JINA Architects

I formally started working at JINA Architects on September 1, as an Associate Partner.

After a 9 year hiatus, I am back in architecture. Well not quite. It’s urbanism. JINA Architects is a more than a design studio. It’s currently has about 140 staff, a huge growth from having just over 30 a decade ago. Under the management of Eliot Bu (blog / mostly in Korean), it has transformed from just another architecture studio, doing mostly commercial and academic buildings, to now consulting for local and international government clients on urban design issues.

The key to its success? Design Knowledge. With any consulting practice, the key is consolidating and managing knowledge. In the case of JINA, knowledge enables the analysis of legal codes and policy that govern urban design practice. Corporations and architectural practices see the building code as a constraint they have to “deal with”. The government see the building code as a tool for regulating the quantity and quality development. And hence the lack of communication between the two. When you have a deep knowledge of codes then you can act as a medium between the two seemingly opposing entities, and the role that JINA has carved out for itself.

In the US and Europe, non-profits function to collect, analyze data and consolidate knowledge. These non-profits provide politically neutral facts that both businesses and policy makers have equal access to. Korea hasn’t reached that stage yet, with knowledge being held in closed government institution or corporate think tanks. Yet, this is one of the ultimate goals of JINA - to create a non-profit: to collect, analyze and provide access to urban design knowledge and through it to influence the quality of life and in turn, and as corny as it sounds, to change the world.

What is my role in all this? Eliot invited me to join JINA to head the project to develop the Master Urban Plan for the Expanded Hanoi Capital which they were finally officially awarded Sept 23.

Am I qualified? My lack of urban design experience surely would pose a handicap. In the words of Eliot, this is the exact reason I was offered the job, apparently. Urbanism is more than engineering and construction. It’s about the lives of people and hence more infinitely complex, and in dire need of a new approach. He wanted an outsider, untainted by ingrained urban design practices to seek a new approach that incorporates the wide range of expertise that have typically been left out.

For the Hanoi project we have experts in energy policy, international affairs, marketing, sustainability, urban sociology, cultural studies, clean energy development, Vietnam legal system in addition to local experts providing their perspective on how a city should be developed.

This a new approach to urbanism that hasn’t been attempted before and I am caught between fear and dread and shear excitement and optimism that I have been lucky enough to have been offered the opportunity to participate in such a history event of developing a master plan for a city.

We will be changing the lives of the millions in Hanoi. And I know already that Hanoi is a city that will change my life. I have to believe it is a calling, and I am humbled.

—

I won’t be moving to Vietnam as the title might suggest. But I will be making frequent visits to Hanoi. The title’s just a play on the last time I posted about a new job, New City, New Job. That time, I found a city and then found a new job. This time I found a new job which found a city.

Disease Control Priorites (2nd Ed.)

On a recent trip to Vietnam, I came across a printed copy of the Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries (2nd Ed.) first published by the World Bank in 2006. This is quite a significant book in that it provides governments of developing nations a set of tools to help them decide how to allocate their limited resources for public health.

Prior to this book, mortality was one of the key indicators that governments would look at, and resource were put toward tackling diseases that would lowering mortality rates. However this book advoated the use of DALY (Disability Adjusted Life Years), a more objective way to determine the effects of disease. To put it bluntly, this unit shows a person who dies of a disease is less a burden on a country’s economy than a person who is bedridden for the rest of their life as a result of disease (since someone has to take care of that sick person in addition). This book provided a way to weigh and compare the economic impact of each disease common in developing nations and hence provides the ability to “prioritize” the government’s response.

It is said that Bill Gates read the first edition of this book, which was published as part of the World Bank’s World Develop Report 1993: investing In Health (pdf | 6.1MB), and it influenced his decision to take on Global Health as one of the key directives of his influential (and massively endowed) Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Why do I know so much about this book?

When I was working at Forum One Communications, I was responsible for creating the information architecture and user experience of the web-enable version of the book. We created a flexible architecture for users (academics, students, practitioner and gov officials) to browse, download the whole book or create their own book by selecting chapters that are relevant for their country. I interviewed many of the authors and potential users over a couple of week and spent many hours struggling to put together a structure and design that made sense for the users. I can safely say that it was the most rewarding project in my 6 years at Forum One. Seeing the printed version of the book for the first time, in a developing country, almost brought a tear to my eye.

They were selling the book for $35, the subsidized price for developing nations (it’s $125 on Amazon), and I was sorely tempted to purchase it, but it was too heavy to lug around. Definitely on my next trip…

Cyworld's social action website

Recently I decided to take a systematically look at online social action sites in Korea, and whenever possible trying to arrange an informal interview with the sites’ manager(s) to gain a little more insight into their operations and also get a better general sense of the landscape for online social action in Korea. How is the internet bettering the lives of the less privileged in Korea, and how is it achieving social impact?

A couple of weeks ago, I netted my first site, when I had a chance to sit down and talk with Ms. Park Jie-hyun who is one of the manager’s of Cyworld’s Cytogether service.

Cyworld, for those who don’t know, pretty much dominates the online social networking space in Korea. Having launched in 1999 it boasts 22 million or over to a third of the Korean population as its members.

All things that go up must come down and Cyworld is no exception. Lately it has seen a noticeable decline in traffic, as it struggles to find the next generation of services that will appeal to the hyper internet-savvy Korean users. To add insult to injury, it has seen a string of failed launches abroad, due in no small part to its over-confidence in its platform and hence a failure to recognize and pay due-diligence to cultural difference in the way that users in different cultures use the internet socially. It has all but abandoned many of the markets it has entered abroad, and the US may soon be its latest casualty.

Despite its many ailments, one of the bright spots in Cyworld’s traffic is its online social action site, Cytogether or in Korean, 사이좋은세상, which literally translates to: "a world of good relationships" or more meaningfully, "a world where we get along".

Cytogether uses the Cyworld platform of socially networking its members to achieve 3 main functions: online donations, online petitions and matching volunteers with non-profit organizations. It was launched in 2005, and has currently over 800 registered non-profits and NGO’s in its network. Users can choose to donate to these vetted organization by giving "dotori", Cyworld’s online currency, or by changing to their mobile phone service, which allows for monthly planned donations. Current stats show about USD 20,000-30,000 in online donations (monthly average of about USD 0.90 per donor), about 5,000-10,000 petition signups daily and about 20-30 volunteer matches per day. The most active issues on the site are children (abuse, education, poverty etc.) and, surprisingly, animal rights.

Ms. Park mentioned some of the challenges facing Cytogether:

• All the duties of promoting, managing, vetting, organizing and improving the site fall on the shoulders of 3 full-time and 1 part-time staff hance the site is extremely resource-strapped;
• Balancing the promotion of its 800+ member organization on its homepage is no small feat. Organization are always approaching them with "emergency" situations and demand that they be highlighted. Cytogether, to its credit does provide training sessions for its member organizations, organized on a quarterly basis;
• Better storytelling of member organization causes, activities, and success stories. It hasn’t been doing an effective job communicating the human stories in a more personable voice.

Despite its challenges, Cytogether plans to perform a major update of the site, and focus its offering towards the end of 2008, and partner with a recruiting service to offer job matching services to the unemployed and senior citizens.

The current value of Cytogether lies in its ability to provide exposure to charity organization that would otherwise won’t have the budget or the wherewithal to promote themselves. Traffic is showing steady growth over the past 3 years, where at launch, the site was encouraging its members to give a couple of "dotori" (each is worth about USD 0.10), to now there are regular donations of USD 10.00. The ratio of one-time donors to monthly donors is also on the rise, now standing at around 7 to 3 members.

To me the issue with Cytogether seems to be one of focus. It’s currently everything to everyone. The argument is that it’s a "platform". But I don’t think that relieves them of the tough responsibility of championing key causes. Cyworld is currently too influential not to be using its influence it bring to light tough social issues. Does it want to be IKEA or Herman Miller?

It is also apparent that there is a possibility that Cytogether may outlive its relationship with its parent Cyworld. Just as Cyworld, Cytogether is a platform for activity, there really is no reason why Cytogether cannot be an independent service. If the current downward trend of traffic and popularity in Cyworld continues, it may be in everyone’s best interest for the two to part ways.

Walking away from the interview, my head was full of ideas for improving Cytoether’s service:

• Donor’s wall: If you go to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, to the right of the entrance there is a wall of all the top donors to the museum. Recognize that some people (organizations) like to be recognized. A page could list large donations;
• API: Go viral. Allow bloggers to promote Cytogether on their site through a widget or a badge. A widget can show causes/organizatios that they support;
• Better member profiling: After a member donates, send a follow-up email with a link to a survey that identify what issues and causes the member is interested in. It can also ask members to opt-in for alerts. Building a database benefits both the users and Cytogether to provide more relevant content;
• Targeted alerts: Based on database mentioned above, Cytoether can send targeted action alerts to those members who have opted in;
• Matching donations: Corporations and workplaces can sign up to provide matching donations for employee donations;
• Corporate badges: Cytogether can provide corporations supporting Cytogether "official" badges to indicate that they support Cytogether;
• Stronger member networking: Members of Cyworld should have tools to alert each other to causes they support;
• Better "minihomepy" integration: Member "minihomey" (which is Cyworld’s member profile page) should indicate that the member supports an organization or cause on Cytogether and encourage visitors to do the same.

I have no means looked at online social action in Korea in any depth, but from initial research, it seems, like many other things in Korea, to be dominated by large corporations and their services or foundations. Naver, the online behemoth, has a service called Happy Bean, where users register to accrue a "bean" every time they use Naver’s service, such as their email. Each bean is a matching donation from Naver of about USD 0.10 and users can donate these beans to a cause of their choice. This seems awfully self-serving and borders on being unethical to me. CJ Foundation (CJ is a member of Samsung extended "family") has Donors Camp modeled on Donors Choose (Charles Best of Donors Choose actually consulted on the project).

Despite this sad state of affairs, Korea does still have one of the most participatory online cultures in the world. And by all indications it seems like the online donations and participation is on the rise. My hope is that all that participation blossoms into social awareness and responsibility, and flows into growth of grassroots online social action and services.

The Point: Making Something Happen

The Point is a simple website with a clear purpose: making things happen. The way they do it is helping users formulate a campaign statement for action with a clear goal. Users can then choose to participate in the campaign. When the goal is met (or “the point” is tipped), an email is sent to the participants to act. For example:

Stop Zippy Oil from polluting Lake Apache
Zippy Oil must stop dumping waske into Lake Apache or else we will boycott ZippyPump when 100,000 people join

The campaigns can be serious or silly, which is a nice twist:

Bow-tie Tuesday
Andrew Mason will wear a bow tie every Tuesday if 8 people do the same.

The site has a collaboration section for brainstorming ways to approach a problem and also a social networking component to connect people with similar interest.

Aside from a few companies such as Amazon, Google or Facebook, the value of Web2.0 for the business world is still unclear, and return on investment still seems murky at best. However for the non-profit world, the value of Web2.0 is clear - the more the users are empowered and congregate around interest that they share, the better the opportunities for action.

In Korea, where I work, there is a lot of businesses coming online based on Web2.0 models, and a lot of talk around using Web2.0 to enhance service offerings and user experience, but little talk about the social impact that Web2.0, which to me is missing the whole point of Web2.0.

Tim O’Reilly said back in 2005, Web is a platform. A platform to do what? We should at least consider the potential of it becoming an agent for change and the betterment of society as a whole.

What is encouraging is that there are already many services by the big players in the Korean online space that make online donation easy and fun. Korea’s leading social networking site, Cyworld has its online volunteer matching and giving site called Cytogether where you can donate your time or “acorns” to a cause. Naver, the Korean search engine / online portal behemoth has a service called Happy Bean where you collect “beans” worth about 10 cents for every email you sent through their email service. You can donate these you causes and donations are matched by corporate sponsors. CJ Foundation (CJ is part of the Samsung conglomerate) has its own version of the US site DonorsChoose.org called DonorsCamp.

A culture of donation doesn’t spring up overnight, but if you look at the numbers, citizens who are online (or “netizens” as they are called here) are beginning to donate generously.

But these services are only limited in their scope and potential and only scratch at the surface of serious change. In one of the most wired places on earth, shouldn’t we expect more innovative services that enable and empower people to think differently.

When I was recently asked to give a 1 hour presentation at OpenTide China, in Beijing, on a subject of my choice, I chose to put together a presentation highlighting some of the work that I was involved in while I was working at Forum One Communications (my previous place of employment), that involved innovative use of Web2.0 for social action. I ended up giving the same presentation again to staff at VINYL, Seoul, where I currently work. The presentation outline Web2.0 principles and then introduces 4 “stories” or projects I was directly or indirectly involved in. The projects are CARMA, Changemakers, Ask Your Lawmaker and DonorsChoose (I didn’t have direct involvement but know the project well because I good friend worked on the Korean counterpart DonorsCamp).

Here’s the presentation I gave:

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