WEBVTT 00:00:01.863 --> 00:00:05.905 What does it mean to spend our time well? 00:00:08.326 --> 00:00:10.677 I spend a lot of my time 00:00:10.677 --> 00:00:13.830 thinking about how to spend my time. 00:00:15.091 --> 00:00:16.088 Probably too much. 00:00:16.088 --> 00:00:17.521 I probably obsess over it -- 00:00:17.521 --> 00:00:18.941 my friends think I do. 00:00:18.941 --> 00:00:22.202 But I feel like I kind of have to, 00:00:22.202 --> 00:00:23.205 because these days, 00:00:23.205 --> 00:00:27.216 it feels like little bits of my time kind of slip away from me, 00:00:27.216 --> 00:00:28.265 and when that happens, 00:00:28.265 --> 00:00:32.131 it feels like parts of my life are slipping away. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:33.271 --> 00:00:34.260 Specifically, 00:00:34.260 --> 00:00:38.856 it feels like little bits of my time get slipped away to various things like this. 00:00:38.856 --> 00:00:39.897 Like technology -- 00:00:39.897 --> 00:00:41.721 I check things -- 00:00:41.721 --> 00:00:43.481 I'll give you an example. 00:00:43.825 --> 00:00:45.908 If this email shows up -- 00:00:45.908 --> 00:00:48.600 how many of you have gotten an email like this, right? 00:00:48.600 --> 00:00:50.898 I've been tagged in a photo. 00:00:51.867 --> 00:00:53.762 When this appears, 00:00:53.762 --> 00:00:56.946 I can't help but click on it right now. 00:00:56.946 --> 00:00:57.946 Right? 00:00:57.946 --> 00:00:59.825 Because what if it's a bad photo? 00:00:59.825 --> 00:01:01.931 So I have to click it right now. 00:01:01.931 --> 00:01:04.341 But I'm not just going to click "See photo," 00:01:04.341 --> 00:01:07.175 what I'm actually going to do is spend the next 20 minutes. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:07.175 --> 00:01:08.177 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:01:08.177 --> 00:01:10.102 But the worst part 00:01:10.102 --> 00:01:12.517 is that I know that this is what's going to happen, 00:01:12.517 --> 00:01:15.836 and even knowing that that's what's going to happen 00:01:15.836 --> 00:01:18.883 doesn't stop me from doing it again the next time. 00:01:20.625 --> 00:01:24.383 Or I find myself in a situation like this ... 00:01:24.383 --> 00:01:27.918 where I check my email and I pull down to refresh, 00:01:27.918 --> 00:01:28.940 right? 00:01:29.267 --> 00:01:32.869 But the thing is that 60 seconds later, 00:01:32.869 --> 00:01:36.246 I'll pull down to refresh again. 00:01:37.019 --> 00:01:40.337 Like, why am I doing this? 00:01:40.337 --> 00:01:42.283 This doesn't make any sense. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:43.225 --> 00:01:46.723 But I'll give you a hint why this is happening. 00:01:48.565 --> 00:01:53.627 What do you think makes more money in the United States 00:01:53.627 --> 00:01:59.515 than movies, game parks and baseball combined? 00:02:01.925 --> 00:02:03.417 Slot machines. 00:02:05.426 --> 00:02:09.029 How can slot machines make all this money 00:02:09.029 --> 00:02:13.986 when we play with such small amounts of money? 00:02:14.229 --> 00:02:15.910 We play with coins. 00:02:15.910 --> 00:02:17.535 How is this possible? 00:02:18.383 --> 00:02:21.681 Well, the thing is ... 00:02:21.681 --> 00:02:25.535 my phone is a slot machine. 00:02:25.809 --> 00:02:27.821 Every time I check my phone, 00:02:27.821 --> 00:02:30.162 I'm playing the slot machine to see, 00:02:30.162 --> 00:02:31.607 what am I going to get? 00:02:32.074 --> 00:02:33.171 What am I going to get? 00:02:33.171 --> 00:02:35.073 Every time I check my email, 00:02:35.073 --> 00:02:36.719 I'm playing the slot machine 00:02:36.719 --> 00:02:38.394 [to say], "What am I going to get?" 00:02:38.394 --> 00:02:41.413 Every time I scroll a news feed, 00:02:41.413 --> 00:02:43.522 I'm playing the slot machine to see, 00:02:43.522 --> 00:02:45.128 what am I going to get next? 00:02:45.128 --> 00:02:46.127 Right? 00:02:46.520 --> 00:02:47.520 And the thing is 00:02:47.520 --> 00:02:49.690 that again knowing exactly how this works -- 00:02:49.690 --> 00:02:50.741 and I'm a designer, 00:02:50.741 --> 00:02:53.100 I know exactly how the psychology of this works, 00:02:53.100 --> 00:02:55.062 I know exactly what's going on -- 00:02:55.062 --> 00:02:57.327 but it doesn't leave me with any choice, 00:02:57.327 --> 00:02:59.608 I still just get sucked into it. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:00.372 --> 00:03:02.645 So what are we going to do? 00:03:03.082 --> 00:03:04.165 Because it leaves us 00:03:04.165 --> 00:03:07.806 with this all-or-nothing relationship with technology, right? 00:03:08.623 --> 00:03:10.748 You're either on, 00:03:10.748 --> 00:03:13.146 and your connected and distracted all the time, 00:03:13.146 --> 00:03:15.019 or you're off, 00:03:15.019 --> 00:03:16.299 but then you're wondering, 00:03:16.299 --> 00:03:18.631 am I missing something important? 00:03:18.631 --> 00:03:19.649 In other words, 00:03:19.649 --> 00:03:21.729 you're either distracted 00:03:21.729 --> 00:03:24.578 or you have Fear of Missing Out, 00:03:24.578 --> 00:03:25.890 right? NOTE Paragraph 00:03:27.029 --> 00:03:31.131 So we need to restore choice. 00:03:32.093 --> 00:03:34.761 We want to have a relationship with technology 00:03:34.761 --> 00:03:38.932 that gives us back choice about how we spend time with it, 00:03:38.932 --> 00:03:42.838 and we're going to need help from designers 00:03:42.838 --> 00:03:45.666 because knowing this stuff doesn't help. 00:03:45.666 --> 00:03:47.845 We're going to need design help, 00:03:47.845 --> 00:03:50.228 so what would that look like? NOTE Paragraph 00:03:50.832 --> 00:03:54.074 So let's take an example that we all face: 00:03:54.074 --> 00:03:55.067 chat -- 00:03:55.067 --> 00:03:56.360 text messaging. 00:03:56.360 --> 00:03:57.960 So let's say there's two people. 00:03:57.960 --> 00:04:01.125 Nancy's on the left and she's working on a document, 00:04:01.125 --> 00:04:02.884 and John's on the right. 00:04:02.884 --> 00:04:04.473 And John suddenly remembers, 00:04:04.473 --> 00:04:09.009 "I need to ask Nancy for that document before I forget!" 00:04:09.009 --> 00:04:10.013 Right? 00:04:10.434 --> 00:04:12.053 So when he sends her that message, 00:04:12.053 --> 00:04:14.394 it blows away her attention. 00:04:14.949 --> 00:04:15.810 Right? NOTE Paragraph 00:04:15.810 --> 00:04:17.829 And that's what we're doing all the time, 00:04:17.829 --> 00:04:20.663 we're bulldozing each other's attention left and right. 00:04:20.663 --> 00:04:22.812 And there's serious cost to this, 00:04:22.812 --> 00:04:27.073 because every time we interrupt each other ... 00:04:27.073 --> 00:04:30.121 it's takes us about 23 minutes on average 00:04:30.121 --> 00:04:32.111 to refocus our attention. 00:04:32.111 --> 00:04:35.482 We actually cycle through two different projects 00:04:35.482 --> 00:04:38.608 before we come back to the original thing we were doing. 00:04:38.938 --> 00:04:40.379 This is Gloria Mark's research 00:04:40.379 --> 00:04:44.408 combined with Microsoft's research that showed this. 00:04:44.800 --> 00:04:48.637 And her research also shows that it actually trains bad habits. 00:04:48.637 --> 00:04:51.689 The more interruptions we get externally, 00:04:51.689 --> 00:04:55.796 it's conditioning and training us to interrupt ourselves. 00:04:56.573 --> 00:05:00.743 We actually self-interrupt every three and a half minutes. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:01.295 --> 00:05:02.296 This is crazy, 00:05:02.296 --> 00:05:03.896 so how do we fix this? 00:05:03.896 --> 00:05:07.090 Because Nancy and John are in this all-or-nothing relationship. 00:05:07.090 --> 00:05:08.587 Nancy might want to disconnect, 00:05:08.587 --> 00:05:09.967 but then she'd be worried -- 00:05:09.967 --> 00:05:12.239 what if I'm missing something important? NOTE Paragraph 00:05:12.542 --> 00:05:14.808 So design can fix this problem. 00:05:15.526 --> 00:05:17.604 Let's say you have Nancy again on the left, 00:05:17.604 --> 00:05:18.786 John on the right, 00:05:18.786 --> 00:05:19.798 and John remembers, 00:05:19.798 --> 00:05:21.600 "I need to send Nancy that document," 00:05:21.600 --> 00:05:22.765 except this time, 00:05:22.765 --> 00:05:24.677 Nancy can mark that she's focused. 00:05:24.677 --> 00:05:26.605 Let's say she drags a slider and says, 00:05:26.605 --> 00:05:28.655 "I want to be focused for 30 minutes," 00:05:28.655 --> 00:05:30.341 so "bam," she's focused. 00:05:30.970 --> 00:05:33.526 Now when John wants the message her, 00:05:33.526 --> 00:05:35.566 he can get the thought off of his mind -- 00:05:35.566 --> 00:05:36.953 because he has a need, right? 00:05:36.953 --> 00:05:38.007 He has this thought 00:05:38.007 --> 00:05:40.744 and he needs to dump it out before he forgets, 00:05:40.744 --> 00:05:42.557 except this time 00:05:42.557 --> 00:05:46.785 it holds the messages so that Nancy can still focus 00:05:46.785 --> 00:05:50.626 but John can get the thought off of his mind, right? NOTE Paragraph 00:05:51.114 --> 00:05:54.336 But this only works if one last thing is true, 00:05:54.336 --> 00:05:59.731 which is that Nancy needs to know that if something is truly important 00:05:59.731 --> 00:06:02.179 that John can still interrupt. 00:06:02.179 --> 00:06:08.461 But instead of having constant accidental or mindless interruptions, 00:06:08.461 --> 00:06:11.454 we're now only creating conscious interruptions, 00:06:11.454 --> 00:06:12.488 right? NOTE Paragraph 00:06:13.132 --> 00:06:14.664 So we're doing two things here. 00:06:14.664 --> 00:06:18.569 We're creating a new choice for both Nancy and John, 00:06:18.569 --> 00:06:21.375 but there's second, subtle thing we're doing here, too. 00:06:22.174 --> 00:06:25.779 And that's that we're changing the question that we're answering. 00:06:26.113 --> 00:06:31.344 Instead of the goal of chat being let's design it 00:06:31.344 --> 00:06:33.439 so that it's easy to send a message -- 00:06:33.439 --> 00:06:34.731 that's the goal of chat, 00:06:34.731 --> 00:06:38.087 it should be really easy to send a message to someone -- 00:06:38.087 --> 00:06:41.425 we change the goal to something deeper and a human value, 00:06:41.425 --> 00:06:45.393 which is let's create the highest possible quality communication 00:06:45.393 --> 00:06:47.903 and relationship between two people. 00:06:48.345 --> 00:06:51.012 So we upgraded the goal. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:52.118 --> 00:06:54.922 Now, do designers actually care about this? 00:06:54.922 --> 00:06:59.951 Do we want to have conversations about what these deeper human goals are? 00:07:00.761 --> 00:07:02.493 Well I'll tell you one story 00:07:02.493 --> 00:07:04.145 which is about a year ago, 00:07:04.145 --> 00:07:05.750 a little over a year ago, 00:07:05.750 --> 00:07:08.871 I got to help organize a meeting 00:07:08.871 --> 00:07:13.999 between some of technology's leading designers and Thich Nhat Han. 00:07:14.505 --> 00:07:19.281 Thich Nhat Hanh is an international spokesperson for mindfulness meditation, 00:07:19.281 --> 00:07:21.020 and it was the most amazing meeting. 00:07:21.020 --> 00:07:22.167 You have to imagine -- 00:07:22.167 --> 00:07:23.169 picture a room -- 00:07:23.169 --> 00:07:27.045 on one side of the room you have a bunch of tech geeks; 00:07:27.045 --> 00:07:28.603 on the other side of the room, 00:07:28.603 --> 00:07:33.528 you have a bunch of long brown robes, shaved heads, Buddhist monks. 00:07:34.688 --> 00:07:37.942 And the questions were about the deepest human values, 00:07:37.942 --> 00:07:40.235 like what does the future of technology look like 00:07:40.235 --> 00:07:42.529 when you're designing for the deepest questions 00:07:42.529 --> 00:07:44.572 and the deepest human values? 00:07:44.572 --> 00:07:50.350 And our conversation centered on listening more deeply to what those values might be. 00:07:51.114 --> 00:07:52.927 He joked in our conversation 00:07:52.927 --> 00:07:55.917 that what if instead of a spell check 00:07:55.917 --> 00:07:57.877 you had a compassion check? 00:07:57.877 --> 00:08:02.184 Meaning you might highlight a word that might be accidentally abrasive -- 00:08:02.184 --> 00:08:04.469 perceived as abrasive by someone else. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:05.067 --> 00:08:09.061 So does this kind of conversation happen in the real world, 00:08:09.061 --> 00:08:11.217 not just in these design meetings? 00:08:12.025 --> 00:08:13.139 Well the answer is yes, 00:08:13.139 --> 00:08:15.821 and one of my favorites is Couchsurfing. 00:08:16.500 --> 00:08:17.501 If you didn't know, 00:08:17.501 --> 00:08:19.131 Couchsurfing is a website 00:08:19.131 --> 00:08:24.019 that matches people who are looking for a place to stay with a free couch, 00:08:24.019 --> 00:08:26.134 from someone who's trying to offer it. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:26.352 --> 00:08:28.092 So, great service -- 00:08:28.092 --> 00:08:29.772 what would there design goal be? 00:08:29.772 --> 00:08:32.521 What are you designing for if you work at Couchsurfing? 00:08:32.521 --> 00:08:37.252 Well you would think it's to match guests with hosts. 00:08:37.714 --> 00:08:38.763 Right? 00:08:38.763 --> 00:08:40.121 That's a pretty good goal. 00:08:40.121 --> 00:08:43.074 But that would kind of be like our goal with messaging before, 00:08:43.074 --> 00:08:45.614 where we're just trying to deliver a mesasge. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:45.614 --> 00:08:47.936 So what's the deeper, human goal? 00:08:48.303 --> 00:08:50.393 Well, they set their goal 00:08:50.393 --> 00:08:55.949 as the need to create lasting, positive experiences and relationships 00:08:55.949 --> 00:08:58.813 between people who have never met before. 00:08:59.465 --> 00:09:01.233 And the most amazing thing about this 00:09:01.233 --> 00:09:02.237 was in 2007, 00:09:02.237 --> 00:09:04.615 they introduced a way to measure this, 00:09:04.615 --> 00:09:05.922 which is incredible. 00:09:06.206 --> 00:09:07.529 I'll tell you how it works. 00:09:07.529 --> 00:09:09.094 Every design goal that you have, 00:09:09.094 --> 00:09:12.726 you have to have a corresponding measurement to know how you're doing -- 00:09:12.726 --> 00:09:14.137 a way of measuring success. 00:09:14.137 --> 00:09:15.447 So what they do 00:09:15.447 --> 00:09:20.120 is let's say you take two people who meet up 00:09:20.120 --> 00:09:23.945 and they take the number of days those two people spent together, 00:09:23.945 --> 00:09:24.908 right? 00:09:25.145 --> 00:09:28.918 And then they estimate how many hours were in those days. 00:09:29.438 --> 00:09:32.131 How many hours did those two people spend together? 00:09:32.131 --> 00:09:34.225 And then after they spend that time together, 00:09:34.225 --> 00:09:35.768 they ask both of them: 00:09:35.768 --> 00:09:37.749 how positive was your experience? 00:09:37.749 --> 00:09:40.628 Did you have a good experience with this person that you met? 00:09:41.178 --> 00:09:44.563 And they subtract form those positive hours 00:09:44.563 --> 00:09:48.711 the amount of time people spent on the website, 00:09:48.711 --> 00:09:51.617 because that's a cost to people's lives. 00:09:51.876 --> 00:09:53.641 Why should we value that as success? 00:09:54.241 --> 00:09:55.861 And what you were left with 00:09:55.861 --> 00:10:00.472 is something they refer to as net "Orchestrated Conviviality," 00:10:00.472 --> 00:10:03.522 or really just a net "Good Times" created. 00:10:03.522 --> 00:10:08.049 The net hours that would have never existed had Couchsurfing not existed. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:08.950 --> 00:10:11.457 Can you imagine how inspiring it would be 00:10:11.457 --> 00:10:13.057 to come to work every day 00:10:13.057 --> 00:10:17.500 and measure your success in the actual net new contribution 00:10:17.500 --> 00:10:20.314 of hours in people's lives that are positive, 00:10:20.314 --> 00:10:21.978 that would have never existed 00:10:21.978 --> 00:10:24.979 if you didn't do what you were about to do at work today? 00:10:25.915 --> 00:10:30.895 Can you imagine a whole world that worked this way? NOTE Paragraph 00:10:31.859 --> 00:10:34.637 Can you imagine a social network that -- 00:10:34.637 --> 00:10:36.106 let's you care about cooking 00:10:36.106 --> 00:10:39.418 and it measured its success in terms of cooking nights organized 00:10:39.418 --> 00:10:42.288 and the cooking articles that you were glad you read, 00:10:42.288 --> 00:10:45.294 and subtracted from that the articles you weren't glad you read 00:10:45.294 --> 00:10:47.843 or the time you spent scrolling that you didn't like? 00:10:48.192 --> 00:10:51.766 Imagine a professional social network, 00:10:51.766 --> 00:10:53.598 that instead of measuring its success 00:10:53.598 --> 00:10:57.332 in terms of connections created or messages sent, 00:10:57.332 --> 00:11:01.667 instead measured its success in terms of the job offers that people got 00:11:01.667 --> 00:11:03.520 that they were excited to get. 00:11:03.520 --> 00:11:04.520 Right? 00:11:04.520 --> 00:11:08.158 And subtracted the amount of time people spent on the website. 00:11:08.803 --> 00:11:11.966 Or imagine dating services, 00:11:11.966 --> 00:11:13.808 like maybe Tinder or something, 00:11:13.808 --> 00:11:17.277 where instead of measuring the number of swipes left and right people did, 00:11:17.277 --> 00:11:19.267 which is how they measure success today, 00:11:19.267 --> 00:11:21.095 and instead measured 00:11:21.095 --> 00:11:26.915 the deep, romantic, fulfilling connections people created -- 00:11:26.915 --> 00:11:29.471 whatever that was for them, by the way. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:32.123 --> 00:11:35.271 But can you imagine a whole world that worked this way, 00:11:35.271 --> 00:11:38.195 that was helping you spend your time well? 00:11:39.191 --> 00:11:41.245 Now to do this you also need a new system, 00:11:41.245 --> 00:11:42.946 because you're probably thinking, 00:11:42.946 --> 00:11:44.524 today's Internet economy -- 00:11:44.524 --> 00:11:45.954 today's economy in general -- 00:11:45.954 --> 00:11:47.286 is measured in time spent. 00:11:47.286 --> 00:11:49.356 The more users you have, 00:11:49.356 --> 00:11:50.757 the more usage you have, 00:11:50.757 --> 00:11:52.047 the more time people spend, 00:11:52.047 --> 00:11:54.214 that's how we measure success. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:54.657 --> 00:11:56.589 But we've solved this problem before. 00:11:57.534 --> 00:12:00.242 We solved it with organic, 00:12:00.242 --> 00:12:02.882 when we said we need to value things a different way. 00:12:03.161 --> 00:12:06.097 We said this is a different kind of food. 00:12:07.189 --> 00:12:09.234 So we can't compare it just based on price; 00:12:09.234 --> 00:12:11.266 this is a different category of food. 00:12:11.266 --> 00:12:14.022 We solved it with Leed Certification, 00:12:14.022 --> 00:12:17.568 where we said this is a different kind of building 00:12:17.568 --> 00:12:21.878 that stood for different values of environmental sustainability. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:22.756 --> 00:12:26.804 What if we had something like that for technology? 00:12:28.042 --> 00:12:33.262 What if we had something whose entire purpose and goal 00:12:33.262 --> 00:12:37.535 was to help create net new positive contributions to human life? 00:12:39.186 --> 00:12:42.564 And what if we could value it a different way, 00:12:42.564 --> 00:12:44.522 so it would actually work? 00:12:44.825 --> 00:12:48.454 Imagine you gave this different premium shelf space on app stores. 00:12:48.851 --> 00:12:51.202 Imagine you had web browsers that helped route you 00:12:51.202 --> 00:12:53.700 to these kinds of design products. 00:12:53.700 --> 00:12:54.920 Right? 00:12:55.570 --> 00:13:00.268 Can you imagine how exciting it would be to live and create that world? NOTE Paragraph 00:13:01.358 --> 00:13:04.517 We can create this world today. 00:13:05.077 --> 00:13:06.232 Company leaders, 00:13:06.232 --> 00:13:08.027 all you have to do -- 00:13:08.027 --> 00:13:11.422 only you can prioritize a new metric, 00:13:11.422 --> 00:13:15.489 which is your metric for net positive contribution to human life. 00:13:15.718 --> 00:13:17.792 And have an honest conversation about that. 00:13:17.792 --> 00:13:19.913 Maybe you're not doing so well to start with, 00:13:19.913 --> 00:13:22.047 but let's start that conversation. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:23.205 --> 00:13:24.363 Designers, 00:13:24.363 --> 00:13:27.219 you can redefine success, 00:13:27.219 --> 00:13:29.183 you can redefine design. 00:13:29.183 --> 00:13:32.975 Arguably, you have more power than many people in your organization 00:13:32.975 --> 00:13:35.821 to create the choices that all of us live by. 00:13:36.470 --> 00:13:37.894 Maybe like in medicine, 00:13:37.894 --> 00:13:39.775 where we have a Hippocratic oath 00:13:39.775 --> 00:13:43.920 to recognize the responsibilty and this higher value 00:13:43.920 --> 00:13:45.645 that we have to treat patients, 00:13:45.645 --> 00:13:49.853 what if designers had something like that in terms of this new kind of design? NOTE Paragraph 00:13:50.840 --> 00:13:51.842 And users, 00:13:51.842 --> 00:13:52.978 for all of us, 00:13:52.978 --> 00:13:56.607 we can demand technology that works this way. 00:13:57.373 --> 00:13:58.585 Now it may seem hard, 00:13:58.585 --> 00:14:03.108 but McDonald's didn't have salads until the consumer demand was there. 00:14:04.797 --> 00:14:09.048 Walmart didn't have organic food until the consumer demand was there. 00:14:09.048 --> 00:14:13.452 We have to demand this new kind of technology. 00:14:14.417 --> 00:14:16.307 And we can do that. 00:14:16.307 --> 00:14:17.842 And doing that 00:14:17.842 --> 00:14:19.466 would amount to shifting 00:14:19.466 --> 00:14:25.302 from a world that's driven and run entirely on time spent ... 00:14:25.302 --> 00:14:30.241 to world that's driven by time well spent. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:31.752 --> 00:14:33.855 I want to live in this world 00:14:33.855 --> 00:14:36.236 and I want this conversation to happen. 00:14:36.801 --> 00:14:38.767 Let's start that conversation now. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:39.774 --> 00:14:40.771 Thank you. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:40.771 --> 00:14:41.773 (Applause)