The Intergalactic Design Guide

The Intergalactic Design Guide Harnessing the Creative Potential of Social Design

By Cheryl Heller

ANNOTATED TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 The Answer to Everything This chapter provides context for the book, and sets the stage for why social design is needed now, and how it can uniquely address the complex challenges we face. There is also an overview of where social design is practiced, and the diverse industries and professions where it is being practiced. For students looking for a new career path that integrates purpose into their profession, this is a good place to discuss the potential.

11 Seeing Edges and Patterns, Scoping and Framing A definition of social design, and the ways in which it differs from traditional design and problem solving approaches. A good discussion can be structured about students’ awareness of their own approach, and how it affects the work they do—design’s relationship to business and society are included.

17 Past as Prologue An unofficial history of design, this is an excellent overview of design’s evolution and how it has impacted life as we know it. It traces the progression of the designer’s role from anonymous tinkerer in the back rooms of factories, to celebrities sought out for their vision and taste, to specialists who focus on one aspect of the process, such as user experience or interaction design, and finally to designers as facilitators of creativity in large communities. What is designed has evolved as well, from logos and objects, to the design of entire systems that affect the world at large scales. It also provides an overview of the introduction of the sustainability movement and social impact, how they evolved and what the future might hold for the design profession.

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25 Mastering the System A full overview of the system of social design, illustrated through words and diagrams. It introduces a set of principles, or values, each one of which can provide content for important discussions. Designers have the power to change lives, whether they recognize it or not, and whether that change is for good or ill. The concept of values, in itself, is important to students, since the first step in becoming a creative leader is to recognize the assumed principles that each of us holds, whether we recognize them or not. The principles here are explained as they affect social design, but they can be related to other aspects of student life and studies. Two other parts of the social design system are included here as well: first, a process for realizing any project from vision to evaluation, and an overview of the skills needed. Both of these topics are rich with opportunity for analysis and discussions in a classroom.

69 Nine Stories of Leadership by Design These stories are written to be independent of each other, but they are related. They are examples, in real life, of the principles, processes and skills of social design in action. The actors in the stories are people from many different backgrounds, only two of whom call themselves designers. This illustrates that anyone with the interest and will can master and apply the social design system. Teachers may want to give the assignment of identifying how the system is applied differently in each case.

71 Brown’s Super Stores: Solutions Inspired by the People Who Need Them The story of Jeffrey Brown is of someone who went against the common wisdom of his industry, beat all expectations and created a profitable business that he is using to eliminate poverty and make people healthier in the poorest neighborhoods of Pennsylvania 85 Ruth Gates: Mixing Science and Social Design to Address Climate Change Coral reefs are some of the most important resources we have on earth and they are in danger.

Ruth is a marine biologist who combines her brilliant scientific work breeding a “super coral” that can withstand the impact of climate change with the skills and process of social design. She is organizing and leading a consortium of scientists, environmental organizations, hospitality companies and politicians to collaborate in saving the planet’s coral reefs.

101 The Salvage Supperclub: Navigating with Feedback Loops Josh Treuhaft is an excellent example of what a student can do to act on his or her ambitions, because this is a story of what Josh did in school. From an “itch” that bothered him — to stop people from wasting food (one of the major contributors to climate change) — he created a pop2

up restaurant that made him famous and influential among foodies. He was written up in major newspapers and magazines, and Discovery Networks made a film about him. Most important, he continues to have an impact on the way people think about food and what creative things can be done with it.

117 Interface Net-Works: Creating New Models and Solving Problems Along the Way Interface is the largest carpet tile company in the world, and famous for its success in eliminating the environmentally damaging impact of its industry. Now it creates social as well as environmental value by buying discarded fishing nets from small marine villages and turning them into new carpet tiles. This is a story of new ways to create and innovate through nontraditional partners.

133 Erik Hersman: Tapping the Power of Limits Erik Hersman is a serial entrepreneur who grew up in the United States and several countries in Africa. He lives in Kenya now, and is using social design and product design to connect people in rural areas to the internet. It is a story about how to find resources where other people see none, and how to use a social network to build a giant business that is attracting partners like Google and Facebook.

147 Paul Polak: The Story is in the Context Paul Polak is a former psychiatrist who turned a commitment to understand his patients from their point of view into an approach that has helped over twenty million people earn their way out of poverty and into the middle class. This story is about the company he has founded and staffed with local workers in Odisha, India that sells clean drinking water to over three hundred villages that are too small and distant for commercial companies to bother with. Polak illustrates the principles of social design better than anyone else working today, and his story illustrates the importance of learning about people in the context in which they live, rather than our own.

167 The Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus: Using a Network to Create a New Future for a City For anyone who wants to understand how to use their social network to create change on a citylevel, the story of Matt Enstice and the BNMC is the place to look. Matt worked in production at Saturday Night Live, where he learned how a million small decisions can lead to extraordinary results if the vision is there.

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181 Sisi Ni Amani: Communicating the Way to Nonviolence Rachel Brown was still in undergraduate school at Tufts University in Boston when she decided to go to Kenya to stop election violence there. This is her amazing story: a young woman with enormous desire but no experience or plan for accomplishing her vision. It is a story of how to engage people in ways that are relevant to them, and build an army for good.

199 MASS Design Group: Process is Strategy This story is about one of the most exciting architectural design firms in the world that is rethinking the way buildings are conceived, designed, and built in order to benefit the communities and places they impact. The lessons here apply to any discipline with a process that accepted as common sense, but no longer serves the people who are impacted by it. MASS design illustrates a way to question and reinvent the status quo.

215 Getting from There to Here The final chapter provides thoughts for how each person reading the book can act and become a creative leader. The essential purpose of this book is help make these issues personal and accessible to readers, and this chapter provides a basis for meaningful discussion with students about how it can be integrated into the lives they want to create for themselves.

221 Some Things Worth Reading A personal and incomplete sampling of some of the books that inspired the author, and one that should be enjoyable to help build from teachers’ own list of favorites.

For more information, or for webinars and master classes, please contact Island Press or cheller@sva.edu

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