2. Are Design and Social
Innovation Related?
Michael Cumming
BArch (Dalhousie), PhD (Carnegie Mellon)
ambitiouscity.com
michaelcumming.com
3. Introduction
² Let’s inaugurate the new Design Common!
• Less physical isolation
• More social interaction
• Increased density
• Opportunity to self-modify the space with fewer
constraints. Similar to: MIT’s Building 20
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4. Building 20, at MIT (1943-1998). Building 20 served as a "magical incubator" for many
small MIT programs, research, and student activities for a half-century [Wikipedia].
5. Dreams for the Design Common
² Promote design, in general
² Attract designers and design thinkers
² Encourage design activity & discourse
² Build interesting links, connections and
friendships
² Make some money; build revenue streams
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6. Design Seminar Series
² Goals of this series
• Make it a series!
• Create excitement, buzz about design issues
• Any talk is better than no talk
• Be the design change we wish to see in the world
² Who here wants to give a Design Seminar?
• Open to anyone with something to contribute
• We’ll help you with preparation, if needed
• Talk to us afterwards…
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7. Innovation
² Innovation differs from improvement in that innovation
refers to the notion of doing something different (Lat.
innovare: "to change") rather than doing the same thing
better.
• Structure changes somehow; new links created
² Not
• Doing the same old thing
• Doing the same old thing, but disguising it as
something different [old wine in new bottles]
• Doing something different, but the difference being
negative
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8. CSI and Design
² Lots of people at CSI do design
• Design of social processes, communities
• Policy design
• Web apps, graphics, magazines
• Computer code
² People who design may not think of
themselves as designers
• IMO, on some level, all design processes are unified
• Eventually, brain scans will show this!
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9. Social Innovation
² People coming together and creating value in
new ways
• Create new communities, group identities and
awareness
• Distributed action leading to emergence
² People are social animals
• Social interactions are far older than current business
and economic structures
² New forms of social interaction can create new
markets
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10. Social Innovation: how to get it?
² Mix people from different cultures together
• Sri Lankans and Newfoundlanders; Bankers and
Street Clowns; Communities of Practice
² Empower marginalized populations
• Women, aboriginals, homosexuals, people living in
isolation, people speaking minority languages, poor
people, young people; Pariah groups: prisoners, the
mentally ill, the homeless, deviants, untouchables
² Encourage creation of new links
• Social, conceptual, cognitive, etc.
2012-12-07 Are Design and Social Innovation Related? 10
12. Design
² Often done in a social, team context
• Unlike, say, writing a novel
² Involves configuring some aspect of a future
world
• New products, processes
² Non-routine
• The old way of doing things seen as unsatisfactory
² Inherently progressive (if done well)
• The world will be better with this design
2012-12-07 Are Design and Social Innovation Related? 12
13. Design: how to get it?
² Create economies in which design is required
• Have manufacturing industries?
² Create excitement about what designers might
design
• New products, processes
• Elevate social standing, income of designers
² Don’t insist on doing things the same old way
• Encourage new ways of thinking
• Traditional societies may not be design-friendly
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15. Social Innovation & Design: similarities
² Creativity involves making new links between
existing things
• Bridging between cultures
• The Act of Creation,
Arthur Koestler, bisociation
• George Lakoff, Metaphor
• Creating new synapses in the
brain
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16. Sometimes ‘innovation’ isn’t positive
² Social
• Rise of nationalism
• Ascendancies of certain ethnic groups
• Ethnic cleansing
² Design
• Some modern public housing projects
• Car-based transportation
in cities
• Nuclear weapons
• Drone warfare
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17. Conclusions
² Creativity & innovation involve making new
links
• Don’t make one culture or approach dominant
• Toronto is a perfect laboratory for this
² In order to make new links you need to be
aware, and to interact
• Awareness: people, ideas on your radar
• Curiosity & Knowledge: of the past & present
• Openness: wanting to interact
• Performance: getting out there
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18. Conclusions, cont’d
² Don’t trash all tradition
• Some new ideas are terrible
• Sometimes the old ways are beautiful
• You need to curate: pick the best of old and new
² Sometimes true innovation is
unrecognizable
• The weirdoes of today might be
the icons of tomorrow,
or maybe not…
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19. Thanks for coming!
Any questions?
Michael Cumming
michael@michaelcumming.com
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20. If time permits: questions
1. If you want to be socially innovative, do you
always have to design something?
2. Does good design always involve social
innovation?
3. In order to get something that looks good and
functions well do you have to design it?
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21. Question 1
If you want to be socially innovative, do you
always have to design something?
² Maybe…
• If you bring new people together or create a new
community, is that a thing you design?
• If you come up with some interesting idea about an
environmentally appropriate product (say furniture
built from cardboard), is that design?
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22. Question 2
Does good design always involve social
innovation?
² No
• Apple Computer and Foxconn
• Sweat shops in Bangladesh
• Traditional building everywhere
• Mediaeval cathedrals
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23. Question 3
In order to get something that looks good and
functions well do you have to design it?
² No, sometimes things just evolve, or emerge!
• Biodiversity
• Architecture without Architects
² Nature is full of beautiful things—did someone
design them to be that way?
• Intelligent Design Theory = Anti-evolutionary theory
• Are other theories of ‘intelligent design’ equally
crackpot?
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