1. LANDSCAPE
Calming by designing for spontaneous social behavior

2. Breadth of spontaneity
"an organization which depends solely upon its blueprints of
Robustness prescribed behavior is a very fragile social system" Katz (1964)
“Think about the people in your life who you
would consider spontaneous. They seem so Vitalism
alive, don’t they? They are so positive and
confident.”
“positive mood at work is a direct antecedent of organizational
Mood spontaneity and a pivotal construct in stress reduction.” George
(1992)
Spontaneity means acting in accordance with a
natural feeling, impulse or tendency without Tendencies
any constant, effort or premeditation.
“So-called "Judging" (J) types tend to live in a controlled, self-
regulated, orderly fashion; more adaptive
Balance "Perceiving" (P) types prefer to live in a more flexible,
unscheduled--i.e., spontaneous--way”
- Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

3. Non-tech spontaneous sport enablers
Equipment (e.g. sports gear box in dorm lounge)
Place (e.g. central park) Time
People (e.g. pick-up basketball)

4. Location-focused social apps
Which friends and treasures are nearby?
+ reward incentive system
- hard to move from info to action
Finding nearby strangers with a
specific interest
+ focuses on enabling spontaneity
+/- very specific activity
What should I be doing?
+ UI, versatile
- focused on planning not spontaneity
Sharing the phenomenal experience
+ sophisticated tech, Wow factor “Color”
- not aimed at real-life interaction
All lacking the calming aspect!

5. Community-focused social apps
Self-explanatory heavy-weights
+ well-established
+ great for large-scale social spontaneity (eg, Libya)
& & et al. +/- big, not focused communities
Connect to friends via your favorite shows
+ nice addition to specific market “IntoNow”
- might discourage real-life social behavior
Crowd-sourcing review site
+ calming by decreasing choice
- answers where not how

6. Other tech
Multi-user hands on computing device
+ encourages a multitude of uses
- goal-orientated
Texting
+ powerful trigger
- small community

7. Questions and Insights
- often an activity’s spontaneity is inversely proportional to it’s sociableness
- the triangle question: how to provide all three vortices while keeping it spontaneous?
- current solutions have a hard time motivating users from info to action
- encouraging spontaneous social activities requires specific communities (socially and geographically)
- Current tech solutions suffer b/c of 1. social stigma and II. user expectation
I.) it’s weird posting a twitter or FB update asking who has time to play golf
II.) b/c it is not expected I’m much less likely to engage/look for such activities on existing tech
- Large void when it comes to calming!