TFGL2021 - S4 - Ep 4 - Victims of the System

Welcome to this episode of the Tech For Good Live podcast.

On today’s podcast we are talking about a social enterprise that aims to address low numeracy skills among working-age adults. BT is the latest big firm to basically duplicate work that expert charities are already doing. Lego seems to have suddenly realised that the gender bias in their toys isn't a good idea. And something called Snapchat has done something to do with young people running for office. Apparently it’s something young people use.

Transcript

Bex: Hello victims and welcome to yet another episode at the Tech For Good Live podcast. It's a podcast all about using technology to have a positive social impact on the world. On today's podcast, we'll be talking about a social enterprise that aims to address low numeracy skills amongst working-aged adults. BT is the latest big firm to basically duplicate the work that expert charities are already doing, so we'll be exploring that story in more detail. Overpriced trash toy company, Lego, seems to have suddenly realized that the gender bias in their toys isn't a good idea. I guess we'll chat about that. And somebody called Snapchat has done something to do with young people running for office. Apparently, it's something that young people use. All that and more coming right up. My accomplices today include Greg Ashton. Greg did a lot during lockdown.  He got married. He managed to keep his dog alive and he built up a decent amount of suspicion amongst the tech for good live gang to suggest that he and not Paul is the canal pusher, Greg, hello. What's the most noteworthy thing to happen to you during the pandemic?

Greg: Besides quitting the whole canal pushing thing, probably buying a house. Because we've mentioned the wedding. So yeah, after that, it's probably buying a house. 

Bex: Exciting news. Thank you. Jonny Rae-Evans has decided to grace us with his presence today. Jonny. Hello, same question to you. 

Jonny: Hello. I have nothing to top Greg. So he's bought a house, got married, kept Noodles alive, pushed some people in the canal. I think may even most noteworthy thing is that not much has really happened. I think it's just been okay. I started a new job. That's always exciting but that's really it. Have I missed something You live with me, what’s happened? I can’t think of anything that’s happened.

Greg: [laughs] 

Bex: Uh, you wrote this intro. 

Jonny: I know but I didn’t really think about it [laughs]

Greg: You just want it to live vicariously through everybody else. 

Jonny: That's what it was. Yeah. 

Bex: And me, I’m Bex. I’ll be your host for this episode. Or as my lawyer will eventually call me culpable individual number one. Let's get podcasting. Stat of the week. Apparently, it’s estimated that half of working age adults in the UK have numeracy skills lower than expected of an 11-year-old child guide. Greg, tell us more. 

Greg: Yeah. So this is from a social enterprise, plain numbers who are working with a bunch of different partners to try and tackle this issue. And also just to get people in financial services using plain numbers, as it says in the name. So yeah, this was a research study and basically it showed that making small tweaks to the way bills are presented could double people's comprehension. They did this with 5,000 customers of companies including direct line Atlanta Insurance, Octopus Energy, Thames Water, and Clearscore. And across the five chart trials, uh, customers were nearly twice as likely to answer four out of five comprehension questions after the plain numbers techniques have been used. This just blew my mind that financial statements and things like that are shit anyway at the best of times. So for them to find out that, you know, almost half of working-age adults struggle with numeracy generally anyway is just mind blowing and, you know, and some of the statements and things that I've seen are just ridiculously useless for helping people to understand what they're doing. And, you know, we have huge issues with that and people struggling in poverty across the UK at the minute. So I think that the work these guys are doing is really important and it's really great to see these kinds of organisations picking it up and running with it with them. 

Bex: Yeah. The very fact that so many people in our country can't read or write when we pride ourselves as being like a dead good country, is crap. Right? But also, as you say, I have, I think I'm all right. I don't know where I fare on the scale of not done like maths tests in a long time and might be really bad at it too, but I definitely can't understand like any APR well, I don't know what that is basically. Like I get concept, but I don't know what it means to me. And I find it very hard to do the maths behind all of that stuff that comes with getting credit cards, loans, store cards like, it doesn’t, yeah, I can't figure it out. I don't know why they use words that make no sense. 

Greg: Yeah. It's very jargon heavy, really, you know, they've put a lot of language in there that is very internal and doesn't really help people. And, you know, a lot of people just manage to get by. I mean, energy companies are the worst for it. You know, particularly when you look at the way that, you know, standard rates and all that kind of stuff. So it's, yeah, I'd be interested to see the results of this. I'm wondering, you know, how does it impact these organisations from, from a PO, you know, be on the whole thing of stopping, um, issues with deaths and things like that. I wonder if it reduces the number of calls and just improves the experience of the customers. It would surprise me if that wasn't like. 

Bex: Absolutely. I think there's a lot of people doing work around plain language. So it's really interesting to see people doing work around playing numbers. I really like it.

Greg: Yeah. What's interesting with this is, one of the main tips that they talk about, so they reference a historian, Yuval Noah Harari, who says humans thinking stories rather than facts, numbers, or equations and the simpler the story the better. So what they're actually saying is don't think about the numbers and trying to get people to understand that. You basically, what they say is you tell that person the story that they want to hear. So as a consumer of whatever it is that you're selling, what story are they trying to finish, what do they want to answer? So they give this example of, if I pay off X every month, I'll be debt free by this date and save X amount or Y amount. So, yeah, it's, you know, it's thinking about, instead of thinking about right, what's the numbers we need to give them really thinking about what's the narrative that that person's trying to understand. I say that's a really, really interesting way of talking about it.

Bex: Yeah. Like the balance transfer deals one is an example that's in this article and yeah, that baffles me every single time. Like, we’re got a little bit of credit cards and I suppose like bounced it around zero interest stuff but it's impossible to understand what that means. I mean, I must struggle with numbers to some extent.  I love a spreadsheet and I get nervous if I can think about it in my own way. But as soon as someone presents something to me in their way like, I don't know what you're talking about. Like immediately when I ran my own business, I got an accountant immediately.

Greg: [laughs] 

Bex: [laughs] I mean, like, someone better than me needs to deal with this. And my first accountant were absolutely terrible because they would still just talk to me in like, jargon and I just didn't know what they were talking about. I just had to kind of constantly tell them, I don't know what it's on now. Please tell it to me, like explain all of this to me every time you need an answer from me or something.  Don’t explain it to me if it doesn't matter because I don't care. But explain it to me when I need to know and I need to answer you like comprehensively, like proper and I need to comprehend it, like explain it to me differently.

And they just didn't and I thought all accountants are just like that and it wasn't until I moved to like, the latest accountants where I was like, they get it. They know they have to just speak stupid to me [laughs] 

Greg: [laughs] 

Bex: But yeah, I think, yeah, it's actually dead interesting that we did language before we did numbers to me because I struggle more with numbers than language but I guess, each to their own.

Greg: Yeah, this is why in all those movies, it's always the accountants screwing over their clients and stealing all their money because it's so easy.

Bex: Yup [laughs]  Uh, Johnny, you missed all of that because you ran away. I guess. 

Jonny:  I get so scared of numbers. I literally ran, but as Greg was doing the explanation of it, I thought, oh my God, it's just like, you know, in terms of putting things in plain language, the way that know the way that academics write,  that makes it really difficult for people to understand. Just for no reason. 

Greg: Yeah. 

Jonny: Some people in the past have advised us, in the business world about the accounts but that’s what you were talking about Bex, in terms of, you have to really explicitly say, I don't know what you're talking about. Please really just speak like a normal human being and they just refuse to. 

Bex: Yeah. And at first, I was like, oh, they tried to not screw us over, but you could easily just be like, I guess I thought the SEO industry when I started dealing with them because I'm like, there was always this thing about the SEO industry and there's plenty of really nice SEO people. But back in the day, there were also some black hats, we call it. And I always felt like they talked deliberately in jargon to mystify, deliberately mystifying, the industry so that people would have to pay them to do it because that you don't get it and you don't understand it. Like that was like a known trope of the SEO industry. And I was like do accountants do the same and they did really deliberately confusing it. So you continue to pay them because you don't understand that actually, after getting the second accountant and I realised that it is possible to talk in plain language and explain it to people. It was just that, I guess they’re just stuck in their own worlds and heads and they don't understand that other people don't get it. 

Greg: Victims of the system. 

Bex: Victims of the system. There's no segue into charity news of the week there I'm afraid. BT plans to duplicate the efforts of charities who orobably know better than that. I haven't read this article yet Greg but I am fuming about the headline. Please tell me more. 

Greg: Speaking of victims. So this follows on from Sarah Berard and Sabina Nessa and there are many, many, many, many other women who have been attacked and killed. Following on from that the BT Chief Executive, Phillip Jansen basically pioneered this idea, cause he was disgusted by what had happened, to allow people to use an app or dial or text triple 8 and then it would GPS track them. It would give them an expected journey time and an automatic alert would be sent to emergency contacts such as friends and family if the person fails to reach home by the given time. And understandably, so one example, Nick Gazzard, whose daughter Hollie was killed by an ex-boyfriend in 2014, he was disappointed by this because he set up a Hollie Gazzard trust and they've been trying to work with the government for a period of time now and were not getting very far. ‘‘We have an app called Hollie Guard, which will do everything that triple 8 does but lots more’’. We also, right in season one, I think right at the start spoke about an app, which did a very similar thing using kind of a button that you could press and it would video and send out an alarm. 

Jonny: I remember that. When you were telling the story I was like, I’m sure we talked about this, mulitple times as well. 

Greg: And it took me two seconds to Google a search and found top five apps for women to present women when they walk in home. So forgetting the whole conversation, well, now let's not forget that cause we can talk about that in a minute, the whole conversation about whether the solution for this is for women to use these apps and not spend more money dealing with the problem. It's the fact that BT and we spoke about this on the podcast previously, it's fact that BT has gone, we've got an idea for that. We can solve this problem. And lots of other people and in this case the Holly Gazzard trust of, you know, it, that this has been around since, um, 2015, it's been tried, it's been tested, they've done lots of research. So they've, you know, they've really done the groundwork on making sure the thing they. Works. Whereas BT, it sounds like they’re looking at rushing something out and it's just that frustration of, you know, why don't you just look at what's already available and support that. 

Jonny: Yeah. Well, these kinds of things you always think are to what extent is this ethics washing? You can see that this is a big topic right now. Is it actually about PR? Will they even end up making proper products? Is it just to get a buzz? And you think, oh, maybe we're being too cynical there, but the fact that if you did want to help contribute to. Like you said the question’s around, why don’t we actually fix the problem of men murdering women. Yeah. Iit's about they want to do good, why not give that money to those existing apps that are working and doing good stuff. The best case scenario, it's that classic big tech swopping in like white Knights, trying to fix everything with money without understanding the problem. Worst case scenario, they don't really care and it’s a PR campaign. Yeah, upsetting, disappointing.

Bex: I definitely heard something about bothering to look if this sort of thing exists because as Greg said, it was dead easy to find. Sometimes it can be really hard to find what else is out there. So I try and be forgiving to some extent about ignorance, about other things, but in this instance, that doesn't seem to be the case. I think there, you know, I'll talk about egos lowered, you know, it's hard to get rid of your ego. But it sounds like in this instance, it is particularly because he's been named, it's not just that BT came up with this idea. BT Chief Executive, Phillip Jansen, had this pioneering idea. Like, it's definitely been pushed out there on a PR thing. It's not just been done in the background and like, I dunno. Yeah. They’re using it for some PR here and it's a bit shitty. and it pisses me right off. It happens all the time. 

Greg: I wonder if it's something that they've had in the background for years. Like some project came up with the idea and they've kind of gone this, we need to do something about this. And somebody has gone, you know, that project that we were talking about 18 months ago and you ignored, what about that?. And they're like, yes, brilliant. Um, you know, and then his name's getting attached to it. I mean, it might be his name that's been attached to, it could just be the way that the articles been written and because he's the spokesperson, they've said it's his idea. It might, you know, he might not be saying that, but yeah, just look what's out there. Don't, you know, the more of these is fine, but why not fund somebody who's done all the research and understands their users.

Bex: Absolutely, pisses me right off. Sort it out. Even if you were very well-intentioned, someone else is already doing this and actually giving more options to women could be more difficult. Choice paralysis. And you know, having to reset each app ago, which I'm should I use my own safety? I dunno, it's just wasting our time. Just give us one good app. 

Jonny: And if in doubt, don't use a product that a telecoms company made cause everything a telecoms company makes is fucking awful and trash. 

Greg: [laughs] 

Jonny: And I look forward to it not working and someone getting hurt and trying to call up BT and it's impossible to ring these people up as well. Having to go through forty different triages on their contact us page before you can get through to someone. So yeah.

Greg: That's the horrifying thing. The failure point for something like this is somebody who has been raped or murdered. That's the terrifying thing. So it's not something you can just throw out there and think, oh, it'd be fine. Like the failure point is massive. It's a huge risk. So yeah. 

Jonny: Yeah. Even if it works, the privacy implications of the way that the app would work as well is a really difficult thing to manage and to reassure people. So, yeah. 

Bex: And Greg, you said right at the beginning, is this even something that solves the issue and you've made a note here that the Women's Trust have said about this article that freedoms and rights shouldn't be quashed to make more room and excuses for male violence. Survivors continue to be let down by the health and criminal justice systems is not the answer. I completely agree with them in some instances. Obviously, more money should be spent to fix that, but it’s like, massive and systemic. Right. So I do believe that sticky patches in the meantime are still helpful. Like sticky plasters; we need something now and that's what's going to help now, but yeah, I'm going to look to see much more funding put into all of the big issues that sit behind this. Right. And they're massive. But I do think if you put money behind them and campaigns and training and support. It must have an impact, right? If you put enough money behind it and some thought and get some scientists involved. They'll be able to solve it right from the root cause.Right? 

Greg: A certain age. 

Jonny: I saw something else. I’m really behind on news and things. I only saw the headlines so I might have massively misunderstood it, but again, in the Sarah murder and I may have completely misunderstood it but was there a suggestion that because a police officer murdered her, they were thinking of setting up a 999 but especially for women to call 888 so that presumably the murderous police officers wouldn't be allowed to respond to that. I might have misunderstood what that was. I don’t know if anyone else saw that? The suggestion that for women who are walking home alone or for example, felt unsure that they could ring this special emergency number.  I don't know, but did anyone else see that? Have I dreamt that?

Greg: I think it might have been conflated with this. So the number for this is 888, so I'm wondering if it's kind of the purpose of it has been confused. I mean, at one point they were talking about flagging down bus drivers, if you didn't feel that you trusted the police officer who was arresting you. It's like what? [laughs] That’s absolutely crazy.

Jonny: That’s not fixing the problem. Absolutely. Yeah. 

Greg: Yeah. I mean, back to your point of data security, you know, there's another side to this as well, which is if you build something that is not secure, you've got risks. You're tracking someone's location here, you've got a risk that an abusive partner could use that against somebody. We've talked about digital abuse on the podcast before and just the idea of someone being tracked everywhere they go is just feeding into that and that being abused is just so easy for that to happen.

Jonny: Was there a nice segue into that Bex?

Bex: Errrr no. [laughs] Tech news of the week. Snapchat is going to add a feature to help young people run for political office. Cool. I guess. Greg, tell us more. 

Greg: Is it cool? I was in very much in two minds when I read this. I was like, yes, engaging with more young people to get them interested in political office. And this is just in America at the moment. It's not a UK thing. But the idea of Snapchat politicians just terrifies me. Like it really does just make you think, you know, we've got a huge problem now with politicians who are focused too much on the likes.  Likes and subscribes, rather than the policies and doing anything of actual real work. So if you're feeding them through something, you know, you’re starting that journey from social media through to being a politician. Then the likelihood is, is that they won't be focused on the substance, they'll be focused on the thing that gets them the most hits. 

Bex: And that sounds like an awful judgemental thing to say about young people who like to hang out on Snapchat but I have to say that I also agree [laughs] 

Greg: Yeah. How could it not? You're coming at it from a place that is largely focused around that. So it's going to get into the culture of the thing that you're trying to do. So yeah,  it's a real risk, I think. 

Jonny: A big risk as well I imagine, probably most of the Tory MPs are on Snapchat under pseudonyms to send unsolicited dick pics to women, would be my guess.

Greg: Oh c’mon not just Tories. 

Jonny:  Yeah, the accidental I've used the wrong account. I mean, aside from that side of things. Anything that helps young people vote and get once again, anything that helps anybody engage with the political system is exciting and good if it works. From a macabre point of view, the thought of Matt Hancock using Snapchat, I find hilarious and I would definitely want to see the train wreck that would be that after his app. So there's something quite funny about it. 

Greg:  Yeah. I think this is less about politicians using Snapchat and more about…

Jonny: But if the young people are there and politically engaged, that’s the kind of thing that you would expect to see, wouldn’t you? You’d just leap through it.

Bex: I think they already are. If Fay was here, she’d know more about this, cause I feel like Fay’s talked about this loads, particularly in the US. This is a US article. But she's done loads of work about engaging the youth in political issues, oh no that was Tik Tok. I don’t even know the difference anymore.

Greg: [laughs]

Bex: On Tik Tok…

Jonny: You don’t hear about Snapchat as much. 

Bex: They’re still around. I guess. Something I’ve learned from this article is that the company isn't called Snapchat. The company is not called Snapchat. It's called Snap. 

Greg: Yeah. 

Bex: This is the first I’ve heard of this. Just saying.

Greg:  Yeah, yeah. Snapchat's doing okay. A lot of people thought that the bubble was gonna burst and they were going to die a death but actually they've managed to kind of sustain a level of income that allows them to keep going and they can do things like this. So where this comes from, so Sophia Grosse, who is Head of Policy, Partnership, and Social impact for Snap, the parent company, basically said the idea came from the company's observations after making a major push around voter registration and education in 2020. They spoke to the young people and they said that there weren't that many candidates on the issues that the Snapchat generation cares a lot about. It's a very, yeah, soundbite-y response, but they basically say that their app reaches 90% of people in the U S. Between the ages of 13 and 24, which if true is huge. Um, there is not much data about how many young people run for office in the US but there are lots of different groups who are trying to help support young people to get into office. Apparently, nearly 70% of Congress was made up of baby boomers but they constitute 21% of the total American population. So there's a real imbalance there. They've got, you know, a lot of baby boomers running things but not many of them actually in the community. So the way this thing is going to work is if you type in, run for office, it’ll ask for your zip code, and then you get some personalised list of opportunities to run for office. And then they connect you up with one of these candidate recruitment organisations who then can take you on the rest of your journey. So it's kind of a lead gen type thing. 

Jonny: I hope it works. 

Greg: Yeah. 

Jonny: I think we spoke a few times, I guess, towards the end of the presidential election in the US, you know, young people really using social media to kind of fight back and have their voice heard. There was that thing we talked about it on the podcast where Tik Tok off users like killed that Trump rallied by banding together and booking out the venues. So it's an empty venue and weren’t they doing something where they all kind of mobilised -. I know this isn’t Tik Tok. I'm not confusing, again. Where they all mobilised everything from the Trump store, logged in people's carts but didn’t buy because they knew that the way that the store was set up, it was messing up their way of generating orders and stuff. So, you know, there's loads of science suggests that young people are really engaged. So this would be a, a great level to see that as well as in terms of moving towards not just being engaged with politics, but actually, um, standing up as candidates and stuff would be quite exciting. 

Bex: Uses social medai.

Jonny: Yeah. Brilliant. So more of that would be wonderful. 

Greg: Yeah, she was on Twitch at one point, playingn that game, what was it? 

Jonny: Among U, was it? 

Greg: Among Us, yeah. So yeah, some of them can use it and she has got, you know, really strong principles and is very much focused on policy and knows really well how to use social media to get the likes and subscribes but also back that up with some substance. So my worry is coming from a place of cynicism but there are examples of how it can work, so maybe I'm wrong. 

Bex:  Yeah. More young people in politics, that's a good thing. It's a good thing. Right? 

Greg: Yeah, definitely.

Bex: Cool. On to rant or nice of the week. This came from me but I think everybody else has stuff to say. It's kinda nice cause we're going back to how we’re working at the minute, you know, who knows what the future may bring. But right now some people have gone back to offices. Those that weren’t. Obviously, there's people that have had to be in offices this whole time. But in the design industry, in the tech industry, I think they've all been remote pretty much completely since it happened, but we’re transitioning at different speeds back into the office in some way or that. And some of us that remaining at home for various reasons, which is good. So hybrid working is a new thing and obviously wanting to make sure that that's right and healthy for the team, I've been looking at and reading all thought pieces I can find on hybrid working and advice. And obviously, there's loads of companies that have kind of been doing it for a while now, but to a lot of us, it's new. And I'm finding a lot of pieces seem to just be based on like sweeping broad brush statements that are being made without proper backing up with facts and are based on anecdotal evidence. And I don't know if I agree with all of the advice that I'm hearing. You know, it’s a super complex problem you've got, especially transitioning, you know, those that have been doing it for years fine. We’re all trying but there are hundreds of people transitioning in an organization to this new way of working and it's new for everybody. It's not going to be solved by, you know, some of these sweeping statements that I'm reading a lot about. And I don't know if I agree with them. So yeah, I'm pissed off with people talking about inclusion and accessibility and hybrid working but when they can’t back up what they’re saying with substance. 

Greg: Yeah, there's a lot of, I think, type stuff going on, where no one has really investigated it. They've not looked at, you know, you hear a lot of comments about productivity and things like that. And throughout the whole of lockdown in both, cause I changed jobs during lockdown, I've never met anyone that I worked with currently, which is weird but the team works really well together. And in both places that I worked, they were constantly having to tell people to not overwork because people were. Cause it was just so easy. You were there, you didn't have to go home. So they were working well over their allotted hours. Whether that was producing better work, who knows? Cause often you don't when you overwork. 

Jonny: Hard to spot as well, especially if you're not a timesheet based company, not always as easy to expose someone struggling or overworking as well. Yeah, I think it will be a really, really tough one to crack and I guess as well, different types of companies and industries will have different approaches in terms of making sure that they're doing good work as well, in terms of the balance. That the idea of a one size fits all approach to ways of working in terms of preference, ways of working in terms of making sure you're being inclusive and accessible as well and I think, I don’t know if it was Molly Watts when she was on a podcast with us or not, who talked about like checklists and stuff like that can be quite good.  But you have to be really careful by absolute statements, like, you must do things in this way because that is what somebody has deemed to be the right way of working or the right way of solving problems in an inclusive way. But actually what you can end up doing there is really excluding a lot of people, because often there was something that might have to give all, you have to be flexible to adjust for certain individuals. It's not a case of making everyone always fit into one box. It's often it's a case of making sure you don't force everyone to fit in one box. I think some of the solutions out there that are being touted as this is the new way of working, this is the right way of working, whether it's people saying you need to everyone back in the office or nobody back in the office or even if you're doing that, you need to work in this, is really, really harmful. Spoken with such confidence [laughs] 

Bex: I think that's my nervousness around some of these articles I'm reading. Like, this is how to run a hybrid inclusive meeting. And I'm like, is it? Like, the fact is that you've made it so tight? And yeah, this like, this is the way. There's no flexibility in that for people to say, sorry that, that isn't actually working for me and can we do it a different way? It feels like there's no leeway at all to say that. And I think because, you know, we're bringing accessibility and inclusivity into this, there's a bit of a stick there. Like if you don't do it this way, you’re not inclusive. And it's like, oh, there's no room for discussion or maneuver. And, you know, my feel at the moment after reading everything that I've read and chatting it through with some people, is that actually what we're going to have to do is have a lot of more self-reflection and reflective team discussion on what's best for the project, what's best for the team at that moment in time of which, you know, in agency world, teams often change dynamics, change. Some people really want to and need to be in an office for various reasons. Like you can't, I think being in an office for accessibility and inclusivity reasons is just as important as being at home. But there seems to be this push towards home, is so important, but so is the office to some people. So yeah, I think what we're going to have to do is move to a much more reflective, discussion-based, how does this work for this current team at this moment. Which will be mean that we have to have more difficult discussions, I think, but I don't think it should just be like one way or the highway. What's that phrase? 

Greg: [laughs] Your way or the highway? My way or the highway? One of those. 

Bex: My way or the highway. Something to do with the highway. 

Jonny: Highway or the highway. 

Greg: Highway or the highway. One thing I would say is, there's a big difference between hybrid working and hybrid meetings. The big difference being hybrid working works. Hybrid meetings don't. Because either the people who are in the room lose out for whatever reason or the person or persons who are at home, they lose out because what happens is, they're kind of talking and then everybody goes off and, you know, is away from a microphone or having a little side conversation. So I've literally said to my workplace, I will not do if you organize a hybrid meeting, I ain't coming because it just does not work. Now what you can do is do a hybrid meeting where you've got some people in the office and some people online but everybody is online. That's fine. 

Bex: Ah, see, this is the one I'm not sure about because it's crap for everybody. If everyone’s sat in a corner of the office, on a laptop with headphones on, I can hear the person sat next to me doubling up.  That doesn't work for me in the office. And I know, neither works. I'm not agreeing that the other way works either, but I guess, you know, it gets really complicated when there's a meeting you have to be at and now we kind of have this whole but I like being at home. Some people have to be at home, but some people have decided that it's just nice that day to be at home, so they've decided that they don't want to come into the face-to-face meeting. So now we have to sell this whole hybrid meeting, when it didn't need to be a hybrid meeting. It was just someone wanted to be at home and that should be okay I guess. But also it's like, you made the decision to be at home because you wanted to be, because  pajamas are nice. And I'm that person. I love being at home but in order for me to be at home, I've made life difficult for everybody in the office. So there's this really difficult conversation that we're not having about, if you have to be at home, you have to be at home, but some people don't. And it's the same about the office as well. Forcing people into the office. Sometimes the meeting doesn't have to be in the office, but some people say we have to be in the office when they don’t have to be in the office. So there's something about flex and yes, you will lose out sometimes if you're at home but you get to be in your pajamas and maybe that meeting isn’t perfect for you but you're in your pajamas and that's great. So I dunno. Do you know what I mean? That's a difficult conversation I don't think anyone's actually saying out loud. 

Greg: Yeah. I think like you say, there's got to be a conversation. So I'm seeing a lot of stuff about you work from home one day a week or you'll have a 40/60 split. And I just think, no, that’s arbitrary. We're just throwing numbers and going, that seems right. When actually what's the makeup of your team? How are they distributed? You know, does that a lot of teams have changed. The team that I work with, previously, they would have all been located in the same city but now they're all across the country because it was possible. So if you then say to people, well, you need to come in for this meeting, it's not really going to work for them. So my thing is you've got to work with your teams, with your managers and make a conscious decision about what's best, not just for you as an individual, because you like working at home, but also what's best for the team. So if somebody says, I want to do this meeting and I feel that we need to do it in person, that person's got to have a really good fucking reason to say, well, no I want to be at home for that. And, you know, in some cases, people are going to have to feel uncomfortable and get their ass into the office. And some people are gonna have to feel uncomfortable and do it online. Just tough shit. You know, it's the workplace. 

Bex: People are shit at difficult discussions though. Me as well. We're all shit at having difficult discussions. I think like, we never really nailed that yet as a species. We need another a hundred years or so before that really embedded into our psyche. So like, yeah, this is just going to make things really difficult for a while, I think. And I think like being forgiving, is probably going to be helpful while we transition, maybe. 

Greg: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. But we've just got to be honest about these. Yeah. And supportive as well. Be supportive.  You can't just jump to that. People are going to need time to kind of transition from working at home and once people do get a little bit more used to it then they will. From an inclusion standpoint, I ran a design sprint a few months ago with somebody who was functionally blind and online, it wouldn't have been possible in person. So she was able to be involved in that session in a way she wouldn't have been if we'd actually been there in person. Cause we would have been writing on post-it notes that she wouldn't have been able to see. And she would have really struggled, I learned a lot.

It wasn't perfect. We should have slowed down for her, but because we were doing it through an online tool, she had a screenreader and the tool, surprisingly, it was one of those whiteboard tools and it actually worked for her and she was able to look at everything. Look at everything, but yeah, she was able to interact. Inclusion could be better working from home, but then it can not be. 

Bex: And like mental health and interacting with people and loneliness and not having an office at home. There's so much to so much at play, like so much shit constantly. It's like everything and you can't, you literally can't please everybody. You literally can't. [laughs] 

Greg: Let's be clear though, the whole bullshit about, oh, but we're missing out on the water cooler conversations. That's where we had the real gems, the real insights. Bullshit. No one has gone to get a coffee from the kitchen and just suddenly solved some big, massive issue that you've been facing. 

Bex: No, it's always in the pub actually. I have literallydone most of my work after hours in the pub, which is not inclusive and I recognize that but it happens sometimes. 

Jonny: I think as well. I think as you touched on Bex, is that you can't please everybody, is the extent to which should it be about pleasing everybody? And I guess that's the challenge around where is the conversation around preference versus actually if you're doing important work, the best way to do the important work that works with everybody rather than it is maybe preferable for everybody, I think is a challenge. It's really easy to fall into, that's not inclusive but actually it's not because it's not preferable to you or it's not convenient to you. I think there's a challenge around the purpose of a job, I guess is to do a thing and you want people to enjoy their jobs and to be happy and to be healthy and to be supported and all of those things. 

Bex: But also to do all of those things.

Jonny: But also to do all of those things because they’re all important.

Greg: [laughs] 

Jonny: And I think maybe that part of it is maybe missed out sometimes as well. 

Bex: Yeah. I had a conversation about workplace culture with somebody and everything was just about gardens and flowers. And I'm like what about work culture? I know it's almost like a day you went to bring that up but actually, I am talking about like, how do we save things? And that's a kindness thing right? Save stuff with the proper fine lines so someone else can find it. I don't know. There's something more, every time we talk about culture, it just turns into a conversation about hotdogs and gardens rather than actual working culture, which is what we do. A hundred percent of the time at work, or at least 90% of the time at work, we should be working. And that's the culture that we're trying to talk about. So I think that is missed from the conversation. I mean, inclusion as well. The rant I could have another day, but I think people are missing the trick though. And what's happening is people are trying to do one thing for everybody rather than multiple things for different people and their needs. And I think we're falling into that trap with work workplace hybrid workplace as well. Different people and the different things and that should be catered for, rather than let's do this one watered down thing that’s shit for everybody, which I think will fall into that trap. I think we've run out of time on the rant. 

Jonny: What’s the rant? Weren’t we going to rant about Lego? Did I miss Lego? 

Bex: No. That's the lovely bit. You made me say something nasty about Lego. 

Jonny: I hate Lego. I hate Lego. 

Bex: And finally, Lego is going to remove gender bias through its toys. Hurrah! 

Greg: Yeah, it's good news, Jonny. It's good news.

Jonny: What would be good is as a type of toy was all put onto a rocket and launched into the sun. But what would rich children play with? 

Bex: [laughs] 

Jonny: I never had Lego.  I couldn’t afford it because it's outrageously priced trash. 

Bex: No, no, wait, wait, let's get this out. Back in the day was creative because it was just blocks and you could build whatever the fuck you wanted out of it. You didn’t have instructions.

Jonny: But you can’t now. You've gotta build a Hogwarts castle and you can't build it with your regular box of bricks.. Advertise to everybody, but only rich people can afford it. 

Bex: But also like, and this is relevant because the and finally in our scripts, whatever we call it, is written in comic sons, which I also think is a misunderstood thing. So I only hate Lego because it's lauded as this amazing thing, which is by the design industry and it's a bit embarrassing and we use it in workshops now, which is weird. But other than that, people like to play with Lego. And yeah, it's maybe too expensive now and it's not as good as it used to be. But that makes me sound really old. So anyway, they’ve removed gender bias. 

Greg: Yeah, it is good news. They've done a report which basically is not focused on, you know, the typical thing of they've got lots of princess toys. It actually says that one of the biggest challenges around gender bias with, with ties for children is that the minute any young boy starst playing with anything that might be considered feminine, the parents panic and drag them away from that thing. So what Lego we're trying to do is, is look at how they can, uh, remove that bias from young boys and allow them to play with more nurturing types of toys, um, which is good news.

Jonny: It's good if only somebody had told them like 20 or 30 years, what Greg is going to tell us now. 

Bex: Didn’t they used to be really good at gender stuff? Weren’t their adverts really cool and genderless? 

Greg: Yeah. Yeah. It was gender neutral before the eighties. Yeah, but if only someone had stopped them bringing gender into it to make more money. Also, there was a report which basically said exactly the same thing, about ten years ago. 

Jonny: It’s almost like it was financially profitable to gender the toys in the eighties and now it's financially possible for them to not do that in the 2020s and that that would be the reason why they made the decision. Good decision although it is. A cynic could maybe say that that's why they've done this because they will be able to do it now without as much of a backlash as if they'd done this in the eighties and nineties, maybe. That's what someone who hates Lego might say. I don't know. 

Greg: As long as you're doing the right thing.

Jonny: Yeah. Good to know that, yeah, it's moving in the right direction for those rich children.

Bex: Yeah. I’ve not read the whole story but I’m keen to know how they’re going to do this. Cause it’s not just a case of they’re trying to encourage boys to play with girls toys. It’s the other way around. I don't know how they're going to do that. I don't understand really. 

Greg: It'll be interesting to see how it works out. I mean, they're going to reprogram thirty or forty years of parents being convinced that the boys having any interest in femininity is negative. I'll be really interested to see how that works out. 

Bex: Yeah. Very, very fascinated to see what the plan is. Cool. All right. Well, I think we're done.

Jonny: I like the Lego yellow color. I just wanted to say something positive. 

Greg: [laughs] 

Jonny: Like, the yellow colour they use in the band. I really like that. 

Bex: Like, the face colour? 

Jonny: Yeah. It's a really satisfying yellow.

Bex: Good. 

Jonny: So yeah, I'm involved in the positivity. I mean, obviously, I'm happy with this direction. I'm hopeful that they're able to pull it off. Like you said, it's a lot of work to be done. Yeah. And hopefully, maybe it's coming from a sincere place as well. See, I can say nice things. 

Greg: Kinda like the trains in Berlin. Have you seen the trains in Berlin? 

Jonny: I haven’t no. Hmmm.

Greg: They’re like a similar yellow. You'd like the trains in Berlin. Go check them out. 

Jonny: Can poor people go on those as well or is it just for rich people. 

Greg: Yeah. 

Bex: [laughs]  

Greg: They get eaten by the rich on there. But its’ fine. On no, that's Snowpiercer.

Jonny: Snowpiercer. [laughs] 

Greg: [laughs]

Bex: I was like what, wait [laughs] 

Greg: [laughs] 

Bex: Cool on that note, we’ll end it. Well, thanks. I guess, both of you. That was great. And listeners, what do you think? We'd love to hear lots. Get in touch on Twitter at good life. Or you can email us to speak, please with hello. 

Jonny: Imagine if our one listener loves. Lego and BT?

Greg: [laughs] He’s fucked then. 

Jonny: We're going to get a really angry email from Steve and we will go down to no listeners. 

Bex: So yeah, if this is true, Steve and we have pissed you off, uh, don't give us an iTunes review. Just don't bother. It's fine. 

Jonny: Or Greg will send you a Lego, a single brick, a yellow brick, in the post to make up for it. 

Greg: Yeah. 

Jonny: You could just not buy that house, Greg, then you could afford that yellow brick. Y

Greg: [laughs] Yeah. I'll build one out of Lego. 

Jonny: It would be cheaper just to buy the real house. 

Bex: This is one of those podcasts that is impossible to wrap up. I'm going to do the next bit and then see what other interruptions happen. Thanks to Podcast.co for hosting this podcast and also don't forget that this podcast is shock horror run by volunteers and we survive on sponsorship and donations. We need to pay for subscriptions and whatnot, and we like to transcribe all podcasts because it's an accessible and inclusive thing to do. Yeah, give us money for it. Thank you. Tech for good dot live forward slash donate. And that's the end of the things I need to say. So we can formally wrap the podcast by saying goodbye.

Greg: Bye. 

Jonny: Bye.