Summary
The Internet and Web have reached a tipping point. We’re now witnessing the surfacing of harmful patterns and norms that we designed—often unintentionally—into our products, services, and communities, and the world we live in. Designers who work in the enterprise are, like their peers in startups and big dotcoms, vulnerable and culpable and need to consider some big questions: How well do we manage our data? How inclusive are our development practices? How broadly and deeply do we think about the impact of what we build and deploy before we scale it for our customer base? We need to move forward with intent. We need to govern our digital spaces. A necessary first step towards that goal involves designers examining—with honesty and introspection—our role in the creation of what’s online. The World Wide Web is nothing more than the accumulation of what digital makers have put there. We made this mess, and we need to talk about how we are going to clean it up. Digital governance expert Lisa Welchman will reflect on how 25 years of passionate and agile web development got us where we are today, and the consequences of the lack of self-governance by the digital maker community. She will show us a path forward from this mess, outlining questions we can ask and steps we can take to govern better what we have created and what we will create in the future.
Key Insights
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Standardization is crucial for effective governance, drawing lessons from the Great Baltimore Fire.
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Digital governance focuses on decision-making roles within organizations rather than merely workflow processes.
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Organizations often struggle with defining who is responsible for digital strategies and policies.
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Governance frameworks should be designed intentionally to facilitate collaboration rather than stifle creativity.
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The concept of digital safety must be defined and measured to ensure accountability in online practices.
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User feedback is valuable but should follow an initial focus on internal alignment and governance structure.
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The complexity of digital governance involves managing both organizational biases and external vendor relationships.
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A successful governance framework must account for organizational maturity and adapt over time.
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Inclusivity in digital design is not just ethical but essential for user experience and community engagement.
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Generosity in sharing knowledge and solutions can enhance the culture within the digital domain.
Notable Quotes
"At the end of the day, we're trying to drive down a shared sense of collaborative, sensible standards."
"People showing up for a fire that they couldn't really have the tools to put out is like how we feel about the internet now."
"Governance is about decision making, not just about who gets to approve what content."
"It's all in the workflow; it’s not just about the tool you use, it's how you design the process."
"Governance frameworks can facilitate whatever an organization wants to do."
"We are the ones that are actually going to fix this problem because we are it."
"Every bad thing that can happen in the real world can now happen on the internet, but every good thing can as well."
"Can we think about making things safer and safer as we scale and mature these disruptive technologies?"
"It's not about just what you're creating; it's about ensuring that the system supports consistent quality across all outputs."
"It’s a culture of inclusion that we should foster in the digital domain, reflecting the generosity of our collective efforts."
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