Hi #SmartCommunity friends! On this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a brilliant chat with Katie Patrick. Katie is an environmental engineer, software designer, author and repeat guest who was last on the show in June 2021 in Episode 234. Katie tells us about her background and why she’s passionate about sustainability, as well as how feedback loops are central to her idea of Smart Communities. Katie and I discuss the need for individual actions as well as systemic change, and what she’s been up to since she was last on the podcast, including some of the gamification projects to get individuals to take more sustainability actions. Katie explains the power of human conversation and group identify for driving behavioural change, and the deep need we have for community connectedness. We finish our chat discussing the potential of using goal directed psychology in the sustainability movement and why it should be the next emerging trend. As always, we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it.

Listen here: 

What we cover in this episode:

• About Katie’s background and why she’s so passionate about sustainability

• How feedback loops are central to Katie’s idea of Smart Communities

• The need for individual actions as well as systemic change when it comes to climate change

• The Gamify the Planet projects Katie runs to get individuals to take more sustainability actions

• The power of human conversation and group identity for driving behaviour change

• The deep need we humans have for community connectedness and how to foster that in our neighbourhoods

• What has surprised Katie through her work in sustainability

• The problem with big conferences and why we must redesign climate events to focus on action not content

• The potential of using goal-directed psychology in the sustainability movement

• Why the youth climate movement is so overwhelmed and how to potentially combat that

• Where to next for Smart Communities

Quotes:

“It became this natural nexus to look at the environmental data. Can we get a feedback loop about the data? Carbon emissions from buildings like gas, forests, trees, rainfall, soil, like all of the data that we need…And then there comes the creative part. How do you display this data to people in a way that’s going to get them to do [the environmental stuff] you want. Part of it’s art and design, but part of it’s pretty serious behavioural science of how you get that data to work.”

“Everything we do is a response to a feedback loop. In psychology, it’s called stimulus and response, e.g. you get something something hot, you pull your hand away from it, you have an opportunity for food, you move towards it. We are these engines of stimulus and response to the feedback loops around us. This is the primary driver of all life and human behaviour…Now look at where we’re at with sustainability today. Where are our feedback loops for our environmental impact?”

“One of the things that people ask me all the time, I would say it accounts for maybe 50% of all questions anyone ever asked me, which is why should we do individual action when we should be looking at like sort of systems change? And there’s no easy immediate answer to that question. Apart from the obvious thing that we need both in different circumstances.”

“What we want is action, not just knowledge. We don’t want all these people that know everything about environment and climate, but do nothing, what we want is the action. And what does stimulate the action is just conversations and watching people.”

“Rather than seeing people as just individual entities that you can only motivate through money or [knowledge], really motivating people through the social bond. And so I’ve been researching and designing how you can best create those types of groups, and how you can give people then the gamification and the feedback loop kind of tools to get them to become more active?

“People naturally want to come together with their communities. It’s really quite striking how much people really crave and really need to be connected with a group….[it surprised me] just how much it comes up that conversations between neighbours are the most powerful way to drive change.”

“We have totally not gotten the memo that designing systems and tools to help people have conversations with their neighbours is what we need to be doing… How do you get one person to speak to five people?”

“If you actually want to move from just experts talking to each other about what they’re interested in, into the action space, you need to really start thinking like a behaviour designer [about] how you’re going to recruit people locally to you, and get them into your group and then empower them to go and reach out to other people.”

Connect:

Connect with Katie via LinkedIn Twitter or Instagram  or her website katiepatrick.com

Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community

Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube

Podcast Production by Perk Digital

Hi #SmartCommunity friends! On this episode of the Smart Community Podcast, I have a brilliant chat with Katie Patrick. Katie is an environmental engineer, software designer, author and repeat guest who was last on the show in June 2021 in Episode 234. Katie tells us about her background and why she’s passionate about sustainability, as well as how feedback loops are central to her idea of Smart Communities. Katie and I discuss the need for individual actions as well as systemic change, and what she’s been up to since she was last on the podcast, including some of the gamification projects to get individuals to take more sustainability actions. Katie explains the power of human conversation and group identify for driving behavioural change, and the deep need we have for community connectedness. We finish our chat discussing the potential of using goal directed psychology in the sustainability movement and why it should be the next emerging trend. As always, we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. 

Listen here: 

What we cover in this episode:

• About Katie’s background and why she’s so passionate about sustainability 
• How feedback loops are central to Katie’s idea of Smart Communities 
• The need for individual actions as well as systemic change when it comes to climate change 
• The Gamify the Planet projects Katie runs to get individuals to take more sustainability actions 
• The power of human conversation and group identity for driving behaviour change 
• The deep need we humans have for community connectedness and how to foster that in our neighbourhoods 
• What has surprised Katie through her work in sustainability 
• The problem with big conferences and why we must redesign climate events to focus on action not content
• The potential of using goal-directed psychology in the sustainability movement 
• Why the youth climate movement is so overwhelmed and how to potentially combat that
• Where to next for Smart Communities

Quotes:

“It became this natural nexus to look at the environmental data. Can we get a feedback loop about the data? Carbon emissions from buildings like gas, forests, trees, rainfall, soil, like all of the data that we need…And then there comes the creative part. How do you display this data to people in a way that’s going to get them to do [the environmental stuff] you want. Part of it’s art and design, but part of it’s pretty serious behavioural science of how you get that data to work.”

“Everything we do is a response to a feedback loop. In psychology, it’s called stimulus and response, e.g. you get something something hot, you pull your hand away from it, you have an opportunity for food, you move towards it. We are these engines of stimulus and response to the feedback loops around us. This is the primary driver of all life and human behaviour…Now look at where we’re at with sustainability today. Where are our feedback loops for our environmental impact?”

“One of the things that people ask me all the time, I would say it accounts for maybe 50% of all questions anyone ever asked me, which is why should we do individual action when we should be looking at like sort of systems change? And there’s no easy immediate answer to that question. Apart from the obvious thing that we need both in different circumstances.” 

“What we want is action, not just knowledge. We don’t want all these people that know everything about environment and climate, but do nothing, what we want is the action. And what does stimulate the action is just conversations and watching people.”

“Rather than seeing people as just individual entities that you can only motivate through money or [knowledge], really motivating people through the social bond. And so I’ve been researching and designing how you can best create those types of groups, and how you can give people then the gamification and the feedback loop kind of tools to get them to become more active? 

“People naturally want to come together with their communities. It’s really quite striking how much people really crave and really need to be connected with a group….[it surprised me] just how much it comes up that conversations between neighbours are the most powerful way to drive change.”

“We have totally not gotten the memo that designing systems and tools to help people have conversations with their neighbours is what we need to be doing… How do you get one person to speak to five people?”

“If you actually want to move from just experts talking to each other about what they’re interested in, into the action space, you need to really start thinking like a behaviour designer [about] how you’re going to recruit people locally to you, and get them into your group and then empower them to go and reach out to other people.”

Connect:

Connect with Katie via LinkedIn Twitter or Instagram  or her website katiepatrick.com 

Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community

Connect with My Smart Community via LinkedIn or Twitter and watch on YouTube

Podcast Production by Perk Digital