FREELANCE IN FLUX A System for Socially Distributed HR
Participatory Design Process Book
FREELANCE IN FLUX
Thank you to my thesis instructors: Ali Qadeer Job Rutgers
Designed by Lizz Aston Typeset in Courier Printed in Toronto at the Printing House ŠLizz Aston, 2017 www.lizzaston.com fibre@lizzaston.com
FREELANCE IN FLUX A System for Socially Distributed HR
Participatory Design Process Book by Lizz Aston
“We shape our tools and afterwards our tools shape us.” - Marshall McLuhan
-1
FOREWARD WHY DID I CHOOSE FREELANCE AS MY THESIS TOPIC? ----------------
I graduated from the Crafts & Design program at Sheridan College in 2009, with an Advanced Diploma in textiles. At the time, I was extremely lucky to be one of two artists accepted into a three-year artist residency in the textile studio at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre. While this opportunity acted as the perfect stepping stone between school and professional practice and helped to establish my career, my biggest take-away from that period in my life remains the community and culture of support that working in a cross-disciplinary studio afforded me. Looking back at this time in my life and the trajectory that my career has taken over the past eight years, I never could have imagined that -2
I would end up making the shift away from what has turned out to be a very successful practice as a textile artist, towards a more socially conscious practice that activates my skills as a designer to advocate on behalf of others. Inspired by my own experiences of precarity while working as a freelance artist and designer, I wanted to create a tool to empower and support others in their work. Taking inspiration from participatory design, collaborative practice, Fluxus art and design activism, each of the strategies presented in my thesis project aims to empower freelance workers by activating community, giving people a voice, making the invisible visible and helping to fill in a
knowedge deficit through facilitated discussion and interaction. The goal of this thesis project is to create the same sense of community and culture of support that has enabled me to be successful in my own practice. What I want to spread from this isn’t just a conversation or a moment, but new connections in a larger network that allows social resiience to grow and persist over time.
-3
-4
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWARD
2
PHASE 1: RESEARCH
-
Thematic Landscape: Design Cards Qualitative Research Scavenger Hunt Tangible Activity: Make Something RSD5 Symposium Survey - Feedback Needs Mapping - People/Business/Tech
10 14 20 24 26 28
PHASE 2: DESIGN BRIEF
- Identify Key Issues, Project Aims & Outcomes. - Design Criteria: MUST/SHOULD/COULD - Insights & Departure Points
32 34 36
PHASE 3: CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT - Idea Mapping - My Thesis: Catalysts - Proposal: An Interactive Workbook - Prototyping Tools & Methods - Design Ideations & Mock-ups - User Testing & Feedback PHASE 4: IDEA REFINEMENT
40 44 45 48 50 60
-
64 66
What Wasn’t Working Outputs Co-design Workshops User Testing, Feedback & Validation GRADEX ACTIVITY
74 86
PHASE 5: FINALIZATION - The Workbook
90
WORKS CITED
100
BIBLIOGRAPHY
102
-6
PROBLEM DEFINITION
WHY IS FREELANCE SO PRECARIOUS? ----------------
Nine-to-five jobs are become less of a reality for many workers, and job security is waning as major industries are disrupted by new technologies. The freelance economy offers individuals ways to monetize their skills, while providing them with the freedom and flexibility to be their own boss. As a result freelance is becoming the new norm for many workers. However - many of the perks of independent work come at the expense of the securities associated with traditional 9-5 jobs. The model that currently exists allows companies to drive down costs by shifting risk onto their employees. This means that freelancers don’t have the same rights and protections as everyone else. Basic
rights such as access to healthcare, sick leave, parental leave, retirement savings and overtime pay. Not to mention having unpredictable income, difficulty finding work, as well as experiencing late or non-payment by clients. This model is precarious and socially unsustainable. Looking at the stats, there are nearly 54 million Americans, or 34% of workers working as freelancers. This is equivalent to nearly 1 in 3 Americans. According to Stats Canada there are 4.2 million Canadians, or 21.5% of Canada’s work force in freelance, and the numbers are rapidly growing.
-7
-8
PHASE 1
RESEARCH: ---------
1. Thematic Landscape: Design Cards 2. Qualitative Research Scavenger Hunt 3. Tangible Activity: Make Something! 4. RSD5 Symposium: Feeding Future Narratives 5. Survey - Feedback 6. Needs Mapping - People/Business/Tech
-9
RESEARCH
THEMATIC LANDSCAPE DESIGN CARDS: ------------------
One of the first activities assigned to us was to make a series of design cards relating to our research topic and interests. The goal of this assignment was to gain a full understanding of the thematic landscape that our thesis sits in and use it as a launching point for research and ideation. For my cards, I drew inspiration from a series of participatory design books, lectures, and trends such as peer-to-peer transactions and the bartering economy. DESIGN CARD INSTRUCTIONS: Make a series of 4”x6” cards using images and a brief description on the back to explain. This should include: -10
• 5 thematic cards (eg. sustainability, systems, etc.) • 3 media tags (list articles, books, movies etc.) • 3 object cards (objects which connect to your research interests— these can be designed or otherwise.) • 3 interaction cards (events of effect between humans and machines, and humans and objects etc.) • 3 environment cards (list possible settings where your thematic area will take place.)
-11
THEMATIC LANDSCAPE DESIGN CARDS: ------------------
In class, we teamed up in small groups and explored ways of mixing and matching the cards to distill possible design directions. I photographed each of the combinations to flush out possible directions and added extra cards where I felt there was a gap. MY DESIGN CARDS INCLUDE: 1. THEMATIC CARDS: - Connected Learning - Producer Consumer - Connected Isolation - Peer-to-Peer Economy - Media Grazing - Precarious Employment - Urbanization 2. MEDIA TAGS: - Collaborative Media - Making Futures - Workable Futures - Urban Workers Project - Joanna Choukier -12
- Spreadable Media - Google Creative Lab 5 3. INTERACTION CARDS - Checking Email - Using Facebook - Having a Conversation - Listening to podcast 4. ENVIRONMENT CARDS - Co-working Spaces - Home Office - On Transit - Rural Area 5. OBJECT CARDS: - Smart Phone - Day Planner - Bulletin Board - Morning Coffee
-13
RESEARCH
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH SCAVENGER HUNT: --------------------
The second activity we participated in was a qualitative research scavenger hunt across the city. The goal of the scavenger hunt was to get us off of the computer to start connecting the thematic landscape of our thesis to place, using situation, site and observation to build a research archive. For the scavenger hunt we were asked to collect photos from each of the spaces we visited and create a brief presentation of our insights. SCAVENGER HUNT INSTRUCTIONS: Collect photos/video of each item below and provide a caption or insight for each image. This should include: -14
• 3 distinct locations/ spaces. • 3 physical objects. • 3 virtual experiences/objects (websites, apps, etc.) • 3 people. • 3 interactions (observed, reflected or constructed.) • 3 additional sensory experiences captured any way you want.
-15
LOCATIONS VISITED: ------------------
1. LOCATIONS/SPACES - MaRs Research Centre - CSI Spadina - The Station Coworking - Brain Station - Pop Up-Office 2. SENSORY EXPERIENCES - RSD5 Symposium - Using a bathroom code 3. VIRTUAL EXPERIENCES - Workfrom.com - Cushion.com - Law Scout 4. PEOPLE - Michelle - Cobbler - Jon - Musician 5. INTERACTIONS - Sleeping at a cafe - Using Wifi 6. PHYSICAL OBJECTS - Laptops - Bicycles - Zipcar
-16
-17
INSIGHTS: ---------
ACCESSIBILITY
SPACE
During the scavenger hunt I was thinking about the effects of gentrification on freelance work and the rising cost of rent in the city. This makes space inaccessible for many due to financial barriers. Co-working spaces can be seen as one possible solution to the problem. However, there are still limitations with co-working spaces such as peak hours vs. closing time and not having 24/7 access to your work, combined with the expectation of having to work irregular hours. Alternately, for many people an accessible space can mean as little as having access to a bathroom, wifi and a place to plug your laptop in.
The nature of freelance work affords mobility, adaptability & flexibility unlike other 9-5 jobs. The set-up spaces supports individuals working in different ways - from open concept work spaces to communal or shared space, the concept of temporary vs. dedicated or permanent space, modularity and pop-up offices. This scavenger hunt also brought up themes of how people navigate the city, as I was looking at hacks that people develop over time.
-18
EDUCATION I also looked at the spaces that support continuing education including training programs, workshops, lectures, bartering and skill trading.
-19
RESEARCH
TANGIBLE ACTIVITY: MAKE SOMETHING! ------------------
In order to get us off of our computers and thinking in the physical world, we were asked to make an object related to our thesis. This could include anything from a low fidelity prototype to a symbolic form. Our only requirements were that it must be tangible and dimensional in some form. For the activity, I designed a set of thematic dice that could be used to generate scenarios around the types of experiences freelancers face. • Blue = the positive aspects of freelance • Red = the negative aspects of freelance • Yellow = outside factors
-20
-21
SCENARIO GENERATING DICE: ----------------
-22
-23
RESEARCH RSD5 SYMPOSIUM: FEEDING FUTURE NARRATIVES WORKSHOP -------------------
In October I attended the RSD5 Symposium on Systemic Design for Social Complexity. The first day of the Symposium, I participated in a workshop entitled Feeding Future Narratives. The workshop was hosted by two students - Prateeshka Singh of mpathy, and Nourhan Hegazy from the Strategic Foresight & Innovation program at OCAD. In the workshop we used co-design methods to consider how diverse norms, values, world views, and ideologies are embedded in our relationship to food. For the workshop we split up into groups of four to draw, write and share our experiences of our relatinship to food in the past, present and future. Each of our experiences were then -24
mapped thematically onto a chart summarizing the positive and negative aspects of our experiences and associations. This allowed us to visualize these experiences and pull out common themes. INSIGHTS: My biggest take-away from the workshop was looking at the process and methodologies used as well as how the workshop was facilitated and the power of storytelling to connect a group of strangers in a meaningful discussion.
-25
RESEARCH
FREELANCE WORKERS EXPERIENCE SURVEY: ------------------
As a part of my user research, I conducted an online survey using google forms. The survey was comprised of nine sections addressing various aspects of freelance. Some of the questions asked included - what type of freelance do you work in? Why did you choose to work in freelance, or was it a choice? How do you meet other freelance workers? and if you could change anything about your job, what would it be? Here are some key themes, insights and quotes that I have pulled from the survey which have influenced the direction of my thesis project:
-26
AGENCY: “It’s arguably one of the best things for my overall quality of life. Working other jobs always felt stifling, despite the promise of better and more predictable income.” CONNECTION: “Meeting other freelancers helps you establish stronger connections to help alleviate insecurity about work.” SUPPORT “The nature of freelance means you live in extremes and have to find ways of coping with that, otherwise you will burn out.” TRUST People want to work with employers they trust, be paid on time and to
build a good reputation for themselves. EDUCATION “I feel threatened by young people who are willing to work for less in order to gain experience, and thus set a precedent for low pay.” OPEN MIND There is a general interest in expanding knowledge in areas of tech that people know their fields are going to move in, but they are unsure of what that looks like and how to access that information.
SOCIAL MEDIA “Being a part of small social communities makes it easier to connect with people, give and receive advice and share who to avoid working with due to mistreatment or low pay.” ORGANIZATIONS People who hold a membership with professional organizations identified that “They cost a lot of money and don’t offer a lot of support in terms of value.”
TECH ADOPTION “The thinking and strategies are the same, the output is the same, but the executions have changed.” -27
RESEARCH
NEEDS MAPPING: PEOPLE/BUSINESS/TECH --------------------
-28
-29
-30
PHASE 2
DESIGN BRIEF: -------------
1. Identify Key Issues, Project Aims & Outcomes. 2. Design Criteria: MUST/SHOULD/COULD 3. Analysis: Insights & Departure Points
-31
DESIGN BRIEF IDENTIFY KEY ISSUES, PROJECT AIMS & OUTCOMES: ----------------
One of the biggest problems that freelancer’s have working against them is the fragmented nature of their jobs. Because people are self-employed and work in a diverse range of situations such as out of their homes, at a coffee shop, studio or co-working space, this means they are often working alone, siloed away from one another in their work. One of the biggest opportunities I’ve identified in my research is that freelancers have to connect with one other. By meeting other people working in their field, this allows them to compare notes about their experiences, offer each other advice, warn against bad employers or unfair working conditions and offer support to one another. Looking -32
at the pool of freelance workers I surveyed, the majority of people said they find it difficult to meet others outside of the structure of a traditional work environment. Without a regular support network to fall back on, working in a bubble can have a number of dangerous consequences including making uninformed decisions, being taken advantage of, and even burning out. Based on my research and findings, the goal of my thesis should address ways of facilitating connection between people, while creating an infrastructure of support to allow them to share their collective experiences with one another. I want to create a system that engages people
in discussion, while leveraging the diverse experiences of freelance workers to facilitate collective action. Through this project I would like to start a conversation, change the rules of engagement, and ultimately flip the power dynamics between freelance workers and the people who employ them.
-33
DESIGN CRITERIA
THIS PROJECT: -------------
MUST
SHOULD
• Address a diverse user group
• Facilitate positive interaction
• Facilitate interaction between users
• Bring awareness to a broader audience
• Be clear, concise & easy to understand
• Protect people from trolling, or information being taken out of context
• Be easily shareable and spreadable • Compelling enough to get people interested and keep them coming back • Offer people a new experience • Be interactive • Offer some form of feedback • Provoke & engage people in critical discussion -34
• Respect individual voices • Respect peoples desire for anonymity if they so choose • Be easy to understand • Be legitimizing
COULD • Flip power dynamics • Be used to affect change at a government or policy level • Make it easier to talk about difficult subject matter • Set a new precedent for how people work together • Educate young people entering the workforce • Be used as an educational tool at an organization, or institution
-35
ANALYSIS
INSIGHTS & DEPARTURE POINTS: -----------------
INSIGHT #1: Freelance workers have limited access to one another due to the fragmented nature of their jobs. They often work alone and find it difficult to connect over shared problems. DEPARTURE POINT #1: Design a system that facilitates connection and interaction between people, and enables them to share their collective experiences. INSIGHT #2: People want to have a sense of agency over their work and feel like their voice matters. Everone surveyed said that they have refused work based on an employers reputation and they are also afraid of burning bridges professionally. -36
DEPARTURE POINT #2: Design new set of rules of engagement that for socially distributed HR. The goal is to create a collective social agreement about the way freelance work should work, that will flip the power dynamics between freelance workers and the people who employ them. INSIGHT #3: People are attracted to freelance because they see it as a way to build something meaningful overtime. Investing in yourself can be self-fulfilling, however, due to a weak regulatory environment that favours large businesses over individual workers, while supporting an ecosystem labour abuse, this makes it difficult
for freelance workers to get ahead. DEPARTURE POINT #3: Design a tool for affirmative action that allows people to organize over the issues they face and enables them to engage in shaping the discussion around the future of their practice.
-37
-38
PHASE 3
CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT: --------------------
1. Idea Mapping 2. Concept: Catalysts 3. Proposal: An Interactive Workbook/Toolkit 4. Approach 5. Prototyping Tools & Methods 6. Design Ideations & Mock-ups 7. User Testing & Feedback
-39
IDEA MAPPING: -------------
-40
-41
-42
-43
CONCEPT
MY THESIS: CATALYSTS ----------
-44
PROPOSAL
AN INTERACTIVE WORKBOOK/TOOLKIT: -----------------
The goal of this workbook is to create new connections and collective discussion by providing a series of starting points in the form of interactions or workshops. Using participatory and co-design methods such as play, discussion and speculative practice, each of the interactions outlined in the workbook will be conducted in a group workshop format in order to encourage creative insight, critical thinking and self-reflection while building community among participants.
-45
APPROACH: ---------
-46
CHAPTERS: ---------
1. Introduction 2. When/How to Use This Workbook 3. Rules of Engagement 4. Reach-out/Getting Un-stuck 5. Self-Initiated Work 6. Self-Reflective Practice 7. Things to Avoid 8. Fundamental Rights 9. Resources 10. Take-Away’s
-47
PROTOTYPING TOOLS & METHODS: ----------------
-48
-49
IDEATIONS & MOCK-UPS: -----------
-50
-51
CHAPTERS: ---------
-52
-53
-54
-55
-56
-57
-58
-59
USER TESTING & FEEDBACK: ------------
AGATA:
ANDREW
“You want people to walk away reflecting on the exercises they’ve done and through this, have new insights and perspective into their practice.”
“Clearly stating what this is supposed to do will put people into a more receptive state of mind.”
“People need to come to their own conclusions about what their needs are. This tool should empower them to solve problems themselves.” “The games are self reflective rather than a means to directly solve your crisis, which is okay.”
-60
“The workbook is meant to create positive results, but the users are also responsible for generating that result for themselves.” “I would include a section on things to avoid. The tone should be more proactive than negative. Instead of saying don’t do this, prompt people to do actionable things in a positive way.”
-61
-62
PHASE 4
IDEA REFINEMENT: ----------------
1. Idea Refinement - What Wasn’t Working 2. Topics/Activities/Outputs 3. Co-design Workshops 4. Feedback & Validation
-63
IDEA REFINEMENT
WHAT WASN’T WORKING: --------------------
The problem I kept coming up against was the emphasis on a conversation as the final product. The problem with this is that conversations are static and often end once you leave the room. With that in mind, I wanted to find a way to promote an ongoing dialogue, relationships and network of support that could move into online and offline spaces once the workshops had finished.
-64
-65
OUTPUTS
PHYSICAL & DIGITAL PUBLICATIONS: ------------------
My solution to this problem was to design a series of outputs as a result of each of the workshops. WHAT IS AN OUTPUT? An output is defined as any physical or digital publication produced as a result of a workshop. The word publication is defined broadly and can include anything from a zine, a meme, a crowdsourced google doc or even a dinner party. The goal is to leverage the conversations and insights gathered from each of the workshops and use this as an opportunity to proliferate information about the freelance experience, while generating tools and support mechanisms to help freelancers in their work. -66
-67
TOPICS:
-68
-69
ACTIVITIES:
-70
-71
OUTPUTS:
-72
-73
CO-DESIGN WORKSHOPS
WORKSHOP #1: MEMES ------------------
In order to test my concept, I conducted a series of co-design workshops based on a number of interactions I designed for the workbook. The end goal for each of these workshops was to create a tangible publication that participants could take home at the end of the day. MEME WORKSHOP The success of this workshop relied on keeping the process flexible and being able to negotiate with the group based on individual comfort levels. When I conducted this workshop, we chose to frame it as a casual discussion based on people’s work experiences before mapping common themes using post-it notes. People then broke off into pairs and made -74
memes using a meme generator. Through this process, one discovery I made was that people felt an added sense of pressure to be clever or funny, which created a bit of a barrier for the group. One way to circumvent this would be to prep the workshop differently and work with tangible materials in order to redirect the focus and prevent social anxiety. The final memes were shared to facebook messenger, downloaded and published in the form of a zine.
-75
WORKSHOP COMMENT CARDS: -------------
-76
-77
WORKSHOP #2
EXQUISITE CORPSE: -----------------
This was an impromptu workshop with three graphic design thesis students that happened at Material Object riso studio, at CSI Spadina. For the workshop, I asked participants to take turns making a series of exquisite corpse drawings framed around how you feel at the beginning, middle and end of a project. After finishing the drawings, we opened them and laid them out on the floor to discuss. Each person took turns describing the thought process that went into their drawing, and it was interesting to compare differences and similarities. We then riso printed the drawings, and played with overprinting them using different colours. Calvin then showed me how to fold the poster into -78
a zine, and everybody received a poster to take home. One take-away from this workshop that I would have done differently would be to document it a little better, either by recording the conversation, or writing down key words or insights that could then be incorporated into the zine. While I enjoyed the final object that was produced, I feel like the discussion was a bit lost in the process.
-79
-80
-81
WORKSHOP #3
BURNING EXERCISE: -----------------
The goal of the activity was to address burnout, create self awareness, release negative feelings and provide catharsis to workshop participants. For the workshop, I asked participants to make a list of things that deplete their energy and lead to burn-out. After making our lists, we went outside and collectively burned our lists as a way to let go. While conducting this workshop, I gained a number of important insights including the fact that there were cultural implications at play for some of the workshop participants that I was previously unaware of, such as writing in red pen, or burning paper with a name written on it. One of the participants also expressed that they -82
didn’t have anything negative to write about or let go of for the first time, which made the workshop less applicable to them. The final take-away was that the workshop wasn’t structured enough, and didn’t have a predetermined output to work towards. Some of the feedback I received was that I needed to give the end goal/output more emphasis and treat it like a school assignment where the tangible outcome is the vessel for discussion and learning.
-83
-84
-85
-86
WORKSHOP #4
GRADEX ACTIVITY: ----------------
-88
PHASE 5
FINALIZATION: -------------
1. The Workbook - Printed Proof 2. Next Steps 3. Works Cited
-89
THE WORKBOOK
-90
-91
-92
-93
-94
-95
-96
-97
-98
-99
--100
WORKS CITED:
1. Murphy, Laura. “Freelance Isn’t Free Act Passes in NYC with 51 Votes!” Freelancers Union Blog. Freelancers Union Blog, 01 Nov. 2016. Web. 06 Nov. 2016. <https://blog. freelancersunion. org/2016/10/27/ freelanceisntfreepassed/>.
City: Freelancer’s Union, 2016. Print. 4. Urban Worker Project. “The Urban Worker Project.” Facebook.com. The Urban Worker Project, 2016. Web. 6 Nov. 2016. All images used have been created by the author, Lizz Aston.
2. Press Progress. “What Justin Trudeau & Bill Morneau Don’t Understand about the ‘reality’ of Precarious Work.” Press Progress. 27 Oct.2016. Web. 06 Nov. 2016. 3. Union, Freelancers, and Upwork. Freelancing in America 2015: An Independent Study Commissioned by Freelancers Union & Upwork. Rep. New York
--101
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Baas, Jacquelynn, Ken Freidman, Hannah Higgins, and Jacob Proctor. Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life. Chicago: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, in Association with the U of Chicago, 2011. Print.
3. Crary, Jonathan. 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep. London: Verso, 2014. Print.
2. Brandt, Eva. Designing Exploratory Design Games: A Framework for Participation in Participatory Design? Proc. of Proceedings of the Ninth Participatory Design Conference, Center for Design Research, Copenhagen. 2006. 57-65. Aug. 2006. Web. 22 Oct. 2016. <http:// dl.acm.org/citation. cfm?id=1147271>.
5. Ehn, Pelle, Elisabet M. Nilsson, and Richard Topgaard. Making Futures: Marginal Notes on Innovation, Design, and Democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2014. Print.
--102
4. Dunne, Anthony, and Fiona Raby. Speculative Everything. Cambridge: MIT, 2013. Print.
6. Frank, Flo, Marnie Badham, and Sue Hemphill. Artist and Community Collaboration: A Toolkit for Community. Regina: Common Weal Community Arts, 2006. Print.
7. Gottesdiener, Sarah Faith. Many Moons. Vol. 1. California: Modern Women, 2017. Print. January June. 8. Jenkins, Henry, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green. Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture. New York: New York U, 2013. Print. 9. LoĂ&#x152;wgren, Jonas, and Bo Reimer. Collaborative Media: Production, Consumption, and Design Interventions. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2013. Print. 10. Resnich, Elizabeth. Developing Citizen Designers. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, an Imprint of Bloomsbury Plc, 2016. Print.
--103
--104
--105
--106
--107