• Title (max 50 characters)

Design Neighborhood Scale Software

Learn about early stage design by defining your idea for neighborhood scale software. Examining cybernetics and Ostromian economics, we'll explore theory while applying it to the design process.

Cost: $200

Requirements: An interest in learning about economics and product design.

Course Goals

In the mid 1900s, Gödel's impossibility theorem, game theory, and computer science pushed economics in uncomfortable new directions. These collisions resulted in the often unwilling abandonment of the discipline's neoclassical roots. This multifaceted transformation can be seen in miniature as the understanding of economic agents transitioned from atomic points of rational choice, to communicative self organizers. While, today, business and engineering have integrated these conceptual shifts (though not always consciously), design has lagged significantly behind. This course is a call to action in the form of a cybernetic journey, examining how to transform the ontology of the 'user' from Hayekian information processors, to Ostromian negotiator." Through research, discussion and more, each participant will apply the theory covered in this course to the definition and design of their own neighborhood scale software .

Structure

This is a 6 week course, with weekly 1 hour long meetings. During each class, readings and homework will be assigned. The reading is front loaded, with no more than an hour assigned per week. Throughout the course, homework will consist of prompts intended to help participants explore and define their ideas for neighborhood scale software.

Syllabus / Schedule

• 🔮Week One | Introduction
  • 🧠 Activities
    • Meet and greet
    • Prisoner's dilemma
    • Introduce the course project
  • 📖Readings
    • Hayek - Price
    • Ostrom - Governing the Commons Chapter one
  • ✏️ Homework
    • Describe the group of people who would use your neighborhood app. This can be in any form you like, from slideshow, to collection of ephemera.
• 👽Week Two | What is a user?
  • 🧠Activities
    • Discussion: what kinds of language is used in UX? How does this describe the user? How does this intersect with the readings?
    • Discussion: who are your users?
  • 📖Readings
    • Policy Kit White Paper
  • ✏️ Homework
    • What do you want people to be able to use your app for?
• 👔Week Three | The Incumbents
  • 🧠Activities
    • Discussion: are Uber, Lyft, AirBnb, etc, Ostromian in spirit? what would an Ostromian alternative look like?
    • Discussion: What is the kernel of your idea? Does scale matter?
  • 📖Readings
    • Kaplinsky - On Appropriate Technology
  • ✏️Homework
    • What technology, if any, does you application depend upon?
• 🦎Week Four | web3
  • 🧠Activities
    • Discussion: What spaces could benefit from community management? How could these ideas be used within a web3 space?
    • What is the least powerful approach needed to realize this idea?
  • 📖Reading
    • PRFAQ
  • ✏️Homework
    • Craft a PRFAQ for your idea
• 🧩Week Five | Review
  • 🧠Activities:
    • Pair up and review each-other's documents.
    • Discussion: Any loose threads?
  • 📖Readings:
    • TBD
  • ✏️Homework:
    • Share PRFAQ draft with your users/neighbors/family/friends. Revise based on feedback. Create any collateral for the final presentation
• 🎁Week Six | Show and Tell
  • 🧠Activities: Share our ideas
    • Next steps?
    • Feedback
    • Celebration

Artifacts

The final outcome will be the creation of PRFAQ document, outlining your idea for neighborhood scale software. This document will be the final synthesis of the readings discussion and homework.

Who Should Sign Up

• People who want to learn about digital product design.
• People who are familiar with digital product design, but are interested in alternative methodologies.
• People who are interested in building for the decentralized web/web3
• People interested in Ostromian economics