possibilities for government
The Quest for Citizen Happiness and business in the 2.0 era
part 1 of 2

in two parts:
•why happiness?
•the building blocks of citizen happiness

in two three parts:
•why happiness?
•lunch!
•the building blocks of citizen happiness

who the heck are we?

tara hunt
aka missrogue
• canadian living and working in
san francisco
• blogging for 5 years
• online/community marketing 8+
years
• author: how to be a social
capitalist, winning with the
currency of online communities.
due out in fall 2008 with crown
publishing/random house

chris messina
aka factoryjoe
• involved in several open source
communities for the past 4 yrs
(drupal/civic space,
spreadfirefox, flock, songbird)
• blogging for 4 years
• trained in interaction design
• community leader on open
standards projects such as
oauth, openid, microformats
and diso.

we run
citizen agency
• we work with companies to
help them build connections to
their customer communities
• we advise government services
organizations in the US and
New Zealand how to employ
web 2.0 technologies and
practices effectively
• we work with web
communities, open source
projects and standards groups
to make the web a nicer place

btw, when this dude appears,
it means that we have a discussion,
but you should feel free to ask
questions along the way...
exercise: and who are you?

why happiness?

welcome to the ‘me’ era

play 60 minutes video

a more positive look at the ‘me’ generation
video by: dr. michael wesch
http://mediatedcultures.net
“a vision of students today”

but it’s not just the millennials...

...every ‘generation’ seems to be searching for
happiness...

pampering and relaxing

leisure time and hobbies

work/life balance

world travel and adventure

health and fitness

books

movies
what movie
isn’t about
the search
for happiness?

happiness is a multi-billion dollar industry

people are very conscious of every decision they
make towards becoming happier

exercise: what do you consciously
do to make yourself happy? how
often do you prioritize your
happiness?

how does government and business fit into this
need to find happiness?

exercise: name a time when
government or business delivered
happiness?

the sad truth is...

while this is how corporations
see themselves.

this is how people talk
about them.

and government?

instead of feeling like we are
part of this...

...we feel like we are
under this.

the craziest part of all of this is that

businesses and
gov’ts are
made up of
people.

people who, like everyone else, are pursuing their
own happiness...

exercise: write down the names of
5 people who you work with. List the
things that make them happy.

so, what is enabled through focusing on citizen
happiness?

happiness leads to
• work efficiency • more job satisfaction
• increased life expectancy • improved work ethic
• higher productivity • reduced stress and anxiety
• raised confidence • higher levels of trust
• more reproduction • more forgiveness
• deeper cooperation • increased openness
inspired by: Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt

exercise: how do you think
happiness could benefit your
customers/consituents? do you think
this could benefit your business?
how?

so, then, what makes
people happy?

exercise: what makes you happy?
what do you think are the things that
make people happy?

what makes people happy?
• autonomy (feeling that your activities are self-chosen and
self-endorsed)
• competence (feeling that you are effective in your
activities)
• relatedness (feeling a sense of closeness with others)
• self-esteem (set-point, or the person’s natural propensity
to happiness)
from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA).

autonomy

autonomy includes:
•feeling in control of one’s surroundings
•understanding one’s own resilience
•feeling of agency
•empowerment

exercise: list 5 ways you can create
autonomy for your customers or
constituents.

competence

competence includes:
•confidence in one’s abilities/knowing one’s strength’s
•feedback from others on one’s performance
•learning and growing skills
•self-actualization
•doing meaningful work
•getting into flow

exercise: list 5 ways in which you
can help employees and/or
customers feel more competent.

relatedness

relatedness includes:
•interacting with others
•connecting with people and connecting people
•giving to others/being generous
•feeling loved
•emotional security
•acknowledgement and support (mentorship)

exercise: list 5 things that you can
do to promote relatedness between
your customers/constituents.

self-esteem

self-esteem includes:
•your ‘set-point’ or natural (genetic) confidence level
•something you can work on through cognitive
behavioral therapy, meditation or medications
•not influenced from the outside world, but apparent
when triggered by events from the outside world

what are the barriers
to happiness?

exercise: name the barriers to
happiness in today’s world. What are
your personal barriers and what are
general barriers?

barriers to happiness
• fear (anxiety of failure, ignorance, mistrust)
• confusion (noise, paradox of choice, lack of good
information)
• loneliness (isolation, disconnection from others)
• lack of control (feeling of loss of control over one’s life and
surroundings, secrecy, loss of agency)
• struggle for survival (basic needs not met)

fear

contributors to fear
•ignorance
•misinformation
•insecurity
•inexperience
•fear-mongering
•mistrust

pew internet research noted that the majority of
people ages 50+ who are not online are not online
because of the scary stories they hear.

confusion

what leads to confusion
•paradox of choice
•noise ratio
•lack of clear information
•secretiveness
•half-truths

loneliness

what causes loneliness
•isolation
•distrust of others
•fear of rejection
•lack of acceptance
•insecurity

lack of control

what leads to lack of control
•loss of control over the circumstances of one’s life
•loss of agency
•withheld information
•secrecy
•uncontrollable circumstances

struggle for survival

remember maslow’s hierarchy of needs

you
can’t
get here
without
all of
these
being
taken
care of

how does all this relate to
business and gov’t?

in order to be an agent of happiness, you need to
either create the environment for it or you have to
intervene in the barriers...

okay, but what does this
have to do with web 2.0?

...after lunch we will make the connection and tell
you what to do with it...

http://www.slideshare.net/missrogue

About those rockin’ images
• Many of them are purchased from iStockPhoto.com (yay! iStockPhoto is an
awesome Canadian company!)
• Except for:
• book covers, movie posters (from Amazon.com)
• And the Flickr photos used from:
• Starbucks Cup: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjb/118418786/
• Starbucks Globalism: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thorinside/55362248/

Tara Hunt
tara@citizenagency.com
415.694.1951
skype: tarahunt747
Chris Messina
chris@citizenagency.com
412.225.1051
skype: factoryjoe
www.citizenagency.com
www.horsepigcow.com (tara)
www.factoryjoe.com/blog (chris)