Design Modes
Here's a breakout using the 7 Design Modes from:
http://www.101designmethods.com/
1. SENSE INTENT
2. KNOW CONTEXT
3. KNOW PEOPLE
4. FRAME INSIGHTS
5. EXPLORE CONCEPTS
6. FRAME SOLUTIONS
7. REALIZE OFFERINGS
1. SENSE INTENT
Buzz Reports Summary:
- CO2 mitigation continues, half of 1/4 of emissions = 1/8, are from personal transport ie commuting
- EVs are coming slowly, have problems
- US relaxing EPA standards, too tough for automakers
- millenials and boombers would like to work from home more than they are
- house prices soaring unsustainably in GTA and Vancouver
- upstream from that is 'why do we need human transport?' > commuting to jobs
- upstream from that is 'why do we need to commute to a job?' and there's a mishmash of reasons
- AI / automation set to take off, will refactor jobs
Buzz Reports
A. labor mobility and employment > mortgage payments reduce employment in local services sector
google: home ownership vs labor mobility
- http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119004000026
netherlands 1998 - homeowners _less_ vulnerable to unemployment
- http://www.nber.org/papers/w19079
DOES HIGH HOME-OWNERSHIP IMPAIR THE LABOR MARKET?
David G. Blanchflower
Andrew J. Oswald
usa 2013 > 1 correlation, 2x home ownership -> 2x++ unemployment later
causal hypotheses: i) labor mobility -- ii) commute times ++ iii) startups --
x but not home owners themselves, rather negative externalities of local high home ownership
- unexplained link / externality effect / mechanism
- higher opportunity cost of employment to (employee/employer) which should lower net + GDP
http://tampub.uta.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/68116/wp89_2013.pdf?sequence=1
HOME-OWNERSHIP AND THE LABOUR MARKET: EVIDENCE
FROM RENTAL HOUSING MARKET DEREGULATION
Jani-Petri Laamanen
2013
- finland equivalent
- says homeowners also have higher wage. That should result in higher lifetime earnings.
his H0: consumption hypthesis: debt financed home ownership -> lower consumption demand
-> lower employment CONFIRMED by different externality/impact on tradable
and non-tradable ( local ) sectors, no impact on tradable sector employment
H1: displacement hypothesis is that higher home-ownership leads to higher job search intensity
and lower reservation wages (by homeowners, who then dominate/displace?)
ALMOST CONFIRMED, JUST BORDERLINE MAYBE A BIT, can't rule it out completely,
likely connection: home owners work FULL TIME and displace mulitple part-time.
- http://www.cnbc.com/id/100798861
> https://ideas.repec.org/p/wrk/warwec/475.html +10% home ownership == +2% unemployment 1998
B. Calgary is silicone valley north of IoT according to CED
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-economic-development-silicon-valley-north-1.4002600
- high concentration of STEM talent, one of highest 'concentrations' in NA
- IoT related to O&G industry process control, a natural rollover fit
- CED says we're concentrating on IoT, which kind of makes it so
- trying to diversify away from oil, which has dark clouds on its future due to CO2 costs, and over-supply
C. Toronto and Vancouver house prices have been soaring in city centres
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/average-house-prices-up-3-5-in-past-year-worth-519-521-in-february-1.4025687
- more buyable valuations in outlying areas, but that increases commute costs
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/toronto-housing-bmo-td-1.4028032
- housing bubble in GTA unsustainable, threatens entire economy
D. CO2 mitigation >
- CO2 levels continue to rise
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
- EV rollout is hampered by
- unreliable expensive $7k - $15k batteries that last 7 years, limited range, charging times
- but improving ie: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170228131144.htm
- Glass anode brakthru for solid state batteries > more life, higher density,
faster charge, cheaper than LiIon
- costs of charging stations
- EV only as green as grid power
- CO2 taxes/caps/mitigations have been ratcheting up in developed economies
Government of Canada Announces Pan-Canadian Pricing on Carbon Pollution:
http://news.gc.ca/web/article-en.do?nid=1132149
- small car mfgs near limit of how fuel efficient they can make them,
- VW fined billions (14.7B) for cheating emission tests
http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/28/news/companies/volkswagen-fine/
- Trump admin restoring viability-review process to automotive emisssions reduction schedule
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-fuel-economy-1.4025816
- public sector funding for roads, transit always a challenge
- long commutes / traffic jams continue as normal
E. more gender equality sought in business by reducing hiring 'biases',
- but women still do more child raising,
- so a need for good leave transitioning perhaps with partial tele-working
study "Extending Parental Leave", Jennifer Robson, Carleton U, 2017
- http://irpp.org/research-studies/study-no63/
- either/or matleave eligibility test > needs to change to encourage partial and transitional work
F. AI and robotics are coming, will blast our jobs, and 30% of jobs can already be automated with current technology
- http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/automation-jobs-canada-computers-white-collar-1.3982466
- http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/890674755677
x-country checkup automation and robots
40% in next decade robots/computers
distopian, or utopian, who reaps benefits?
google's AI unit working on medical diagnosis from scans, samples etc
prior: routing/narrow
next: complex, non-routine decision makers, human interaction like CSR, drones, driverless car,
jepardy, 'go' game, chess
industrial revolution: convolution of factors - steam, machinery, metalurgy, coal
now convolution: cpu moores law cumulative state, lower cost of robotics...
maybe not revolution but cumulative progress
- https://www.cdhowe.org/public-policy-research/future-shock-impact-automation-canadas-labour-market
cdhowe: not so fast/no big deal - just a continuation of the last 2 centuries of automation
(others agree but say _pace_ of change is very rapid now)
G. shortage of restaurant/hospitality labor (5% vacancy) especially in Banff due to housing costs there, workers must travel/commute big time
H. Government of Canada suspended temporary foreign worker program in 2014 due to increased unemployment of canadians in areas where program had most use:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/temporary-foreign-worker-program-for-fast-food-sector-suspended-by-ottawa-1.2621385
I. congestion pricing on roads / road toll concidered for Toronto downtown
https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2017/01/26/kathleen-wynne-stopping-john-torys-plan-for-tolls-on-dvp-gardiner.html
J. Millenials like to work from home already
http://www.hsbc.ca/1/content/canada4/pdfs/personal/Beyond_the_Bricks_Fact_sheet_Canada_FINAL_January_2017.pdf
- page 5 work/life balance:
- 48% of millenials work from home (sometimes/often) and 33% would like to
- 29% of boomers work from home (sometimes/often) and 18% would like to
- there's a gap of 33% and 18% that's not filled: more want to work from home
K. commuting still generating new infrastructure costs
- example: Airdrie is planning another over/underpass around rail tracks, at 10s of millions in cost
http://www.airdrieecho.com/2017/02/08/future-projects-to-address-railway-traffic-issues
L. 25% of Canadians are doing some kind of caregiving, and that can impact their employment
http://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/viewpoint-caregivers-need-our-help-1.4035515
- rant / viewpoint on caregivers, mentioning 25% statscan number, which can impact their employment situation
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-652-x/2013001/tbl/tbl01-eng.htm
- statscan: 10M all types of caregiving
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-652-x/89-652-x2013001-eng.htm
- portrait of caregivers
- 1/10 of 8M or 800k spend > 30hrs / week caregiving
2. KNOW CONTEXT
A. History
Video meetings
- skype > you get an app free, and pay for time, streams video/audio
- opensource video/audio chat > https://webrtc.org/
- various other chat tools
Online meetings in 3D
https://remoteworker.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/venuegen-the-3d-virtual-meeting-platform/
- second life and opensimulation had a problem: facial expressions weren't transmitted
https://www.iaf-world.org/site/global-flipchart/6/3d-immersive
- blog on collaboration via 3D meetings
http://nvate.com/5381/second-life-meetings/
- second life used for business meetings
http://www.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/11/05/second.life.virtual.collaboration/
http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2012/03/second-life-enterprise-was-a-costly-mistake/
- second life enterprise shut down by lindon labs
- says IBM moved to OpenSimulation
http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.protonmedia.com/faq
- 3D similar to secondlife and opensimulation, same problem: no facial expressions
B. Stakeholders
Earth / Environment and those species (including humans) it impacts
- need to cut CO2 emissions to zero immediately, but even then current levels will persist for 1000s of years
- Paris accord just a minor stop-gap, mere 'warm-up', need ratchet-up
Employers
- lots of restructuring of industries around automation, globalization / global trade, online shopping
- eat or be eaten
- information security a big concern
- fewer small local shops, more franchises in local economy
- some silicon valley firms dominating advertising sales revenue
- more regulation
- a lot more technology integrated into everything
- employers bare some costs of commuting indirectly through higher reservation costs of job seekers
Employees / Workers
- some work partly from home, but even more want to
- hassle, cost of physically commuting born by employees, compensated partly through wages
- car, license, insurance, fuel, repairs/maintenance, interest
- time spent in traffic/on road
- risk to health / longetivity / trauma from accidents
- extra costs of child care during commute times
- not good transitioning to/from mat leave - either/or
- job selection compromise based on commute distance / time / cost
- higher cost of housing close to best work in downtown TO, Vancouver
Economy as a whole
- rich getting richer, picketty-nomics
- GDP/capita - higher in large city centres, where real-estate is expensive, causing commuting
- commuting is friction on GDP
Governments / regulators
- carbon taxes / cap & trade administration costs
- financing road and transit ongoing and upgrade costs for commuters, must tax to recover
- vehicle emissions testing and regulations costs
C. Frontiers
- Automation via robotics and AI (artificial intelligence) in process
- AI needs 'training data'
- VR and AR is big this year, with oculus rift, gearVR, Hololens etc all hitting mainstream
- self-driving cars coming
- EVs slowing making inroads, picking up steam but still small part
- green energy continues to gain uptake
D. Systems Overview
- elliminating physical commuting would
-- increase GDP/Capita
-- improve lifestyles
-- improve net savings of employees/workers
-- improve hiring choices by firms
-- cut CO2 (-12%)
- but needs to solve practical problems with teleworking
-- data security
-- employee effort monitoring
-- collaboration
-- dexterous tasks
-- software licensing
-- communication - voice, facial microgestures
3. KNOW PEOPLE
- I still see people commuting
- workers show up for work voluntarily / expect it, for facetime, and internal competition
- employers assume workers show up, otherwise fire. They rely on 'effort monitoring' and when laying off, will lay off those who are 'unseen' first, which employees know
- so stalemate -no one pushing too hard for tele-working so status-quo continues
- we are told there's a shortage of IT / talent and will get worse by year 20xx, need immigrants
- but they (IT industry) have been crying wolf for decades
- youth unemployment was high for last 8 years
-- young graduates have trouble finding work
-- some reports suggests university graduates seen by employers as too book-oriented, lacking:
- problem solving
- creativity / innovation
- people skills
- structured knowhow (trades do better, project management knowhow helps)
- entrepreneurial spirit
http://careers.workopolis.com/advice/from-undergrad-to-unemployed-the-causes-of-canadas-high-youth-unemployment-rate/
- automation > AI and robotics are expected to zap more jobs, cause job refactoring/restructuring
so fewer people needed to do current work
decades ago they said machines would take our jobs and we would be forced into leasure
- but didn't happen, workforce moved from mfg to services
so likely this time excess labor will be absorbed again, but how/by what
H: even more new products and services that we can't even imagine now
H: more laws and regulations need complying with for everything done / red-tape
H: humans will be doing the creative part, more creativity
- employers want
- employee monitoring for effort, performance, security, honesty
- peer culture/pressure/benchmarking can lift individual performance
- give feedback during training
- make learning environment positive with tips and ideas flowing easily
- and want very good communication / collaboration,
- much of which comes from face2face interactions, to get what someone means / urgency
- but also want low cost labor, and good supply of qualified/capabile candidates
- and want to be in a good position for automation and robotics trends where cost effective
- and want to uptake temporary foreign workers where work is appropriate
- employers want to abide / obey employment laws
- employees - want
- lower cost of commuting
- don't want to split up family over where jobs are
- want full time permanent jobs, so can buy house and pay off mortgage and save for retirement
- want nice house for money, low mortgage, low total interest costs
- don't want to lose their spot at work to internal competition
- don't want to be the first ones layed off due to lack of visibilty to higher-ups deciding who stays
- employees want to get paid, hard to imagine getting paid without showing up
- seen and being seen, by bosses, equally to on-site workers, for
a) neutralizing internal competition for promotions / favoritism
b) equal standing for layoffs
4. FRAME INSIGHTS
- teleworking should help everyone - economy, worker, employer, environment, city
- but needs to be done right, to gain acceptance, its an acceptance of mechanism challenge
- and a challenge of incrementalism - how to get from where we are today to some future ideal, step wise
Design Principles:
1. virtualization needs to be net positive for both worker and employer, to gain quick acceptance
a) on-site and tele/veritual workers need to be treated equally, so no disadvantage for teleworker
b) employer needs security, effort monitoring, collaboration as good or better than on-site
c) employer needs to gain from lower wage demands and/or better selection of job candidates from wider region
d) employee/worker needs to gain from broader selection of jobs with zero cost of commuting to distant jobs
e) helps employer leverage AI/robotics > online sessions used as training sessions for AI and robotics
2. virtualization needs to apply to all types of work, including dexterous tasks, colloaborative, security-constrained, which currently tend to be blended in job positions / roles
3. there needs to be an easy, incremental/step-by-step path to get from where we are today, to fully virtual work, without having to make sudden giant leaps
5. EXPLORE CONCEPTS
- virtual presence
- making interaction as easy as leaning over a desk to say something
- micro-gestures
- who's looking at who / who you lookin at when you say that
- continuous tracking (vs pay-for-time sessions like skype)
- easy escalation / de-escalation of interaction
- security of private information
- against 3rd party
- against misappropriation by employee
- monitoring of effort, attitude where direct performance measures are hard to do remotely
- anticipation of AI automation
- needs to feel real at critical deal-making points, so we feel committed when we say yes.
- telerobotics for dexterous tasks
- anticipation of/harmonization with AI+robotics automation
- feedback
- precision
- timeliness
- safety on output end, limits
- security on output end, limits
- auxiliary info: sound, visuals, supervisor instructions, seeing 'lineup forming', coordination with others
- smelling something (burning? not smelling right), heat (is the coffee hot, drinks cold?)
- heaviness - are the fries in the bag?
6. FRAME SOLUTIONS
- commutar whole-teleworking solution
- own the cloud service
- own the plugin API standard
- own configuration tool for different scenarios
- own the store, billing and payment infrastructure
- let others develop specific plugins and charging schemes, take a slice through store
- especially for telerobotics scenarios where there may already be lots of technology snippets
- single product:
- 3D skype with head tracking, 3D sound
- could sell apps in app stores: uwp, android, ios
- and/or give apps and sell time
- 3D virtual presence with facial micro-gesture, head and body gestures transmitted
- low bandwidth for continuous effort monitoring, quick transitions to talk mode
- transition notifier service
- pattern-recognize sound and signal to remotes in low bandwidth way
-so that steady-state is low bandwidth and transitions are fast, easy, (semi-)automatic
- restaurant telerobot, workers in low-wage country, or central site for time-zone travel
- work end: ceiling yawZ, ..^| arms, cable fingers, sphere-cam,
robo-robo crash avoid, 1/2 cyl sprung back
touch sensitive fingers:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170315140704.htm
http://news.ubc.ca/2017/03/15/video-new-flexible-sensor-holds-potential-for-foldable-touch-screens/
- worker end: curved 1/4sphere LCD screen, elasto-suspended forarms
- finger touch-pinchers
- SSR - server-side rendering of sensitive data
- per-employee formatting of SSR documents for finding sources of leaks
- only image is transmitted
- copy&paste can be done, but remotely
- ways to escalate / de-escalate by simple levels:
- effort monitoring: low bandwidth over IP (with time lags) OK
- deal-making: needs high resolution video, real time,
- perhaps with something to accentuate feeling of presence and accountability
- collaborative meetings:
low/medium bandwidth when not talking, high when talking
- facial micro-gestures, eye gaze direction
- head and body gestures
head tracking to see who's looking at who, who's who's trying to interrupt you
if IP delay, then fast-track bulb/led to signal someone's
- (vox/video/gestures) are on their way
7. REALIZE OFFERINGS
- prototype 3D skype using webrtc libs: https://webrtc.org/
- find sponsor / test firm