#designforsocialimpact ethics socialandurbangovernance pariscollegeofart mastersthesis questioneverything whatsportcando

[designforsocialimpact]

19 - “Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new.” Og Mandino

So I’ve become accustomed to posting in this blog in a way that is more “tell you everything we’re doing” than examining a specific area that we’re exploring as a group. I’ve changed that up a bit this week.

Let me explain. Our courses are challenging us quite a bit more this semester with the “who are you as designers for social impact?” and “what are your roles and responsibilities?” questions. It may come as no shock that rather than arriving at definitive answers, these questions lead to more questions for us on a personal and a group level: What do we value? What does design mean for us? Social impact? How do we see ourselves designing for a better world? What does this world look like? Who specifically are we designing for? What are we contributing? How do we make sure that what we’re contributing (and how we are contributing it) are responsible and ethical? How do we encourage others in our discipline to do the same? How do we measure impact? And how do we do all of this in the context of a world that is changing so rapidly with social, economic and governmental systems as we know them being fundamentally challenged and changed?

Snowy weather and brisk runs help with the posing of questions

These are only a few of the questions we’re considering, and each of us has a different focus. As we progress further in the semester, you’ll witness through this blog a lot of our daily work and efforts that help us to formulate our responses to some of these questions, and, to be sure, there will be a lot of other questions that come to fruition in the process.

In the meantime, I will share a bit about our endeavors through the week (were you worried I wouldn’t? Never fear, the play-by-play is still here).

I see the week starting on Sundays, so I’ll begin there. The day entailed working on the thesis first draft (yesterday was the first official week of my thesis sport integration project. We started with a trial week to try and recruit players to commit for all six weeks. We were gung-ho, until we realized that our assumptions about the pre-registration process were, well, not accurate. But this is what prototyping is for! We learned that people who register might not necessarily come, and that people who do not register WILL come. This is helpful for us as we iterate the program each week. It meant some serious struggles and questions for me in terms of evaluations, as I based my evaluations plan on a consistent group of people coming - but fortunately I have some awesome mentors who have helped steer me anew. I’m strong in my faith that this will be as God wills it, and it will work out for good). 

Here is a pic of week one of the program - this week we had to cancel because of an event at the church, an inability to play outside because of the snow, and a hard situation for one of our leaders preparing for his refugee status interview. Praying HARD that this inspiring human is rightfully granted the status to continue his noble work in France. 

The rest of the day contained church service, reading for school, and preparing a presentation for Social and Urban Governance demain.

Monday, a LOOOOOONG haul of early social and urban governance on community mobilisation, which raised tons of questions about the ethics of activism for me. How far is too far in challenging the powers that be and bringing power to the powerless? Saul Alinsky, in rules for radicals, makes an argument that ridicule is a most powerful weapon - but is it ethical? Super stimulating subject area - I’m loving our readings and linking them with the readings we have for Designer’s Social and Ethical Responsibilities.

We followed this with Research & Methodologies, which was a peer-editing workshop, for the most part. Lillian took the time to connect with each of us and give wise advice. I really appreciate her as a professor. She is encouraging, insightful and dedicated. Not to mention wonderful at keeping those of us who may be a bit neurotic (ahem, moi) grounded.

Tuesday is group KILLING IT day as we forecasted the future for the Sprout Methodology that we are lucky enough to work through with Maurizio & Laureano. I would share more details about the process, because it’s a practice that I find really useful for any professional domain, but because our professorial duo is waiting to publish, I’ll refrain (I’m encouraging those interested in developing for the future to keep an eye out for the methodology when it’s published). We finished the day discussing our social and ethical responsibilities assignment and I spent an absurd amount of time deciding on an example of “bad” design from an ethical and social responsibility lens and examining different ethical theories. I was really convicted by some of the current trends we’ve been discussing in design studio with AI, as well as an ethics reading about the mental manipulation that mega corps like Google and Facebook design their technologies for. I went to bed with more questions about a solid “bad design” than I did answers.

Wednesday AM is a MakeSense morning, where we meet with Sabine (and Layla, my thesis mentor) and discuss our projects individually. This was crazy-helpful for me in re-evaluating WHAT I’m evaluating with my thesis project. Was it easy to go through? No, but so important for me to reassess with the advisement of these women who are well-versed in the social business sector.

I spent quite a bit of time devoted to my hefty pile of french assignments (yes, a lot, but so good for me! And the professor, Emma, is INCROYABLE - I feel myself learning a lot, even if it’s hard to keep up with! The wonderful thing is that Emma is one of the most attentive teachers I’ve encountered in terms of a) practicality and b) adaptation to the level of each of her students. She also GENUINELY cares and wants each of us to excel. She doesn’t play favorites or make anyone feel incompetent - it’s a joy to delve into this beautiful language with this strong woman guiding us!

Then I spent the evening trying to figure out our ethics assignment. It was incredibly challenging; I was reminded from my undergrad days in philosophy just how mentally demanding the field is - especially when it comes to ethical arguments on something like Facebook (which was the “bad” design I chose to focus on).

Thursday and Friday, as I’m sure you know by now, are long ones for us. We “sprouted” with Maurizio and Laureano in Design Studio, learned about the professional practice of art buying and consulting from Matilde Biondi Morra di Belforte. 

Then Friday AM rolled in (me for French) with cozy socks for a fully-loaded friday, and settled in for a SUPER discussion about Tactical Urbanism (Holla at our girl Smarti for a bomb presentation) and even toyed with questions of ethics when it comes to designing with vs. for communities. Which was a nice segue into ethics presentations, where each of us chose a “bad” design to present on.

Rica and I didn’t have time to present, but Smarti delved into the good and the bad about the “sweater of the future” made of recycled plastic fibers, Emilie Logan talked to us about the ethics of the swank LA-based fashion brand Revolution, Vaila filled us in on the good intentions but bad consequences of a water pump playground in Africa, and Hanna brought us into a critical space regarding a project called salivation, meant to make a statement about food rationing and the future. It was reassuring to know that I was not the only one in the group that really struggled with the assignment in terms of trying to apply these ethical theories to our bad designs. 

“Can something really be designed well if it does not consider the ethical impacts that it may impoe on our planet and people?” This is the big question for us moving forward. 

More to come on this next week as Rica and I present. Until then, we’ll be reading and thinking critically about our design projects for this class (if you have ideas for us, please don’t hold them back!)

Us asking Thomas Watkin, our Social and Urban Governance prof, to pose for us for the blog. He was a good sport and laughed with us as we did the least-candid “candid” shot ever. 

Have any thoughts on the questions from part one of the post? Or any questions of your own? Please let us know! One thing I feel certain of: as designers for social impact, we cannot work alone - we can contribute better when we collaborate with each other.

Thanks for joining with us in exploring a better future. We believe that more smiles are in store.