Persuasive 2009 is now over, and it’s time for reflections.

The speakers and keynotes were really interesting, and there were three intense days getting in information.

One inspiring presentation was by B.J. Fogg where he suggested a eight step design process for persuasive applications.

The main message was to start small, to do not overdo interventions trying to do everything the first time.

Pick a simple behavior that you’re able to measure and create an application that try to change it, then if it success, grow (by repeating, replicating to another behavior, make the behavior harder, scale to more people…). Do fast iterations, a bit agile style, or getting real.

He also presented a quite simplified view of where to “attack” using persuasion: First try to trigger the behavior, if it doesn’t work look if the behavior needs to be simplified, and if not, go back to increasing the motivation.

Now I’m in San Francisco for some days, I’ll keep posting some more reflections about the conference these days.

I’m presenting a paper in the Persuasion 2009 conference at Claremont, the city of trees and PhDs.

I just have arrived today after a 20 hours trip and 1 ton extra carbon dioxide to my account. The city is very cozy and the hotel Casa 425 looks terrific.

The conference will start tomorrow and I will present on Tuesday. I will both update my twitter and blog during these days to keep you informed.

After the conference I will go to San Francisco (U.C. Berkeley) and Los Angeles (UCLA)

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An interesting white paper from Ericsson, about how to achieve energy-efficient, sustainable mobile communications through network optimization, site optimization and alternative energy sources.

Ericsson projects regarding sustainability includes the use of renewable energy for both network equipment and also some other small projects as solar power mobile chargers.

One example is with China Mobile, running 252 wind and solar sites in Inner Mongolia. Photo from Ericsson.

Solar powered mobile charger. Photo from Ericsson.

In my opinion, this type of work is a good example of the relation between ICT and Sustainable Development, both by:

+ ICTD: Providing connectivity in developing rural areas, closing the digital divide.

+ Green IT: Reducing the environmental impact of  ICT infrastructure.

Adbusters has made a challenge call: disconnect during a week. turn off the computer, tv, mobile phone, stop using facebook, twitter, reading blogs. And use that time to reconnect with the environment and people around you.

First of all, are we ready to do that? How dependent of information technology have we become?

As a computer scientist and working with media I swing between a technocentric optimism (in which I can not stop feeling amazed about technological development and the oportunities that we have at hand), and tech-crisis where I question if we are using this technology in the right way. Is this really making our life better? Is it making our relationships and social environment better? Is it making the cities nicer places than before?

For answering this questions and to try to make a difference, I changed to study sustainable development and started my research. It is always good to reflect, to remind us that ICT and media is just a tool, that facebook is a tool to be used to improve our social life, not to substitute it, that we still live in a physical world and the real relationships with real people is what really matter, that email is a tool for improving our work, not the work itself. ICT was supposed to liberate our time, not to make us slaves of our computers, mobile phones are suppose to connect us with people, not to create asocial environments where everyone is disociated with the here and now.

I remember when I spilled a latte over my laptop and were two weeks without computer, I rediscovered the positive feeling of having much more time to spend with the people around me, maybe a digital detox week is a good idea (and cheaper than destroying your laptop..) to rethink: what do we really need computers to? are they the goal or just tools?

I think that these questions are central for the development of ICT and how it can be used in a sustainable society, both enabling global ideas and global conversations, but focusing on the local, on the here and now, making things easier, not more difficult, making us to talk more with our neighbors, to explore more our environment.

In my research I am looking at how internet, mobiles, and new ICTs can be used for making a sustainable society. Social media is one of the key technologies that I see can have (is having) a deep impact. Social media tools are allowing new ways of organizing, of creating content, develop ideas, create change… in a grassroots way, horizontally, but in a huge new scale that was not possible before. A change in scales:

• geographically (allowing global interactions)
• temporal (changes and ideas develop much faster)
• in size (a change from the concept of participation from the greek agora, limited by the size of the public space, to a global participation, only limited by technological access , and remember that 60% of the world already owns a mobile phone)

Kiva.org is one of the key examples I always mention. It uses technology to link entrepreneurs in needs of small amounts of money in developing countries with people all over the world that can loan it. It takes the microfinance movement to a new scale, allowing a more personal interaction between entrepreneurs and lenders, and allowing millions of users worldwide to help towards reducing poverty and contributing to a more socialy sustainable society.

Interesting concepts from kiva:

• Peer to peer financial systems in a global scale.
• Promoting entrepreneurship, reducing poverty.
• Making it personal: linking individual entrepreneurs with individual lenders.
• Creating community: groups of lenders, local groups…

I just loaned to this group in Peru.