This document discusses cultural understanding and civic participation. It explores how design can be used to increase youth involvement in politics through rearranging cultural elements and creating participatory experiences. Evaluation principles for potential campaigns and tools emphasize issues that are timely, allow concrete actions, and increase political and cultural impact through connecting communities and inviting participation.

1. You are a
Cultural Agent
Lee-Sean Huang | @leesean | leesean@purpose.com

2. Lee Sean

3. Secret
Agent

4. Secret Cultural
Agent Agent

5. 80%
of cultural understanding
is subconscious
Geert
Hofstede

6. “Linking beauty and purpose
can create a sense of
communal agreement that
helps diminish the sense of
disorder and incoherence that
life creates.” Milton Glaser

8. What?

9. Culture:
the sum of all of
our experiences

10. Design=
applied
Art

11. Design=
applied
liberal
Art

12. “Own what you can always
carry with you; know
languages, know countries,
know people. Let your
memory be your bag.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

13. “Culture is a toolkit for action.”

14. Where?

15. What are the boundaries of design?
Charles ! Ray Eames

16. What are the boundaries of design?
What are the boundaries of problems?
Charles ! Ray Eames

17. How do you redesign the user interface
of civic participation in Rio de Janeiro?

18. Feedback
#FAIL

19. How do we create a culture of youth
civic and political participation in Rio?

20. Design Charles !
Ray Eames
a plan for arranging elements to
best accomplish a particular purpose.

21. Don’t Lose The Beat
How can we re-arrange the elements
of the New Orleans music economy
to produce more resources for artists
in need?

22. Don’t Lose The Beat
How do we create a culture of care
for musicians in New Orleans?

23. 1 2 3
Storytelling Protocols Artifacts

24. Our Values We believe that increased participation by
youth and members of the emerging middle
class in the political process will help bring
about greater accountability and transparency.
We are non-partisan and independent. We
don’t accept money from government or
political parties.
We believe that the internet can serve as a
school for a more robust democracy.
We are committed to open source sharing.
We value remix and reuse.

25. Evaluation Principles for Campaign Themes
▢ RIPE ! SALIENT
Is the issue in the news/being talked about? Is it something that has strong public support and a
groundswell of concern among our target audience?
▢ ACTIONABLE
Can Meu Rio or its members “do” something about the issue? Is there a concrete and plausible
political, social, or cultural action that can be taken to affect change?
▢ POLITICAL/CULTURAL IMPACT
Meu Rio’s goal is to build a more participatory and open political culture in Rio. While not every
campaign needs to directly influence the political process, each campaign should have some
short, medium, or long term political objective or impact on behavioral/cultural change among
the citizens of Rio.
▢ COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE
Is this an issue or campaign where Meu Rio can take a leadership role while working with other
partner organizations working in the same space? Does Meu Rio have a comparative advantage
because of our member base, brand equity, and/or innovative use of technology?
▢ EARNED MEDIA/LIST GROWTH
Will running the campaign generate free earned media and/or promote Meu Rio membership
growth?

26. Evaluation Principles for Campaign Tools Tactics
▢ CONNECTIVE
Does it relate to existing user behaviors and social dynamics? Does it bring the community tighter together or
connect people closer with their decision makers?
▢ PARTICIPATORY
Is it open-ended enough to invite participation but guided and usable enough to actually use?
▢ USER SERVICE
Does it have a clear theory of change? Does the experience inspire, delight, or motivate users?
▢ SCALABLE
Does it “work” (both technologically and compelling for users) for 5 users as well as it does for 5 million)?
▢ REUSABLE
Can it be reused/repurposed by Meu Rio for future campaigns and not just a one-off novelty?
▢ HACKABLE
Is it open source/open API? Can it be reappropriated by users/hackers in new, exciting, unexpected ways or used
by other cities/movements?
▢ AWESOME/INTANGIBLES
Is it “magical”? Compelling in an intuitive/emotional way? Does it have that certain “je ne sais quoi”?

45. 1 2 3
Storytelling Protocols Artifacts
What is the problem? How do What do you believe in? What Make social objects that
we work towards a solution? are the rules of engagement? invite participation.

46. You are a
Cultural Agent
Lee-Sean Huang | @leesean | leesean@purpose.com