Design Entrepreneurship & Disinformation
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Design Entrepreneurship & Disinformation Creating companies and products to afford better global consequences Mitchell Sutika Sipus May 2020 School of Design, College of Fine Arts Carnegie Mellon University 5000 Forbes Ave. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213 Thesis Committee: Jonathan Chapman, Carnegie Mellon University Peter Scupelli, Carnegie Mellon University External Examiner Robert Goodspeed, University of Michigan Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Copyright © Mitchell Sutika Sipus 2020 All Rights Reserved. Keywords: Design, Entrepreneurship, Disinformation, Misinformation, Entrepreneurial Ecosystems, Innovation, Venture Design, Venture Creation, Design Methods, Design Thinking, Design Research, Innovation Ecosystems, New Growth Theory, Interaction Design, Machine Learning, Geographic Information Systems, GIS, Misinformation, HCI, Workflow Design, Information Augmentation, Lean Frameworks, Human Machine Interface, Artificial Intelligence, Business, Transaction Design, Innovation Economics, Economics 3 4 Abstract Current models of entrepreneurship celebrate rapid experimentation and the open sharing of ideas to inspire new innovations in business. These models draw upon a range of resources such as technical expertise, infrastructure, and capital. To provide these resources, public and private institutions have collaborated to build innovation ecosystems to supply entrepreneurs with ideal conditions for business creation, and by extension, to drive regional economic development. Yet this entrepreneurial model has also wreaked havoc on the world. The aggressive focus to design for immediate user needs in product design, with less consideration of future social consequences, has created vulnerabilities in products and companies for exploitation. Disinformation campaigns by nefarious actors have divided communities, undermined elections, and jeopardized global security. While the design literature demonstrates the value of design processes for complex problems in business and society, there is no current expertise in the field of design to inform new venture creation for preferred social outcomes or to combat the threat of disinformation. The companies and products produced by innovation ecosystems have in turn produced the global threat of disinformation. This research explores the role of design to create new ventures, to contend with disinformation, and to design products to afford more positive global consequences. I conducted practice-based research over six years, as a form of action research, and consolidated my work into four case studies. I described the conditions of the Pittsburgh innovation ecosystem, the factors that inform venture creation, explored lean methods, and built rapid prototypes to formulate a venture concept. I founded the company Symkala and developed material artifacts at every stage of business creation to navigate the surplus of entrepreneurial challenges such as recruitment, ideation, production, and customer acquisition. Symkala built a geographic information systems (GIS) software. Symkala offered a novel workflow for a GIS analyst to apply supervised machine learning techniques to poorly structured information for geographic data analysis. I then marketed this software to federal and non- government organizations throughout Washington DC. Insights from this work were then applied to redesign Geo4NonPro, a website intended to promote accurate information and citizen participation for global nuclear security via an interactive GIS interface. These case studies additionally informed a trajectory of practice transformation. A review of the literature and selected artifacts from the case studies, alongside reflection on action, establish insights on design for new venture creation within innovation ecosystems, design to counter disinformation, and product design for systems-level impact. I found that a robust innovation ecosystem does not directly culminate into a successful venture due to resource bias, and therefore a focus on customer research through material production can enable entrepreneurs to work more slowly and mindfully to achieve bold visions. To counter disinformation through products, firms need to prioritize information validity as a central business goal, forcing changes to the organizational structures and processes that guide product delivery. To more effectively channel systems-level insights into human-scale products, the design process must prioritize clarity in goal formation, product definition, and attention to social equities throughout production. 5 Acknowledgements This work is not merely the consequence of six years of research and scholarship. Rather, the journey that has culminated in the production of this thesis is older by many years and has been shaped by a multitude of people. Throughout that journey, my wife Mallory has provided steadfast support, from the first time I shared my goal to complete a PhD in a tiny apartment in Egypt in 2009. She has always been “all in” as we continually invent new visions for our family and pursue new adventures around the world. She has long been the first to insist that my PhD will be finished. To write a thesis is a challenge, to do it as an entrepreneur is an emotional minefield, and I have continually found guidance in her clear thinking, pragmatism, and love. Our daughters, Eliza and Samara, have also offered their own special gifts and talents to support this work, and the experience has been better for it. My committee, Jonathan Chapman and Peter Scupelli, were always encouraging and gave clear guidance and honest feedback when it was most needed. They have been fundamental to the conclusion of this work in every way. Thank you to Robert Goodspeed for your fair critique and direction. I will always be grateful to Jodi Forlizzi for her mentorship and support. Thank you to Barack Obama for presenting the opportunity to leave CMU to serve in the White House administration. To Garren Givens and Ben Willman for an extraordinary experience as a Presidential Innovation Fellow, to Jody Daniel at the US Department of State, and to all my fellow PIFs. Along the way, I’ve been fortunate to have been coached by a range of brilliant and genuine people. Sometimes a simple conversation or gesture can change a person in profound ways. Thank you, Thomas Tull, Ken Young, and Chris Cairns for the extraordinary business lessons. Further special thanks to Ken Friedman at the journal She-Ji; Gjoko Muratovski and Johanna Looye, at University of Cincinnati; to Amy Glassmeier at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; to Dawn Deckle at the American University of Nigeria; and to Jeffrey Chusid at Cornell University for sharing his personal experiences as a former student of Horst Rittel. Thank you to all the brilliant persons who have worked with me over the years to build new ventures and worked to realize a better world through the things we make. Those who immediately stand out are Rachel Chang, Geoffrey Morgan, Davey Gibian, Will Milner, Jeffrey Huang, Yaakov Lyubetsky, David Fouhey, and Aaron Acton. I also want to recognize Moshe Mahler, Rafael Tena, Andrew Dubois, Jackie Erickson, Eric Daimler, Erren Leseter, April Murphy and Leah Jakaitis for their unique contributions along the way. My dear family and friends have been always been great champions. Thank you to my mother Victoria, Kennedy, Anthony, Laurence and Tony; my dearest friends Ally Krupar, Christopher Daniel, Ryan Conley, Willis Fugitt; to my friends in Detroit, my Art Academy family, and many others. 6 Table of Contents ABSTRACT 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 6 LIST OF FIGURES 10 SECTION 1: DESIGN AS INTENTIONAL CHANGE THROUGH MAKING 13 1.1 SECTION ABSTRACT 13 1.2 DESIGN 14 1.2.1 The continual transformation of design 15 1.2.2 The legacy of design as processes and technologies for change 16 1.2 DESIGN AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP AS A FORCE OF CHANGE 19 1.2.1 The implementation of design entrepreneurship through lean methods 20 1.2 THE INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM AS THE INDUSTRY CONTEXT OF DESIGN PRACTICE 23 1.2.1 Innovation ecosystems and the value of design 24 1.2.2 Design for emerging technologies 26 1.3 SECTION SUMMARY 27 SECTION 2: THE GLOBAL THREAT OF DISINFORMATION 29 2.1 SECTION ABSTRACT 29 2.2 DISINFORMATION 29 2.2 Disinformation in History 31 2.3 Contemporary Agents of Disinformation 32 2.4 THE MATERIAL FORMS OF DISINFORMATION 33 2.4.1 Text 33 2.4.2 Imagery 34 2.4.3 Tactics in the Social Diffusion of Disinformation 34 2.5 CURRENT EFFORTS TO COUNTER DISINFORMATION 35 2.5.1 Public Sector Engagement 35 2.5.2 Private Sector Engagement 36 2.5.2 Machine Learning as a Problem and a Solution 36 2.5.3 Inoculation Strategies 37 2.6 WHY CURRENT APPROACHES FAIL 37 2.6.1 Non-Transparency 37 2.6.2 Inaccessibility 37 2.6.3 The Insular Demands of Machine Logic 38 2.6.4 Simulated Social Actors (Bots) 38 2.6.5 Social Media Platform Design 38 2.6.6 The Challenges of Social Complexity 38 2.6.7 The Social Segmentation of Disinformation 39 2.6.8 Loss of Public Confidence in Traditional Institutions 39 2.7 SECTION SUMMARY 40 SECTION 3: STATE OF RESEARCH FOR DESIGN, AND BY DESIGN, TO COUNTER DISINFORMATION 41 3.1 SECTION ABSTRACT 41 3.2 THE DISCUSSION OF DISINFORMATION WITHIN DESIGN LITERATURE 41 3.2.1 A precedent of technology systems research by design to combat wicked problems 43 3.3 THE EMERGING THREAT OF GEOGRAPHIC DISINFORMATION 45 3.4 GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS AS DOMAIN OF PRODUCT DESIGN RESEARCH 46 3.4.1 The Interface and User Experience Design