This document discusses the need to shift conversations from "should" discussions that focus on what is right or wrong to "how" discussions that focus on collaborative problem solving. It argues that outrage and hierarchy prevent learning, while collaboration and inclusion can help find better answers. It suggests asking better questions, celebrating positive comments, providing tools for constructive discussions, and creating new platforms designed to facilitate solution-focused conversations. The goal is to have productive discussions about difficult topics like race by first agreeing on how to have such conversations.

1. The How Conversation
Designing Our Way Out of Outrage

2. David Dylan Thomas
Senior Content Strategist, EPAM
@movie_pundit

3. #HowConversation

4. Should this person drive this car?

5. How might this person drive this car?

7. how conversations
versus
should conversations

9. “Over a period of years I kept meeting people of great
decency who had different world views. But there wasn’t a
place where they could meet to bring out the best in each
other and find answers that each hadn’t considered.”
- Robert Fersh, President, Convergence

15. The internet is where you go to find
people who are doing it wrong and
tell them they’re doing it wrong.

17. what if the conversation was the service?
Ronnie Polaneczky

19. argument replaces community

21. ok. now that you’re really angry,
buy these yoga pants!

32. it’s not just about anonymity
people can be crappy when they use their real names

33. it is about setting the standard
and modeling good behavior

34. collaboration versus hierarchy

35. hierarchy says this is how it should
be and there should be no deviation
it already knows the answer. it is exclusive and non-learning.

36. collaboration says here is a
problem we can solve together
it searches for continuously better answers. it is inclusive and learning.

38. how we talk about race is
hierarchical

40. the problem with this approach is
that it treats n00bs like trolls

41. to speak meaningfully about
race is a skill

42. Twitter allows no room for error

43. knowing how not to do something
is not the same as knowing how to
and the outrage ecosystem only tells you how not to do something

44. you can’t think out loud about race
the way you can about technology

45. this approach punishes bad actors,
but it also stifles social innovation

47. most of our content is should-
oriented, not how-oriented

48. it’s not that we should stop having
should discussions, it’s just that
THAT’S ALL WE EVER DO!

49. and if that’s all we ever do, the best
we can hope for is a bureaucracy

50. so what can we do?

51. let’s call out good behavior
celebrate great comments

52. provide tools for good behavior
toolkit (not rulebook) for how to talk about race, gender

53. ask better questions
ask the questions we can all align on

54. How can we get healthier food
into the supermarket?

55. How can we work together to shift
consumer demand to healthier
consumption?

56. How might this person drive this car?

57. How do we do a better job of moving people?

58. what does a productive conversation
about race actually look like?

59. once we agree on that, then we
can talk about how to have one

60. create new platforms for better conversations
ones specifically designed to facilitate how conversations

62. we can uproot or downvote, but what if there was an “ideate”
button?
what if there was a “collaborate to make this better” button?

63. can we do this digitially?

68. start using design language
for things other than design
___, I would like to _____, so that I c

69. start using design language
for things other than design
be paid as much as a man, so that I ca

70. problem-based procurement
describing the problem, not the solution

71. use design approaches
spend time with each other before we start coming up with policy for each other

72. “Marvelous technology is at our disposal and instead of reaching
up for new heights, we try to see how far down we can go.”
- Eric Bogosian, Talk Radio

73. next time you feel outrage, ask
yourself if there’s a How
Conversation to be had

74. let’s talk

75. Thanks!
David Dylan Thomas
@movie_pundit