We use language to communicate. Sometimes words aren't enough, and pictures can do a better job. Sometimes we need metaphors or similes.
Nudge and yank speak to me of movement. Movement and journeys are a common metaphor in behaviour change, and a common metaphor in everyday life too. So I've chosen to go with the 'journey' metaphor.
Quick note: Sometimes, before we can make sense of a detailed map, we need to get a rough idea of where we are heading. This blog is very much an attempt to sketch a 'map of Wales' level of detail. Once we've worked out roughly where we are heading, then we can dig out the detailed maps and StreetView to help us plan our journey.
So here's my go at defining nudge, yank (and couple more).
- I am at A and I want to be at B but it's hard. Please make it easier. Facilitate
- I'm at A and you want me to be at B. So you try to stand in my shoes and work out how to gently push me to B. I may know that's what you are doing and allow myself to be budged (ethical) or be unaware (manipulation so not ethical). Nudge
- I'm at A and you want me to be at B. It's a fair distance, so you try to stand in my shoes and push me hard in the direction of B. Shove.
- I'm at A and you want me to be at B. You are already at B and don't try to think what it is like to be at A. You try to pull me towards B in one sudden move. Yank.
Doing anything about the A to B journey assumes we know what A looks like, what B looks like, the distance between them and what the terrain is like in between A and B. My guess is that this is what SenseMaker is designed to do.
And then we have the issue that most nudge thinking is about changing the behaviour of a population, not an individual. Each person's A will be different (subtly or radically) from every other person's A.
Assuming we manage to understand A, B and the journey between them, our next task is to think of more reliable ways for people to get from A to B and, perhaps most importantly, decide whether it's any of our business.
We have to be clear what Snowden means by 'Nudge'. For him it's not about imaging an ideal end state and closing the gap: "I'm at A and you want me to be at B", that can still be Yank. His advice is to look at adjacent possibilities and create multiple, safe-to-fail, contradictory interventions to see if any of them create narratives that are increasingly similar to that adjacent possibility
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting. I'm still trying to work out with precision what any of Snowden's work means. So thank you for trying to clarify.
DeleteFor me, even if A and B are so close they are touching, I am assuming someone other than the person at A has decided that B (the 'adjacent possibility') is the direction they want people to go.
If that wasn't the case, why would anyone be designing 'interventions' - unless one wanted to intervene randomly to see if you can spot any generalisable principles for nudging.
I get the multiple, safe-to-fail approach. That makes far more sense than designing one grand intervention.
I'm intrigued that it is about creating narratives not behaviours. I am guessing this means that in the "which comes first in behaviour change, the stories you tell yourself or what you actually do?", you are on the side of 'stories you tell yourself come first'.
[as an aside, I struggled to decode your final sentence, so I hope I've understood it the way you intended it].