Denise Cheng | hiDenise

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COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY FOR THE ED FUND

The Education Fund is a collaboration between healthcare unions and employers to provide training for workers. More than 90,000 workers are eligible for benefits, but due to poor visibility, the Education Fund has only reached 7,000 annual users in ten years. Through numerous interviews with staff, clients, vendors, and organizational partners as well as persona workshops and meetings, I created a comprehensive communications strategy for the Education Fund.

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OPERATIONALIZING EQUITY WITH SHARING ECONOMY COMPANIES

The National Domestic Workers Alliance approached me for design research to operationalize a set of eight principles known as the Good Work Code. In 2015, NDWA introduced GWC as the standard for the fair treatment of workers, and many companies eagerly signed on. However, this fledgling community of practice didn’t know how to operationalize the code. My work is to translate the deep thinking that surrounds equitable rating systems into best practices that can be implemented by sharing economy companies. 

As part of this work, I have produced design kits in deep consultation with sharing economy employees, activists, scholars, and industry allies that both contextualizes and translates best practices into executable actions. Thus far, the design kits include:

Designing reputation systems (to come in March 2017)

Background checks (in progress)

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WORKPLACE DEMOCRACY IN THE TECH SECTOR

While research on corporate culture is plentiful, less is known about the tech sector, especially in companies that grew up after the dot-com crash. Coworker, a digital campaign platform for workplace democracy, needed foundational research to influence their strategy with tech workers. 

The research included close readings of blog posts, comment threads, and online forums that touch upon startup culture. The ethnographic work included interviews with 14 tech workers across professional class, age, and ethnicity, and their experiences were coded across 56 themes.

Findings included:

The tyranny of transparency - It seemed that some companies conflated “transparency” and “flat organization” to the detriment of their employees. Without training, how do employees “be transparent?” At one company, coworkers’ attempts to be transparent resulted in tactless and spiteful remarks to one another ...healthy maturity is visible in a mix of C-level’s self-awareness, changes to hiring practices, developing formal policies, inserting a decision-making structure (this begins to look like management), and establishing feedback loops.

Engineers as a professional class - Companies seem to trip over themselves to offer high salaries and perks ... The level of luxury and privilege implies importance, but this does not necessarily mean that engineers have any strategic influence. Engineers are inherently valuable because a company can only release new features as quickly as engineers can build them, and so they are purposefully kept away from strategy and decision-making.

Double-speak - ...at companies that did not have explicit values or whose values were in place long before the interviewees joined, doublespeak was a consistent theme. While one company valued equality, none of its staff—especially the director’s council—had been through diversity training. At another company, they screen for hires that align with their product’s work-life balance motto. However, the CEO did not appear to live it himself, consistently humble-bragging at all-hands meetings that he stayed up till 5a to work.

Professional growth (or lack thereof) - Even though professional growth is a common ceiling in other industries, many tech companies do not have enough layers for employees to continue to grow within the company; they had to quit to be promoted (by being hired by another company). In several instances, interviewees said that the only way to grow within the company was if their manager left the company. The notion was unpalatable to those who had good relationships with their manager or felt that their manager had been an advocate for them with senior staff.

Identity, especially among women and minorities - In preparation for parental leave, one interviewee’s supervisor asked her to be team lead. She is the only female engineer, and while becoming team lead was an opportunity, she started to question why she was chosen. As team lead, her role would be to keep engineers focused on problem solving, which meant insulating them from company strategy ...she could not help but wonder if she was chosen because her value as an engineer was expendable as compared to the output from other engineers. The interviewee was aware that soft skills are crucial for a good manager, but in interviewing to be an engineer, she had seen her soft skills as secondary to her core value: programming skills. 

And more...

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MICROSOFT RESEARCH AWARD - Sharing economy 101 for policymakers Content partnership with The Civicist

Through a research award from Microsoft Research, I have partnered with The Civicist (Civic Hall’s technology analysis) to publish primers that illuminate aspects of the sharing economy to policy makers, civil servants, and public officials. While media outlets, tech circles, and scholars closely monitor this trend, it is not always as well understood in city halls. In order for government action to take place, these discussions need to be framed in a way that acknowledges the sensibilities of unilateral decision makers.

The primers will be published in fall 2016.

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SF MAYOR’S OFFICE OF CIVIC INNOVATION Mayor's Innovation Fellow

The Mayor’s Innovation Fellowship is a novel one-year program that looks to utilize entrepreneurial minds from all sectors to help San Francisco tackle challenging civic issues and be more accountable, accessible and responsive to residents. Candidates have 5-8 years of private sector experience and manage projects in economic development, public art, open data standards, pro bono collaborations between corporate and startup partners with City agencies. The Mayor’s Office of Civic Innovation is a design consultancy within government and introduces other City agencies to private sector strategies such as user research, rapid iteration, and design thinking.

My work focused on economic development and workforce innovation, including:

Surfacing opportunities and challenges around independent workers and the on-demand economy as they pertain to workforce development and personal financial empowerment, creating policy and programming proposals, and educating agency directors and workforce stakeholders

Conducting user research and co-managed the buildout for a digital product to better match jobseekers with employers

Project manager for a set of online tutorials to help jobseekers with low digital literacy connect to online income opportunities. Brokered a data partnership with a “sharing economy” company as part of the pilot evaluation

Consulting with various City agencies on the City’s role in universal Internet connectivity. Engaging external partners through workshops and interviews to surface insights about San Francisco's digital inclusion landscape 

Images:

26 June 2015: The Supreme Court legalizes same-sex marriage

Hanging out at the top of City Hall's dome

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GIG UNION Peer-to-peer resource repository

I consulted for Gig Union to build out and implement a wiki of peer-to-peer content so that members can reference the Gig Union's resources as well as add their own expert advice and request new topics.

Gig Union is a project of the Bay Area Video Coalition to support freelancers in the Bay Area. Despite the size and breadth of the freelance demogrpahic, freelancers often feel isolated, unsure of who to turn to as they set up their professional lives. Gig Union's goal is to make the invisible visible, to help people "go it alone, together."

Members were hungry for Gig Union's services, but since Gig Union's resources were mostly events, freelancers were having a difficult time retaining every crucial detail. In 2014, I suggested to Gig Union that they capture all of the valuable information from their workshops and their networking events in a repository. I worked with key staff to build out the repository.

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IS SHARING REALLY CARING?  A nuanced introduction to the peer economy

As part of the Open Society Foundations' Future of Work inquiry, I was commissioned to write a primer on the "sharing economy," with a particular focus on peer-to-peer marketplaces (i.e.: Taskrabbit, Udemy, Etsy, Lyft, Getaround, Airbnb). The paper breaks down various concepts shoved under the term "sharing economy." It then turns to the peer economy, laying out stakeholders, known problems, reviewing some of the structural inequalities, opportunities, and the morphing pathway to ownership.

[Download the primer]

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SPEAKING AND FACILITATION

I've attended events as both a facilitator and panelist. I've spoken about citizen journalism and community engagement, creative storytelling and content distribution, labor in the peer economy, nuances of the "sharing economy." 

Institute for the Future (July 2015)

U.S. Department of Labor (March 2015)

SXSWi (March 2015) - The Real Risks of “Keepin’ it Real”

Next American Economy @ Roosevelt Institute (January and May 2015)

Digital Labor 2014 @ The New School - The future of workers in the sharing economy, panelist (my talk, research provocations for digital labor, begins at 15:23)

Bay Area Video Coalition - Gig Union Town Hall to discuss a world where freelancing is the new normal (video)

Social Capital Markets Annual Conference - The Future of Work (panelist, September 2014)

#NewsHourChats on Twitter | PBS NewsHour - Subject matter expert about trust and the sharing economy (July 2014)

Rhizome Project @ New Museum - Internet Subjects: #Uberwars and the "Sharing Economy" (panelist, June 2014)

Personal Democracy Forum - Defining the "sharing economy" (panelist, June 2014)

SHARE 2014 - The Future of Work - plenary speaker (about 12:45 in video) and panelist (video) (May 2014)

Microsoft Research's Fuse Labs - Tracing the Constellation of Actors in the Peer Economy (guest speaker, April 2014)

Boston Sharing Economy Conference - Private-public partnership discussion with panelists from the Boston Redevelopment Authority, ZipCar and People and Planet Holdings (facilitator, December 2013)

NPR's 2013 Weekend in Washington - NPR Generation Listen session to bust myths about millennials in politics and work. Facilitated by NPR tech reporter Elise Hu (guest conversationalist alongside PolicyMic's Chris Altchek, November 2013)

CIRANO workshop on networks in trade & finance - From serfing landlords to surfing the web: the co-evolution of technology and paradigms of work (presenter, October 2013)

2013 Awesome Foundation Summit - Infrastructure for the Hustle Economy (panel facilitator, October 2013)

2013 MIT-Knight Civic Media Conference - Ignite presentation about Postmarked

Filling the News Gap in Cambridge and Beyond – The most experimental storytellers: Citizen journalists (panel facilitator, May 2013)

Block by Block – Community News Summit - Defining, Finding, and Engaging Your Audience (panelist) / Working with citizen contributors (facilitator), October 2011

Block by Block – Community News Summit (blogger, October 2010 and 2012)

2011 Online News Association Conference – I screwed up (and you will, too!) (panelist, September 2011)

Knight Community Information Challenge Boot Camp – (speaker / trainer, September 2011)

Sunday Soup - Emcee, arts microgranting (July 2011)

Allied Media Conference – Pirate Box Commons – Mapping collective meaning through open technology and engagement (co-facilitator with Open Technology Institute, June 2011)

The Engagement Metric « The Reynolds Journalism Institute (workshop participant, May 2011)

Rapid Growth Speaker Series – Community Brainstorm (panelist, May 2010)

Young Women Strong Leaders (arts and media panelist, April 2010)

Alliance for Community Media – Central States (speaker, October 2009)

Select speaking invitations that have been less public: Code for America, Ideo.org

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PRESS SIGHTINGS

The Nation -  There’s a problem with ‘crowd labor’

KALW (local NPR affiliate) - Your call: Protecting worker rights in the gig economy (expert for local call-in show)

FastCompany - What does a union look like in the gig economy?

FastCompany - The Gig Economy won’t last because it’s being sued to death

Forbes - What happens to Uber drivers and other sharing economy workers injured on the job?

PBS NewsHour - Who protects the workers powering the new sharing economy?

New York Magazine - Does Silicon Valley have a contract-worker problem?

Boston Globe - New lawsuit claims Uber exploits its drivers

NextCity - The case for resisting the uge to call everything the “sharing economy”

SF Bay Guardian - Renting isn't sharing

NPR All Tech Considered - How The sharing economy is changing the places we work

NPR All Tech Considered - Can the peer economy deliver profits?

Collaborative Consumption - Could collaborative consumption gigs soon be your fulltime job? – feature on my research at MIT

The Chicago Tribune - Smart people on the prairie: Musing on a future for journalism

Reynolds Journalism Institute - What "engagement" means to The Rapidian's Denise Cheng

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CONTENT + EDITING

Editorial

Simply Secure - Simply Secure is known for successfully reconciling UX design with open source, consumer technologies. I drive the editorial management of their blog, which provides rich information for both design and information-security professionals. 

The Rapidian - The Rapidian (est. 2009) is an experiment in hyperlocal, citizen journalism. As a founding member, I built up the outlet and helped shape its editorial policies for citizen reporters.

Select articles

A Lever and a Place to Stand, published by The Civicist - Case study of NextDoor, also published in TechPresident 

TechPresident - In Detroit Water Project, tech-driven philanthropy takes off without touching down (guest reporter)

Harvard Business Review - Guest columnist emphasizing parallels between peer economy providers and domestic workers

The New York Times | Room for Debate - Column on Internet literacy alongside Cass Sunstein, Melvyn Dubofsky, Nicholas Carr, Eli Pariser, Carrol Doherty

Journalism

The Rapidian - In addition to editorial management, collaborative partnerships, sustainability, outreach, I also contributed to The Rapidian as a private citizen

The Oxford Press - reporter for a small-town weekly

In These Times - editorial intern for a magazine on labor politics, founded by Kurt Vonnegut

Blogging

Shareable - Peer economy columnist

PBS Idea Lab - Lessons learned from Sandy “HurricaneHackers” projects

MIT Center for Civic Media - Field notes, live-blogging, and critiques of ethnographic research and civic happenings

Knight Digital Media Center

Block by Block - Block-by-Block’s blog was a community resource to the budding network of hyperlocal journalism outlets. It is the genesis of LION Publishers

Miscellaneous

Knight Digital Media Center - Learning module for newsrooms on how to cultivate user-generated content and engagement

Catalyst Radio - Weekly radio show on local grassroots and social good efforts, analysis of national media trends and local implications

Personal projects

Denizine - a one-page zine, infrequently published and sent to valued friends and colleagues whom I don’t often see

hiDenise - personal blog that ranges from media to identity to social justice and alternative labor models

Dennetmint on Corps - a comparison between observations of Peace Corps and AmeriCorps

Lesotho - Circle of Influence - thoughts on my time in Peace Corps

GENERAL MEDIA PRODUCTION SKILLS HTML/CSS, reporting and blogging, copy editing, audio production, video editing, photography, graphic design (Adobe CS suite), laser and vinyl cutting, fiber arts

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BARRIERS TO GROWTH IN THE “SHARING ECONOMY” Thought brief for The Roosevelt Institute

In August 2014, The Roosevelt Institute invited me to contribute to their initiative to imagine the Next American Economy. This participation included a series of convenings with economists, data scientists, policymakers, and innovators shaking up the labor and financial services worlds.

As part of that body of work, I wrote a thought brief on peer-to-peer marketplaces and the future of work. The Roosevelt Institute asked me to entertain policy amendments and what the world would look like if all of my recommendations for worker support were implemented.

In the paper, I recommended policy amendments to the independent contractor status and to consider a third worker classification in the liminal space between “employee” and “independent contractor.” I proffer policy around data ownership and periodic, collective bargaining of platforms’ Terms of Service. I recommend easing income penalties by reducing taxation on a certain percentage of peer economy income; once a provider exceeds that minimum, then to consider that provider as a small business. And I would like to see a flourishing of creative financial products whose business models enable people to manage their income without costing them that entire income.

[Read the paper] [Blog post summary] [Video]

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CALLING CARDS

I have been making my own personal business cards for years, always designing them and usually printing and making them. When I began my independent consulting business, I sent my design to a letterpress shop for production. The business card is a smoke gray, with copper hot foil stamping.

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VINYL CUTTING

When I was at MIT, I took full advantage of the Media Lab shop to learn lasercutting, vinyl cutting, the water jet, and other digital fabrication tools. I learned how to make stencils, cut and etch wood and other materials, but my favorite tool by far was the vinyl cutter. Above, I made a map for my phone of all the U.S. states I lived in, tiles for the Bopscotch project (BW image on top, followed by example of prepped file), and a decal for my computer.

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MIT THESIS Reading between the lines: Blueprints for a worker support infrastructure in the emerging peer economy

“Technologies that change society are technologies that change interactions between people.” - César Hidalgo

The normative understanding of work is imploding. Throughout most of the U.S.’ twentieth century, landing a job was equivalent to a lifetime of smooth sailing, but today’s Americans are always anticipating the next round of layoffs. This thesis kicks off with the rise and ebb of gainful employment through the 20th century. It then introduces the peer economy as a well-positioned, future work model for mainstream adoption. I run through the peer/sharing economy ideology before introducing stakeholders—providers, companies, investors, entrenched interests, regulators, cities, labor advocates, strategists, scholars and critics, and media—as well as known problems in the space.

I suggest three historical antecedents from which to draw: 

The domestic workers movement for identifying emergent needs, organizing strategies, and as a natural partner in procuring labor rights

An indictment of legal work status in the US and an exhortation to expand its classifications beyond "employee" and "independent contractor." 

The franchise dilemma offers legal terms—"covenant of good faith and fair dealing" and "contract of adhesion"—that capture tension between providers and platforms that both groups have had difficulty articulating. These terms are necessary to carry on a truly productive conversation of ethical issues in the peer economy.

The fourth chapter summarizes qualitative and ethnographic fieldwork in New York City and San Francisco. I interviewed various stakeholders with an emphasis on social welfare. Instead of summing up known issues, the chapter conveys how providers see themselves in relation to companies and customers. 

This thesis ends by locating the peer economy within a larger movement to redefine work. It contextualizes the peer economy as one model and articulates the motivation among all stakeholders, which applies across labor models: "The excitement that I have observed around the peer economy—even when it is naïve—is a recognition that now is a chance to do things better."

[FULL THESIS] [Memos during research period]

Advisors:

César A. Hidalgo (MIT Media Lab: Macroconnections)

A. Edward Schiappa (Comparative Media Studies @ MIT)

Master’s research between fall 2012-spring 2014

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MIT PUBLIC THESIS PRESENTATION  Blueprints for a worker support infrastructure in the peer economy

We could only obtain a poor quality recording, so please follow along using the slides below.

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POSTMARKED - VAIL COURT

Each day we walk by silent buildings and lots. Absent landlords, hibernating developers, abandoned lots—their impact as part of the patchwork is subtle but real. Be they eyesore or brownfield, SPACES ARE REACTIVE. Unused spaces trap the vitality of the neighborhoods they surround. For the last 15 years, Vail Court has fallen into disrepair. The 24-unit housing complex is uninhabitable and unsafe as a structure while the rest of the property acts as a weekday parking lot. Attempts have been made to move forward—both by the property owner and by neighbors—but as far as the public knows, there have been no plans for the space since 2005.

This project asks neighbors and frequent passersby to fill in postcards that are mailed directly to the property owners. I was enamored with the weight of postcards: How does the sender's selection of a design suggest something personal? A postcard has more weight than a petition signature and gives flexibility to write a lot or a little, to illustrate concepts and/or capture them in words. It is a dynamic physical artifact. Some of the postcards are pre-designed to trigger the imagination. Most are blank for senders to dream up other possibilities. Vail Court has been a topic among Cantabrigians for many years. Conversation continues to swirl within the community, but how does the conversation flow back out—beyond the city councilors to the decision-making owners? These postcards capture the lived experience and hopes of those who share Vail Court in common. The postcards and process are documented on a site before being mailed—two cards per day—with an invitation for the owners to respond to the community online.

COVERAGE:

Cambridge Day (June 2015): Derelict Vail Court continues to frustrate, ownership at stake in sluggish court case

Cambridge Day (May 2014): Threat to seize derelict Vail Court brings family lawyer to explain years of inaction (update)

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CODESIGN STUDIO @ MIT

I co-taught a graduate/undergraduate course on codesign, where consultants and groups' collaboration is such a transformative experience that it blurs the line of who is learning from whom.

I advised the CMS.862 group working with NeighborMedia, a citizen journalism platform in Cambridge, MA.

(Regarding the poster, I used a laser cutter to cut out the edges. Originally, the pieces were meant to be perforated so  students could tear off and pocket information. After the first test, however, I realized that the cutting process would take hours per poster, so I abandoned it)