Design for Social Innovation

Esta publicación –enmarcada en la producción de la línea de investigación Presente y Futuro del Diseño, Universidad de Palermo– reúne una selección artículos sobre Creatividad solidaria e Innovación
social en América Latina, pensados desde un posicionamiento, anclaje y recorte geográfico latinoamericano.
El proyecto fue concebido y ha sido posible gracias a la relación institucional y la cooperación académica entre la Facultad de Diseño y Comunicación de la Universidad de Palermo (Argentina) y el Programa de Posgraduación en Diseño de la Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais (Brasil) que rige desde noviembre de 2016.
El proyecto de investigación –realizado durante 2017 y parte de 2018– buscó analizar y relevar diferentes diseños, no solo aquellos de carácter innovador, sino también los que poseyeran una capacidad actual o potencial de generar impacto social positivo en la región.

Business is increasingly employing sustainability practices, aiming to improve environmental and social responsibility while maintaining and improving profitability. For many organizations, profit-oriented business models are a major constraint impeding progress in sustainability. A formally defined ontology, a model definition, for profit-oriented business models has been employed globally for several years. However, no equivalent ontology is available in research or practice that enables the description of strongly sustainable business models, as validated by ecological economics and derived from natural, social, and system sciences. We present a framework of strongly sustainable business model propositions and principles as findings from a transdisciplinary review of the literature. A comparative analysis was performed between the framework and the Osterwalder profit-oriented ontology for business models. We introduce an ontology that enables the description of successful strongly sustainable business models that resolves weaknesses and includes functionally necessary relationships.

[Since this research was completed, the practitioner visual design tool (the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Canvas) that is conceptually "powered by" the the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Ontology, has been further refined to become the Flourishing Business Canvas - see www.FlourishingBusiness.org for the most recent practice and developments].

This paper is part of the special issue “Business Models for Sustainability: Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Transformation” https://blog.ssbmg.com/2013/07/29/call-for-papers-for-a-special-issue-of-organization-environment-business-models-for-sustainability-entrepreneurship-innovation-and-transformation/.  It was submitted at the personal invitation of guest editors Prof. Dr. Stefan Schaltegger, Prof. Dr. Erik Hansen and Dr. Florian Lüdeke-Freund (Leuphana University Centre for Sustainability Management)

PhD Thesis.

Del Gaudio, Chiara; Oliveira, Alfredo Jefferson de (advisor); Franzato, Carlo (co-advisor). Participatory Design and Social Innovation: the influence of contextual factors. Rio de Janeiro, 2014. 342p. Doctoral Thesis - Departamento de Artes & Design, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro.


The thesis investigates the designer’s action in conflict and marginalized social contexts aimed at promoting and enhancing local Social Innovation processes through participatory experiences and the Design strategy. Firstly, a theoretical review of the social contribution of Design, of the best-known approaches and practices, and of the selected context was developed. This moment had been preparatory for a subsequent phase of applied research that occurred with the implementation of a participatory Design project inside a Rio de Janeiro slum in collaboration with a local NGO. During field research data were collected through participatory observation. Their later analysis led to identify two key research macro-categories - time, and Design partners and local interests – that were verified and better understood through some interviews with designers and a new phase of theoretical review. All this led to research results: two main issues that may influence, impede or hinder the development of this kind of project were identified. Firstly, time appeared as a fundamental element in project development, able to promote or prevent it. In fact, temporal divergences between the designer and the Design process, between the context and the Design partners may occur. Secondly, the influence of the forces exerted by local actors - and based on interests and inner agendas - on the designer’s actions emerged as well as its relation to the project network structure. Research results indicate that: (1) contextual factors may influence the Design process in participatory projects aiming at promoting local Social Innovation processes; (2) the designer’s action in participatory experiences may benefit of approaches that consider contextual factors; (3) the methodologies and tools that have been developed to support designer’s work in the social field are not enough for action. Finally, this thesis promotes a reflection about the widespread idea of an efficient Social Design practice and about Design education in this area.

The recent cross-breeding between design and social innovation sparks some interesting debates about the adequacy and real benefit of design for the search of answers to our political and social problems. What is so social about design in the first place ? Even if we do understand design as a set of practises that impact on the artificial environment we lean on in our everyday activities, hense on our material culture, can we really link that social dimension to the characteristic intention of designers ? On the other hand, if many recent experiences acknowledge the potential of design to support innovations stemming from local communities, does it really bear the essential critical ressources on which communities initiative hinges ? Answering those two questions seems now necessary to correctly advocate for the role of design in building new capabilities with respect to communities emancipation and human flourishing. With this track proposal we ought to laid down a setting that can help explore how social issues take place in the designer's critical engagement. The expected communications are to be structured around the presentation of social design case studies, reflecting on the social issues the outlined projects raise, the state of affairs they challenge, and the critical resources, moral, social or political, they lean on to stake their worthiness. In that way, we wish to offer an opportunity for participants to hold a critic of the critics, considering that, in the design field, moments where projects are criticized, may it be in the studio, in the schools workshops or in front of clients, represent one of the most common situation to see design being theorized.

=Purpose
This conceptual paper alerts the reader to the urgent need to address the most pressing challenge and opportunity of the 21st century, namely leadership that enables flourishing for all forever.

=Design/methodology/approach
This concept paper suggests a heuristic for the reader and supplies a working model of leadership as enabling function for flourishing that arises from a survey of the literature around leadership development as well as a brief review of the literature on flourishing.

=Findings
The paper highlights the reality that there are, as yet, only a small number of organizations and leadership that have conceptualized and implemented the notion of flourishing by design and that a great deal more research and implementation needs to occur to prove the validity of the model.

=Research limitations/implications
We need to undertake quasi-experimental research in which leadership development praxis incorporates the element of flourishing by design and then action research through which the outcomes can be measured, modified, and ongoing improvements iterated into the organizational design.

=Practical implications
This paper suggests a different mindset and skillset for leadership, and by implication, leadership development. Our ongoing research into "Seeking Best Methods for Leadership Development," through our Round 1 Delphi survey has uncovered the elements of Human Capital, Social Capital, Structural Capital, and Self Leadership, as core elements desired by global CEO's as necessary for an effective leadership development program. What we did not probe for, and need to probe for, is the element of "Flourishing Capital," or the degree to which the leadership might be developed to serve as enabling function for flourishing for all forever

=Originality/value
The paper highlights the reality that there are, as yet, only a small number of organizations and leadership that have conceptualized and implemented the notion of flourishing by design and that a great deal more research and implementation needs to occur to prove the validity of the model.

[To learn more about Leadership for Flourishing see www.globalleader.ca/.  To learn more about the Flourishing Business Canvas see www.FlourishingBusiness.org]

Depending on the focus, design research can occasionally seem to be a moving point in the coordinating system between more or less strongly polarized components such as “theory and praxis,” “art and technology,” “science and industry” or “politics and economy.” The related approaches are particularly fascinating when one considers that society is facing a wide range of complex phenomena, which are obviously approachable (and perhaps only approachable) in complex and diverse ways.  And Design Research can actually play an important role in this context. This offers us a number of opportunities, but also a number of challenges to adequately deal with this complexity.
In this article, we will highlight the position of design research as being deeply entangled in our everyday life, and is therefore always connected to the social sphere.
With the cultural construction of normality in mind, we criticize the position that proposes designed conclusions oriented towards the majority as the guiding principle in common design approaches. In turn this article will discuss the value of including the “non-majority” in the design and design research-process.

Resumen En Argentina, el alimento "leche" se inscribe en un modelo de producción y consumo concentrado en po/cas empresas, que centralizan su procesamiento y distribución con tendencia a la extranjerización de la propiedad. Este trabajo describe el diseño de un Sistema-Producto-Servicio orientado al producto "leche", que habilita a familias productoras y PyMES distribuidas en el territorio nacional a descentralizar su producción y distribución, permitiendo la apropiación local de los procesos productivos y de los productos, asegurando la inocuidad del alimento. El objetivo del presente artículo es recuperar y analizar la trayectoria del caso a partir de las herramientas que se

Part of designs’ essence is about being deeply committed to finding solutions for human problems. However, we can observe that, on the last century, much of this effort has been channeled to the design of products and goods for sale and consumption. At the same time, the arising of a critical culture of design, from the 1960’s, made a practical conscience of this field and its relation and impact on society emerge. Consequently, Social Design has emerged as an alternative to solving problems and issues related to survival and citizenship conditions, giving priority to certain groups of people, communities and individuals in vulnerability and poverty situations.
This paper aims to present impressions of a bibliographical research about Social Design, Codesign and Micro-Planning, related to the first year of doctoral research. It also understands how social design initiatives based on microplanning actions help participative projects sustainability in socially vulnerable communities.
The results were used in two workshops with residents of Alto da Cova da Moura neighborhood, Amadora municipality, Lisbon district and Desterro neighborhood, in the historic center of São Luis, state of Maranhão, Brazil.

Entrevista a Scott Brown, miembro del Parson's DESIS Lab, a propósito de su colaboración en el taller de Diseño Social impartido para la Maestría de Estudios de Diseño de CENTRO que contó con la colaboración de vecinos de la escuela.

Publicada en Economía Creativa No. 6, Otoño-Invierno, 2016
http://centro.edu.mx/ojs_01/index.php/economiacreativa/issue/view/8

Afin de donner un portrait intelligible, ce texte est divisé en deux parties. La première offrira quelques repères sur le mouvement communautaire québécois, passé et présent, pour montrer que la notion spongieuse de « communauté » traverse les recherches québécoises. Par-delà ses définitions changeantes, elle désigne une réalité ambivalente, à la fois institutionnelle (en tant que forme localisée et concrète d’intégration institutionnelle) et sociale (en tant que forme nationalisée et abstraite des sociétés locales). La seconde partie se focalisera sur une dimension particulière de cet objet hybride : la régulation institutionnelle des groupes et mobilisations communautaires et ses effets. Sans pouvoir développer la dialectique liant État et mouvement social, nous insisterons ici sur les seules stratégies étatiques qui cherchent à encadrer l’action des communautés, non pour suggérer que ces dernières se réduisent au « moule » de l’État , mais parce que cette perspective révèle clairement une dynamique souvent négligée : le rôle de l’État dans la communautarisation de l’espace national. Nous illustrerons cette tendance dans deux secteurs différents de politiques publiques, les politiques sociales et la politique éolienne, afin de montrer combien cette régulation est l’une des instances majeures de la transformation du mouvement social en innovation communautaire. Après voir explicité l’hypothèse d’une hybridation fondatrice de l’intégration nationale au Québec, nous évoquerons trois processus saillants de cette institutionnalisation.