 --> 00:25:58.160
This is important.
00:25:58.160 --> 00:26:02.519
And building governments services as you kind of want to build to everyone.
00:26:02.519 --> 00:26:06.599
And so the Department of Education kind of helped.
00:26:06.599 --> 00:26:12.880
They had I think they worked through like some sort of contract or something, but they had folks that were connected to different schools.
00:26:12.880 --> 00:26:25.720
We got kids in from different schools, you know, representing different demographics and different areas and stuff, all local, of course, because we weren't paying for for kids to fly and unfortunately.
00:26:25.799 --> 00:26:27.519
But yeah, that's that's how you do it.
00:26:27.519 --> 00:26:29.839
And that's sort of an important principle, right?
00:26:29.839 --> 00:26:38.279
You want to when you pick your research cohort, you want a a diverse selection as possible so that you're taking into account a lot of needs.
00:26:38.279 --> 00:26:38.519
Right?
00:26:38.519 --> 00:26:41.279
When you're we talked about doing research with seven people.
00:26:41.279 --> 00:26:42.519
You want those.
00:26:42.519 --> 00:26:47.279
If all seven people are the same, you're only going to learn one thing, right?
00:26:47.279 --> 00:26:51.000
But if all those seven people are different, you're going to learn seven different things.
00:26:51.000 --> 00:26:55.319
Is that a common mistake that you see sometimes where people are trying to do it right?
00:26:55.319 --> 00:27:01.240
Hey, we're going to do the research, but they don't have the diversity of the user base represented.
00:27:01.319 --> 00:27:03.240
It's it's very common.
00:27:03.240 --> 00:27:16.440
You have to really think about the diversity of the user base and be very smart about how you recruit recruiting for in the real world when you're not working with the Department of Education and they can like ask a school to come in for a cool field trip to the White House.
00:27:16.440 --> 00:27:17.720
Right?
00:27:17.720 --> 00:27:24.440
You have to convince people to spend some of their time with you and recruitment is hard on you.
00:27:24.559 --> 00:27:26.720
That's the part that takes the longest time.
00:27:26.720 --> 00:27:31.359
So that's you can't sort of rush through that process.
00:27:31.359 --> 00:27:39.319
And that's where I think you don't you don't always see the diversity that you would like to see.
00:27:39.319 --> 00:27:45.400
MM And how do you convince people to actually take part?
00:27:45.400 --> 00:27:49.920
I mean, how do you convince the kids, hey, you know, you, we need you here.
00:27:49.920 --> 00:27:51.720
How do you convince them to do that?
00:27:51.720 --> 00:27:54.039
I mean, kids are easy drive.
00:27:54.039 --> 00:27:55.440
They're on a field trip.
00:27:55.440 --> 00:27:56.960
They're they're coming to a cool place.
00:27:56.960 --> 00:27:59.720
They don't have to be in class for 8 hours.
00:27:59.720 --> 00:28:05.359
New activities with them. And, you know, you tell them about going out to the parks and stuff.
00:28:05.359 --> 00:28:08.440
And kids are always like, kids are curious, right?
00:28:08.440 --> 00:28:10.799
They're like, wow, that's really cool.
00:28:10.799 --> 00:28:13.440
But that's not just kids, right?
00:28:13.440 --> 00:28:15.359
Like that.
00:28:15.359 --> 00:28:22.440
We see that when we talk to adults as well about like, hey, can you help us with this thing?
00:28:22.519 --> 00:28:23.920
Mm hmm. Right.
00:28:23.920 --> 00:28:36.480
And it turns out that people are really happy to help their government, either because they have experienced that pain and want to make it better or that they just want to help.
00:28:36.480 --> 00:28:40.640
And they want to they want to they want to be part of something.
00:28:40.640 --> 00:28:45.559
And I think it's it's really not that hard to get people excited about stuff.
00:28:45.559 --> 00:28:47.319
Right.
00:28:47.319 --> 00:29:05.640
You know, if I said, Hey, Eric, can you come spend 15 minutes and give me a few pointers on this, this benefits website that I've been prototyping and just, you know, maybe just point out a few words that you didn't connect with or something like it's 15 minutes of your time now.
00:29:05.640 --> 00:29:08.599
You feel like you're part of something bigger and important.
00:29:08.599 --> 00:29:15.799
And, you know, often there's compensation for research participants and I'll be like, Oh yeah, here's a $25 gift card at the end of it, right?
00:29:15.799 --> 00:29:18.720
And it's kind of like you're connecting all those things.
00:29:18.720 --> 00:29:25.759
It's a sense of purpose and and you get a little something out of it and you get to improve something which, you know, most people want to do.
00:29:25.799 --> 00:29:26.680
That's it.
00:29:26.680 --> 00:29:29.160
That's what positive about the society we live in.
00:29:29.160 --> 00:29:40.839
I think that's such a key point that sometimes, let's say early in the research, oh, we don't want to bother as you that the doctors or we don't want to bother Special forces or the teachers.
00:29:40.920 --> 00:29:49.079
Yet most of us, if we've spent a lifetime on our craft, if you ask me about it, I want to share.
00:29:49.079 --> 00:29:50.759
It's something I'm proud of, right?
00:29:50.759 --> 00:29:56.880
And the amount of information yet we may hesitate to ask or not ask the right people yet.
00:29:56.880 --> 00:30:01.680
That point that people are dying to share and sometimes nobody's asked them.
00:30:01.759 --> 00:30:03.839
And I think that's so key.
00:30:03.839 --> 00:30:05.720
I want to get back to the kids, though.
00:30:05.720 --> 00:30:11.799
So you've got all these kids together and how many kids did you have?
00:30:11.880 --> 00:30:13.119
Oh, this is a good question.
00:30:13.119 --> 00:30:17.759
I think there were 30 or 40 kids.
00:30:17.759 --> 00:30:19.839
I mean, it was it was a couple of classrooms.
00:30:19.839 --> 00:30:20.160
Right.
00:30:20.160 --> 00:30:22.240
So so I think it was 30 or 40 kids.
00:30:22.240 --> 00:30:24.000
It was it was a make grab.
00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:25.680
Yeah. And what are you asking them?
00:30:25.680 --> 00:30:27.200
You get them together. They're excited.
00:30:27.200 --> 00:30:30.160
I would have been anything to get out of class and I was excited.
00:30:30.160 --> 00:30:33.000
So what are some of the questions you're asking them?
00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:35.400
Yeah, so.
00:30:35.400 --> 00:30:37.319
So there's different forms of research, right?
00:30:37.319 --> 00:30:41.400
And, and one former researchers where you ask folks questions.
00:30:41.400 --> 00:30:46.440
And I think that that works most of the time with kids.
00:30:46.440 --> 00:30:54.440
What we did, where we were like, hey, we're building this website, it's called Every Kid in the Park and it's going to do this past thing.
00:30:54.519 --> 00:30:58.440
You know, here are some art materials and craft materials.
00:30:58.599 --> 00:31:04.119
Can you build can you design the front page of the website for us?
00:31:04.200 --> 00:31:08.200
And so that's an activity that they got to do, right?
00:31:08.200 --> 00:31:17.279
So now you're giving them an activity where they're thinking about like what the website would look like, and then you just ask them like, Hey, what?
00:31:17.279 --> 00:31:19.200
Why did you pick this thing?
00:31:19.200 --> 00:31:20.880
Or why did you pick this other thing?
00:31:20.880 --> 00:31:22.599
Right? Like what?
00:31:22.599 --> 00:31:26.559
Why did you make the choices you did as you're just kind of like walking around the room, right?
00:31:26.559 --> 00:31:29.039
So it doesn't even feel like you're asking them questions.
00:31:29.039 --> 00:31:33.480
You're just asking them about this thing that they've built, right.
00:31:33.480 --> 00:31:49.559
Or created in the in the time that we have. And, you know, that's when we learned about the activities that they wanted to earn their powers because a few of them had built sort of like a little thing that they had to do before you got to the past kind of thing.
00:31:49.559 --> 00:31:52.079
Right.
00:31:52.079 --> 00:31:54.720
And, you know, I don't have kids.
00:31:54.720 --> 00:31:59.400
And so for me, it was a great way to learn about like how they're thinking.
00:31:59.400 --> 00:32:01.759
And it definitely informed.
00:32:01.759 --> 00:32:09.160
And we didn't take one of their their designs and implement that, but it definitely informed the design that we built.
00:32:09.240 --> 00:32:19.119
You know, it reminds me where we started that piece of art and that then maybe inspires you, gives you direction.
00:32:19.160 --> 00:32:20.039
The same thing.
00:32:20.039 --> 00:32:31.559
You have a kid, you know, they're this a Grand Canyon, or maybe this is Yosemite, maybe they show a picture of and I'll betcha where you getting inspiration from that?
00:32:31.559 --> 00:32:33.480
Were you seeing. It?
00:32:33.480 --> 00:32:35.400
Of course. Yeah.
00:32:35.400 --> 00:32:36.319
Of course. Great.
00:32:36.319 --> 00:32:39.599
Because now I'm not now I'm not using my thoughts on it.
00:32:39.599 --> 00:32:41.000
I'm using their thoughts on it.
00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:41.279
Right.
00:32:41.279 --> 00:32:44.200
Like, oh, they drew a big picture of park.
00:32:44.200 --> 00:32:50.880
Well, our website has a big picture of a park front, so you definitely get that.
00:32:50.880 --> 00:32:57.640
My favorite activity to do with adults when we do research and we'll talk about adults for just a second.
00:32:57.640 --> 00:33:10.640
I know we're is something called joint sketching where you're building out a particular feature and you just get everyone who shows up to the session to sketch what what they think it would look like.
00:33:10.720 --> 00:33:30.079
Mhm. And let's say that for a lot of government bureaucrats who've lived their life the last 30 years of their life in suits to going to important meetings and doing important things, getting to sketch your work is not one of the things that they do regularly at all time.
00:33:30.079 --> 00:33:35.640
A little out of their comfort zone, right?
00:33:35.720 --> 00:33:47.279
You know, so you have to you have to get them to loose a little bit, but then you get great ideas because they're thinking about how they would implement something like how they want to look at and you get to see it.
00:33:47.279 --> 00:33:56.400
And I think, you know, going full circle back to where we started, right, like visual representations are really important because then we can ask a bunch of questions about it.
00:33:56.400 --> 00:33:59.400
We can see how you're feeling about it, right?
00:33:59.400 --> 00:34:00.920
What how you want to interact with it.
00:34:00.920 --> 00:34:04.160
And I think that's, you know, I don't know.
00:34:04.160 --> 00:34:08.960
I encourage folks to go out there and get people to sketch things.
00:34:09.039 --> 00:34:09.800
Yeah.
00:34:09.800 --> 00:34:12.559
And, you know, I think about it.
00:34:12.559 --> 00:34:18.239
The you you have these kids in the room, they're engaged.
00:34:18.320 --> 00:34:23.159
They're in some ways leading you and others by showing who I have this idea and so forth.
00:34:23.159 --> 00:34:24.840
And that's great.
00:34:24.840 --> 00:34:30.199
What were some of the tough parts of the project or what maybe was the art?
00:34:30.280 --> 00:34:32.360
Yeah. Yeah.
00:34:32.360 --> 00:34:35.079
I'll tell you that a small part because it's it's a small part.
00:34:35.079 --> 00:34:37.800
And I mean, the toughest part, of course, was the timeline.
00:34:37.800 --> 00:34:38.599
Three months, right?
00:34:38.599 --> 00:34:44.519
So, you know, we ended up saying no to a lot of ideas because we were like, we only have three months.
00:34:44.519 --> 00:34:46.840
All these things you want to do, we can't do it right.
00:34:46.840 --> 00:34:48.320
So that was that was part of it.
00:34:48.320 --> 00:35:03.559
But one of the things was so the correct term for what the passes for is it's for federal access to federal lands and waters hmm.
00:35:03.639 --> 00:35:16.159
Now, if you think about that phrase a little bit, you don't turn you're not going to turn to your wife on on Saturday, next Saturday and and go, hey, can we go?
00:35:16.159 --> 00:35:19.679
Let's go to the federal lands on the waters.
00:35:19.760 --> 00:35:22.199
That's where I want to do my picnic, right?
00:35:22.199 --> 00:35:24.519
I'm thinking federal lands and waters this weekend.
00:35:24.519 --> 00:35:25.360
Kids, what do you.
00:35:25.360 --> 00:35:27.480
Think you're thinking? Federal lands and waters this weekend, right?
00:35:27.480 --> 00:35:29.679
It doesn't quite roll off the tongue.
00:35:27.480 --> 00:35:29.679
Right? Right.
00:35:29.679 --> 00:35:36.800
And so so we were having this debate with with the folks because they wanted to be very precise because, of course. Right.
00:35:36.800 --> 00:35:47.840
You want to be precise when you are the agency, because you don't want to exclude other agencies.
00:35:47.840 --> 00:35:50.440
You don't want to like make the national force unhappy. Right.
00:35:50.440 --> 00:35:54.199
By saying park, for example.
00:35:54.280 --> 00:35:58.800
And so we kept going back and forth and I was like, look, federal lands and waters, it just doesn't make sense.
00:35:58.800 --> 00:36:00.360
Nobody talks about it that way.
00:36:00.360 --> 00:36:03.760
I know it's accurate, but the kids are going to think about it that way.
00:36:03.760 --> 00:36:05.599
Their parents are going to think about it that way.
00:36:05.599 --> 00:36:07.119
It doesn't make sense.
00:36:07.119 --> 00:36:10.119
And so we've been having this argument for a while.
00:36:10.239 --> 00:36:18.519
And at the next sort of research, what we decided to ask the kids about it.
00:36:18.519 --> 00:36:20.239
Right.
00:36:20.239 --> 00:36:25.440
Like we I think we'd put maybe we put something up in front of them with federal lands and waters.
00:36:25.519 --> 00:36:25.880
Yeah.
00:36:25.880 --> 00:36:32.239
And the first question we get back is what is federal mean, right?
00:36:32.239 --> 00:36:33.039
You're fourth grader.
00:36:33.039 --> 00:36:36.039
You don't know what that word means. Right?
00:36:36.159 --> 00:36:42.719
And so this is a perfect example of the sort of information you can immediately get from doing that user research.
00:36:42.719 --> 00:36:44.719
Right. You don't have to debate it.
00:36:44.719 --> 00:36:46.519
You can just ask.
00:36:46.519 --> 00:36:55.960
And so if you'll notice on the website, we very carefully try not to see federal lands and waters, we say.
00:36:56.039 --> 00:37:03.039
So we made a compromise research You and your family get free access to hundreds of parks, lands and waters for an entire year.
00:37:03.119 --> 00:37:04.679
And that's a little easier, right?
00:37:04.679 --> 00:37:06.079
Because you know what a park is.
00:37:06.079 --> 00:37:08.320
You know what land is.
00:37:06.079 --> 00:37:08.320
You know what water is.
00:37:08.320 --> 00:37:10.199
It could be a lake or a river. Right.
00:37:10.199 --> 00:37:12.239
And that's a little bit more interesting.
00:37:12.239 --> 00:37:15.440
We got rid of the word federal and that was way.
00:37:15.440 --> 00:37:21.360
And this is the thing that is so important about user research is it helps you answer these questions.
00:37:21.360 --> 00:37:24.119
You don't have to think about them.
00:37:24.119 --> 00:37:25.599
You don't have to beat them.
00:37:24.119 --> 00:37:28.639
You just have to ask the question of your users, How do you refer to this thing?
00:37:28.639 --> 00:37:36.480
And building a piece of technology or in the vernacular of the user is one of the most important things you can do.
00:37:36.519 --> 00:37:38.760
And, you know, we were talking about Special Forces.
00:37:38.760 --> 00:37:48.719
I bet they have their own language of the things and if you didn't do that, they would just be confused.
00:37:48.719 --> 00:37:49.000
Right.
00:37:49.000 --> 00:38:00.039
Because you're not using their language to refer to whatever they call, I don't know, the C5 Globemaster, they probably don't call or call it the Boeing C-5 Globemaster heavy lift vehicle.
00:38:00.039 --> 00:38:01.920
Right? And they probably just call it something else.
00:38:01.920 --> 00:38:05.039
And that's the phrase you want to use.
00:38:05.119 --> 00:38:15.280
You know, and again, a simple insight, as soon as you say that, it's like, oh, that makes total sense.
00:38:15.360 --> 00:38:17.719
Yet the power of it, right?
00:38:17.719 --> 00:38:23.679
If it's not in that right language, kids get on that website and I don't know what this is.
00:38:23.760 --> 00:38:44.719
They click right off as you and I know the bounce rates today in our like attention deficit nation and so getting that vocabulary right so key and you know there's there's several insights in this kid's story that you've mentioned that that I think are so powerful and applicable to everybody.
00:38:44.719 --> 00:38:57.360
One that constant user feedback and coming back to them then not waiting like in the old days, months coming right back to them saying, hey, does this do you get that?
00:38:57.360 --> 00:38:59.199
Oh, what do you think about that?
00:38:57.360 --> 00:38:59.199
They're going to you.
00:38:59.199 --> 00:39:02.079
I like it.
00:38:59.199 --> 00:39:02.079
I don't understand what you mean, right?
00:39:02.079 --> 00:39:08.800
So that constant feedback, the other thing you said was they want it to work for it.
00:39:08.800 --> 00:39:09.360
They didn't.
00:39:09.360 --> 00:39:14.599
They wanted to be engaged and do they didn't want just this given to them.
00:39:14.679 --> 00:39:27.800
Are there other insights, Shawshank, out of this story that that we can gather that are really helpful for anybody that's out there trying to develop good software?
00:39:27.880 --> 00:39:37.320
Yeah, and I think we talk about this a little bit before, but keeping making things as simple as possible, right? Very, very simple.
00:39:37.320 --> 00:39:39.639
Keep the language simple.
00:39:39.639 --> 00:39:42.639
So the interaction simple.
00:39:42.840 --> 00:39:45.239
Keep the process simple, too, Right?
00:39:45.239 --> 00:39:57.360
So if you are if you're applying if if you've been in an area that's been hit by a natural disaster and now you're going to FEMA to apply for some help, right?
00:39:57.360 --> 00:40:02.320
You want that process to be as simple as possible, right?
00:40:02.320 --> 00:40:06.719
Recognizing the emotional state that you're in.
00:40:06.800 --> 00:40:11.440
And I think simplicity always wins, right?
00:40:11.519 --> 00:40:12.840
It makes things accessible.
00:40:12.840 --> 00:40:23.800
So if if you're if it's simple, it's easier for the folks that are using assistive devices because there's less text.
00:40:23.880 --> 00:40:28.119
And, you know, not everyone in America speaks English the same way.
00:40:28.199 --> 00:40:30.480
Read there's the we're a country of immigrants.
00:40:30.480 --> 00:40:32.519
There's a lot of folks that speak other languages.
00:40:32.519 --> 00:40:39.119
The simpler you keep those phrases, the easier it's it's going to be for folks to get their benefits.
00:40:39.119 --> 00:40:45.559
And that's that's you know, in in all in all aspects.
00:40:45.559 --> 00:40:49.159
I think when you can simplify and this is really, really key.
00:40:49.159 --> 00:40:49.320
Right.
00:40:49.320 --> 00:40:53.039
And I'm saying it like and you're probably thinking like, well, this is obvious, right?
00:40:53.039 --> 00:40:54.920
I want things to be simple.
00:40:54.920 --> 00:41:03.599
But I think as human beings and as especially as large organizations, we have a tendency to like put everything in there and make it complicated, right?
00:41:03.599 --> 00:41:08.760
Or the lawyers get involved and they're like, Well, you can't call it this because it's actually called something else.
00:41:08.800 --> 00:41:10.840
Well, you know, and.
00:41:10.840 --> 00:41:15.159
I want to dig into that a little bit more because I think the point is profound.
00:41:15.239 --> 00:41:27.760
Yet every day on the front lines, I know you face this cliff and I face this, you come in with here's a tight here's a tight, tight plan.
00:41:27.760 --> 00:41:29.440
It's very simple.
00:41:29.440 --> 00:41:31.679
And then you hit this Mt.
00:41:31.679 --> 00:41:35.639
Everest size of bureaucracy.
00:41:35.639 --> 00:41:38.599
Well, we've got to do this.
00:41:35.639 --> 00:41:38.599
We got to be compliant. We got to.
00:41:38.599 --> 00:41:48.199
How do you weather in the with the kids and getting the right name or anybody that's trying to do this?
00:41:48.280 --> 00:41:51.719
How do you kind of win that challenge?
00:41:51.719 --> 00:41:54.599
How do you work through that where you actually get to.
00:41:54.599 --> 00:41:55.679
No, no, no.
00:41:55.679 --> 00:41:56.679
Here's on the other side.
00:41:56.679 --> 00:41:58.679
The simplicity. Steve Jobs iPhone.
00:41:58.679 --> 00:41:59.840
He was brilliant. Right?
00:41:59.840 --> 00:42:00.840
Things would be so easy.
00:42:00.840 --> 00:42:02.639
You don't need a manual.
00:42:02.639 --> 00:42:08.280
How do you cross that almost valley of death, though, Shawshank, whether with the kids or anybody else?
00:42:08.360 --> 00:42:11.599
You mean in the valley of Death between complex and simple or.
00:42:11.599 --> 00:42:12.599
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:42:12.599 --> 00:42:14.840
Because let's say Fima, you and I were excited.
00:42:14.840 --> 00:42:15.119
We come.
00:42:15.119 --> 00:42:20.320
We've got a simple plan, and here's a one pager, and they're like, Okay, Sierra manual over here, it's 4000 pages.
00:42:20.320 --> 00:42:21.639
That's the first responder.
00:42:21.639 --> 00:42:23.760
Here's some of the flooding that goes back to 80.
00:42:23.760 --> 00:42:27.400
And you say, Whoa, And there is this collision of worlds.
00:42:27.480 --> 00:42:33.280
How do you work through that?
00:42:33.360 --> 00:42:39.000
Like bring them with you right when you do the research?
00:42:39.000 --> 00:42:49.039
So one of the things we didn't talk about, we talked about bringing kids into our location to do research, but what if it wasn't kids and it wasn't this particular scenario?
00:42:49.039 --> 00:42:55.000
What I would say is go out and go to where your users are and do that.
00:42:55.000 --> 00:43:04.320
Research is like in in a previous job, we did research Air Force aircrew, and so we went the team.
00:43:04.320 --> 00:43:18.559
I didn't get to go, unfortunately, the team went out to the the flight line so that they could talk to people coming off their flights or like going into missions right.
00:43:18.559 --> 00:43:22.519
Because you want to meet people where they're at.
00:43:22.599 --> 00:43:24.480
And so one.
00:43:24.480 --> 00:43:26.920
Right. We do that.
00:43:26.920 --> 00:43:34.920
But to bring the folks along with you to observe the process of the research.
00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:35.280
Right.
00:43:35.280 --> 00:43:41.440
It's easy to be the person on a conference table in DC.
00:43:41.519 --> 00:43:50.159
That's talking about all these things and wanting to do all these things right that aren't that are sort of orthogonal to what the users want.
00:43:50.239 --> 00:43:58.719
And it's another thing to say like, Hey, come with me or listen in on that zoom call, right? And that's what we do.
00:43:58.719 --> 00:44:02.679
That's what my team does at the VA is they have a lot of observer hours on that call.
00:44:02.679 --> 00:44:12.079
They just, you know, they kind of like turn off their video so that they're not present and overwhelming, but they're listening into the conversation.
00:44:12.079 --> 00:44:20.400
When people hear things firsthand from the users, that that's what sparks that, Oh, yeah, I get it now because we're human, right?
00:44:20.400 --> 00:44:23.920
We have to see it to believe it sometimes or hear it to believe it directly.
00:44:24.000 --> 00:44:26.280
And I think that's one of the best ways to do that, right?
00:44:26.280 --> 00:44:29.559
Like bring the folks with you, invite them into your process.
00:44:29.639 --> 00:44:33.239
I think that's fascinating insight and a couple of things I really like about that.
00:44:33.239 --> 00:44:44.639
One is I always like thinking bottom line or assertions and this notion that user needs is can overcome bureaucracy.
00:44:44.639 --> 00:44:54.920
User needs help you bust through bureaucracy, but when you have it straight from the user, all a sudden we've got something real almost back to that artwork again.
00:44:54.920 --> 00:44:58.239
It's not just left brain, it's not just analytics.
00:44:58.320 --> 00:45:00.159
We've got something that the biggest skeptic.
00:45:00.159 --> 00:45:01.159
How do you deny?
00:45:01.159 --> 00:45:04.880
Well, the pilot just told us this, you know what I'm saying?
00:45:04.880 --> 00:45:10.079
So that becomes a powerful force for BI in that No, no, no.
00:45:10.079 --> 00:45:12.320
This idea is legitimate.
00:45:12.320 --> 00:45:16.320
We have multiple users telling us that and I think there's great power in that.
00:45:16.400 --> 00:45:16.760
Yeah.
00:45:16.760 --> 00:45:20.440
And it comes down to it's, it comes down to storytelling, right.
00:45:20.440 --> 00:45:24.800
It's, it's telling the stories of people.
00:45:24.880 --> 00:45:26.639
And now it's not just a task.
00:45:26.639 --> 00:45:39.679
It's the story of this mother or this child, this pilot, this individual person that you can now see and envision because you've talked to them that are saying that they need this thing.
00:45:39.679 --> 00:45:42.679
And how could you not get that to them?
00:45:42.679 --> 00:45:54.000
And, you know, the notion of storytelling, which I totally connect with, I want to go back to the kids one more time from a storytelling point of view.
00:45:54.079 --> 00:45:58.119
You've completed the project, Shashank, with the team.
00:45:58.199 --> 00:46:09.400
When you saw the kids actually using every kit outdoors dot gov, how did that feel when you were able to observe that?
00:46:09.480 --> 00:46:12.719
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's kind of a fun thing, right?
00:46:12.719 --> 00:46:26.320
So every so often when you drive into a national park or something, they have the, the flier, the brochure like stuck in the window at the the king.
00:46:26.400 --> 00:46:28.639
And every time I'm like, I did that.
00:46:28.639 --> 00:46:30.599
We did that. Yeah.
00:46:30.599 --> 00:46:39.079
Which is it's really fun, right? And there's there's a lot of joy and a lot of pride for having done something that has that impact.
00:46:39.079 --> 00:46:39.280
Right?
00:46:39.280 --> 00:46:43.920
It's not we didn't solve like this world's a massive problem, right?
00:46:43.920 --> 00:46:46.679
We didn't fix climate change or whatever.
00:46:46.679 --> 00:46:52.559
But what we did do is like allow kids to go to the park.
00:46:52.639 --> 00:46:58.440
And I think that has such follow on such great follow on things that you can think about, right?
00:46:58.440 --> 00:47:00.440
You get folks interested in the outdoors.
00:47:00.440 --> 00:47:08.400
And I I've talked to like I've mentioned that I worked on this too, like in other meetings and stuff, right?
00:47:08.400 --> 00:47:11.719
When people talk about like, hey, what are some interesting things that you worked on?
00:47:11.719 --> 00:47:15.559
And something like, Oh yeah, I got a pass from that and we did that last year.
00:47:15.639 --> 00:47:18.920
We went to a bunch of parks and that's such a great feeling, right?
00:47:18.920 --> 00:47:35.800
And there's this, there's a great video on YouTube that I just watch, before I got on this call with you and it's they were interviewing kids right after the program had come out and they were sort of like, Hey, what do you want to do in a park and stuff?
00:47:35.800 --> 00:47:45.519
And it's just this like, great, great video and you see these kids and then they're like, Oh, here's if you're passing a free pass and their their jaws drop, right?
00:47:45.519 --> 00:47:47.440
Like they're so excited.
00:47:47.440 --> 00:47:56.880
It's, it's, it's like, wow, we can go, we've got this thing and you know, it feels good.
00:47:56.960 --> 00:48:03.239
So now I'm going to debate with you here in a friendly way.
00:48:03.360 --> 00:48:05.079
I love it.
00:48:05.079 --> 00:48:07.000
You're not solving climate change.
00:48:07.000 --> 00:48:10.800
Shawshank, but in some ways I would offer you are.
00:48:10.800 --> 00:48:12.320
And here's what I mean.
00:48:12.320 --> 00:48:14.159
I see climate proposals.
00:48:14.159 --> 00:48:32.159
They're so big, they're so overwhelming that they collapse upon their own weight, yet inspiring kids with something that is so concrete to where they visit a Shenandoah National Park, which you and I are not far from, or Yosemite or whichever it may be, because there are so many.
00:48:32.239 --> 00:48:37.559
I will tell you, when I was 14 years old, one of the most profound events in my entire life, my mom and dad.
00:48:37.559 --> 00:48:39.679
We grew up in central Pennsylvania.
00:48:39.679 --> 00:48:42.159
I'd never really been anywhere.
00:48:42.159 --> 00:48:47.039
And they took us to Yosemite and they took us to the redwoods and they took us to Yellowstone.
00:48:47.039 --> 00:48:50.800
And it changed my life in all kinds of ways.
00:48:50.800 --> 00:48:52.480
I developed a passion for the outdoors.
00:48:52.480 --> 00:48:57.320
I developed a passion for traveling, for seeing things that are different right?
00:48:57.400 --> 00:49:02.840
Different ways of living, different I mean, seeing ranchers in Wyoming, that was wildly different.
00:49:02.920 --> 00:49:12.719
So in some ways, I would argue that that project, even though it was small and back to simplicity, man, that was powerful.
00:49:12.800 --> 00:49:13.320
Yeah.
00:49:13.320 --> 00:49:18.320
And I think you're absolutely right.
00:49:18.320 --> 00:49:18.840
Yeah.
00:49:18.840 --> 00:49:27.760
And in what I would say is that's true of all the government projects that folks work on, right like that, they they do have follow on effects, right?
00:49:27.760 --> 00:49:31.000
Like you change people's lives. Right.
00:49:31.079 --> 00:49:37.800
If you make the federal aid form for colleges easier to go through, you're doing you're changing lives down the line, Right.
00:49:37.800 --> 00:49:38.760
Like this sort of thing.
00:49:38.760 --> 00:49:41.039
You're definitely inspiring folks. Right.
00:49:41.039 --> 00:49:51.519
And I can see on the wall behind you there's a bunch of pictures about the outdoors, Right. So clearly that's had a great impact.
00:49:51.599 --> 00:49:53.199
Yeah, you're right.
00:49:53.199 --> 00:49:56.039
You're absolutely right that the the impact is there.
00:49:56.039 --> 00:49:59.320
It might not be director immediate but it does happen.
00:49:59.400 --> 00:50:16.000
Mm. You know, my final question and I've really enjoyed the conversation session because you know there is an old saying that goes like this and it goes wisdom is the application of knowledge.
00:50:16.079 --> 00:50:25.840
So sometimes things sound very simple, yet the application of it, that's where the nuances, that's where the tremendous value is.
00:50:25.920 --> 00:50:27.480
Because one thing if somebody is, well, what do you do?
00:50:27.480 --> 00:50:31.480
Oh, you got to go do a research, you know, go talk to them.
00:50:31.559 --> 00:50:39.760
But you've given us a lot of very tangible, insightful things that again, demonstrate that wisdom of how you would get good software.
00:50:39.840 --> 00:50:56.320
So if we were imparting wisdom, if we were in that game, Shawshank, and somebody said to you, you know, what insight or advice would you offer to that new agency, CIO or CTO or CTO, Chief Data officer?
00:50:56.320 --> 00:51:02.360
For those that haven't heard that acronym and they want to move in this direction, they've heard what you said.
00:51:02.360 --> 00:51:05.679
They said, Yes, I need more of that.
00:51:05.760 --> 00:51:07.559
What insight would you give them?
00:51:07.559 --> 00:51:17.320
And we've covered a lot of things, but I'm just curious over a cup of coffee, what you would tell that new CIO, what you might mention to her?
00:51:17.400 --> 00:51:32.400
Oh, you know, make it easy for your teams to go out and talk to people like give, provide the executive air cover. MM.
00:51:32.480 --> 00:51:33.079
Right.
00:51:33.079 --> 00:51:37.559
Make it okay for those teams to go and, and CIOs can do that, right?
00:51:37.559 --> 00:51:46.079
They can just say I'm allowing these teams to go out and talk to the different users and now you've got that little bit of cover, right?
00:51:46.159 --> 00:51:51.639
And so all the rest of the folks in the organization, you could just be like, well, you know, the CIO asked us to do this.
00:51:51.639 --> 00:51:53.760
And I think that's that's very powerful, right?
00:51:53.760 --> 00:51:56.199
Use your power for good.
00:51:56.280 --> 00:51:59.800
So provide that cover so that you can do that.
00:51:59.880 --> 00:52:10.840
And the other thing is hire, hire some designers and hire some researchers so that you have some of those folks on your staff that are working for you, that can advocate for those methods.
00:52:10.840 --> 00:52:13.039
They can ask for those. Right.
00:52:13.039 --> 00:52:19.760
And I think that's the second most important thing that you can do right.
00:52:19.840 --> 00:52:25.800
And, you know, you just kind of sparked a thought before you had talked about it's storytelling.
00:52:25.800 --> 00:52:47.039
And if people in that boardroom can actually see be part of and what you just said, it seems to me Shashank and I welcome your thoughts is that by doing that, you're actually arming that CIO with an arsenal of stories, with an arsenal of examples that they can use then to start pushing through the organization to build support.
00:52:47.039 --> 00:52:48.920
But I'm just curious your thoughts on that.
00:52:48.920 --> 00:52:50.480
Yeah, absolutely right.
00:52:50.480 --> 00:52:58.400
Like, that's what you're doing, you're collecting stories, are collecting story features, but you're also collecting stories of your successes, right?
00:52:58.400 --> 00:53:02.639
You're saying we did this research, we built this thing, it works.
00:53:02.639 --> 00:53:04.519
Here's some quotes.
00:53:04.519 --> 00:53:07.800
Here's a little video of someone saying how awesome it is, right?
00:53:07.840 --> 00:53:12.800
Think about how powerful that is to allow you to do the next thing.
00:53:12.880 --> 00:53:14.320
Mm. Awesome.
00:53:14.320 --> 00:53:21.519
Shashank, I really appreciate you just taking the time out of your busy schedule to sit and talk with us.
00:53:21.599 --> 00:53:38.079
And as you know, this is a passion of Cliff's and mine that we get that hard hitting insight, those wisdoms out there so that well intended pros at every level out there that they can do the job better because it really matters.
00:53:38.079 --> 00:53:40.679
So, man, thanks again and I hope you'll come back.
00:53:40.679 --> 00:53:42.840
Thank you. I'd love to be back.
00:53:42.840 --> 00:57:05.079
Dove on different ideas from the outside applied to go on to drive change.
00:57:05.159 --> 00:57:08.639
And so cool to talk with Shashank today.
00:57:08.719 --> 00:57:21.760
And we're going to talk a little bit about a recent experience he had in a museum in the Hirshhorn Museum, a piece of artwork that moved him and it was on technology.
00:57:21.840 --> 00:57:35.719
And this is something that in our world and modernization that we don't talk about a lot, about artwork and the power of that and how actually that inspired him to help government agencies.
00:57:35.719 --> 00:57:40.119
And it reaffirmed to him things that he knew that go beyond just the technology.