• Which specific changes do I hope to make with respect to the work that I am doing or my work environment?
• What information or additional perspectives do I need to make the greatest impact?
• What social capital and other resources do I need to make these changes?
• What social capital do I have access to now?
• Where am I lacking social capital that I need, and how can I start to build it?
• What power do my allies and I have to make meaningful changes, and what are the most effective concrete actions we can take to make those changes?
The Tech Examen
To practice the Tech Examen, begin by reflecting on the first two grounding questions to focus your attention on what is most important to you and where you find meaning. Then, with these reflections in mind, select one or more of the questions from the rehumanizing tech, assessing accountability, or identifying collective power categories to contemplate further. Choose as many or as few questions to ponder as you would like and spend as much or as little time reflecting as you wish.
The Tech Examen
Grounding Questions:
• What is most important to me? What are my values?
• Where did I find meaning and purpose today?
Rehumanizing Tech:
• Who could be impacted by the work I did today?
• Which abstractions or representations did I use to characterize them or factors related to them?
• How might my design choices dehumanize these people, and what are the possible impacts of such dehumanization?
• Where my choices of abstract representations might serve to dehumanize people, how can I learn more about the people I modeled and their stories?
Assessing Accountability:
• What decisions did I make today?
• Which motivations guided my decision-making?
• Did these decisions align with my values?
• What will I do the same or differently in the future?
Identifying Collective Power:
• Which specific changes do I hope to make with respect to the work that I am doing or my work environment?
• What information or additional perspectives do I need to make the greatest impact?
• What social capital and other resources do I need to make these changes?
• What social capital do I have access to now?
• Where am I lacking social capital that I need, and how can I start to build it?
• What power do my allies and I have to make meaningful changes, and what are the most effective concrete actions we can take to make those changes?
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Lindsay Sanneman was a 2024 FASPE Design & Technology Fellow. She is an assistant professor of Computer Science at Arizona State University and a candidate for ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
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