Things to consider
As the old saying goes, ask a silly question and you will get a silly answer! Successful social design, social innovation and social enterprise are as much about identifying appropriate questions and issues to be addressed by intervention as it is about creating the responses to those questions. Before you can design (or co-design) a solution you need to fully understand the problems that are faced.
You are asked to work with local stakeholders to identify what issues need to be addressed to improve their quality of life and well being. The aim is to identify which of the national themes discussed on this site are of greatest relevance to your local community and the people you chose to work with in it. In short, you need to co-design your local brief before you design your response.
The Audi Design Foundation ran a workshop with designers, researchers and advocates for design to identify some national and international hot topics and key questions that design might address. How do the questions below relate to your local scenario? Do you and your stakeholders have the skills to address these questions? Are they important to you? If not what questions are more relevant to your local community and their situation and how will you use them to create your own design brief?
Hot Topic I: Measuring Social Economic Impact
Brief/question: Measuring social value
- How could you design a credit/reward system for actions that benefit the community and acknowledge social capital?
- How could you create investment without capital?
Situational context
- Service to community should be accounted for through better salaries
- Should banks consider someone’s social capital and not just their financial background when considering whether to grant credit? Are social contributors less likely to be a financial threat or risk?
Things to consider
- ‘Freecycle’ model
- How to understand different notions of value
- How do you evidence and evaluate social capital technology?
- How to set up a peer-to-peer marking system to establish communities of trust
- How to create a loyalty card system
Hot Topic II: Sharing Resources
Brief/question: Sharing resources or mentoring systems for start-ups or community enterprises
- How can you design a system to mobilise unused resources?
- Issues to consider include property, skills and capital
- Focusing on re-mobilisation for sustainable enterprises
Situational context
- Resources shared could be buildings, space, skills and finances
- How do you find resources that businesses might need?
- How do you reward communities that work together better?
Sign Posts & Considerations
Hot Topic III: Alternative Finances
Brief /question: Alternative Credit Systems
- How can you tap into alternative credit models and gain public interest in these new notions of currency?
Sign Posts & Considerations