I wrote earlier in the week about the efforts our students in Creating Infectious Action at the d.school are taking to spread the word about different ways to reduce the carbon footprint left by the production, distribution, and use of computers. The students presented the current prototypes of the their projects yesterday in class, and I was taken with the range and quality of their ideas, which included a remarkably engaging and funny film meant to encourage people to upgrade the components of their older computers rather than buying a new one (it turns out that the energy it takes to produce a new computer can run a current computer for more than 10 years), a group that developed materials that third grade teachers can use to teach kids ways to reduce energy usage, another group that focused on ways to get parents and their young children to "mutually reinforce" practices that reduce consumption (like shutting down the monitor and computer, using power-saving settings), a group that is working on ways to get the most hardcore "green" types to take up the cause of power saving — such using social networking sites and developing cool green covers for computers that say "We all need sleep," and finally, the group that I wrote about last time at www.shutdownandprotect.
This group continues to make good progress. Their site keeps looking better and better and it keeps getting more interesting content. They are running a contest right now, offering a $250 reward for the best best photos, images, and films pertinent to their challenge. They've got a cute youtube film that they made, and other material. But I think one of the most interesting things and the site, and something we talked about in class yesterday a fair amount is the question of whether fear is an effective means for spreading messages and changing behavior. Recall my earlier post, and their initial work, was in this vein, as they warned users of viruses and hackers that have a greater opportunity to do their dirty deeds when the computer is always on. And I called my post "Shut the Damn Thing off or Else." But there seemed to be arguments on both sides of question of whether fear was an effective message and motivator, with some of us arguing that it is an effective way to get attention and others arguing that it scares people away — indeed, this is an interesting kind of mood management argument I've seen in the marketing literature, that "fear appeals" often fail because people divert attention as we are all motivated to avoid situations and messages that put us in a bad mood. Another, more fine-grained argument that came-up was, following Huggy Rao's talk at our conference, that negative, vivid, and scary messages are useful for getting people's attention (Huggy argues that people need a "hot cause" to get them focused on a problem), but action doesn't happen unless people are then directed to more rational solutions that are presented in emotionally cool ways — which does reflect the direction that this team sees to be going.
In any event, you might want visit the new and ever improving version of .shutdownandprotect. You can vote on and discuss whether fear, guilt, logic, and humor are the most effective ways for the team to spread their message and leave them a comment if you want. And the movie and message are cool.
I will also try to get links to some of the other students' projects over the next week — they have a week to go, and they could benefit from your comments and suggestion, and any help you can give them to spread their messages
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