This is HCD – Human-Centered Design, UX & Service Design Thinking Podcast

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In this episode of This is HCD, Gerry Scullion sits down with Thea Snow, Director at the Center for Public Impact, to explore the powerful intersection of systems, imagination, and justice in reimagining government.

We dive into why imagination matters in government, how systems shape agency, and the role of design in justice and social cohesion. Thea shares practical stories from Australia, New Zealand, and beyond—covering topics like:
  • The hidden connections that make systems work
  • Why government is not just about doing but also about being
  • How physical spaces and design decisions influence justice and community wellbeing
Links
linkedin.com/in/thea-snow?originalSubdomain=au

If you care about systems change, design, and creating governments that truly serve people—this conversation is for you.

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Click here to watch a video of this episode.

Creators and Guests

Host
Gerry Scullion
Gerry Scullion is an Irish-born, globally recognised service designer, educator, podcaster, coach, and founder based in Dublin. With 22+ years in design, his career spans roles in interaction design, UX, and leadership positions—most notably as Head of Design at Myspace Australia/NZ and later serving clients like Cochlear, Microsoft, Aer Lingus, and government bodies  . He’s the Founder & CEO of The Human‑Centered Design Network and the voice behind This is HCD, a popular podcast and design community with over one million downloads . A committed educator, he has developed several online courses—spanning UX fundamentals, journey mapping, stakeholder mapping, prototyping, and service blueprints—as well as authoring “Service Design for Executives” on Pluralsight . A passionate keynote speaker at events like UX Scotland and Service Design Days, he shares his insights on resilience in design, ethical frameworks (“do no harm”), and embedding design within tech-led environments . Gerry is also Co‑founder and Director at Humana Design, a Dublin-based agency focusing on design research, consultancy, and enabling design transformation . Beyond design, he’s a coach and mentor to designers worldwide, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a former Councillor for Ireland . In his personal time, Gerry is a musician, barista-in-training, gardener, and family man living by the sea in Clontarf, Dublin
SM
Editor
Serdar Mele
Serdar Mele is an international podcast editor.
TS
Guest
Thea Snow

What is This is HCD – Human-Centered Design, UX & Service Design Thinking Podcast?

Welcome to This is HCD – Human-Centered Design, UX & Service Design Thinking Podcast, the global show for designers, innovators, and changemakers who want to create better products, services, and experiences.

Hosted by Gerry Scullion, with over 1-million downloads worldwide.

Each episode dives into conversations with leading voices in service design, UX design, interaction design, customer experience, and design strategy. Together, we explore the methods, mindsets, and real-world stories that bring human-centered design and design thinking to life.

Whether you’re a UX researcher, service design practitioner, product manager, or design leader, you’ll find actionable insights, practical tools, and inspiration to elevate your practice and drive meaningful change.

Tune in and join the global human-centered design community — learn how to design with purpose, create inclusive solutions, and shape a more thoughtful future.

1_ Thea Snow
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Gerry Scullion: [00:00:00] Hey folks, and welcome back to another episode of This is HCD Today on the show, we're delighted to welcome Thea Snow. Thea Snow is a director at the Center of Public Impact is currently based in Melbourne. And we explore powerful ideas and this is where everything is, everything. And we dive into why imagination matters in government, how systems shape people's agency, and the role of.

Space and design and justice and cohesion. Just three things that really jumped out at me in this conversation. Theater's challenge to go beyond models and see the hidden connection that makes systems work. The second thing I think you're gonna like is the reminder that government isn't just about doing, it's also about being, and the beliefs and the values underneath it all.

The third thing is the link between physical design and justice and how the way we build spaces can empower and break communities. If you care about systems, if you care about good design, if you care about reimagining government for good, you're gonna absolutely love this conversation. Pia [00:01:00] is a rockstar.

I know you're gonna enjoy it. Let's jump straight in.

Thea Snow: The role of that imagination in government, I think is an interesting question. Um. We're also doing some work at the moment, and this is where the everything is, everything sort of idea came from on. Oh yeah. That

Gerry Scullion: was your, um,

Thea Snow: yeah. That was the catalyst for this, yeah, for this conversation. Um, because I was

Gerry Scullion: LinkedIn a few weeks ago.

Thea Snow: Yeah, exactly. I was looking back at our messages and I was like, was the catalyst for this? Yeah. And that was it.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Gerry Scullion: I saw you wrote that and I was like, alright. Enough of this kind of, you know, fanboy from a distance gonna slip into the dm.

Thea Snow: Um, well I was delighted that you did, but um, yeah, [00:02:00] and that sort of where that's come from is a piece of work that's really looking at what are the conditions that need to be in place for people in, in communities to really, um, step into their agency and participate and contribute and feel like they've got.

Control and power over their lives and, and, you know, and, and able to shape what happens to them. And that's where, um, the every like, we're really, that's a, like a fascinating piece of work. So I'd be happy to talk about that as well.

Gerry Scullion: Everything is everything. Did you come up with that?

Thea Snow: No, I didn't. It was a brilliant woman called Amanda.

Speaker 3: Okay. She's

Thea Snow: got her own podcast too, actually.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Thea Snow: Um, and we were looking at a model. Uh, that sort of tries to map the different, uh, levels of the system, if you like. Influence a kid's life. So it starts with the kid in the center. Mm-hmm. And then it moves out to the kid's, [00:03:00] family and parents and school, and then it moves out to like,

Speaker 3: oh gosh.

Um,

Thea Snow: you know, the sort of, um, the, the environment that the kid lives in. And then it moves out again to like the economic system. And then it moves out again to like the chrono systems. The further, further. Furthest out layer.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Um,

Thea Snow: which is time. And we were using that, that model to sort of help make sense of a bunch of research that we were doing.

And she was an interviewee. Um, okay. And I sort of tested the model with her and she just paused and said, well, the model helps you make sense of things. Everything is everything. Bing, bing. Binging bing. Binging bing. Exactly. And you know, it's such an important point because what those models do is they, they make things easy to classify and categorize, which we love doing.

'cause then it makes more sense to us. But they, what they don't allow us to do is map the [00:04:00] connections and explore the relationships between things. And actually that's such an important part of. What makes systems work? A value network work. Exactly.

Gerry Scullion: Yeah. I love that. It's, I remember years ago, do you know Jerry Gaffney in Melbourne?

No. He was a U UX consultants. Um, now semi-retired, but I remember working with Jerry in Newso, Wales Cove and some.

He wrote a book, Caroline Jar Design. We did a podcast together. Design forms can dictate how they actually relate with their customers and their citizens. So you can actually see a correlation between, um, you know, how they're operating in terms of siloed thinking and breaking down experiences and stuff.

And I was like, really? Let's try it. And sure enough, he was able to do it. Like, so everything is [00:05:00] everything. Like how they do one thing, they do things at scale, you know?

Thea Snow: Yeah, well we were talking, um, the other, yeah, just yesterday actually, we held, um, that workshop that Mel Raymond was at.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Thea Snow: And, um, it was looking at adjacent, but sort of similar kinds of issues.

So it was a, it was a, a workshop that was specifically focusing on the efforts that are underway in Australia to address polarization and sort of strength and social cohesion. And what we were trying to do was. Bring a whole, we did a bit of mapping of the system, not comprehensive by any stretch, but we just started to say, who's doing work in this space?

Because there's so many people doing work in this space, and how can we bring them together to have a conversation and to, I guess, plant the seeds for them to work less as like atomized interventions. And more as a deliberate portfolio or a collective of, of system interventions that are working in concert with one another to sort [00:06:00] of drive towards a shared outcome.

And we had Dan Hill, do you know Dan Hill? Oh

Gerry Scullion: yeah. Yeah. I've never met him, but I'm big, you know, fan.

Thea Snow: Yeah. So he was, he was one of the, he sort of was on the panel that started off the day and what he was talking about, which is just completely fascinating. Is the way that, uh, physical design of building spaces, footpaths cities can contribute to or inhibit people's ability to, um, to feel connected to each other, to feel safe in their environment, and therefore to, you know, to be active, active citizens.

And he said, like, what did he say? It was so fascinating, he said. What we believe justice looks like. Is expressed through how we build courts and and courts. Hundred

Speaker 3: percent.

Thea Snow: And I just thought that was like such a, yeah, it's not something I've ever thought about before, but it's so true. Yeah.

Gerry Scullion: On a very true, I worked in courts in [00:07:00] Melbourne and uh, and Sydney and of course New South Wales, but how Justices delivered says so much about the, of society.

If you. Kind of alternatives if you want the career course. Yeah. And how they're able to communicate and create systems of change in a much more collective and a more humane way of doing things. Um, and they talk about responsibility and accountability, whereas I did an episode, um, only about three or four weeks ago, and I have had a specific type of person I wanted after the podcast for seven years.

As a judge, so who is, you know, the deliverer of of justice and that was District Court Judge Gillian ssi. And we had four people who had been sentenced to prison on the podcast at the same time. And I said, what is the metrics of [00:08:00] success for a judge? And they were like. There are none. And I was like, really?

I said, in your 45 years as a district court judge, you never had anyone say, listen, good job, bad job, but you need to improve your No. So I was like, find that really fascinating. Like, so yeah. I echo it. What Daniel was talking about there is, is really kind of enlightening when you think about it. Yeah, well there's,

Thea Snow: there's this brilliant, um, initiative called, it's called Maram Gag ga.

And it's in Victoria. And what they do is they, yeah, it's for bring them

Gerry Scullion: on the podcast. They're in the background. Bring them in.

Thea Snow: They're barking at my son. Um, so they like, they set up the whole space differently, right? So rather than the magistrate sitting up high, they sit like on low around a table.

They put culturally sort of safe. Um, like they'll put possum [00:09:00] skin and basically create an, an environment which makes the young indigenous folk who are coming to the court. Feel safe and ab and represented and held in the space and through creating a physical space that creates that safety. It shifts the whole, their whole ability to engage.

And I just think there's, it's so, you know, so often we think about process, you know, the processes or the, for, you know, even like the forms, like you, me, you mentioned before, like I think that's fascinating. You know, there's a lot, a lot of the behavioral science stuff goes into that. Like you change one word in a form and the whole, the whole thing changes.

I think we, we sort of often think about the practicality. Uh, physical space before we think about, you know, the user experience or the, you know, the, the felt sense that that's created. So it, what, what, what those spaces are optimizing for is [00:10:00] like efficiency and sort of the flow of people and, and all the things that sort of, you know, you think that buildings are supposed to do rather than the sense of calm or the sense of connection or whatever it might be that you Yeah.

That, that are equally important.

Gerry Scullion: Yeah, absolutely. It's usually the, the buildings are kind of primary and then everything else is layered on top of that. Yeah, exactly. They're like, you know, like, oh, the digital system, you go over there and that's, the iPads are over there, and then you're like, but you can't, the line of sight and everything is obstructed and daylight and you, you even mention like.

Scent and smell and airflow and all of these like, and you know, there's, there's this whole kind of conversation coming back around like how we collaborate and how we can get sooner into those conversations with the likes of architects or even policy makers to ensure that exactly what we get designed.

Is kind of like a, a collaborative exercise and it's, it's really difficult. [00:11:00]

Thea Snow: Yeah. And I think, I think great architects are absolutely thinking about that stuff. There's a firm here I know that does a lot of schools and hospitals and sort of public infrastructure, and they really do take a very, very much a co-design approach where they'll bring in teachers and students and or patients and doctors and, you know, talk to them.

How do you need this to work for you? Yeah. Um, so great architects absolutely think about that, but I just think about the, um, you know, so many of the completely soulless government buildings that I worked in, which just, uh, they just break you.

Gerry Scullion: They come from the seventies and Exactly. You, you might a cubicle and they're just ghosts of the past.

For, for most of us, like, you know. Can I go back in time? Yeah, of course. To a question that I probably shoulda have asked a little bit more. Um, tell us what you know, what you do, uh, and where you're from.

Thea Snow: Yeah, sure. So, um, I work at the Center for Public [00:12:00] Impact. I lead the Australia and ER New Zealand team, which is where we started.

Gerry Scullion: Mm-hmm.

Thea Snow: What did you say? Beach?

Gerry Scullion: Um, where you're from.

Thea Snow: Uh, yeah. Um, and so. We're a global organization and our mission is reimagining government so that it works for everyone. And that's a pretty audacious vision. Yeah. Um, but what I love about it, and part of the reason I love working at CPI is because a lot of people who sort of work in the government innovation space focus a lot on.

The tangible, visible elements of the system that need reforming. So how do we, um, how do we create new processes, practices, policies, legislation, et cetera, all of which is super important. But what we do at CPI, a big part of our focus is on the being, not just the doing, like not just how government does stuff, [00:13:00] but how government is.

So the beliefs and the values and the mindsets and the thing, the, the invisible sort of fabric, which has a very significant influence and interplay with the doing stuff. So it's not that you can change, you can just change mindsets or you can just change story, the stories that we tell ourselves, or you can just change values.

Sometimes the way to change that stuff is by changing the way things are done. But similarly, if you just focus on changing the way that things are done without attending to the, the underlying beliefs and values, et cetera, nothing changes. So the example that I often give is actually a design example where I, you know, there's such a zeitgeist around co-design at the moment in government.

Everyone talks about co-design. Co-design. Yeah,

Gerry Scullion: it's great. And,

Thea Snow: you know, let's, let's apply this. Six. Six step process and do co-design and you know, great in theory, [00:14:00] but if the people in government don't actually believe that people with lived experience have expertise and experience, that's valuable. Yeah.

And as valuable as other forms of experience and expertise, it counts for not much, right? Because they go through the motions, but it becomes co-designed theater. And so what we do at CPI is really work with people in and around government to interrogate and surface those invisible factors that really hold the system stuck and explore what would it take to start to shift that in order to really drive enduring change.

Gerry Scullion: So. In that work that you've outlined there, you, you must, and I'm assuming here, come across people that instantly, over time, whatever it is, you see that they've got that mindset and that's stuck, that nothing's gonna change. And it could be in a leadership position in those scenarios where you're like, okay, there's somebody [00:15:00] here who's, who's obstructing the change that you've been brought in to do.

How do you navigate that? Because I know's there's a lot of government workers out there who are speaking about, they've got the mindset, their team at the, the seedling level within go in organizations or even governments. They're really mature, but the rest of the organization is still in that mindset of like, yeah, it's control and command.

Thea Snow: Yeah. So a couple, there's a couple of ways of answering that question. The first is that we're a very small team in a NZ, so we're five people. Yeah. We work with collaborators, which sort of extends our capacity to do work, but we really only work with people who want to work with us, so we recognize that.

What we are talking about, it's, it's like with coaching, yeah. You can't force someone to be coached. They have to be ready and willing and able to be coached, and then they meet you where they need you with an openness of mind and sort of spirit, I [00:16:00] guess. And that's a necessary precondition to the kind of work that we do.

Mm-hmm. So we don't try and force it on people who aren't open or willing. But your question is like, well, what if you've got some people who are open and willing, but then the system that they're part of has an allergic reaction to the changes that they're trying to drive? Because that definitely happens.

And what we talk about there is the idea of agency within constraints, because that's like the world, that's life, right? Like we live in capitalism, like we have leaders in really powerful positions who are not leaders. Who would we would want, you know, or choose. And if you allow the sort of the, the system around you to make you feel hopeless, then you can never do anything.

Yeah. So it's like what can you do within the constraints that you're working within? We recognize you probably can't do everything that you wanna do, like. I would love universal [00:17:00] basic income to be around tomorrow. It's not, it's, you know, it's not gonna be, so I don't throw my hands up and say, well, you know, bugger it.

I'm not gonna do anything. I'm just gonna drink Pina coladas all day.

Speaker 3: Yeah. I

Thea Snow: do what I can within the constraints of the current system and I find allies and, um. You know, I guess willing sort of, um, co-conspirators who are happy to sort of walk alongside me as we nudge and push and take small steps in the right direction.

Yeah, so I think that what I definitely notice in government is that. I think because the system often does feel so broken and the hierarchy feels so entrenched, there is a bit of a, um, learned helplessness. Yeah. And I think a big part of what we do as well is try to reinstill in people a sense of, you can't do everything but you can do something.

Yeah. So how can we help you find something that you can do?

Gerry Scullion: Yeah, absolutely. Dog. Just gonna

Thea Snow: let my dog in. Yeah. One

Gerry Scullion: podcast

Thea Snow: [00:18:00] come. He thinks he can. His name's Aria. Yeah, my

Gerry Scullion: dog can. I haven't told anyone else though. My dog. My dog can definitely talk. Me and my dog have great conversations. Um, can I ask you about, um, the, the organization?

Okay. Like you mentioned there that you're in the, you're in Australia, there's five of you and the headquarters looks like being in the uk. Mm. Um. Then New Zealand as well, like there's, there's a colonial past, um, of the territories that they're really operating in. Um, how deep can you go into that area of unlocking the, the past and reopening it again for those conversations about how justice is delivered?

In particular, I'm focused on justice in this conversation and the reason why. I'm looking at that is like, there's, there's remnants of, of how justice is delivered in [00:19:00] Australia from my own experience, um, as a researcher, not as a, uh, as someone who's going through that system, but the same in Ireland as well.

And I'd love to understand a little bit more around, I guess, the colonial side of those territories that you're working in. Um, what does that look like?

Thea Snow: Yeah. Well, I mean. I can't really speak for the UK because I only lived there for a few years, so I don't know a lot about it. Yeah. In terms of um, how it expresses itself now, how that colonial past expresses itself now in contemporary CPI is

Gerry Scullion: headquartered there, isn't it?

So it's Correct. Yeah. Presumably funding from the British government as well.

Thea Snow: Um, I'm not sure whether they've got any partnerships with the UK government at the moment. Good. Certainly in a, in an Australian context. I mean, it's such a live conversation always, and particularly at the moment because as I'm sure you heard, [00:20:00] um, you know, we had that referendum, um, which was devastating for Oh yeah.

Indigenous for not for all. It was a very, very complex, very complex situation. Um, and there were very ardent. No voters amongst the indigenous population. And I had a number of conversations with First Nations people who were very strong, no voters for all sorts of different reasons. So it wasn't a universal position taken by everyone, but on balance, my view was that, um.

It would have been and, and I would say that the majority of First Nations people felt that it would have been. A step in the right direction for this country and we didn't take it, and that was completely devastating. Um, can you just call it

Gerry Scullion: the referendum just for [00:21:00] people who aren't familiar with, um, Australian affairs, um, which, which referendum you're talking about.

Yeah,

Thea Snow: sure. So I'm just gonna make sure I get it exactly right.

Gerry Scullion: There was a title to, and I, I was hoping you might know the title off the top head. Yeah.

Thea Snow: I just wanna make sure I get the. 'cause everyone sort of calls it the voice referendum.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Thea Snow: Um, and basically what it was, was it was about, um, it was a constitutional referend referendum, which would've established a mechanism or a body, um, that would've been able to make representations to federal parliament on behalf of the indigenous population.

So it was about creating a mechanism, embedding in the constitution. A mechanism to give Aboriginal people a voice, basically. And that's why it was called the Voice Referendum. And in Australia, um, a referendum requires a certain number of votes. Um, both like, uh, [00:22:00] uh, it's called like a double majority, so it needs 50%, more than 50% of the population and in more than 50% of the states.

Yeah. Um, and it, it was defeated quite. Robustly,

Gerry Scullion: what was, it was like 60 something percent. So it was 60%

Thea Snow: no. And 39%. Yes. Now you could get into an argument around why that was. Um, you know, there were some technical reasons around, um, a lack of bipartisan support. So apparently the only referendums that have ever passed in Australia have had to have.

Bipartisan support and this did not. Yeah. Um. There was also this sort of a, a, a, a lack of detail around the, around the proposal. Maybe that was a tactical error, but regardless of that, it was a referendum which made the majority of First Nations people that I work with and alongside feel pretty lousy.

Gerry Scullion: Yeah. [00:23:00]

Thea Snow: Um, and I think that it was

Gerry Scullion: education gaps as well, wasn't there? There was like problems within the, the, the framing, correct. Yeah,

Thea Snow: exactly. And, and that's, you know, the problem is as well, the problem with constitutional votes, with referendum, referendum is that their binary, it's yes, no.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Right.

Thea Snow: There's no space for nuance or complexity or, um, yes. But, uh, and yeah. It's that, I think it's the binary nature of it that makes it both, um, like very powerful, but also, um, very hurtful. Yeah. What, you know, 'cause, because it's like people said no to the voice hard. No. That's how hard. No, that's how that's interpreted.

So I think that's been hugely damaging in terms of the question that you asked. And, um. Thankfully for me, I live in the one state in Australia, [00:24:00] which has just gone through a treaty process and a truth telling process. So other states have gone through truth telling, but the Victorian government has just gone through a, a treaty process to essentially, um, sign a treaty with First Nations people here in this state, which give them powers and rights that they've never had before.

So that feels like a step. To sort of repair some of the damage that was caused. Yeah. Um, and then in New Zealand, in our Teo and New Zealand, it's different again. And I have to say the sort of the integration of Maori culture and language into mainstream society in our Teo is incomparable. They're like at least a decade ahead of Australia in that respect.

Yeah. However, the. Um, the voting in of the conservative government again, which happened about probably two years ago now Yeah. Has been terribly damaging. [00:25:00] And a lot of the structures and institutions that were set up, which really recognized the autonomy and cultural sort of were, were very sort of culturally sensitive.

Um. And, and gave a lot of agency to Maori people, um, have been unwound or disbanded or defunded, and it's just been, yeah, devastating to watch.

Gerry Scullion: Do you know, in that circumstance in New Zealand with the Maui people, the um, how services are accessed? Are they still defaulting to English? In those contexts, do you have any con understanding of what that looks like, or do they still have to enter services through you?

Was that ever done? Was that ever unpacked? I'm interested. I could never find that answer out online because everything I search for is in English and there's not too many service designers I can find [00:26:00] that might.

Thea Snow: Yeah, penny Hagen would know that answer. Do you know Penny?

Gerry Scullion: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thea Snow: You should definitely chat to Penny about that call.

Penny know

Gerry Scullion: Penny didn't get a response.

Thea Snow: Oh, really? Well, do you know who's even better than Penny? Angie? Her co. CEO. 'cause Angie is now you're not

Gerry Scullion: saying they're better. Uh,

Thea Snow: well, I'm saying that she, she is Maori, so she has that the lived experience. Um. What it, you know, feels like. And, um, yeah, she'd be a brilliant person to talk to.

Yeah, I can, I can introduce you after this if you'd like.

Gerry Scullion: Yeah, absolutely. That would be great. Because I'm actually about to kick off a project with, uh, local council in Ireland about a couple of local councils in Ireland about how we can, uh, rethink. Ask our native language as regards access and services.

Wow. As opposed to like, click two. If you'd like to speak Irish. There must be a way of unpacking, um, how all of these services are being delivered [00:27:00] and make it more native to our own kind of sort

Speaker 3: of

Gerry Scullion: perspective. I saw something,

Thea Snow: I saw something really cool because one of the issues in Australia. It's firstly, a loss of indigenous language has just been a complete decimation.

It's

Speaker 3: eradicated.

Thea Snow: It's, but also the fact that there were many, many tribes who all spoke their own languages. So it's different to, um, you know, to other, like, to Maori people who share, who have a shared language. Okay. But, um, uh, Kercher, who I assume you know mm-hmm. Um, created something recently that was like a, a sort of.

Like a really accessible version of co-design. So it sort of takes all of the jargon and all of the fancy language out, out. Sorry, dogs. Alright,

Gerry Scullion: continue. I love background noise.

Thea Snow: Okay.

Gerry Scullion: Podcast takes

Thea Snow: all of the, the fancy, inaccessible academic language out and just says, [00:28:00] this is what this is about. And I think sometimes.

In, you know, in the kinds of spaces that you and I work in, like in design, in systems, in complexity, we can get so caught up in our own language Yeah. That we forget how inaccessible it becomes to people who are interested and would love to, would love to engage, but think, oh, I'm not smart enough for that.

So it's like there's something about language as in terms of translation. Um, into a different language, but there's also language in terms of just how caught up we can get with our own jargon and how alienating that can be as well.

Gerry Scullion: And ironically, I've been told human-centered design, when people come on to my website, they're like, I don't know what that means.

Yeah. And I go, well, you know, I do my very best, um, to unpack it on the podcast, but there is an element of, um, exclusivity around the language. Pervasive, what we speak about. [00:29:00] Actually spoke to, I spoke to someone I went, I studied with when I did industrial design, and they actually looked. I dunno what a lot of this stuff is like, you know?

Mm-hmm. And I was like, well, okay. Um, well, I, I told, I sort of understand and it's just, it, it slips in like, you know, I mean, you, you exactly like, it's not like I'm sitting around kind going, what word could I use here to make myself look better? I definitely don't do that. I told you I can barely have the brain power to walk some days.

So. Yeah, it is hard. Like, and any of that work is very powerful.

Thea Snow: Yeah. And I think like, uh, yeah, that's something we think a lot about in our work as well. The power of language and metaphors and what we choose to use and, and not use. So like, you know, I've heard people talking about, for example, more than human-centered design, which I think is an interesting, an interesting sort of addition.

And we actually had, um, a really powerful example of. [00:30:00] What a change in language can do. So we were working with a group in Queensland. Who were trying, uh, to implement a new mo, a new governance model where, um, regional government, like so regional centers, so, uh, within Queensland, which is an enormous state, often feel like all the decisions are taken in the center in Brisbane.

Yeah. And then the, the regions are told what to do and how to do it, and that does not create trust. And also Brisbane doesn't know what's best for Rockhampton or Mackay or, you know, because they're different place so big. Yeah. And so what they're trying to do through this model is actually subvert that pattern and give regions much more power.

And what the center, center becomes is like. A learning sort of, um, a learning partner for the regions to help them learn with and from each other. So the center switches from sort of the, the doer, two to a facilitator of. [00:31:00] There's a whole lot of structural change that needs to happen to enable that to happen and also cultural change.

And so they engaged us as a learning partner to support them, the the people in central government to work out what do we need to be shifting, both in terms of the stuff we can see as well as the mindsets. All the stuff I was talking about before.

Speaker 3: Yeah. And

Thea Snow: one of the things that we did in that program.

As we encouraged them, they were talk, one of the sort of sticking points was the sort of senior sponsorship of the model. So they were struggling to get people to come to meetings. Mm-hmm. When people came to meetings, they weren't really engaging and we were talking about, you know, what, what can we do about that?

And what those meetings were called were like, you know, dd, they had some incredibly long acronym, they were called steering committee meetings. And because of the name of the meeting. All of these assumptions followed around what that meeting needed to look like and needed to have a certain type of agenda, [00:32:00] certain type of papers prepared for it, and needed to be conducted in a certain way and held for a certain period of time.

And we said, what if you didn't call it a steering committee? What if you called it a stewardship group? And what if you didn't call it a meeting? What if you called it a workshop? What would that enable you to do?

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Thea Snow: Just by changing language from. Missing,

Speaker 3: you know,

Thea Snow: DDG steering committee meeting to stewardship group workshop.

It just freed their minds to say, oh, well maybe we don't need an agenda that looks like this. Yeah. And maybe we don't need a whole lot of papers and maybe we can make it shorter than that. And, and, and actually ask people to show up differently. And they still talk about that shift in language as being such a powerful enabler of them, the team, to reimagine how they were gonna host and sort of structure those.

Those gatherings, those meetings. And it also enabled people to show up differently. 'cause they were curious. All of a sudden it's like, what's this a stewardship group workshop? I don't know what that is. So [00:33:00] all of those patterns and assumptions around, I know what this is, I know how to be, I know how I, you know, how I relate and engage in these contexts was disrupted just by choosing different, you know, a different way of describing the, the, the coming together of people.

Gerry Scullion: Yeah, I love it. Hope you didn't mind me looking over my shoulder. There it is. Literally lashing rain here in Dublin at the moment. Oh wow. The window is closed. My mic, it's just like there's a thunderstorm but it suppresses the noise. Um, you don't mind me saying this. You're really smart. Okay. And I know a lot of people would be nodding along.

Did you study law or like how did you enter into this world, um, of having so many? Uh, you know, I'm hearing different lenses being used when you're speaking and you're moving through the different layers from language all the way through to policy. And there's people out there I know who studying design, [00:34:00] um, and they, they, they listen to, you know.

The stuff that we're speaking about here, and they, they'd love to work in that space.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Gerry Scullion: I'd love to understand your stepping stone of, of how you gotta, where you're, and again, I wasn't being patronizing or condescend, you're, you're like, the stuff that you're, you're, you're speaking about here, you're distilling it down a really accessible, um, way of understanding it.

And I think that's a very special skill. So like, I, I wanna understand a little bit more about. How you got to that point? Was that something that you always possessed? Mm. And and what advice you'd give to people who wanna, um, follow in your, in your footsteps, so to speak. Mm,

Thea Snow: thanks. Well, that's a really nice thing to say.

Okay. Um, I did study law,

Speaker 3: ah, I

Thea Snow: studied law and, um, like history and politics. And I think law teaches you a really. Useful way of thinking in some ways in that you have to really break things down into their constituent parts. Okay. Um, so it's a [00:35:00] very orderly, rational, analytical way of thinking. And um, you know, I still say, I reckon my favorite job ever was I did, um, tutoring when I was a law law student.

So like the law student society, um, just employed. Other students to, to, you know, subjects that they were confident around to tutor other kids. And, um, I, I loved the process of helping people understand concepts in the way that I understood them. And I think. I think that, so I think that is always something that I've loved doing.

And I think it comes from two places. I think it comes from a place of confidence. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3: And honestly,

Thea Snow: I'm like grateful to my parents for always telling me, you know, if like, if a teacher challenged me at school, they'd be like, well, that teacher is wrong. You know, like, that was how I grew up. And so it gave me [00:36:00] this deep, deep confidence that it, you know, that, that.

What I said mattered and had value. And I think that often people get trapped in fancy language or they don't ask the questions that they need to ask to really, really understand a thing because they think, well, I don't understand it 'cause I'm stupid and I never think that. I think I don't un if I don't understand it, other people don't understand it.

Yeah. So I'll ask questions until I really understand something. And that comes from a place of confidence. And the other thing I think that's really important is empathy. Um, because sometimes, you know, I listen to people speak and it happened to me just the other day, like I was presenting. My daughter's in grade five and they asked actually a bunch of ex-law and current lawyers to come and present to the class.

And I was listening to some of the parents talk and these kids were like falling asleep, falling off their chairs. [00:37:00] And I thought, I was just looking at it thinking, how do these people not see what's happening in the audience? Yeah. And not recognize that the way that they're talking is not engaging.

11-year-old kids and

Speaker 3: or humans generally.

Thea Snow: Exactly. And they were all incredibly thoughtful, incredibly intelligent people. But I think what they were forgetting to do was they were centering themselves. Like, what do I want to say? Rather than, what do people want to hear? And so I think if you really put yourself in the shoes of the audience and think less about what you wanna say and more about what others wanna hear, that's a way of.

That tendency to sort of, yeah, I guess talk about things or talk about things in ways that aren't engaging or accessible to people.

Gerry Scullion: Yeah, I think that. Uh, you, you spoke about that, the mindset and, you know, one of the most powerful things that I learned to do [00:38:00] with clients is bring them on the journey and have them watch research and have them be part of those conversations and realize that that experience of the lived experience and that you're designing for them.

Um, is just helps kind of, those mind shifts happen much quicker than being spoken to. But like when you speak about those parents, uh, did they end the session knowing that they probably could have done it better or were they just walking in this euphoric state of saying, yeah, I just showed those kids some, some magic.

I dunno. No, they didn't. Such

Thea Snow: a, I dunno. I don't know is the answer, but you know, it was funny 'cause. Um, I actually spoke last, so I was really in trouble, right? Because these kids were all like, well, what did you do? Tell us exactly. Had kids like tongues lulling out the sides of their mouth, yeahing hitting their heads

Gerry Scullion: with rulers kind of going, looking for any sort of feet like [00:39:00] stimulation.

Thea Snow: So the first thing I did was I got up and I asked them a question which no one else had done.

Gerry Scullion: Ah, what was the question? Come on, tell us. Oh,

Thea Snow: well it was, did you enjoy the

Gerry Scullion: other parents?

Thea Snow: I wanted to ask that, but I didn't. Yeah. Um, no, it was, has anyone heard of copyright?

Speaker 3: Okay. Because I

Thea Snow: decided that I sort of listened to what, I didn't know what I was gonna be talking about before I got there.

Yeah. And then I decided that, um, once I listened to all the other parents speak, I was only a lawyer for two years. And so I wanted to find something to talk about that no one had yet. And I thought, copyright's cool, right? Like that's a cool concept that kids can relate to. 'cause it's like. That when you make stuff up, like then you can own it.

And so of co And it's also something that I thought kids probably had heard of before as opposed to insider trading, which is what the person before me was talking about. Really? Yeah.

Speaker 3: How these

Thea Snow: children's

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Gerry Scullion: Hopefully. And they're gonna see you [00:40:00] at the school gates. Yeah. Heard what you said. Yeah. Heard. Yeah, but it was just the, the

Thea Snow: simplicity of thinking. What's an area of law that kids might relate to and find exciting, and how do I start with a question? And, you know, it was, it was so easy. Like I asked what's copyright and, you know, all these excited hands popped up and someone told me what copyright was and then another hand popped up and said, do you know that, you know, and that she had this story about this young kid who ca, who you know, who copyrighted something, who got a million dollars.

And the whole energy in the room just lifted. And then I spoke for a bit. It's not like I just asked them questions the whole time, but it was just such a simple thing, sort of to your point, like. What you do as a designer is you, you listen, you bring people along you, you know, you engage, um, rather than just delivering to people.

So, yeah. Um, yeah.

Gerry Scullion: But like, I think when not everyone can make that leap, [00:41:00] um, when you're working in organizations, especially governments, and you realize that when you're researching, they have this moment where they're like, actually, we've probably delivered an awful lot of stuff. And either we researched too late.

Or we didn't research at all. Mm-hmm. And like the power of actually researching

Thea Snow: for a long and researching without researching in a genuine way as well. Right. Without sort of, without confirmation bias, like being the leading force. 'cause I think that what a lot of research tends to do, and I'm, I'm sure I'm complicit in this as well in some of the research that I do, but is you look for answers that confirm what you're looking for.

Yeah. Rather than actually starting from a place of genuine curiosity, curiosity, genuine openness, and a willingness to actually move quite substantially from your own, uh, initial hunches. I think that's very rare in in government and in, you know, as I say, I'm probably, yeah, I probably do that too.

Gerry Scullion: So you went from, [00:42:00] uh, law.

You worked tutoring and I, I I've known that you've worked in the premier's office in, in Victoria, was it?

Thea Snow: Yeah. So what happened was I started feeling pretty a leap

Gerry Scullion: into innovation because I know lawyers who were like, oh, I'd love to get more involved in this stuff. Yeah, it's too, it's too late for me, is one of what people say to me.

Thea Snow: Yeah. Well, I think that, um. I think that it's never too late if you are willing to, um, to relearn, you know, I've had to unlearn lots, like that's for sure. And I'm, I'm still unlearning things because as a lawyer you are taught that there is a right answer. Right. And, and a lot of my work now. Exactly.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Thea Snow: Um, and a lot of my work now is. Sits sits in in stark tension with that. But basically for me it was recognizing the inherent limitations of the law let, [00:43:00] made me leave the law and move. My logic at the time was I wanna work in the place that shapes the law. So that's why I moved into policy in government, worked there for about 10 years on and off while I had my kids.

And then. Towards the end of my time in government felt incredibly frustrated by the lack of collaboration, the lack of creativity, the lack of curiosity. And I thought, I want, I need to take some time out to sort of understand why, right? Yeah. Because there must be reasons why government operates this way.

So then we moved over to the UK and I did some study over there and my study was really exploring those questions of public policy. Public policy. You did public policy

Gerry Scullion: in London School of Economics, I think I saw.

Thea Snow: Yeah, that's right. And then I also got a job at Nesta. In the government innovation team.

And that was really like a sliding doors moment for me, I think. Okay. 'cause it just exposed me to a [00:44:00] whole new world of people, a whole new language, a whole new, um, realm of sort of literature, um, that felt like this is what I've been looking for, you know? And I hadn't had, I hadn't had a community doing, like, who I knew of doing that work.

I hadn't had. I think to rely on and it really just opened up a whole new world for me. That was, um, yeah, completely liberating.

Gerry Scullion: So it was quite kind of recent enough then that you entered into this world in the last 10 years, maybe?

Thea Snow: Yeah, exactly.

Gerry Scullion: Yeah. So open to that point, you're primarily functioning. As with a, um,

what was it

and to. The gaps that you felt you had at that point. Mm. Um. 'cause if you're working with, and maybe you didn't, [00:45:00] maybe, maybe you're like, actually I don't have any gaps. I'm, I'm completely perfect. Um, but what does that look like? Because, and the reason why I ask that it, when I work with governments, they kinda say, well, I'm not a designer, Jerry.

And I'm like, that's fine. I says, you don't have to worry about that stuff.

Thea Snow: Gotcha. Well. So it was a few things. I mean, it was, design thinking was like super exciting to me when I stumbled across it at Nesta for the first time. And it was that idea of like, you don't need to have the answer first. You just start trying things and then you see, you see what they, what works and you make little tweaks and I was like, mm-hmm.

That. That's what government never does. Government always tries to do all of the analysis and all of the, find all of the answers and then roll out a perfect thing. And design thinking was such a, such a sort of revelation to me. It was like, oh my gosh, if government could do this, could start testing a modeling and, and adapting and learning and redesigning, like that would be [00:46:00] revolutionary.

So it was a, it was absolutely design thinking. It was, you know, um. Kat Drew at the design council. Yeah, she was in local government at the time though. That's right. Andrea, who was running policy lab. So these incredible sort of design minds, um, who I was exposed to, who were working in and around government really sort of opened up a whole new, um, way of thinking about what government.

The tools that government could use and the sort of, you know, the practices, the very established practices. So that was a big breakthrough. And then the other one was really systems and complexity thinking. And I think for me that was, that was actually, you know, like when I was at university, I studied Eastern Faith and illumination as a subject.

I read heaps of Buddhism when I was, you know, 16, 17, 18, um, and. My whole, like, to go back to, [00:47:00] to that LinkedIn post, like I've always intuitively understood that everything is everything. I just haven't necessarily had a sort of, um, a discipline to connect that into, you know, and often the way that that concept expresses itself is through religion or spirituality.

And I'm not a particularly religious or spiritual person, but when I, when I started reading about systems thinking, I was like, this is the thing. This is like. And a, a framework

Speaker 3: Yeah. For

Thea Snow: describing the way that I understand the world, which is the interconnection between things. Um, yeah. And so, you know, it was a combination of like systems thinking and complexity and design thinking, and it was just like, just such a, such a breakthrough.

Gerry Scullion: Can I, um, I've just typed in what we're, we're in the series of, um, creating a range of small button badges. I know [00:48:00] workshops and. Hopefully everything is, everything is not copyrighted because I might get one of these and post them over to you.

Thea Snow: I love that.

Gerry Scullion: Um, and, uh, I, I, the name of the person who said it to you has, has, has sort of left my mind, but again, I'll send you a few of these as well.

They're getting designed at the moment in a very eighties retro style.

Thea Snow: Oh, I love that.

Gerry Scullion: Um, just because I want people wear as opposed to like, you know, creating something that's very design, um. I, you are working with governments, you are working on change, and I guess one of the things that is probably, uh, in the conversations like every other designer in the world is the way things are shifting at the moment.

Mm. So if government is down here at the moment and you're kind of moving in this direction, uh, over here and you're, you're trying to work with these systems and mo move them forward. You've got this, uh, AI conversation that enters in, you know, that which, which [00:49:00] is changing, you know, by the the time we finish this conversation, there'll be something, you know, new in a, in AI world.

How do you stay ahead of this stuff? Like if you, you've come from a law background, you know, you've, you've trained and you've worked, you've developed all this, uh, experience.

Um, what, what does it look like for you as a practitioner and how you can stay on top of this stuff? Is that something that, um, is front of mind for you?

Thea Snow: Yeah, absolutely. So I guess what we're always thinking about is what's the CPI take on this stuff, right? So everyone's talking about AI at the moment.

Everyone's thinking about it, but. What, what can CPI usefully contribute to that conversation? So a project that we're about to kick off at the moment, um, we haven't quite got it across the line yet, so I won't say who it's with or exactly what it's called. Mm-hmm. But we've been thinking about, a lot of people are thinking about how [00:50:00] can government use AI more effectively and how is, how is AI gonna revolutionize government?

And I actually did my master's thesis on. The use of ai, um, by frontline social workers. So frontline social workers in, um, local councils. Were being given AI tools to help them make assessments of at-risk children.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Thea Snow: And my, my, my master's thesis looked at how people were engaging with those tools.

Were they ignoring them, which is called algorithm aversion? Were they deferring to them, which is called automation bias, or were they using them as they were intended to be used, which is a combination of sort of human judgment and expertise and. The, the, the insights that big data and yeah, sort of the AI analysis could give you.

And I called that, um, I called that icing, which was sort of a, a play on Herbert Simon Satisficing. But anyway, that's being really nerdy. [00:51:00] So anyway, fast forwarding to now, um, the question that we're asking ourselves is less about how is government gonna use ai? 'cause as I said, heaps of people are using that.

But how is AI gonna change? The people, the citizens that government serves. And how is government gonna have to change as a result of that? So for instance, if people get really shitty government services, which a lot of people do. Mm-hmm. And their people who potentially have not been used to, um, getting great services from people.

'cause they're generally, you know, um, not. Um, given the respect or time or energy that they deserve one or deserve, sure. And then they get access to an AI chat bot. Who responds to them whenever they want to, who gives them the answers that they need, who can actually give them access to information that they've never necessarily known how to access before.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Thea Snow: How is that gonna change how those people [00:52:00] interact with government services? How might it further undermine the trust and legitimacy that government holds in those people's eyes? Yeah. And how is government gonna have to respond and really lift its gain in response to the access to information care?

Responsiveness that people will be able to access as a result of AI that they've never been able to access before. So that's a project that we're sort of about to kick off.

Gerry Scullion: So you probably get that done in a day. I'd say that kind of project. Get the days consultancy.

Thea Snow: Yeah. Right.

Gerry Scullion: Yeah. I love the sarcasm from Aussies era.

Right, mate. Um. There's, there's, there's so much we can speak about and continue on this, and I've been actively trying to keep my conversations under 30 minutes. You can see how, while I'm doing this at the moment, we're, we're, I'm kind of, I'm, I'm gonna try and wrap this one up, but I'd love to invite you back on in a couple of months to continue this conversation, 'cause the work that you're doing and also [00:53:00] just generally the experience.

That you have is really relevant to a lot of the conversations that I've been having professionally. Um, and I'd love to invite you back on in, in a couple of months just to continue some of the, the train of thought that we've built up in this. If you're open to it, this is where you say, yes,

Thea Snow: absolutely.

I'd love that. I'll see,

Gerry Scullion: I'll see. I'll speak to my people, my people. Speak to your people and we'll see. I don't

Thea Snow: have any people.

Gerry Scullion: There, there's, there's gonna be people with questions, I'm sure of it. Is it okay for people to connect with you on LinkedIn and ask questions? Is that, is that your preferred way for people to connect? Yeah, LinkedIn.

Thea Snow: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I'm not always super responsive straight away on my messages, but I will get there in the end.

So yeah, absolutely. LinkedIn is great.

Gerry Scullion: Thea, I wrap every episode, and this is HCA, um, by thanking people for their time, their energy, their space. Um, I don't do any questions upfront. I love having [00:54:00] natural conversations. Okay, and it's late in, in the evening for you as well. Um. So giving me that time is really, uh, precious and uh, really well, um, received on my end.

I thank you for that. But just generally allowing me to go from left to right and up and down and back and forth, and sometimes being a little bit clumsy about my language. Thank you for allowing me to do that. And thank you for coming onto the show today as well.

Thea Snow: Thanks so much for having me. So yeah, it's, I love, I love these conversations 'cause I always.

I'm left with new questions and things that I'm wondering and you know, that's how I sort of get better at at my job and practice as well. So thank you for so many thoughtful questions.

Gerry Scullion: Ah, no, it's all good. And I will chat to you again in a couple of months.

Thea Snow: Wonderful. Thanks Jerry.