Insight landscaping to create social digital twins

Technically, IBM describes a digital twin as “a virtual model designed to accurately reflect a physical object”. The object in question is often a piece of engineering, or a technical system. And the purpose of the digital twin is to enable people to explore how it will work, and try out different ideas. It enables people to experiment before physical investments are committed.

But what if the object were a social concept? For example a team, an organisation, a partnership, a way of working? Could we create a digital twin to reflect that also? Could we use it to simulate what might happen in the real world? And to make decisions regarding goals, policies and actions on that basis?

True, the answer wouldn’t be so automated, but the model could still help our thinking, our designs and our discussions. And we could easily return to it to refresh our understanding, adjust things, and try out new ideas.

Over the last few years, we have been using insight landscaping to effect exactly this purpose, but as part of other projects. So this is not so much one case study as a short catalogue of three other case studies which best illustrate this approach. And links to read more on each of the social digital twin examples.

In our case study on partner engagements we explain how we used very large Klaxoon templates to recreate the journey that the partnership would work through together. Firstly, with learning a bit more about the people involved. Then, secondly, developing a shared aspiration for the difference they wanted to make together. Thirdly, how that was clarified into more specific measureable outcomes. And fourthly, developing clear proposals for projects to deliver those outcomes. Finally, clarifying the ownership and the timescales for the priority elements, and agreeing how oversight will work.

The journey was worked through, capturing all of the ideas and logic at each stage. In this way people could see how the conclusions developed. And people could follow their own ideas and contributions in developing those outcomes. And, perhaps most importantly of all, the visual cues enabled them to re-access the emotions they experienced as they worked this through.

The landscape for this project carried all of the data for the partners to imagine and understand how the partnership would work in practice. At the end of each section were yes/no panels.

Here people were asked to weigh up all of the data that had been incorporated in that section of the landscape. And then to confirm their confidence (or not) in it working. This enabled the team to revisit what needed to change to increase that confidence.

The landscape enabled people to model the reality in their heads and make adjustments in the model before committing their investment. In this it worked very much as a social digital twin.

The picture above right shows the insight landscape for this case study, which can be read about in more detail here.

In our case study on organisational design sprints we look at how we used massive Mural templates to map the organisational design sprint process. Thereby, replicating in a virtual sense Jake Knapp’s vision of a ‘sprint room plastered with notes diagrams print outs, and more’ Taking advantage of our awesome spatial memory. The room itself becoming a sort of shared brain for the team.

The five day template utilised the maximum 60000 by 60000 pixel space available in Mural. Enabling everyone to zoom out to see the overview. And then to zoom in to work with individual contributions at 400x magnification.

People were able to map multiple perspectives on the current situation. Develop and modify a wide range of possible alternative organisational options. Understand their likely impact and opportunities in respect of their process goals. Evaluate them, test them with each other, and improve them. Then work these up into clear proposals which they wished to take forward. They were then able to communicate these in the form of prototypes, and to test these with their colleagues.

And the whole flow and history of explanation is perpetually available to them. Reinforcing the quality of their decisions, and providing an agile thinking environment. One which enables rapid evaluations of changes to keep the process in tune with its evolving role. A social digital twin.

The picture above right shows the insight landscape for this case study, which can be read about in more detail here.

In our case study from an online spiritual retreat we look at how we used infinite Conceptboard templates. The lockdown of 2020 meant that our planned physical retreat was unsafe. And so we proposed creating a social digital twin to facilitate spiritual reflection.

The intention was to encompass emotions, humanity, and spiritual components. We wanted to recreate all of the experiences of the physical retreat, but online. In particular, group sharing, listening prayer, reflective walks, and discussions.

To achieve this, we created three main areas. Firstly, a circle area, which represented the circle of chairs in our normal meeting space. This allowed people to imagine that location in their minds, and to post notes and images in the space around themselves and in front of others. Notes and images that reflected their current situation, and blessings they wished upon each other in response to sharing. Secondly, a small groups area for listening prayer, and for dealing with more personal aspects of our own journeys. And thirdly, a walking area.

We populated the walking area with important images from the attendees of times and situations when they felt closest to God. These were curated into a representation of a physical landscape. Meadows, mountains, hillsides, rivers, lakes, coastline, gardens created a backdrop for collections of images, scriptures, songs and blessings. People spent hours in that space, zoomed in, following the pathways, and dwelling where they chose.

The social digital twin was surprisingly effective at modelling its physical twin, and in recreating the connections we make on retreat.

The pictures on the right show the insight landscape for the retreat, which can be read about in more detail here.