Designing Change

A couple of months ago, I was asked to write an article for RISD Views, RISD's alumni publication, on the shifting role of design. It's waiting to be published, but figured I'd share the text portion here. 

There are many good definitions of “design,” which have been expanding, shifting, sifting and most of all changing rapidly, along with the rest of the world. But how is industrial design, in particular, changing, and what is happening both at RISD and within the design profession itself?

Read the Full Article Here!

Environmental Justice!

Today, I attended the EJ League of RI's first community meeting. The aim of the event was to get the community, people from all parts of Rhode Island, together to talk about our concerns within our environment. And our environment being where we: live, work, play, and pray. 

By the end of the discussion, we were able to walk away with 3 main topics to focus on:

1. Healthy Food
   
2. Healthy Homes 
   
3. Green Jobs

The 2nd one is of special interest to me, because I'll be working with high school students on a healthy homes project this summer with a pilot for a home re-decorating show for families shouldering environmental burdens. It was great to connect with some community members and talk about the idea and what role design can play in making healthy changes in our lives. ... but more on this project later! 

Fulbright Seminar

This Friday, I had the honor of sitting on a panel, From Vision to Action, discussing social entrepreneurship to a group of Fulbright students for their seminar here in Providence. 

I was accompanied by my buddy Alan Harlam, Director of Social Entrepreneurship at the Swearer Center who moderated the conversation along with: 

Clay Rockefeller- Founder, The Steelyard

Lorne Adraine- Founder, National Neighborhood Day, along with other successful corporate ventures.

It was great meeting and getting to know Clay and Lorne more over this time and getting to hang out with Alan, who is fantastic. The student audience asked some great questions primarily concerned about: 

• Time Management
  
• Ego- and how to keep it in check
  
• And deciding whether or not to do social entrepreneurship on the side or a full-time jig
  

All really important questions with no simple answers. We talked about following what you are passionate about and humbling yourself to work as a team collectively with the community you are working for. 

It was a very humbling experience to speak to a group of driven passionate students who are already doing amazing things in the world. 

Rockefeller Workshop

Photo Credits: Heath Fleming of Catapult Design

After an invitation last month from my friend Manuel Toscano, Principle of Zago Inc, this Monday I finally got to step into the beautiful Rockefeller building on 5th Avenue in New York to join Manuel and other design, business, and nonprofit thought leaders for a two-day workshop discussing business models to sustain design for social impact projects. 

Design for Social Impact and nonprofit partnerships have become an increasingly popular subject among designers with IDEO's work, and the workshop held by DContinuum in Bellagio, Italy last year. But the question lingers as to how to make this work financially sustainable?

This was the topic of discussion for the workshop.  

Attendees of the workshop included: 

Manuel Toscano- Principal, Zago LLc

Alexander Osterwalde- Ph.D in Business Models and workshop leader

Heather Fleming- CEO, Catapult Design

Deb Johnson- Director of Sustainability at Pratt & Design in Kind Founder

Danny Alexander- Method Designer, and soon to be BoPreneur in moving to Argentina

Bill Drenttal- Partner, Winterhouse Institute & Design Observer 

And myself!

This being the first stage in the process, we made a general matrix of design and nonprofit engagement strategies with variable spectrums looking at: 

• non-profits with and without funds
  
• non-profits who do and do not already believe in the power of design
  
• designers at the beginning of their career to the more experienced
  

All of these require a different model. With the sticky map created above, we hope to expand each note with a full on business model, written contracts for partnerships and case studies as proof of concept. 

Should be exciting and I'm sure you'll be hearing about it more in the near future!

DevEX Shout Out

I randomly came across this article, "INNOVATIVE DESIGNS, BETTER DEVELOPMENT" from DevEx, by David Lapeska  talking about my class! To quote: 

"Academia has begun to tap that market. Last year, Sami Nerenberg launched an immensely popular Design for Social Entrepreneurship course at the Rhode Island School of Design, where students are putting together fascinating developing world ideas. "

Woohoo!!

NCIIA Conference- Investing in Change

I just attended NCIIA's 13th Annual Meeting that seeks to "advance education, invest in change," with a focus on Social Entrepreneurship held in Washington  DC from March 19-21.

The conference was primarily tech and engineering centered, but I was proud to be there inserting little seeds, reminding people that designers are a part of this movement as well. I saw presentations on a couple of other great courses including Leslie Speer's course that she used to teach at CCA/UC Berkeley and now brings to San Jose State. 

I noticed the type of presentations primarily given. And when I say "type," I mean literally "type." Most of the presentations were head to toe covered in words. I asked myself, "Where's the story!? Where are the people!?" This is certainly something designers can bring to the table in focusing on people and telling the story. 

I met some fantastic people including Paul Hudnut whose helping to lead the Design Revolution 100 with Paul Polak, Leslie Speer, Jill Bamburg, co-founder and dean of Brainbridge Graduate Inst, James Barlow CEO of Scottish Institute for Enterprise, a couple of fellow young female social entrepreneurs from CSU and finally got to catch up in person with my buddy Francisco Noguera from WRI, and editor of Nextbillion.net! I felt these people really spoke my language and it was great to connect!

Fun fun! 

A Proud Moment

It was a proud moment to watch my students present their Pink Rides project at Providence's first ever Pecha Kucha. Nate Phipps, who I worked with last semester, is a charismatic and incredibly humorous presenter, and Maddie Mcgarri, who I am just getting to know is a fireball of energy, creativity, and flat out funniness. Thanks to Stephanie Gerson for putting on the event!