Welcome!

Welcome to the official blog for RISD's advanced studio, Design for Social Entrepreneurship, Fall 2008. This course aims to cultivate social entrepreneurial designers by investigating the power of products, systems and services to create positive social and environmental change both internationally and domestically.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Our Speakers Today


Thank you to our two wonderful speakers that joined us this afternoon. 

We had an engaging and inspiring experience. We will  be posting the videos of their presentations soon when they are up and ready. 

For more information on each organization and individual check out: 

Matt Grigsby- Ecolect

Tanya Fields- Blk Grl
Sustainable South Bronx. For more information on this amazing organization and how they started, watch Majora Carter's TED talk below. Majora is a mentor of Tanya's, a MacArthur Fellow, a human rights activist and my personal shero. 



Stay tuned for videos from the presentations! 

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Design for Local Sustainability- Research

DUE Tuesday November 4th- (Election Day!)

As we continue to lay the foundation for the final project it is important to be very clear and familiar with our partner organizations and research similar projects and approaches. 

For this weekend's homework, please: 

IDENTIFY the problem and mission statement of your organization and post it on your blog. 

RESEARCH 5 other organizations within the US that are doing similar work. In Illustrator create a chart comparing and contrasting the organizations identifying the pros and cons of each organization's approach and impact. - Post this on your blog

PREPARE your interview questions as discussed below and if you are meeting with your organization before next Tuesday, conduct your interview within this time. * see post below. 

Interviews and Mind Maps

Due THURSDAY November 6th

In addition to becoming familiar with your organization through participation, as a designer it is important to do anthropological research to understand the ins and outs of your target market. For this, you will conduct an interview with someone who works within the organization. (If need be, you will have time in class on Tuesday afternoon to go and do this, so please try to schedule something now that fits in your schedule and prepare your interview before hand. If you have a scheduling conflict, please come talk to me.) For tips on conducting interviews, read this article here.  You want to uncover what they experience being a part of the organization-What do they like most, what would they change, what do they find most challenging. Come up with  5-10 questions and ask for about 30-40 minutes of their time. This is your time to practice listening, and ask open ended questions that let them expand- have a conversation. Do not ask yes or no questions.

At this point in time it is essential to collect as much information as possible about your organization, and the issues they are dealing with to best uncover your design opportunity. You must also determine whether your project will focus on the organization itself- i.e. its structure, space, tools and etc, or its benefactors. If you choose to work on a project for a benefactor, conduct an interview with them as well. 

Next week you will start designing so start thinking about what opportunities you want to pursue and do the research needed to move forward. 

Some sample questions include: 
What is your role within the organization?

What does your day look like, and what type of activities or tasks do you do? 

What do you find most challenging in your day and what do you enjoy most? 

How did you get involved in the organization?

Document your interview for your records either via note taking or audio recorder and post to your blog. However, if the person you interviewed shared personal information that they do not want made public, please respect their privacy and be sensitive to this and first ask them if they are comfortable with you sharing this information. 

After your interview, on your own- do a quick mind map (30 minutes) on a large piece of paper- (or you can get creative and make something). In the middle choose one word that sums up the issue your organization is dealing with. From the center, map out some of the main barriers the organization experiences to social impact. Mind you that every nonprofit will tell you that their main barrier is finances. This is typically a very big challenge for every organization, but as designers we must dig deeper to find an overlooked opportunity that can increase the organization's social impact. Scan in or photograph your map and post on your blog. 

In Honor of Tuesday

Is America Ready for a Black President?

FREE FOOD FOR THOUGHT: 
Monday November 3rd
6:30-8:00pm
space is limited/ rsvp required:
dkanston@risd.edu
401-277-4957


Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Homework- Building a Foundation

Design and the design process is very much about reflection, research, insight, and iteration. It is important to document this process along the way to use as a tool throughout the process. When we are constantly reminded of our foundation, it is easier to move forward and build on it. 

To start building the foundation for your final project, you are going to REFLECT and RESEARCH. 

REFLECT- After our discussions with Tony, write one blog article reflecting on your experiences thus far with your partnering organization. In what way have you been helpful, who have you interacted with, share any particularly interesting conversations or experiences.

RESEARCH- 

In Illustrator- create a map of your organization conveying the organizational structure. Who runs the organization (are they a one man team or a franchise) what services do they offer, and who do they offer them to? Also include a map of where the organization is located within Providence.

To find this information go to the website's staff page and programs page. Here you will find who leads the team, what are their titles, what programs they provide, and to who they provide them. In your map, you want to give a system overview. This is a simplified version of the organizational structure, and can be conveyed graphically with the only words being labels. 

Feel free to use ProvidencePlan as a resource.
Come in class prepared to share your findings and post both assignments on your blog. 



Elevator Pitch

In Class Activity-Morning

As an entrepreneur, it is important to be able to convey your idea quickly and concisely. Whether at a networking event, making a pitch to potential investors, or running into someone who you admire--you must capture the attention of your audience within the amount of time of an elevator ride, because you never know who you are going to run into and when. An elevator pitch, if successful, will often get you in the door for a more lengthy presentation or conversation.

You are going to practice this by looking at some existing organizations. Choose one of the organizations from below and take a look at their website, or some have videos as well.

See how they describe themselves, what their projects are and come up with a 30 second elevator pitch as to what this organization is and does.

Do not simply read off their existing mission statement for your pitch. You must tell us the story in your own words.
A successful pitch includes:
What problem do you solve?
How do you solve it?
What do you sell?
How do you sustain yourself?
Why are you the best person for the job?

You will have 30 minutes to read over the materials and prepare, and 30 seconds to give your pitch to the class (I have a timer!). Manage your time so you read what you need to in order to collect your thoughts- write out the pitch or make bullet points for your presentation. Practice first. 

Choose from the following Organizations:

Sustainable South Bronx
Save the Bay

In the afternoon, we are going to have an engaging interactive workshop with Tony Johnson from the Office of Multicultural Affairs. We will meet in studio and walk to the Ewing house together.

After the workshop, we will return to studio.
Come prepared to pin up your two-page layout and give an elevator pitch of your design for development project. 

Thursday, October 23, 2008

New School Sustainability: Majors Making a Difference


A recent article from WorldChanging discussing the shift in univerities' majors to fit the demand to learn about sustainability. Check it out here. 

...including the power of design! Once we have our two pagers together, we can add a comment directing them to the projects and share the message about how design can innovate the field of environmental and social sustainability!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Upcoming Competitions

Echoing Green Fellowship-up to $90k- 
Deadline: Dec 1

Global Water Crisis: AIGA + Index: 
Deadline: Dec

Clinton Global Initiative- University Conference Application
Deadline: Dec 12

Ideablob -$10k- 
Deadline: Monthly

Metropolis Magazine NExt Generation Competition -$10k- 
Deadline: Jan 30


October 31st


What Makes a Good Powerpoint

Death by PowerPoint
View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: tips powerpoint)

What Makes a Good Presentation

A new BoP Social Network


BoP Source has recently come out with a social network which aims to directly connect consumers at the base of the pyramid with the companies that want to do business with them. Sign up today and join in on the conversation!

Jocelyn Wyatt- Design in the Developing World

A great recent post from IDEO's Jocelyn Wyatt discusses the approaches to designing for development, including systemic thinking and business approaches. Great to see in what ways our projects here at DeSE are resonating with the greater field!

Jocelyn Wyatt leads the Design for Social Impact initiative at IDEO . Prior to IDEO, Jocelyn worked as an Acumen Fund fellow in Kenya and served as Interim Country Director for VisionSpring in India. Jocelyn has an MBA from Thunderbird and a BA in Anthropology from Grinnell College. She blogs (periodically) on www.jocelynwyatt.com.

"Fully admitting my bias here, I did think the Design in the Developing World panel was an especially interesting conversation between a top-notch set of designers and practitioners. Caroline Balerin launched the panel with the question "What would it look like to design for the other 90%?" I fully expected the panelists, who have traditionally designed products, to respond with something about appropriately designed technologies. I was pleasantly surprised to hear each of them respond with the need to design not only the products, but the systems around them."

Monday, October 13, 2008

D4D- FINAL Deliverables

Tuesday, October 21st = final presentation for the Design for Development exercises. 

Each student will have 20-30 minutes for their critique including a 10-15 minute Power Point presentation and 10-15 minutes of feedback. 

In your Power Point Presentation, it is suggested you  include the following information, not in this particular order: 
-Brief introduction to your chosen country and region
-Who your target market is (story board)
-What specific design opportunity you are targeting- clearly stating your "Problem Statement."
- Research and references to back up the context of your project.  
-Mission Statement
-Your Process:
Inspirational Art Piece (if applicable)
Theme board (if applicable)
Mind Map (if applicable)
Design Sketches/Prototypes/Sketch Models
-Final Design 
If it's a product- how does it fit into a larger system and map this out with a system overview.
If it's a system- represent the entirety while also focusing in on a particular component with more refined detail. 
-What the project might look like in the future, who are your potential partners and etc. 
--

You determine the order of these deliverable. The important thing is to tell the story of your project, and include only relevant information that conveys your point- from the larger system to the micro scale, lead us through your thinking, your research to backup your claims, and your final conclusions. 

You region- what the problem is- how you plan to address the problem - and what your proposed solution is. 

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Design with a Mission

Due Tuesday October 14th

1. Clearly define and write the problem statement of your design project. (2-4 sentences)

2. Clearly define and write the mission statement of your design project. (2-4 sentences)

3. Research and ask questions! 

Try to find an equivocal circumstance of your problem statement here in RI and talk to people associated with this issue. For example, if you are doing a medical device-go to the hospital, if you are looking at individuals with HIV- go talk to a nonprofit who works with HIV + patients, if you are looking at education- go talk to teachers. Document your research in a way that is helpful for you and enables you to share your findings. (Think video, photographs, recorder, notes, sketches)

4. Continue sketching your project ideas, iterate, and refine.

5. Post all assignments onto your blog. 

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

D4D-Sketches

Due Thursday October 9th.

After you have chosen your specific design opportunity, bring in sketches of product/service iterations to share with the class on Thursday morning. It's important at this phase to iterate rapidly. You do not yet need refined sketches, but rather a variety of concepts which you will then tailor down.  Feel free to make some sketch models as well if this helps you with your process. 

Come prepared to ask questions to our guest speakers in the afternoon: Timothy Prestoro and Emily Pilloton. The more you get done, the better questions you can ask, and the more you will get out of the experience. All are welcome to join us in the gallery for the presentations. 

Have fun!

Friday, October 3, 2008

Upcoming Events


If anyone is interested in going to any of these, let's try to coordinate!

*Oct 23-26th
Bioneers by the Bay
Keynotes: Majora Carter, Van Jones, Simran Sethi
New Bedford, MA
Registration
$225 for 3 days
$175- two days
$100- one day

Oct 28th 6-8:30pm
Boston, MA
Activating Sustainability: Is Corporate Greening for Real and Can it Stop Global Warming? A Trans-Atlantic Dialogue
Cost: Free to students but RSVP to lc@bc.edu.

October 29th
New York
Sustainable Business Success
Cost: $995

November 7-9th
Brown/RISD

November 8th
Boston
Cost: $10

*November 13-15th
Philadelphia
Net Impact- The Sustainable Advantage : Creating Social and Environmental Value
Cost:
Students: $350
Professionals: $440

*These conferences look especially interesting and are relatively affordable compared to other conferences.


Links to Event Resources:
Net Impact
CSRWire

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Watch the Debates!


Extra credit to anyone that blogs about the Biden v Palin debate tonight!

D4D Deliverables- 1

Due Tuesday Oct 7: 
 
Regional Art Piece Inspiration
Arts and crafts are a window into a culture and community. It is important that your design be as culturally appropriate as possible. Research arts and crafts from your region and choose one piece in particular that will serve as your aesthetic inspiration for your product and/or service to start developing a design language. Post your art object on your blog.

Mind map

This mind map is a tool for you to think about and brainstorm the system of your design opportunity. Much of the larger context has already been discussed in your UN MDG system mapping, however, this is your chance to become more specific with the issue you have chosen.

On a large piece of paper or with stickies, map out the product and/or service at different scales. For example if it is one baby bottle, brainstorm- how will this bottle be distributed to a community, where would it potentially be manufactured, what does the end of the product's life cycle look like, how is it transported, how could it affect a family, a community, a country, and etc? This type of brainstorming is the foundation of systems design and is essential in order to holistically implement any design idea.  Photograph or scan your mind map and post it to your blog.

While brainstorming, you can start thinking about your design solutions! You will share your design concepts in the following assignment. 

Theme board 
How do you want the product and or/service to "feel"? Create a 8.5" x 14" Portrait page size layout that conveys the emotional side of your product and/or service. This can be drawn, collaged, photoshopped, illustrated or a combination there of. Post your theme board to your blog.

Design Exercise!

Design for Development

Due Date: October 21

Objective:

It's time to take all that research we've been doing and start designing a product and/or service!

Now that we understand that to touch one UN Millennium Development Goal, we must consider all, choose a specific design opportunity you found during the Systems Mapping project, a region within your studied country and a target market and develop a systemic approach to address the opportunity through a product and/or service.

Keep in mind how your product and/or service could be made as affordable as possible and potentially marketed to a high end user for subsidizing costs.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Solving Overlooked Problems

Some words of wisdom from Paul Graham found here.

Find (a) simple solutions (b) to overlooked problems (c) that actually need to be solved, and (d) deliver them as informally as possible, (e) starting with a very crude version 1, then (f) iterating rapidly.