Designing for Children’s Best Podcast with Michael Preston: Building a Positive Digital Future for Kids, with Kids—Together

I recently had the chance to chat with Michael Preston, Executive Director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, for a new episode of the Designing for Children’s Best podcast, produced by the Designing for Children’s Rights Association. The result was an inspiring conversation between Michael and myself, Polina Lulu, regarding one of Michael’s recent talks, “Building a Positive Digital Future for Kids, with Kids—Together.” We dove into each of the title words individually and in relation to each other. I’m happy to share a sneak peek into some of the highlights here: 

• Building: The Joan Ganz Cooney Center operates within a vast ecosystem of multidisciplinary professionals: academics, industry practitioners, founders, philanthropists, policy-makers, educators, librarians, and other stakeholders who are interested in children’s media, what it means, and how to leverage it. An important part of the job is to elevate the most important issues and get lots of smart people thinking about them together—“which frankly is a dream job for me”, adds Michael, with a smile. It’s easy to agree with that sentiment, isn’t it?
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  Polina Lulu and Michael Preston

  Positive: As a research and innovation lab, one of the Cooney Center’s main goals is to keep reaching out into new spaces where emerging technology and media are happening. This means always taking part in helping others in the field to think “like Sesame would,” and making the most of these elements in ways that would best benefit kids.

• Digital: Within the climate of concerned rhetoric surrounding digital environments for kids, in which the focus is mainly on safety, a lack of safety, and the presence of realistic harms, it is important to also make space for imagining: What do we really want here? What values do we integrate into our designs? How can digital complete and enhance off-line human outcomes and experiences? 
• Future: Any thoughts about building a desirable future must begin with relevant questions, such as: How do we incorporate future thinking into today’s actions and decisions? Who decides what’s right for the children? What does it mean to respect children’s views? How can we support kids on their journey to developing into their future better self (their own selves, and not necessarily the one we wish for them)? These questions and more are threaded throughout the episode.  
• For kids: You’ll hear how the Joan Ganz Cooney Center is driven by the idea that it’s possible to position kids at the center and prioritize their wellbeing in the work you do, and how they are supporting others in the field to do the same. 
• With kids: Kids can be our partners in design. Cooperative inquiry or co-design is an ideal way to engage kids early in the product design process. It is a special way to effectively help everyone involved interact democratically and truly prioritize the kids’ views on what something new—made especially for them—should be like.
• Together: Learn about a unique Cooney Center Sandbox initiative: a product research lab where children’s voices count. As Michael explains, “the idea is that we could entice designers and developers of technology to want to play with kids in a creative space, and that would benefit everybody. There’s a certain open endedness and egalitarian aspect that the word ‘sandbox’ connotes, that would help us convey what it is a little bit more easily.”  

The full conversation is above. In the meantime, I leave you with Michael’s words:

“Today’s media is obviously moving much more rapidly and is more pervasive. Everybody’s connected all the time. Everybody’s a creator and a consumer at the same time. What does that mean? How do we continue to advocate for kids? It’s a really interesting question to ask every day, and a good challenge for  us.”  

This million-dollar question is what Michael, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, D4CR, and many other dear industry partners (and probably you!) are acting upon on a regular basis: “What is in our hands to do today?” The answers may vary unpredictably every single day.  

We invite you to listen to the full episode. May it encourage more conversations and collaborations towards a better present and future for the ones we care about the most: kids.

 

Polina Lulu is a child experience researcher, designer, consultant, and speaker, dedicated to enhancing learning, play, and well-being across technology, products, and experiences—made for or used by kids. She is the co-host of Designing for Children’s Best, a podcast by the Designing for Children’s Rights Association.

Designing for Children’s Rights (DC4R) is a global non-profit association, supporting the Designing for Children’s Rights Guide that integrates the U.N. rights of the child in design, business and development of products and services around the world.