Hey @aschrijver . Thanks for sharing the Salesforce keynote. Yes I remember it being presented but at the time I believe I was running around during the broadcast. Dreamforce is a little bit nuts for the product managers… I will watch this keynote in full, thank you again for the share.
Loving the conversation here!
Hey @Free … Yes, 8 years of Salesforce product management, quite a ride, but I needed a break and want to focus on creating humane and mindful technology. You are right this forum is an incredible resource and I will get through as much of the content as I can. My abilities really do lie in product management generally, mostly enterprise tech but also consumer tech. I am strong on expectation-setting (PM’s #1 job!), partnering cross org in the development process, UX/UI collab, trust and security… I went to undergrad at Columbia University in New York and left with mostly a self-taught engineering skillset. Over time I’ve moved from programming myself to product management in general where I feel I can have the most impact on getting product to market. My current “experiment” project that I’m currently investigating is an idea called www.justbreathe.com – a place to go to just breathe with friends. I finished a spec for the product this week and will have an engineering estimate next week… just a hobby project while I find my true calling and “peeps” who want to have a big impact on humane tech in general.
Thank all of you for working hard and coming up with the pyramids! At the first sight, I would say the framework is very clear to me and helps me clear my brain fog, as there are many problems regarding the current tech and it is not easy to capture the whole picture.
While still slowly digesting the whole thing, I would like to share some of my thoughts about the pyramids.
When I think more about it, the “Society” pyramid, which has access, protection and safety as its focuses, from my perspective is somewhat too broad a term for the three pillars. For me, society is a much more complex construct that involves many elements such as culture and collaboration, while access, protection and safety form the basis of the ultimate goal of human flourishing. I am not sure whether there is a better word for it, maybe “infrastructure”? Besides, protection and safety seem a bit overlapping in my opinion, but maybe they are interlinked in the first place. Protection is a pre-condition for safety and safety results in some form of protection?
Regarding the previous discussion on “material wealth” and “quality of life”, I personally think “Wellness” actually encompasses both of them well. Some people feel happy even if they live under below-average-living-standards conditions. It’s all about mindset and perspective. However, I agree with you all on that for normal people, material wealth is a major factor that affects our happiness. There are reports showing that there is an average figure of income that people feel the happiest earning, but figures below and above will go down the happiness slope. In my opinion, the definition of wellness can be very different for different people, but I think that no matter whether it’s about material wealth, being positive or being loved and contributing to the world, wellness is something that most of us want to pursue in our lives.
In general, the pyramids remind me of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, although his theory is solely focused on individuals. Based on how I understand humane tech pyramids, individuals, communities and society as a whole are all included. If that’s the case, the framework seems a little bit ambiguous to me. For instance, when we talk about wellness, is it the wellness of an individual or that of society? I may be wrong here, but I feel that these are two different levels, as society’s wellness includes human collaboration etc.
Sorry for the quite long sharing, I will try to be more concise next time. These are my personal thoughts, and I hope they can provide some different perspectives!
Don’t worry, very much appreciated! You are quite right in your post. There is a difficulty in slicing the subject matter accurately. In that sense, yes, the pyramids were meant to be very similar to Maslow’s model. The Pyramid of Wellbeing is more focused on the individual, while Pyramid of Society is about the whole. Your observations are correct 