Jocelyn,

Timely discussion for us here in India. We are introducing Universal Design and Emotional Design thinking simultaneously in the disability community and the tourism industry. Heritage site design for social sustainability is emerging as the current challenge that has captured local imagination.

We just returned from spending the afternoon with Tourism Secretary Bannerjee and the evening with Javed Abidi Director of National Center for the Promotion of the Employment for Disabled People.

Tomorrow the leadership of the India chapter of the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA India) meets with Mr Bannerjee who has called in the Archaeological Survey of India to address design issues raised after I led students from the new Design for Aging program of the India Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT) on a site tour of Taj Mahal in our wheelchairs.

ASTA India is interested in doing follow-up trainings. Maybe there are participants in this discussion who are in India who want to be part of these trainings from design perspective

Thanks for your comments. It sounds like you're doing really interesting work in India. I visited Symbiosis Institute of Design in Pune, India (http://www.symbiosisdesign.ac.in/) and saw that their students are doing a number of product design projects for people with disabilities. It might be worth reaching out to them to suggest collaboration.

Another program you might be interested in connecting with is the Lemelson Center at Hampshire College http://www.hampshire.edu/lemelson/ which is also doing design work for people with disabilities.

Hi Scott,

I am a designer based in India and have specialized in "Design for Community & Self", and am interested in plugging into projects that use design thinking as a problem solving tool. I'd love to know more about this project, or any future projects in the social realm. Also, this link is being discussed on one of the forums I belong to. Thought it might help. www.Free2Wheel.co.in

Cheers!

I was so excited to get my socialedge email today and to see this as the lead topic. Design thinking, particularly as it applies to service innovation, has such a huge role to play in the development of the nonprofit sector on both a domestic and international level. These are tools which can be taught and shared to increase the understanding of a constituent's needs in relation to the service they are receiving. This in turn will increase program efficacy and engagement of the constituent overall.

But the interesting thing that I have found in social enterprise is that we tend to focus on the individual and the idea rather than building a system that would promote intentional innovation across the nonprofit sector. For instance, where do program coordinators and managers learn how to design and develop programs? There are few resources online that adequately cover the subject and if they do, human-centered service design is prominently featured. We work hard to manage the metrics of the program process through evaluation, but could use a lot more focus on the front end to ensure quality and applicability and to diminish post-launch reiteration.

Ryan Jacoby and Diego Rodriguez from IDEO wrote a really great piece on innovation called Innovation, Growth and Getting to Where You Want to Go. In it, they not that "we believe that anyone pursuing innovation, given the right training and mindset, can think of himself or herself as a designer." So I think one of biggest design challenges facing the nonprofit world today is how to share with the social sector the tools and methods of human-centered design, to embed that practice in their organizations and to think of innovation as an intentional process in partnership with the communities they serve.

Ok, I'll quit geeking out now.

I meant human-centered service design is not prominently featured.

I agree that design thinking can me a really powerful and effective methodology that can be used by non-profit leaders to design programs, services, or experiences. In fact, Acumen Fund has incorporated design thinking into the fellows training program and features it as a centerpiece to the leadership training.

We recently did some work with Gates Foundation and IDE to create a Human Centered Design Toolkit for non-profits. This toolkit was designed primarily for social enterprises working with smallholder farmers. However, the process and tools could apply to a wide variety of social enterprises and non-profits. https://client.ideo.com/hcdtoolkit/

This is a great topic, and I love IDEO’s approach to designing not only products but increasingly customer experiences.

While Apple or Nokia would probably struggle to over-invest in design, I believe it’s possible to do so when looking at "appropriate technologies" for the poorest of the poor. Whether you’re dealing with irrigation pumps or cookstoves, I would argue that business models and value chains can trump design.

In the past, I’ve been involved in heated disputes over the best treadle pump design, and they started to ring hollow very quickly. If one pump has an output of a liter per second and costs $100 (hypothetically speaking) and another has double the output for half the price, surely the second is a better product. But even the second-best option would dramatically increase smallholder productivity if it were produced in large numbers and marketed effectively.

Perhaps when I hear “design” I think “starting from scratch.” The principles Joceyln lays out could also be applied to localization or adaptation of existing designs to better fit local needs.

The other point I would add is the value of working with local designers/inventors/technicians. Spending a night in the village is great, but even spending months or years à la Peace Corps may not give you sufficient mastery of the local context.

I edited an article several years ago about Carl Bielenberg, an unsung hero of appropriate technology, that may be of interest: http://www.enewsbuilder.net/whatworks/e_article000193305.cfm

Jocelyn, and everyone else, keep up the good work!

Thanks for your builds, Luke. I completely agree that taking existing technologies and designing them so they can be appropriate for local contexts and affordable can be a great way to go. As you mention, this has been especially true with irrigation (drip irrigation, sprinklers, water storage tanks, etc.). Paul Polak, IDE, and now DRev have done this really well and we continue to learn alot from the.

I also can't underestimate the importance of working with local partners. I do think designers can bring a refreshing "fresh eyes" outsider perspective and can come up with innovative approaches by doing that. However, it's important not to have "bug eyes" and really critical to get cultural guidance from locals. When we do research in the developing world, we work with local NGOs to get introductions to communities and work alongside the local organization so they can interpret what's being said (culturally and linguistically) and give us feedback on the prototypes.

Hello,

I think design thinking is extremely important for us social entrepreneurs, especially for one like me who's in a third world country (the Philippines) where

(1) it's more challenging to break out of the norm of traditional nonprofit projects and

(2) the social inequality is so big that it's a feat to be able to create something that's relevant and understandable for both potential givers and beneficiaries.

We specifically need help in

(1) creating a window for potential angels to fund our projects where the idea of social entrepreneurship and hybrid companies are explained,

(2) introducing the concept of social entrepreneurship to existing nonprofit orgs that have fallen into the trap of over-dependency, and

(3) transforming successful ventures into replicable models.

Thanks for the opportunity to share. Hope this helped!

That's interesting. Perhaps we could use design thinking to communicate more creatively about the benefits of social entrepreneurship, social enterprises, and social investing. Good Capital's Social Capital Markets conference will be a great venue for these conversations http://socialcapitalmarkets.net/index.php. And Skoll Foundation's documentaries and New Heroes series have also been really valuable to the field.

I was thrilled to read the article about Design Thinking and see Edison's light bulb/Industry mentioned. Here's a link to a blog article I wrote in 2006 to illustrate how I was applying this same thinking to design a support infrastructure to help volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs reach impoverished kids throughout inner city Chicago and other big cities. http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2006/01/making-vision-of-dr-king-reality.html

Design thinking is critical to this process because it helps you visualize all of the components of a blueprint needed to build a house or a building. If applied to a social change activity, such as raising a child from first grade to first child, using this type of thinking can help people see the different resources that need to be available at different stages of a child's growth. My hope is that using such tools can lead to more people working together for a common goal, as well as more resource providers becoming more consistent and strategic in the way the provide funding for such collaborations.

I've been reaching out to people with design backgrounds, at universities, in businesses and via the Internet to find others who are creating their own blueprints of this mentoring to career, or pipeline to career, so that we can learn from each other, and work together to attract investors.

In this section of my web site you can find links to other sites that illustrate ideas of design and visualization. http://www.tutormentorconnection.org/LinksLearningNetwork/LinksLibrary/tabid/560/rrcid/13/rrscid/25/rrpid/1/rrepp/20/Default.aspx

It's great to hear from people who have been thinking and working so much in this space. Kellogg Foundation is doing alot of thinking about design and innovation in education. You may also be interested in checking out Design for Learning at IDEO http://www.ideo.com/thinking/focus/design-for-learning/

I am glad that you emphasize empathy as one of the core components of the design process. I'm starting a social enterprise venture called "WALLED" and we're planning to work with out of school youths in the philippines in making marketable contemporary wall arts. I admit that sometimes I get too excited about my own concepts that I tend to be insensitive about the realities of our primary stakeholders. While great ideas have their value, things would not work if the rest of the players do not see them in the same light.

thanks

That's a great point, Vincent. Understanding the wants and needs of your customers or stakeholders is really critical and the more time you can spend understanding their lives, the better you'll be able to design programs that really support them. Shadowing people in their everyday lives, asking them to document their lives with digital cameras or video cameras, and spending some time living in their communities are all good ways to connect with people on a deeper level and really understand not only what they say and do but also what they think and feel.

I am an anthropologist and curious to know, whether IDEO and similar initatives are in contact with the growing number of corporate anthropologists/ethnographers, who are using exactly the same kind of methodology – short-time fieldwork, empathy, story-telling - to „get to know their customers“, either to localize existing products or come up with completely new ideas. Many of them are doing great work by using the ethnographic perspective. They are dis-aggregating the often stereotypical notions found in ethnic marketing, which presuppose the exsistance of huge cultural groups – „Black Americans“, „Indians“ - and which result in pidgeon-wholing, rather than understanding.

Since 2005 corporate ethnographers gather for an annual conference, called EPIC (Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference). Here is the next one, to take place in Copenhagen: http://www.epic2008.com/

Here are some examples: - „Nokia’s Design Research for Everybody,” Business Week, 14 March 2007. http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/mar2007/id20070314_689707.htm - Stokes Jones, “From Ancestors to Herbs: innovation according to the ‘protestant re-formulation’ of African Medicine”, Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings 2006(1):177-197, (this is an illuminating piece of ethnographic research for Procter&Gamble, which unfortunately doesn’t seem to be online anymore)

As a co-founder of www.betterplace.org, a Berlin-based plattform for online donations, I have also been involved in a design project for the bop-market. „The other“ WTO (world toilet organization) posted a project on betterplace, looking for designers to come up with stylish toilet designs. http://www.betterplace.org/projects/236

Since the project started, I have been amazed at how many people in the German design world are eager to contribute to a project with a social goal. 2 well-known German designers, Axel Kufus and Werner Aisslinger, signed up as volunteers and are working with their students on appropriate sanitation design. Guided by Jack Sim, founder of the WTO they are starting to collaborate with two local NGOs in India and Bangladesh. The German development agency GTZ has also supplied the team with expertise and we are currently trying to enlist the support of Wall AG, a major German „city furnisher“ who combines public santiation with advertising and is interested to gain know how about new local markets. The potential synergies of projects like this are really exciting!

IDEO's work is very similar to the corporate ethnography work that you describe. The difference may be that the team that does the ethnographic work at IDEO is also the team that does the design work for our clients (many of whom are companies like the ones you mention above). Rather than handing over the ethnographic work to designers in a different department, our design teams are multidisciplinary and frequently include an anthropologist, an industrial designer, and a product designer, and an MBA (or some such mix).

Competitions like the one you mention are a great way to solicit designs from interested parties. Design21 and Innocentive have done some great work around this as well. The important piece is the support of the implementation, which it sounds like the WTO project is receiving. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and examples.

These are good suggestions. Do you know of any forums, such as ning.com where corporate ethnographers and designers might be interacting and where social benefit organizations might connect?

I've been visiting a forums called Boxes and Arrows, http://www.boxesandarrows.com/, which has a focus on design and visualization and which allows people to join and network. I'd like to know of others with the goal of encouraging people in these groups to share their talent with non profit organizations.

In the US the business community is beginning to see the potential of encouraging employees with talent to volunteer and do pro bono work in the infrastructure area of non profits, rather than just the hands on work. There are lots of people who could have a significant impact if we can connect them to our various causes.

Hey Daniel, I just got back from the Social Innovation Exchange conference in San Sebastian, Spain where individuals from all over Europe (and some S. America) came together to talk about building networks to exchange ideas around social innovation. Tools and methods like design thinking were discussed there, as was building a bank of innovative ideas and strategies. You can check out SIX here: http://socialinnovationexchange.com/

IDEO just did some very interesting work with Rockefeller on creating a guidebook & workbook to help design firms work more effectively with social sector organizations: https://client.ideo.com/socialimpact/

Of course, Taproot does linking of skilled corporate volunteers with npos. Maybe this is an area they could explore?

Fran

Those are great suggestions. You can also check out Design 21: Social Design Network http://www.design21sdn.com/ and Innocentive http://www.innocentive.com/.

A few other interesting sites and discussion forums: http://www.core77.com/ http://www.poptech.org/ http://www.kluster.com/

Thanks Fran,

I'm familiar with Taproot and others who are taking an intermediary role to connect volunteers with non profits in clearly defined projects. I think that has a place, but not in innovation areas where the vision is not as clearly defined.

I've been able to do what I've done because I've been able to draw volunteers into the brainstorming, and keep some involved with me for many years. I think now portals like this, and others we've mentioned in this discussion, have the potential to do relationship building which can lead to some volunteers offering their help directly to people who they think are doing interesting work.

If we share what we're learning in the same forums, we can provide inspiration and ideas that others can adopt or duplicate in other locations. This is critically important since the same problems persist in many places, and the same solutions might be applied in many places, if their are organizations in those places who have the manpower and talent needed to do this.

Like many in this field I wear many hats, from an admin role, to a fund raising and grant writing role, to research, management and program delivery. It leaves too little time to follow up on all of the leads and opportunities that are available.

Those are great thoughts, Daniel. Have you had a chance to explore the Open Architecture Network http://www.openarchitecturenetwork.org/? I think they've done a great job providing a forum and a platform for people to share sustainable designs. They've also really built a community of designers and others to support and do the work.

Hi Jocelyn, excellent topic, thanks for posting this for discussion. some food for thoughts on the 3 questions asked: question 1> in many ways, but to make it simple - combine imagination, feelingisation, simplification and desirability with the social entrepeneur innovative, energetic and unreasable thinking which is rooted in the entrepeneur's can do attitude - create tangibles for their ideas - as a communication platform, design is a great tool to facilitate diverse languages (from the entrepeneur, to technical partners, to business and users)

question 2> biggest challenges - first is how to be understood...there is a serious language gap between what Design is and what the general public and some professions think it is. we should address this challenge and maybe create a new set of names to label what we are about and what we want to be - as an activity of many activities, i think one of the biggest challenges is about sustainability. Design was used to promote the world of consumption, and most problems we face now - from environemnt to economics and social - are rooted in design decisions. we can solve them through good design thinking, which means new thinking and the shift from ROI to COI (consequences on investment) - the new culture: I feel (and think) our world is moving from an economy of products, plenty and profit - which the metrics of success is MORE, to the world of people, planet and profit, in which the success metrics is BETTER. the challenge for design is how to create credible metrics and promote them, together with the business and political drivers of our economy.

question 3> fascinating question! - from my experience, social entreprises do use design thinking, from their own nature (they are solving a problem, improving a service, creating opportunities for excluded users, as well as vision-driven, empathic and highly creative...that is a lot of design thinking and innovative process already!) - part of the barriers for design/ers to get involved is the image of design (percieved as either expensive or a tool for pretification of useless products), therefore we should work seriously on establishing the right image for design in this market - generousity: i feel today's best brands and business success is rooted in a formula of shareability, i.e. give and share as much as possible what we have, where the returns are generated by the value created to a significant community, and not direct pay. Design and designers may need new models of working, such as being more generous and able to share their ideas and knowledge. - evidence: a lot is being said and claimed, but not that much care is put on building evidence of what design is doing in our world. Quoting Bruce Mao: For most of us, design is invisible. Until it fails. we may need to make it more visible when it doesn't fail!

I will continue to follow this thrilling debate, and would be great to share experiences. Maybe we could make some group case studies, to raise our awareness, or unlock new thinking!

Cheers! Maria Ana

I feel this is a fantastic idea: "i feel today's best brands and business success is rooted in a formula of shareability, i.e. give and share as much as possible what we have, where the returns are generated by the value created to a significant community, and not direct pay" and one that many businesses may be trying to figure out.

There have been so many links posted in these articles, that I've created a link from my own web site to this discussion, and I've create hot links to most of the links you've pointed out. You can see this at http://tinyurl.com/6egtz3

I visited each of these sites, but did not go much past the first page. Why? Not enough time. This is just one piece of the knowledge puzzle that any innovator needs to understand in order to operate an organization that implements these ideas. Most of us don't have the time to spend reading and involving ourselves in understanding and applying these ideas.

The way I expand my own time and talent is to try to recruit intermediary people/volunteers who will be the bridge between me and different knowledge sectors. Think of me as the hub of a wheel, and volunteers as spokes reaching to different knowledge sectors, or different industries and networks.

I'll browse through these sites over the next few weeks and introduce myself where it's appropriate, with a goal that some of my ideas might be useful to others, and some of the people in these forums might want to apply their own talent to helping me with tutoring/mentoring.

How do the rest of you find the time, and the talent to research, read, understand then integrate these ideas into your actions? Or are you in the theoretical or consulting world where others are the actual users of these ideas? I'm in both worlds. Maybe you are too.

Hi again! I feel the same as you...or even more lost with so much information.

so far I have built an excell file, each worksheet has a topic, and I list sites/blogs/forums, topic, date visited and what's interesting in it.

though this helps me to keep track of where/who/what is being discussed, it is a very limited method.

your network of volunteers (blog scouts?) seems to be a fantastic and simple idea!

the challenge: use of time and how to turn bits of knowledge and ideas into doable information.

part of it is answered by the open source model: we just need to have a common goal or problem to solve.

another part, maybe a technology challenge. imagine ideas are like metal bubbles, and a special software works as a magnet, attracting/clustering isolated metal bubbles (the ideas) which will reorganise themselves, so we use less time and can see the bigger picture!

the thrid part: we should use less words/text!

Hi Maria Ana, Thanks for your thoughtful comments on the questions. I'm interested in the idea of rebranding design so it does seem more appropriate for solving the world's biggest problems. It seems like designers want design to mean more than product design and I think it's larger meaning is becoming better know. But I do think it's interesting to think about how we can push that switch to happen.

Hi Jocelyn! YES, Design is far more than product design, when I was trained to be a designer, design was about solving problems, conceive answers to needs.

I am very pleased you are interested in this issue! so, let's be practical:

1- for this to happen, someone needs to lead it. Do you know who could do it the best? I am aware of the Ideo work, as well as Bruce Mao and Roger Martin and Kees Dorst, and John Thackara. BUT these seem to be isolated/individual strategies. Who would be the best positioned entity to do it? (in a global/strategic way)

2- a vision/shared aim/and a strategy: I suppose we are talking about repositioning Design, which would mean revisit core concepts and language. Do you know of another school of thinking/profession that went through a similar challenge? we (Design) are full of different agendas!

you said: 'But I do think it's interesting to think about how we can push that switch to happen.' - do you have ideas? - does anyone here has been thinking about this?

looking forward to all comments! all the best Maria Ana

Hi Maria Ana, I think the switch is going to be hit when there's a cross-pollination of thinking that is no longer anesthetized by unconsciousness, or purely motivated by self interest.

Hi Jo! that's a very interesting perspective. there are a few places/projects/businesses demonstrating that, so we are inside the change already, which is great!

what are your views about the when there is a cross-pollination of thinking and no longer anesthetized by unconsciousness? do we wait and it happens, or are you aware of large scalle programmes making this change?

so do you think we don't need to develop re-brand design in order to clarify or open new doors for it's new positioning beyond products and spaces?

and how do you see the role of design in a sharebility economy?

(ps: what do you do? and where are you based?)

I came out a couple of weeks ago in another conversation here, but really I'm just a thinker on an antipodean island with my eye on the world. The cross-pollination idea is a metaphor for being awake and aware and as you say people already are, so change is in the air.

Thanks, Jocelyn for hosting this forum.

For those interested in storytelling, Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath can be a very helpful book on how to design your idea to make it "sticky" and easy to transmit. They also have a blog and a column in Fast Company magazine with examples.

I have pasted below socme excerpts from a recent post from my blog (www.bopreneur.blogspot.com) that I hope is useful for those working in this area (the original post contains links to many of these resources):

"Sustainable design, social entrepreneurship, and and international development are hot topics on campus. If you are a teacher planning coursework in these areas (or at their "intersection"), or if you are a student that wants to do a project in one of your classes, check out these resources:

1) Get the juices flowing. The Cooper Hewitt Museum had an exhibit "Design for the Other 90%" last year. Gives some nice examples of some of the designs in this show. There are also teacher lesson plans for K-12 on this site.

2) A few ideas to get started. Paul Polak founded International Development Enterprises and helped organize the Cooper Hewitt exhibit. He recently wrote an excellent book called "Out of Poverty" which discusses design approaches for the poor (particularly the rural farmers). On his website, he has posted some products that he thinks will have large markets. See his wishlist here.

3) Who is the customer? The Economic Lives of the Poor by Banerjee & Duflo (2006 MIT Poverty Action Lab) provides some background on how much money the poor have and how they spend it. It will break down some assumptions/ stereotypes and can be a great tool for class discussions.

4) Is there a need? The Next 4 Billion (2007) by World Resources Institute can help. The introductory chapter gives a good overview, and then the other chapters focus on the needs in specific areas (water, energy, health, etc.) Appendices contain country-by-country info. This can be a way to dig deeper into specific needs. Move from general "the world needs clean water" to "in BOPistan, they need a pump to access groundwater at 10 meters, and a filter system to eliminated dissolved solids."

5) Who else is working on this? Google away. Identify organizations working on related projects or in the region. Have students find out "what is working and what isn't" and profile the organizations.

6) What approach will work? Consider setting up student debate teams to get them thinking critically about these challenges. For international development, try Easterly vs. Sachs, or for climate change try Gore vs. Lomborg. Neither of these debates will happen in real life, so it is useful to have students roleplay and apply these perspectives to their projects.

7) Do no harm. While projects may be motivated by good intentions, unfortunately they don't always end well. "Parachutista" projects of quick, one-time visits may help students learn, but they contribute little or nothing to the community. To sensitize team members, read over the BOP Protocol and check out Tori Hogan's blog and documentary "Beyond Good Intentions." In addition, if the project involves designing a new product, please consider Cradle to Cradle and biomimicry principles. Challenge the team to create as much value with as little waste as possible.

Thanks Paul. Your blog has lots of good ideas that I've been trying to encourage via high school service learning and college internships and fellow ships. The links go to many other important resources.

Your suggestion of "identify organizations working on related projects" is the core of what the Tutor/Mentor Connection has been doing since 1993 and what I've been doing since 1976. The links in the http://www.tutormentorconnection.org library represent a network of organizations that I learn from, and that others can learn from, too, since they are on a web site and open to anyone.

The suggestion of student debate teams, of getting people to think critically about the challenges, is also one that I think about a lot. I model my work after organized religion. Each faith has one central source of knowledge, and has groups of people meeting regularly to read, reflect, discuss, debate parts of this knowledge every day, week and month. As people put the knowledge to work, they come back to each session with more practical experience they can add to the reflection.

If one group of people organizes knowledge hubs, for instance like the Boston Innovation Hub at http://www.tbf.org/indicatorsproject/hubofinnovation/innovation.asp, many other groups can lead discussions as you've suggested. If these are connected via the internet, the knowledge shared in one place can have impact in many other places.

If someone mines this knowledge and each year gives recognition to "progress toward goals", such recognition could stimulate constant innovation and improvement across all groups.

The most logical group of people to be mining this knowledge are students in high school, college or graduate school.

These are great resources, Paul. Another thing I recommend are TED talks http://www.ted.com/. These 20 minute video lectures cover a variety of topics, many related to design and social enterprise.

Hi Jocelyn, balance, proportion, value and unity are all used in a variety of disciplines and in a variety of ways. But by pulling together wider awareness and interdisciplinary involvement, design thinking really can create a better world. Not only through empathy and storytelling to pull people together, but by the new kind of prototype of shareability. The challenge is to take what Paul Polak calls "revolution in thinking" and what Maria talks about with " new thinking" " new culture" and "new metrics" to create a new way of seeing through design thinking, so that everyone can help solve the world's problems.

I couldn't agree more. The interdisciplinary approach is critical. At IDEO, we do this by having people from a variety of background work together on project teams. I think social enterprises could intentionally hire people from a variety of disciplines as well and find that the diversity adds tremendous value.

Thanks! Jocelyn for hosting this forum.

At the moment I am trying to set up the Social Enterprise Guild, which aims to serve SW PA, by providing tools for discovery of local living economy business opportunities. I am thinking of it very much as user oriented design as I need to reach a very diverse group of people and culture plays an important role.

It is very challenging as I am trying to establish a guild that creates both economic and social benefits. From a design perspective I am dealing with a lot of issues, governance, corporate structure choices, learning opportunities design, investment capital, zoning and occupancy permits, marketing, etc.

So it is good to hear of other people concerned with how they design a venture. The most difficult part I have found is how to get design hooked-up to reality. I can see how it fits and why it will work. However, creating the community will and vision! Well that is like to talking to people from the show me state!

The problem with new ideas and design is that people want to see them work before they try them, hence the entrepreneurial delima.

That's a really tough challenge and one that we face with our clients pretty frequently. I've found that explaining the benefits of prototyping is really helpful and actually prototyping and trying out new services or offerings with skits or role plays can be a good way for your clients to get into the activity and try and build at the same time.

Jocelyn, prototyping as you suggest is a good approach. I also like Edward De Bono's creativity exercises to figure out the character of a prototype. In the community development sector we often talk about best practices and are encouraged to follow them. Unfortunately, it some times means that we do not do the necessary homework (empathy) to determine how a particular best practice will fit in the context we are working in.

I am not a strong proponent of best practices. In many ways it would be better if we learned how to design for our particular context's. How does the idea of best practices follow design? or does it?

That's an interesting point. I agree that we shouldn't hold ourselves too tightly to best practices, but should design for the contexts of the users. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't build on or learn from what's been done in the past, but that we should treat past experiments as prototypes and adapt them as needed rather than treat them as the holy grail. I agree with your intuition on this one.

This responds to Jocelyn's question:

"What are some of the biggest design challenges facing the world today?"

In my view, the biggest single design challenge that faces us, the human species as a whole, is the lack of a conceptual framework to represent the whole system of which all of us are a part. After all, we all share a common world, and now interpret it with a species-wide networked information subsystem.

A simple, clear model that integrates the vertical operation feedback loops that is every single living human, and the horizontal information feedback loops that flow within each of us and among all of us, changing the conceptual content in each brain, thus changing the local individual value and interpretive systems in each vertical operations feedback loop, might go a long way to showing each of us how absolutely interdependent we all are, and how dependent we are upon the rest of Nature.

Thanks for all the inspiring discussion in this conversation. It’s been great hearing about such a variety of organizations that are using design in inspiring ways. It’s clear that it’s time to capture the excitement about applying design to the social sector and continue meeting each other and discussing in the future. I hope to see some of you in person at the Social Capital Markets conference http://socialcapitalmarkets.net/index.php, where there will be a panel about design for the developing world. Thanks again for your participation.