Design for Social Entrepreneurship: Spring 2010

DeSE 2010 Final Critique

2010-06-04T03:00:00.020-04:00

Videos and PDFs from the final critique are now online! Browse the presentation links below or scroll down to view.

Tuesday 5/25/2010 @ RISD Museum
Critics:
• Ben Beck - Eleven Design Inc.
• Nathan Cooke - MIT
• Niels Cosman - RISD

• Khipra Nichols - RISD
• Yi Zhang - One Earth Designs

Presentations:
• Annemarie Gugelmann - The Summer Challenge
• Ji Yae Park - Sibling Communication
• David Zacher - Bikes for All
• Esther An - Childrens' Space Redesigned
• Felipe Sarmiento - Geek Space
• Gazal Goenka - Job Creation for the Deaf
• Hyun Ju Lee - Wishing Well
• Jason Lee - Art Meets Justice
• Cassie Mauer - Women's Design Coalition

Wednesday 5/26/2010 @ RISD Museum
Critics:
• Charles Garcia - KVA MATx + Portable Light Project
• Shaun Morris - KVA MATx + Portable Light Project (former)
• Charlie Cannon - RISD
• Lili Hermann - RISD
• Andy Cutler - Cutler & Company
• Chai Lee - Harvard Business School

Presentations:
• Justin Desilva - Urban Umbrellas
• Kathleen O'Donnell - The Collective Mile
• Louis Rigano - Student Skill Exchange
• Lucy Stein - Better Patient Experience
• Maria Floreena Delgado - Arts for Youth
• Peter Simon - Food and Environment
• Saba Ahmed - Young Enterprising Artists
• Soomi Lee - Post-Abortion Teen Group

Final Crit: Annemarie Gugelmann

2010-06-04T02:00:00.000-04:00

Project Title: The Summer Challenge

Partner Organization: New Urban Arts

Overview: Design of a summer camp for students involved in New Urban Arts, a Providence-based afterschool program.

DeSE 2010 Final Crit - Annemarie Gugelmann [PDF]

Final Crit: Ji Yae Park

2010-06-04T01:59:00.000-04:00

Project Title: Sibling Communication

Partner Organization: West Side Arts

Overview: Fostering sibling communication of people with social impairment

DeSE 2010 Final Crit - Ji Yae Park [PDF]

Final Crit: David Zacher

2010-06-04T01:58:00.000-04:00

Project Title: Bikes for All

Partner Organization: Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council (WRWC)

Overview: Design of a financially-sustainable model for the Red Bike Shed, a community bicycle shop on the WRWC bike trail in the Providence environs.

DeSE 2010 Final Crit - David Zacher [PDF]

Final Crit: Esther An

2010-06-04T01:57:00.000-04:00

Project Title: Childrens' Space Redesigned

Partner Organization: Blackstone Valley Advocacy Center

Overview: Design of an enrichment program for children of women in domestic abuse shelters.

DeSE 2010 Final Crit - Esther An [PDF]

Final Crit: Felipe Sarmiento

2010-06-04T01:56:00.000-04:00

Project Title: Geek Space

Partner Organization: Free Geek Providence

Overview: A youth technology program aimed at installing public art back into the community

DeSE 2010 Final Crit - Felipe Sarmiento [PDF]

Final Crit: Gazal Goenka

2010-06-04T01:55:00.000-04:00

Project Title: Job Creation for the Deaf

Partner Organization: The Corliss Institute

Overview: Design of a financially-sustainable plan to create a farmer's market founded and operated by members of the local deaf community.

DeSE 2010 Final Crit - Gazal an [PDF]

Final Crit: Hyun Ju Lee

2010-06-04T01:54:00.000-04:00

Project Title: Wishing Well

Partner Organization: National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)

Overview: Design of a paper crafts store founded on the principle of "wishing well" to others, operated by members of NAMI successfully living with mental illnesses.

DeSE 2010 Final Crit - Hyun Ju Lee [PDF]

Final Crit: Jason Lee

2010-06-04T01:53:00.000-04:00

Project Title: Art Meets Justice

Partner Organization: West Side Arts

Overview: Restructuring of West Side Arts' expansion plans

DeSE 2010 Final Crit - Jason Lee [PDF]

Final Crit: Cassie Maurer

2010-06-04T01:52:00.006-04:00

Project Title: Women's Design Coalition

Partner Organization: RISD, AIGA members

Overview: Empowering young designers and promoting gender equality in the academic and professional sectors of design

The reason this video is not available is the project team are currently in talks with RISD about the continuation of the project after graduation. We will make the crit video available as soon as possible.

The objective of this project is to find out if gender inequality still exists in the academic and professional sectors of graphic design, and if it does, what can we do to change this?

Women's Design Coalition Short Version

Final Crit: Justin Desilva

2010-06-04T01:51:00.000-04:00

Project Title: Urban Umbrellas

Partner Organization: The Museum on Site

Overview: Design of connective tissue for pedestrian access to Providence

DeSE 2010 Final Crit - Justin Desilva [PDF]

Final Crit: Kathleen O'Donnell

2010-06-04T01:50:00.000-04:00

Project Title: The Collective Mile

Partner Organization: Numerous

Overview: Design of a site tailored to the review of prosthetics, medical services and support groups for the amputee community

DeSE 2010 Final Crit - Kathleen O'Donnell [PDF]

Final Crit: Louis Rigano

2010-06-04T01:49:00.000-04:00

Project Title: Student Skill Exchange

Partner Organization: RISD

Overview: Online network for exchanging consultation and labor between students throughout RISD

DeSE 2010 Final Crit - Louie Rigano [PDF]

Final Crit: Lucy Stein

2010-06-04T01:48:00.000-04:00

Project Title: Better Patient Experience

Partner Organization: Rhode Island Free Clinic

Overview: Creating an improved patient experience for the uninsured seeking free medical care

DeSE 2010 Final Crit - Lucy Stein [PDF]

Final Crit: Flo Delgado

2010-06-04T01:40:00.000-04:00

Project Title: Arts for Youth

Partner Organization: Providence CityArts for Youth

Overview: Study and analysis of the practices of a Providence-based youth arts program.

DeSE 2010 Final Crit - Flo Delgado [PDF]

Final Crit: Peter Simon

2010-06-04T01:39:00.000-04:00

Project Title: Food and Environments

Partner Organizations: Providence Preservation Society, Farm Fresh Rhode Island

Overview: A system framework for connecting food to the built environment

DeSE 2010 Final Crit - Peter Simon [PDF]

Final Crit: Saba Ahmed

2010-06-04T01:33:00.000-04:00

Project Title: Young Enterprising Artsists

Partner Organization: RISD

Overview: Developing RISD's youth mentorship programs

DeSE 2010 Final Crit - Saba Ahmed [PDF]

Final Crit: Soomi Lee

2010-06-04T00:43:00.002-04:00

Project Title: Post-Abortion Teen Group

Partner Organization: Planned Parenthood

Overview: Design of a support system for teens who have recently had abortions

DeSE 2010 Final Crit - Soomi Lee [PDF]

DeSE Studio Pictures

2010-05-31T17:03:00.007-04:00

Great Work!

2010-05-26T23:54:00.002-04:00

Thank you DeSE students for a wonderful semester! It was great to see the culmination of your hard work over the past two days. Also, thank you again to all of the excellent critics who took time out to attend our review.

Please check back over the next week for video coverage of the presentations, which will be published on the course site as well.

Final Crit Presentation Guidelines

2010-05-18T19:58:00.006-04:00

Is this thing on?

Well I'm definitely looking forward to seeing you present your hard work this semester next week!

Below are important notes on the final crit:

Please invite your guests ASAP - if you haven't sent them invitations yet, email your mentor and a rep. from your organization tonight! Faculty and friends from RISD and the greater Providence community are definitely welcome.
Everyone must arrive promptly by 10:25am for the morning session and 1:10pm for the afternoon session.
On both days, dress is business casual for presenters.
All presentations are due to me (via email or Dropbox) at midnight on the night before you present. Place your file in "Design Project 2 > Final Presentations."
Presentations should run approximately 25 minutes. This will be followed by 10 minutes of feedback.
We will be videotaping each presentation to be published on the website.
The major sections of the presentation should be as follows:

Context: community background, organization background, description of problems faced
Mission statement: the mission of your venture, why this is a compelling topic to focus on, precedent projects
Design Concepts: description of the deliverables of your venture - the products/services/systems you have designed in response to the context and problem statements, how these designs impact the life of your target community
Implementation and Sustainability: distribution, marketing, continuity of leadership, financial sustainability, metrics and evaluation of impact, future expansion of your venture

DeSE Final Crit Announcement

2010-05-18T13:24:00.000-04:00

Assignment 9: Due 5/11

2010-05-08T21:48:00.003-04:00

We're going to make a class poster for the final crit and on Tuesday morning we will workshop the design of the poster as a studio.

Please bring in one 8.5x11 printed portrait page split into four equal quadrants - the top two should contain images that you feel are symbolically appropriate of your project; the bottom two should be representative of type of demographic you are serving in your community (here's an example [PDF]). Sketches or stock images are definitely OK.

Some projects will not lend themselves well to this assignment. If you don't feel that you can adequately represent these ideas photographically while, for instance, maintaining the dignity of your community, then focus on developing a few abstractions instead.

Final Crit Presentation Schedule

2010-05-08T20:24:00.009-04:00

Overview
10:30 - 4:30 on 5/25 and 5/26 in the Chace Center
35 minutes per student (20 minute presentation, 15 minute response period)
2 minutes prep between students
1 hour lunch period
Tuesday 5/25

10:30 - 11:05 Annemarie Gugelmann
11:05 - 11:40 Ji Yae Park
11:40 - 12:15 David Zacher
12:15 - 13:15 Lunch Break
13:15 - 13:50 Lucy Stein
13:50 - 14:25 Felipe Sarmiento
14:25 - 15:00 Hyun Ju Lee
15:00 - 15:35 Jason Lee
15:35 - 16:05 Cassie Mauer

Wednesday 5/26

10:30 - 11:05 Justin DeSilva
11:05 - 11:40 Kathleen O'Donnell
11:40 - 12:15 Louis Rigano
12:15 - 13:15 Lunch Break
13:15 - 13:50 Saba Ahmed
13:50 - 14:25 Maria Floreena DelGado
14:25 - 15:00 Peter Simon
15:00 - 15:35 Esther An
15:35 - 16:10 Soomi Lee
16:10 - 16:45 Gazal Goenka
16:45 Closing remarks and acknowledgement

TinyTech India

2010-05-03T00:24:00.004-04:00

Tonight I came across an interesting company out of Gujarat, India, called TinyTech. They manufacture small scale food processing and energy equipment with the intent of helping to foster decentralized economic/human development.

I like their spirit.

Here's an excerpt from a manifesto of sort by Gopal Desai, a director at TinyTech:

MY TIPS FOR HEALTHY AND HAPPY LIFE

(1) Remember that our life is not for unlimited period. The most definite and sure and certain event in our life is our death.

(2)Money is just similar to blood pressure. If it increases beyond certain limit, it creates trouble just like high blood pressure. If it decreases below certain limit, it creates trouble just like low blood pressure. As we remain healthy between narrow range of blood pressure, same is with money.

(3) Attitude of earning more and more money is not good, but attitude of job satisfaction is more important. Never do work at the cost of health. Keep helping nature for all for ever as long as you can help.

(4)Real happiness is generated by serving poor people, trodden people, needy people. Please read mahatma Gandhi’s books & you will understand very clearly how to turn remaining life in right direction.

(5) To become really happy, be satisfied & think always in free time to do something for the most poorest similar to one you have ever seen in your life.

(6) Give most importance to Food , Shelter & cloth. Do something so that lots of employment is created & atleast all people in this world get these 3 basic necessity. This is only possible thro, micro, small, family Or village level industries.

GOPAL DESAI

Design Project 2 Mid-Project Presentations

2010-04-29T13:28:00.005-04:00

Jason Lee

Louis Rigano

Lucy Stein

Maria Floreena DelGado

Peter Simon

Saba Ahmed

Soomi Lee

Assignment 10: due 4/22

2010-04-21T00:13:00.004-04:00

Hi class! Great to talk with you today. I really appreciate that you're willing to share your concerns regarding project 2 with me since it will help me to optimize the structure of the rest of the course to fit your needs. However, I want pass along this important message: take a deep breath and grab a cold one - the class is performing well on the whole.

Please remember that the goal of this project is not necessarily to solve a problem for your non-profit.

You are working with these organizations primarily so that you can interact with and learn from the people who run the orgs and the communities that they serve.

You should use this information to help you conceive of a proposal for a product, service or system that will sustainably benefit your target community. Your proposal may or may not involve the non-profit you are working with, and doesn't need to be implemented during this course.

Once you have design concepts in hand, you should focus on getting informal feedback from the folks in your organizations and your target communities, rather than treating them like clients per se.

Here is a generic schedule that you could use to guide your work for the rest of the semester:

April 21 - 29

Continue to research and interact with your organizations target and communities.
Build a set of potential problem areas to address and early design concepts for each problem area.
Solicit feedback on these concepts from your orgs and communities, as well as your fellow designers at RISD.

April 30 - May 7

Choose problem area to focus on and conduct problem-specific research
Brainstorm on possible solutions and solicit feedback from orgs and communities
Send out invites to final crit on 5/24
Research prior art and create a matrix that compares the strengths and weaknesses of your concept to those of precedent projects

May 8 - 14

Choose and develop one final design solution
Solicit feedback from orgs and communities

May 14 - 19

Review and refine all design concept models, diagrams and business plans
Solicit final round of feedback from orgs and communities prior to presentation
Package design solution into a persuasive presentation

May 20 - 23

Presentation preparations for final crit

May 24

Final crit
Party

For Thursday 4/22, please complete one or both the following:

Option A

Produce a set of preliminary design sketches exploring the issues you are researching (opportunities for design interventions) and concepts that suggest possibilities for products, systems and/or services that address these issues. Don't be afraid to sketch! Have fun and enjoy the process, really! Have these ready on your laptop, on a USB key or as a hard copy for review.

Option B

Brainstorm on the potential problem areas for your target community that you will address in your project and produce lists, mind-maps and conceptual diagrams and other visual records of your thought process. Have these ready on your laptop, on a USB key or as a hard copy for review.

See you on Thursday!

Yushu Earthquake Relief Effort

2010-04-15T02:06:00.002-04:00

Earlier today a 7.1 scale earthquake hit Yushu Prefecture, in southern Qinghai Province, not far from where I worked this past winter. The effect has been devastating in many of the county towns in this region where people live, work and trade their goods. You can read more about this topic here. Please pass along the word that One Earth Designs has begun collecting donations for direct relief to families in this region at their website.

Maternal Deaths in Decline Worldwide

2010-04-14T14:09:00.003-04:00

Today the New York Times reports that The Lancet, a leading medical journal, has published a study(Maternal mortality for 181 countries, 1980—2008: a systematic analysis of progress towards Millennium Development Goal 5, Hogan, et al. PDF link) that shows a marked decline in maternal deaths worldwide since 1980.

It's interesting to note (as the NYT reports) that the social entrepreneurship community can be conflicted in terms of its opinions of this sort of positive, sweeping social research. On the one hand, the members of social organizations are undoubtedly interested in maintaining the urgency of their mission in the eyes of the public by telling very real stories of tragedy that abound in our flawed planet. This is especially true for issues that, though improving, remain major problems that still deserve to be addressed promptly. Yet, without a sense of progress, all efforts start to seem to be hopeless. Nicholas Kristof has made this point (video) before regarding the seemingly overwhelming problem of forced prostitution.

We should debate this issue of access to clear information vs. maintaing the public's attention in class.

Course Schedule 4/13 - 2/29

2010-04-14T13:33:00.004-04:00

Week 8 (4/11)

Tuesday (4/13)
AM

Broader field of DeSE presentation, give out ethnography assignment

Work time with organizations
A8A Ethnography Exercise

A8B: Develop ethnography plan for your organization

Thursday (4/15)
AM

Presentation of A8 work

Intra-Studio Workshop I / HCD Brainstorm
Work time with organizations

A9: Research and Mind-mapping

Conduct research in your organization and produce documentation of your observations, experiences and insights. Produce mind maps related to problems or issues faced by the community being served that you find interesting and may want to pursue further in this project. The more the better.

Week 9 (4/18)

Tuesday (4/20)
AM

HCD Curriculum Focus Group with Ayako

Desk crits
(Optional) Intra-Studio Workshop II / HCD Brainstorm
Work time with organizations

A10: Design concept generation

Produce a set of preliminary design sketches exploring the issues you are researching (opportunities for design interventions) and concepts that suggest possibilities for products, systems and/or services that address these issues.

Thursday (4/22)
AM

A10 presentations

Desk crits
(Optional) Intra-Studio Workshop III / HCD Brainstorm
Work time with organizations

A11: Produce mid-project crit materials

Background of community
Background of organization
Observations
Mind-maps
Precedents
Project concepts
Future plans

Week 10 (4/25)

Tuesday (4/27)
MID-PROJECT REVIEW: Local SE design project: Mid-project review with partner organization in ID gallery

Thursday (4/29)
MID-PROJECT REVIEW: Local SE design project: Mid-project review with partner organization in ID gallery
A13: Readings on evaluating social ventures, verify final review dates with partner orgs

Assignment 8: Due 4/15

2010-04-13T20:33:00.003-04:00

In order to make a persuasive argument for your proposal in Design Project 2, you will need to be able to effectively organize and convey the information you collect during your ethnographic research of the communities and organizations you are collaborating with. This assignment is intended to give you an opportunity to quickly experiment with ways of expressing how people utilize the spaces in which they live or work, as well as how they allocate their time in a typical day.

For Thursday 4/15, please complete the following:

Choose a person you know and request some time from them to conduct the brief sociological study described below. For convenience this may be simply a friend of yours, though if you have reached a level of access with your Design Project 2 community / organization members, please feel free to work with them instead.

1. Take a photograph of your subject (the person you've chosen), and a separate photo of one of "their" spaces - their home, their desk, their office, etc - such that the objects in this space are clearly visible. Interview your subject about how these objects fit into their lives and use short quotations to annotate the photo of their space (for example, "Coffee Table: I never use this table - it pretty much just collects dust and junk mail. Really, I'm not sure why I still have it!") Lay out this information on an 11x17 page.

Analyze the information you collect from this process and look for trends. Create a few categories (for example, you might come up with categories such as "useful objects" and useless objects," or "handmade items," "gifts from family" and the like) and either color code your annotations or create lists on the side of the page.

2. Interview your subject about how they typically spend their time in this space. Look for trends in how they allocate time and create a graph on a second 11x17 sheet that expresses a trend that you find interesting (for instance, you might graph the hours they are awake against the hours of daylight and find that this person is nearly nocturnal).

For Friday 4/16:

Email me a list of the ethnographic research methods (photos,video,interviews,focus groups,note-taking, etc.) that you anticipate will be the most relevant to work on Design Project 2. For each method please provide a few sentences describing how you plan to employ the method in your research.

That's it! Let me know if anyone still has questions about the deliverables.

Design Project 2 Clarifications

2010-04-03T18:00:00.005-04:00

Hi class - I hope you've had a restful spring break. Below are some clarifications that will help you complete Project 2, Design for Local Social Entrepreneurship.

The primary purpose of Project 1, Design for International Social Entrepreneurship, was to expose you to some of the tools and thought processes that go into community-centered design, from ethnographic research to benchmarking to building sustainable models for implementation. Working in teams, you attempted to respond to the needs of communities that were far removed from your physical location and way of life in Providence. Due to these limitations, your design concepts (while excellent overall) were inherently speculative and difficult to verify, though it was apparent that all of you constructed sophisticated models of the communities based on your research.

Whereas in the first project you devised plans for conducting field research and user studies, the second major project in this course will focus on designing concepts that are tied to your own direct contact with a local community. You will be expected to demonstrate your ability to develop skills in these social science areas while using them to build deep, original insights into the social issues you are seeking to address. In parallel, you will create many iterations of design sketches and models and discuss them with the entire class as well as small groups in order to maintain a lively, collaborative studio culture. You will benchmark your ideas against similar project precedents and build sustainable business plans that take into the consideration the limitations and opportunities inherent in the financial, cultural and environmental landscape that you are working within. You will work directly with community members and representatives of social organizations in order to incorporate a tight loop of feedback into your design concepts.

You will work hard, have fun and leave this course with something great in your portfolio. That's the goal!

There are two basic project structures to choose from:

1: Consult for an existing social organization

Deliver the design of a new financially self-sustaining product, service or system to an existing social organization based around their mission, needs and preferences.

2: Create a plan for a new social organization

Building on insights you have gained through direct contact with your target community, propose a new social business or non-profit based around a financially self-sustaining product, service or system.

Timeline (more detail TBA)

4/9 : Organization chosen, volunteering begins

4/24 and 4/29: Mid-Crit

5/24 : Final crit

Assignment 7: Due 4/6

2010-03-28T16:51:00.000-04:00

The assignment over break will focus on getting a handle on where you are on your research for the final project.

Please email me, subject: "DESE Org Update" a brief update on the following:

1) Topic / Community that you are focusing on
2) List possible partner organizations

2a) Brief description of each organization
2b) How interested are you in this organization?
2c) Have you contacted them? If so, when?
2d) Have you heard back from them? If so, when?
3) Describe possible project ideas.
4) Do you prefer to consult for an organization or propose a new organization of your own?

Also please read the following article, Introduction to Green Design, by Hendrickson, et al, and watch Majora Carter's TED Talk from 2006 on Sustainable South Bronx

See you guys in a few weeks!

Tips for Contacting Organizations

2010-03-28T16:17:00.002-04:00

When contacting organizations or companies, you should be up front about the fact that you are also working on a research project and make certain that they are willing to provide support in return for your volunteer time
Be clear about both what you will realistically contribute to the organization, as well as the commitment you will expect from the organization.
Consider framing your volunteer proposal around making the organization you are contacting more competitive (can you volunteer in a way that is useful to the organization but also indirectly feeds into your project?)
You could, for instance, use your skills as designers to produce ethnographic research that acts as evidence of the efficacy of the organization
Consider conducting ethnographic research with the communities being served and providing this data to the organization
Or, you could help communicate the message of the organization better to donors and the public (a good precedent here is Art Center's "Design Matters" program)

Design Project 1 Team Presentations

2010-03-27T16:33:00.000-04:00

It was great to see your work last week and hear some excellent feedback from our panelists! Attending were Chris Bull from Brown Engineering and Rene Chen, Scot Frank and Yi Zhang of One Earth Designs.

Below are presentations from RISD DeSE 2010 Design Project 1, which focused on design to sustainably improve the quality of life for Himalayan communities. Here is a link to a brief for the project.

Team Presentations:
RISD DeSE 2010 Womens Health Team Presentation (Kathleen O'Donnel, Soomi Lee, Esther An)

RISD DeSE 2010 Stove Innovation Team Presentation (Justin DeSilva, Saba Ahmed, Jason Lee)

RISD DeSE 2010 Solar Energy Team (Cassie Mauer, David Zacher, Peter Simon)

RISD DeSE 2010 Sanitation Team Presentation (Flo Delgado, Louie Rigano, Annemarie Gugelmann, Felipe Sarmiento)

RISD DeSE 2010 Ergonomics Team Presentation (Ji Yae Park, Gazal Goenka, Lucy Stein, Hyun Ju Lee)

Human Centered Design Workshop with IDEO

2010-03-23T17:34:00.007-04:00

Beto Lopez of IDEO's Boston location will be visiting during the afternoon of 3/25 to run a workshop with our studio in the ID Gallery. In advance of the workshop, please read the Human Centered Design Toolkit, which can be downloaded in sections here.

Here is his bio from the 2009 Better World Conference:

Beto Lopez

IDEO

UPDATE

Beto Lopez is a systems designer at IDEO Boston, leading IDEO's east coast sustainability initiative working to integrate tenets of considered design across IDEO's project work.

Internally, Beto serves as a regional content guide, contributing to the way IDEO values design alternatives in the development of products and services by looking at the broader environmental and social context of their realization. Externally, he helps IDEO clients advance their social and environmental responsibility through design thinking that promotes positive impact in the made world. He regularly speaks and teaches on topics related to the intersection of design and sustainable development.

Beto came to IDEO in 2004 as an engineer, bringing experience from automotive design and research, architectural engineering and construction, and research in sustainable development. His portfolio spans work in both products and services ranging from the technical design of drug delivery devices to strategic thinking around the future of transportation.

Beto earned a BSME and an MS in Dynamic Systems and Control from the University of Texas at Austin.

Global warming: Indians decide to make their own glaciers

2010-03-18T02:13:00.012-04:00

Felipe posted up this link to a CS Monitor article dealing with the looming water crisis in the Himalayas and surrounding environs. The writing is strangely poor for this publication, but the video attached to the article is quite clear and succinct. Take a look!

Presentation Deliverables for 3/23

2010-03-16T18:11:00.008-04:00

Dear DeSE students - it was exciting to see your progress earlier today, and I'm really looking forward to discussing your projects in the crit next week. Team presentations will be delivered starting at 1:10pm on Tuesday 3/23 in the BEB Lecture Hall, first floor.

At least one member of each team must show up at 9:50am to test out your presentation on the projection system and sign up for a presentation time slot. If you plan to include audio, please tell me so I can have speakers on hand for you.

Presentation format

1. Presentations will run 30 minutes each with 15 minutes of Q&A and consist of a Powerpoint or PDF along with models and any other tangible objects that your team will demonstrate.

2. All members must contribute drawings, graphs and other content to the presentation while maintaining a visual style and layout that is consistent across slides.

3. The sections of the presentation should be as follows:

Problem Statement / Description of Status Quo: Introduce your area of study by providing visuals that depict or diagram the problem you are focusing. Wherever possible present a clear sequence of events via drawings illustrating scenarios in which community members presently encounter these problems, and what the repercussions are in terms of quality of life, environment, health, etc. Highlight causal relationships and explain your interest in the particular aspects of the problem scenario you have chosen to focus on.
Precedents: You will provide evidence from prior projects that are directly or indirectly related to the design(s) you are proposing. Briefly discuss the communities being served in these precedents, the methodology they employed and the relative strengths and weaknesses of the projects overall. Highlight any areas that you specifically adopt or reject in your design(s).
Design(s): Present visuals that demonstrate the key features and performance of one or more designs that address the problem by building upon precedents as well as your own research and ingenuity. Emphasize the way that the designs fit into the lives of your users, directly illustrating use whenever possible to help bring the audience into the scenario you are presenting.
Plan for Implementation (formerly called "Support"): This section should address your plan for the implementation of your project, including proposals for navigating the web of constraints that form the structure of any social venture. Please propose at least one concept for each of the following areas, if they are applicable to your project: funding mechanism, training plans (in the case of DIY projects), market research, user testing of prototypes, distribution, maintenance, promotion, measuring the impact of your project and evaluating the success of a given design (metrics and evaluation).
Proposal for Future Research: Describe your pending research questions, the impact that the result of this research could have on your design proposals and the tools you would propose using to address collect this information.

Design Project 2 Details

2010-03-15T18:52:00.012-04:00

Design for Local Social Entrepreneurship

3/25 through 5/25 (9 weeks)

Overview Students will work individually or in pairs over nine weeks to create new social entrepreneurial ventures built around products, services or systems for communities in the New England region. Students will work in partnership with local social organizations, which will act as either client institutions (for students expanding the entrepreneurial capacity of the existing organization) or peer institutions (for students starting entirely new ventures). Mentorship will be provided by experienced members of the design community from for-profit firms like IDEO, Sustainable Minds and KVA, as well as social entrepreneurs from excellent local non-profit organizations.
Objectives Starting at the beginning of the semester, students will partner with local social organizations in order to understand and research their mission, the communities they serve and opportunities for using design and entrepreneurship to address unmet needs. Students will present designs of new social ventures based on products, services and systems along with comprehensive plans for the implementation of these ventures. Mid-way through the project students will present to their partner organizations to Final output will include an oral/visual presentation, a business plan, a brochure, as well as publish-quality design models, drawings and diagrams.
Final review during Spring Crit week, 5/23 - 5/28, exact date and time TBD

Agenda for 3/16 - 3/25

2010-03-14T23:07:00.008-04:00

This week will be focused on the production of your work for the team reviews on 3/23. I'm really excited to see what you all present, and I am looking forward to helping you get to a higher level of development in your ideas and presentation this week.

Tuesday 3/16 Desk Crits

9:50-11:10

Local social organization contact progress update

1:10-5:30

Team desk crits (30 min - 1 hour depending on your preference)

Thursday 3/18 Portfolio Review

9:50-11:10

Team presentation Q&A, Sami Nerenberg visit

1:00-4:00

ID Portfolio review in the Met

4:00-5:30

Team desk crits (15 - 30 mins)

Tuesday 3/23 Project Crit

9:50-11:10

Teams do a test run-through of presentations on projector in BEB Lecture Hall (first floor)

1:10-5:10

Project crit in BEB Lecture Hall, 45 minutes per team

Thursday 3/25 Workshop with IDEO

9:50-11:10

Kickoff Discussion for "mini-thesis" design project

1:10-5:10

Workshop with Beto Lopez of IDEO on scaling up social ventures

Assignment 6: due 3/16

2010-03-14T22:34:00.004-04:00

As a recap of our discussion on Thursday, please complete the following by this Tuesday 3/16:

Teams

1. Meet for at least one substantial sketching and brainstorming session focused on the problem/benefit that you have chosen for the Western China community design project. Produce evidence of your progress that can be reviewed and discussed during desk crits on Tuesday. Please continue to share your skillsets and make sure to communicate to me during desk crits whether or not you are practicing the skills that you stated you are interested in improving.

2. Look up precedent projects in which social entrepreneurs have worked on similar types of problems in the past, and be prepared to discuss the successes and failures of these efforts with the class.

Individuals

1. Draft letters of intent (describing why you are contacting them, what your interests are, how you would like to try to assist them) to at least 5 local organizations. Share these letters with Peter Hocking and/or myself for review.

2. Sign up for a Dropbox account here. I will add you to the class Dropbox folder. For new accounts, please use your RISD email address so that I can easily keep track of which address to send email invites to.

Assignment 5: Due 3/11

2010-03-09T20:35:00.006-05:00

Good work on Design Project 1 so far - please scan and post up your boards from today on your individual blogs. Also, post a few of the key sketchbook pages and brainstorming sheets that your team generated over the weekend.

For this coming Thursday please complete the following:

1. Based on the work that we critiqued in studio today, each team should meet and select one area to focus on for further development. Produce an informal array of sketches, brainstorm notes, and evidence of your research on this topic for desk-crits on Thursday.

2. On Thursday morning we will have a skype call with Drolgar Jyid, my colleague in Qinghai. Please think of one or two key questions per team that you would like to ask her during the conversation about local conditions and culture.

3. Read these case studies from The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, by C.K. Prahalad. Also read this extract from The Power of Unreasonable People, by John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan, and write a brief paragraph response on your blog.

Lastly, let me know if you have any questions about the project, and good luck!

Assignment 4: Due 3/9

2010-03-04T18:41:00.004-05:00

Nice work during the team division process- you guys were able to handle a quite complicated procedure very smoothly. Here is are the Project 1 topics and team rosters:

Stove Innovation: Justin, Saba, Jason
Solar: Cassie, David, Peter
Sanitation: Flo, Louie, Annemarie, Felipe
Women's Ergonomics: Ji, Gazal, Lucy, Ju
Women's Reproductive Health: Kathleen, Soomi, Esther

For this coming Tuesday, please complete the following:

1. Prior to the team meeting, individually produce a list of specific problem areas you are interested in working on. For instance, if you are working on stoves, what problems related to stoves would you like to address. Each team member must also produce a short list of skills they would like to improve on. Share these two lists with your team and email them to me.

2. Schedule and hold at least one substantial group brainstorming session place during which you discuss a wide range of problems and their possible solutions to address in your given topic area. Produce and save sketches, mind-maps, lists of ideas, photos and any other evidence of your brainstorming session. The more the better.

3. Produce a list of questions you have regarding the user communities to pass along to One Earth Designs team members.

4. Develop at least 3 of these project concepts a bit further and create three 11x17 presentation boards for each. Each board can investigate a slightly different aspect of the concept, for example: the problem being addressed, material, manufacturing, human factors, sustainability, etc. These should all have a consistent graphic layout. You may work on tasks individually or, preferably, work together in group work sessions.

Black Tent Films

2010-03-03T18:01:00.008-05:00

Photo Copyright Black Tent Films

I am pleased to announce that this week we will watch Tibetan Woman's Life (Quicktime trailer), directed by a very talented filmmaker from Western China, Puhua Dongzhi. He is the founder of a film company, Black Tent Films, which has produced a number of award-winning documentaries on everyday life in his home region which have been screened across the globe. This film will help inform you about the lifestyle, culture, and challenges that are common for women the communities we are designing for during Project 1. Below is a summary taken from the film company's website:

Tibetan Woman's Life, dir. by Puhua Dongzhi

34-year old Sgrolmamtsho married Don'grub at the age of 21 (in 1993) without experience of housework, fieldwork, and fetching wood. Filmed by her husband's younger brother, 'phagspadon'grub, in Amdo, the film concentrates on the daily life of Tibetan village women--fetching water, feeding livestock (swine, a cow, a mule), milking, cleaning the stables, cooking, household religious activity, weeding fields, transporting manure to fields, fetching wood for fuel--along with commentary by Sgrolmamtsho about her life and family. (Rare insight into Tibetan village women's lives. Tibetan soundtrack; English subtitles. 52 minutes. Color.)

Screenings: 30 June. 2008--10th RAI International Film Festival of Ethnographic Film.

Design Project 1 Details

2010-03-02T21:13:00.006-05:00

Design for International Social Entrepreneurship
(3 weeks)

Overview Students will work in groups over the course of three weeks to identify, research and respond to issues faced by people living on the Himalayan plateau. Mentorship will be provided by members of One Earth Designs, a US-based NGO that promotes environmental health and income opportunities in partnership with communities in the region.
Objectives Students will present designs for new products, services and systems that help Himalayan communities leverage their resources according to the best practices of social entrepreneurship. In support of their designs, students will benchmark against existing projects in the field. Final output includes an oral/visual presentation as well as models, design drawings and system diagrams as applicable.
Final Review on Tuesday March 23rd

Assignment 3: Due 3/4

2010-03-02T18:25:00.009-05:00

It was great to see the work that everyone brought in today! Keep putting in effort to express your skills and insights to the rest of the class so that we can help you grow in the areas you are interested in developing. I will email you each individually with my comments and observations later this week.

Assignment 3 Details

1. Scan or photograph your work from the weekend design exercise and post the JPGs to your blog site, along with a link to a PDF version of the boards. Please include a paragraph of text introducing and linking to Assignment 2. If your blog is empty for some reason, by all means go ahead and add your responses to the readings from Assignment 1.

2. Skim through the following papers referenced during Jesse's talk earlier today and post a few sentences of remarks on each on your blog.

Designing Sustainability, Agogino

Metrics for Measuring Ideation Effectiveness, Shah, et al.

Creativity as a Design Criterion, Christiaans

3. Reflect on three areas of social need that are of personal interest to you and compose a paragraph for each on your blog page describing the issue and why it matters to you. You do not necessarily need to choose one of these areas to work on during Design Project 2, but this will help us begin the discussion that will lead you to your final topic.

4. Based on these reflections, create a list of the local nonprofit organizations or businesses with social missions that you are considering contacting. Visit their websites and prepare a brief statement about the communities they serve. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about what a qualifying organization would be - remember this does not need to be a non-profit. Any org or company that provides social benefits to generally underserved communities is worth bringing up in discussion. Below are some resources for locating organizations to add to your list.

http://nonprofitdir.rifoundation.org/
http://www.risdpublicengagement.net/id3.html
http://208.82.213.185/resources_search.asp (this one has a large group of orgs in MA listed)
http://www.clearlyso.com/businesses-directory.jsf (this one is purely for taking a look at Social Businesses across the globe)

5. Lastly, please take a look at this OED powerpoint and PDF document. There are some areas of crossover with what we covered previously, but you will find new information about communities in Western China that has not yet been covered in class.

Thanks everyone!

Speaker: Scot Frank of One Earth Designs

2010-02-25T23:53:00.007-05:00

Next week will mark the start of a the first major project in DeSE: International Design for Social Entrepreneurship. We will be looking at a variety of case studies of precedent projects from around the world as well as delving into the unique set of issues faced by rural and urban communities in the Himalayas in order to pull out new design concepts.

In order to kick this process off, Scot Frank of One Earth Designs (OED) presented slides remotely via Skype and conducted a Q&A session. Slides are below:

West China Intro - RISD - Design for Social Entrepreneurship

View more presentations from Scot Frank.

Assignment 2: Due Tuesday 3/2

2010-02-25T18:47:00.016-05:00

It was great to see the results of your work on the first round of assignments - your commentary during the discussion this morning was smart and thought-provoking. Keep it up! You are an inspiring group.

Today was a fairly massive influx of information regarding the culture, problems faced and solution precedents encountered by communities in Western China; I imagine that you may be feeling disoriented and confused at the moment. But not to fear - we will provide you with plenty of opportunities to absorb knowledge about these communities at a more reasonable rate over the next three weeks.

Assignment 2 Details

1. Please reflect on the brief introduction you received today to the problems encountered by nomadic and agricultural communities in Western China related to energy. Select one or more problem areas as the scope for your four-day design project. These include:

Cooking food (like delicious momos [see above]) and boiling water (FYI: water is generally served hot for drinking)
Biomass fuel collection and pathogen exposure
Biomass fuel use and indoor air pollution (IAP) exposure
Maintaining bodily warmth, indoors and outdoors
Heating the home
Electricity access and reliability
...or a focus area of your choosing

2. Develop a set of design concepts that approach that problem from several different perspectives, and prepare visuals along with descriptive text (on the order of a few sentences for each concept). Present these concepts on four or more 11x17" pages for discussion on Tuesday. Feel free to bring in reference or inspiration images as well for pinup.

3. Please begin working in a medium-sized (I'll let you define this) sketchbook devoted to this course so that you can easily organize your process drawings for each project. You may want to set aside a few sketchbooks because we will be producing a lot of concept work during this course.

4. Draw, draw, draw - I want to see sketchbooks getting full of ideas. This weekend is all about producing lots of iterations. Make them beautiful, in your terms. So turn on some music and go crazy. If you start to feel like you want to make a few models instead, go for it. But photograph them well and put the photos on your printouts alongside sketches.

Comments and Assessment Standards:

I invite you to unleash your creativity and talents for conceiving, visualizing, and presenting ideas during this project.

My assessment of your work for this project will be based primarily on how deeply you explore the range and depth of your process as a designer. I am not looking for solutions in this exercise, per se, but rather an early indication that you are willing to put in the time it takes to learn to become an excellent designer/social entrepreneur: to work patiently and persistently with loosely defined project parameters, to be a flexible and agile thinker, and to continually to develop mastery of craft (form, space, material, behavior).

Do not stress over issues of feasibility, but strive to introduce intelligent logic into your decision making process.

Consider all of the various people in the community this might effect. Villages tend to be groups of less than 100 families that either share a collective plot of farmland or own neighboring pastures for grazing livestock.

- - -

Please email me with questions at any point over the weekend or on Monday. I would be happy to answer them. Check your email tonight for links to OED-specific information resources that may be useful for your work over the weekend.

I'm very excited to see what you all bring in!

Assignment 1 : Due Thursday 2/25

2010-02-23T18:41:00.003-05:00

Great to meet you all today! I really enjoyed seeing the results of your design brainstorming exercises and hearing your insightful comments and questions. It looks like we have a great group of people and I look forward what we can all achieve together this semester.

Here is a link to today's handout.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR THURSDAY MORNING: Please come to studio at 9:15am this Thursday to pick out desks with Maureen. We have the OK from the Department to "colonize" the neighboring studio area!

For Thurdsay 2/25:

1. Read the following articles and write a response (a few sentences to a paragraph) for each describing whether or not you agree with one of the central points of the authors' arguments, and why. Please send me an email with your response attached and (preferably) a web link to your blog there the responses can be found:

The Meaning of “Social Entrepreneurship”, by J. Gregory Dees
Reshaping Social Entrepreneurship, by Paul Light
Social Entrepreneurship: The Case for a Definition, by Roger L. Martin and Sally Osberg

2. Follow the tech requirements listed on the handout. For Diigo (misspelled on the handout), install "Diigolet" on your laptop, which can be downloaded here. Please let me know if you run into any technical problems during the process.

3. Please email me short responses to the following questions about the course:

What did you think of the first round of readings?
What design studios have you taken in the past? Which did you enjoy the most?
Do you have extensive background, a double major, or a previous degree in another discipline other than ID?
What are your strongest skills in terms of craft / visual communication?
What skills would you most like to build during this course?
What areas are you most and least interested in working on during this course?
How interested are you in learning about business?
Do you have experience working on social entrepreneurship projects in the past? If so what were they?
Do you have long term goals for yourself in terms of social entrepreneurship? If so, what are they?
Do you prefer team or individual projects?

4. Please bring 4 or more printouts (8.5"x11") with you to studio on Thursday

Thanks everyone.

DeSE Spring 2010 Syllabus and Course Description

2010-02-22T15:15:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the Design for Social Entrepreneurship Spring 2010 advanced studio in the RISD Department of Industrial Design!

Download the course syllabus here

Course Description

Instructor : Sloan Kulper, IDSA, RISD MID `06

Curriculum Advisor : Yi Zhang, Wellesley `10

Overview

This advanced studio will provide you with the opportunity to work with world-class social businesses and non-profits on new social ventures that tackle problems ranging from poverty and lack of access to healthcare to environmental degradation in both local and international contexts.

The semester will include two major milestones: a 3-week design workshop with an international non-profit organization operating in Asia, and a 9-week project where students will develop in-depth proposals for their own social ventures based around products, services and systems designed in collaboration with local businesses and non-profits. This work will be supported by personal mentorship from design professionals with experience at IDEO, Sustainable Minds, Continuum, KVA and other firms. Projects may be completed individually or in small teams.

Throughout the semester visiting speakers will conduct open lectures and discussions on relevant topics ranging from product design and ethnographic research to sustainability and marketing.

Skill Development

This will be a fast-paced studio where you will be expected to practice and build upon your skills in many major areas of craft that are crucial to design practice: rapid sketching, concept development, modeling and prototyping. However it will also be an opportunity to develop research-oriented skills related to thought-leadership in this exciting discipline of design: collaboration with non-profit entrepreneurs, conducting user research studies, evaluating and comparing precedents, developing business plans and pitching your ideas to community leaders and potential funders.

Social Entrepreneurship and Design

Designers are playing a pivotal role in social entrepreneurship, an emerging field that seeks to address pressing social issues such as poverty, health and environmental degradation with financially self-sustaining models. From IDEO and Philips to small start-ups, the design community is learning to “do well by doing good,” designing new products and services that meet social needs while generating profits. Likewise, designers working in the non-profit sector are taking a more progressive approach by focusing on philanthropy as an investment rather than a hand-out.