Marshmallows and spaghetti in social design
Via Danny Leen I received the link to this video. Tom Wujec explains how he uses dry spaghetti, tape and a marshmallow to gather people in an intense collaboration process. Social design with fun ingredients!
Participatory decision making
Although it is in Dutch, I thought this article was interesting to share. It reflects on the plan of the Flemish government to structure infrastructure works more efficiently. A few politicians believe that participation by citizens slows down the working process. As a response some organisations want to stress the need for governments to engage citizens in qualitative and interesting ways in infrastructure works. You can read their reaction here: http://www.apache.be/2010/03/de-weg-naar-een-meer-participatieve-besluitvorming/
Social Spaces certainly wants to propose/design some challenging and – at the same time – efficient participatory methods!
Report UseWell kickoff meeting
On Monday 22nd of February partners of Usewell met at the Media & Design Academy. It was the first chance for many of the partners to meet each other and to share their particular backgrounds, knowledge and interest in the area of research, design and innovation. The kick off meeting began with a presentation of the Usewell project concept. In her presentation, Liesbeth Huybrechts, UseWell research leader at the Media & Design Academy (C-MD), presented her research into existing illustrated models of user-centred design strategies. This included visualisations created by the Belgian User-centred design consultancy Namahn, Liz Sander’s graphical interpretation of design research across various user-centred domains, Anne Nigten’s collaborative creative tool called The Patchingzone and tools such as Ideo’s method cards, the creativity tool created by the design and innovation consulting firm, IDEO.