November 9th, 2008
Emotionally intelligent signage in action
Needham, Massachusetts, Town Manager Kate Fitzpatrick has become the first city official to put the idea of emotionally intelligent signage into practice.
As the Boston Globe‘s Lisa Kocian reports, Fitzpatrick enlisted local middle school “students to design signs that would slow down their parents and older brothers and sisters” because existing signs weren’t do the trick and traffic and speeding was becoming the town’s most vexing civic problem.
“The idea,” says The Globe, “is that seeing a child’s handwriting and drawing will make parents relate to the sign in a way they never would have with an impersonal version.“
Kudos to Fitzpatrick for her pioneering work!
Laurene madsen on November 15, 2008
Hello Daniel, I think that your idea for signage that is more humane and thoughtful will help change the sign-ignoring behavior that we witness often. By using kinder terms like, “children play here, clean up your dog’s mess” appeals to one’s emotional intelligence. Thank you for proponence(?sp) on this issue.
LIBBY COSS on November 29, 2008
It is absolutely important what conciousness we expose everyone to. Words matter and they convey so much.
As an artist and a city administration graduate student;
I am ecstatic about the signs.
Expressions about the future representing what we want in the present actualized in the signage .
Wendy on March 11, 2009
I can’t wait to read your “Whole New Mind” book, I first saw it discussed at one of the Newspapers websites (NY Times, MSNBC, Business Week). Since I loved “Free Agent Nation” I was curious to see what your new back had covered. I would love for you to look over my blog and critique if you’d like.
Dog Sitter on June 25, 2009
I agree that this kind of gentle nudging is far more effective. If signs feel like they are barking orders at you it tends to repel us but if we connect on an emotional level then we are quite happy to follow the guidelines
David Parsons on July 1, 2010
This makes a lot of sense to me because one would normally pay attention to the signs that are made by children. This is because these types of signs would normally stand out in a crowd like that.