Ja-Nae Duane Show

Ja-Nae Duane Show EP 1 - AJA #1 - Ask Ja-Nae Anything

• Ja-Nae Duane • Season 1 • Episode 1

Share episode

SUBSCRIBE HERE:

YouTube: https://bit.ly/Ja-NaeYT

Apple and Spotify

For over 20 years, behavioral scientist Dr. Ja-Naé Duane dedicated herself to one mission: Make life better for one billion people. This award-winning innovator and expert on global systems focuses on helping corporations, governments, and universities understand and develop systems of the future using emerging technology such as VR/AR, AI, and blockchain. Ja-Nae guides companies forward, helping them get out of their own way to create exponential innovation and future forecasting. She has had the pleasure of working with companies such as PWC, Saudi Aramco, Yum Brands, Samsonite, Natixis, AIG, and Deloitte. A top-rated speaker within the Singularity University community and the author of the bestseller, “The Startup Equation,” Ja-Nae at helping both startups and multinational firms identify new business models and pathways for global scale. Her next book SuperShifts is due out in April 2025.

To Pre-Order SuperShifts: https://bit.ly/SuperShifts

Connect with Ja-Naé Duane:
Visit the Ja-Naé Duane PODCAST: https://bit.ly/40G1i7G
Visit the Ja-Naé Duane WEBSITE: https://bit.ly/Ja-Nae
Like Ja-Naé Duane on FACEBOOK: https://bit.ly/Ja-NaeFB

Well, hello, and welcome to my first ever episode of the Janae Duane show.. I figured I'd start off the show with a little AMA, because at the end of the day, I'm answering questions anyway for students. I actually have a whole list of questions from students that I thought would be really Helpful and useful for, for us to go over. So this is my first ever show and,.. Hopefully some of the answers that I provide can be helpful to you as well. So, uh, one of the questions that I had from, uh, Rachel is, When people are trying to achieve any goal, what are the primary sources of motivation? So when we think about intrinsic rewards and extrinsic rewards, really, if you're looking to motivate An individual to make change within their daily life, intrinsic is going to work far more effectively than extrinsic. And the reason why is you have to have that internal motivation to make change. If you don't have that motivation, it's not gonna matter how much money you. Someone or maybe a new role or a, you know, a job change or a title change. None of those things are going to actually matter to that individual, unless if you have really aligned with what their needs and wants are and their core values. So I always start there first. What is a digital nudge and what are some examples? Okay. Okay. So Digital nudges happen to you on a daily basis, multiple times a day and digital nudges are, uh, instances where, , data information, AI incentives, any combination of those with design elements within digital environments are meant to do what. Influence you, , some say guide within the digital realm. I'll say influence you or influence a user to make a choice. And so an example might be like here. Uh, you know, actually, my whoop watch is a really great example. So, , I love my whoop whoop actually saved my life., and then. But that whoop will then end up popping up notifications around whether or not the app's been closed or what my strain was, or if I just got done with boxing, what that activity was, and so it'll indicate to me some of the things that I'm looking to be nudged towards, you know, information that I'm looking for other nudges. Like a text message would be a nudge, another one on your phone, uh, you're nudged through every single user experience, whether or not we're talking about, uh, a social media site or we're talking about e commerce. You are being nudged through those environments to, uh, to a specific outcome. So those are examples of digital nudges. Next question. How powerful are digital nudges and what role do they play in existing technologies? And are they helpful or harmful to users? So, I think I, Already answered the existing technologies question the role that they play., they're built in every single, , every single user experience that you encounter within, , you know, your, your socio technical relationship, you know, your relationship with your technology, um, how powerful they are. It really depends on, On the knowledge and how they're combined, because most nudges, at least within digital environments are, it's usually not just 1 and done. It's usually a combination of multiple nudges. And so effect sizes can change depending on environment. And depending on what that platform looks like, .., how are they helpful or harmful? So..., I'll start with the harmful ones first and then end on a good note. So a harmful ones, um, and we, we consider these dark nudges. So dark nudges are essentially all the elements that I mentioned in digital nudges..., but the intent is different. And so the intent instead is to manipulate, coerce, or confuse a user or a consumer towards an outcome that they may or may not,..., want, but is not necessarily in their best interest. And so ... here's an example. So in March of 2020, Amazon changed their algorithm. And what they did was they made slight tweaks to, um, to really slow down the number of purchases that they were getting because they weren't able to keep up with the demand. Now, What they turned off were nudges, if you were, ...., that would increase an individual's likelihood of purchasing or purchasing more. And so, One can argue that when you manipulate for shareholder value, which I would argue happens more often than not, but that's a different conversation for a different day...., that, They're really dark nudges, right? They're not necessarily, the intent is not necessarily to help the user, the consumer, but to increase shareholder value. Now, let's go to how nudges can be helpful. So again, I mentioned my whoop. I mentioned the fact that my whoop saved my life..... so in January, I noticed that my resting heart rate was high and that every single day it was getting higher, which, and I,.. Keep, for me, I keep track of, of resting heart rate, my heart rate variability. So that was my first indicator that something was wrong. The second indicator was that I wasn't necessarily feeling well. Um, and it was a consistent thing. So it would, you know, my,... I had a, not a pain, but like felt like something was stuck in my chest. Long story short, after a week, I ended up going to ready med..... I had a really fantastic nurse there, uh, and read, read the walk in clinic and the walk in clinic nurse, um, who used to be an ER nurse said, you know, you look fine. All your vitals seem okay, but let's run, let's run some blood work. Come to find out I ended up having two blood clots due to a side effect of medication. So it was my whoop. Which was nudging me, uh, that there was irregularity in my resting heart rate that then led me to pay more attention to my body and eventually, uh, identify two blood clots in my lungs that could have killed me. So, so thanks whoop. All right, next question. All right. Let's see, what kind of nudges can give users more autonomy?.... you know, I would argue that when we're transparent about the nudges that we use, much like with cookies now, where, where organizations and, um, and websites need to identify the cookies that they use and allow for users to opt in or opt out that level of transparency around the nudges being used, I think is a really. It's a simple way to provide autonomy that doesn't exist right now in at least any user experience that I can think of. Um, it may exist out there and if you have examples of user experiences where, where folks can opt in or opt out of those digital nudges, that would be great. Like feel free to send them my way. experience, I've yet to encounter any of those. Um, and it would be a lovely opportunity to Provide transparency as to, um, you know, what are the elements within this user experience that I'm going through, whether or not we're talking about e commerce, or if we're, you know, talking about Netflix and watching, um, you know, streaming or gaming, there's a ton of nudges within gaming. There's actually a ton of dark nudges within gaming, Uh, many games, uh, many games have many dark nudges. But being able to, uh, Provide that transparency, allow, and then an opportunity for autonomy would be a really nice way to provide agency and ownership to a user or a consumer so that they feel that they own that experience more with you and they're almost co creating that experience with you. All right. Let's see. What are the components of a dark nudge? So, as I mentioned, a dark nudge has or can have all the components of a digital nudge. What really differs is intent. Now, if the intent is to manipulate, coerce, or confuse a user or consumer, then it is, it's constituted as a, a dark nudge. If the, If the elements within the nudge or the nudge itself are just meant to guide or influence towards a choice without prohibiting the other choices that are, um, available, then that would be considered a digital nudge. So those are, those are the differences between the two. All right, next question. How might we deal with cases where users want to pursue potentially unhealthy goals? I am a big proponent of letting people choose how they want to live. It is not on me or on anyone else unless if there is an intent to harm someone else. At least in my view, to get involved in whether or not a choice is healthy or unhealthy. What we do in our society right now is Make a lot of decisions for a lot of people, and I think that part of what we're experiencing is actually a counterculture to that. So I think the more that we provide individuals with autonomy and agency, we will see that they'll actually make better choices. But we have to give them the opportunity to make better choices and educate them as to why a choice might be better than the other. But it's, in my opinion, not on us to dictate what those choices are. Okay, let's see. Next question. How motivating is Compare comparing one person's goals to another person's goals. What kind of comparisons are healthy? I think that this is really dependent on how a person is motivated. So, um, I personally love games, and I love leadership boards. I love to be challenged, um, and I love to be pinned, you know, against other people or opponents in, um, in competition. However, Not everyone is like that. And so being able to allow for a person to customize how they want to see their goals. And a great example of this is actually Lumosity, which is a really great app. It's a, it's a gaming app. Um, and it's meant to, uh, it's meant to. We'll say stretch you cognitively. Um, but the intent there when looking at your score is that you can just look at your individual scores, or you can look at how you compare against others. So I think that if you're building an app, sure, build that. as part of the dashboard, but I wouldn't make it front and center. I would end up highlighting the person's individual goals and where they rate, if you will, or how they're ranking. And then if you want to compare them against, say, other users, I would have that, Be within the dashboard or within the interface, but just not prevalent so that the default is looking at your own individual progress and not necessarily having the default be you against everyone else that is either playing or, or using that technology. Okay, how paternalistic are digital nudges and how can we construct them to empower users instead of being prescriptive? So I feel that digital nudges are extremely paternalistic because when you're going through a digital interface, There's a very few instances where you can create a nudge that is neutral. Every single experience is built to lead to an outcome and to guide users through an outcome. And so the digital nudges that are incorporated within each of those experiences are meant to, again, guide you to, uh, through to an end goal or an outcome. And again, if we're talking about e commerce or a website, there are always goals in why those user experiences exist. So keeping that in mind. I find that digital nudges, unlike, we'll say non digital nudges are extremely paternalistic where, you know, we, we make the choice for you. Now, as I mentioned earlier, I think that there's that opportunity to really, um. Allow for some agency and allow for the user to decide whether or not they want to have digital nudges on or off and help to customize that experience. So, for customizing that experience, that's going to go a long way. in having the user feel like they have some ownership over how they interact with you as a brand or as a technology provider, but also allow them to feel empowered that they can trust whatever it is that you're trying to deliver to them within that experience. All right, let's see. What ethical factors should we consider in regards to digital nudges? Yeah, so as I mentioned, that freedom of choice providing that autonomy. Also, I would say transparency. We don't provide transparency right now as to how we design user experiences, how we design algorithms. Being able to, um, Provide our users and our customers with a level of transparency as to how they were designed, whether or not they were by, uh, an individual, which occurs. Many times, um, or if they were, uh, if they were designed in a cross functional group, you know, who were the groups involved being able to have that transparency as to how the organization has put them together also allows for the user, the consumer to feel like there's a level of accountability on the On the side of the organization. Um, so those are things that I feel really should be a part of, uh, of ethical nudges, at least digital ones. I also believe in protecting. The privacy of an individual's data and not necessarily assume that we can sell that or take ownership over that. And so that's 1 of the things that I would also highlight if we want to have ethical nudges. I would also wrap in there, how do we make sure that we're ethically using the data in which users are providing us through these user experiences and, um, and let them decide on how that data gets used. Okay. How do digital nudges prioritize, or how can digital nudges prioritize transparency? Well, I think that this can happen through providing consent, as I mentioned before, but I think that that also happens through clear communication on one's website. I think that also there's an opportunity to provide disclosure as to how data from those nudges are used. I think that there's an opportunity to provide feedback from the consumer or the user to the company around those nudges. All of those elements would allow for a level of transparency that right now within, you know, within industry doesn't necessarily exist. So what a beautiful you know, a beautiful opportunity to redesign in a way that, um, that doesn't exist yet. So with that, I think I have come to the end of these questions. and also the end of this episode. So I invite you to leave comments below. Also feel free to leave comments on social or find us on social. I want to know what types of topics you're interested in. I'm happy to, to dig into them further. And with that, be awesome, inspire others, and I'll see you next time. Bye.