YOUrban. Social Innovation Needs Design, and Design Needs Social Innovation (November 28, 2011) | Opinion Blog. Social innovation needs people who know how to create lives filled with both success and purpose. It needs designers. Social innovation is all around us. From Paul Hawkins observation in Blessed Unrest that grassroots organizations make up “the largest movement on earth,” to c-suite executives who have expressed renewed interest in intra-preneurship, to the millions of startup social entrepreneurs being supported by forward-looking foundations, and the venture capitalists who are prefacing the word investing with impact—some days it seems that there is no one left in the world who does not want to change it.
It’s as if we have woken up all at once—not just to the scariness of the challenges we face, but to the realization that we are not powerless to fix social problems and that deep satisfaction and well-being comes from working for good instead of just working. Take this year’s fellows at PopTech, the annual ideas and innovation conference in Camden, Maine. Cityofsound. The primary interface between the UK’s planning system and the people and places it serves is a piece of A4 paper tied to a lamppost in the rain. OK, not always rain. But rain often enough. The paper is a public notice describing a planning application for some kind of ‘development’ somewhere in the vicinity.
If it’s a significant development, and very close to your property, you may also get a notification in the post. However, this bit of A4 paper, via the local council, is essentially the only attempt to communicate how a neighbourhood may be about to change. For something as fundamental as this—how your actual, physical neighbourhood may change—it seems little more than a token gesture. There could be few more important urban interactions, potentially; and yet this is our best attempt to garnering your attention, your input. The paper notices are ubiquitous, tied at eye level in well-trafficked places.
(Aside: the soundtrack is Philip Glass’s ‘String Quartet No. 3 (Mishima): VI. Public Design Festival. CCA Actions. ((( SPAZI INDECISI ))) Human Cities: Currently. CCA Actions Exhibition | CCA Actions. How might we restore vibrancy in cities and regions facing economic decline? - Inspiration. Design for Community. Projects. Esterni.org. Engine Service Design | Service Design.