Kickstarter has a microsite up to highlight the main themes of 2011, their second year. Crowd-funded projects are thriving in Portland but I especially like the fact that one of Kickstarter’s main themes from 2011 are civic projects being funded through the site. Another theme is DIY manufacturing, like my friends over at Nortd Labs and their open source laser cutter, the Lasersaur, which was originally funded through a Kickstarter campaign. I can’t wait to see what Year 3 brings.
I am an interdisciplinary designer with an artful and strategic approach to challenges and opportunities.
My main research interest and practice is centered in social design – using design as a process to create change in areas and systems not normally served by design. I employ ethnographic methods to get at the heart of a person or organization’s needs and believe that a collaborative approach to problem-solving is most effective. Involving stakeholders in the design process from the beginning can produce tremendous results, whether the task at hand is rethinking an educational model, developing a communications strategy, or working with a rural family create new sources of income. I believe the future will ask designers to be instigators and collaborators, not stylists or directors.
I participated in Dachis Group’s Visual Thinking School on December 1st. Our “client” was the Occupy Wall Street movement. See some of our conclusions in my write-up.
Oregon Public Broadcasting wrote a little feature on the Design Camp I taught this summer – check it out!
I just finished an intense week of teaching design to high schoolers and young adults, hoping to inspire some of them to pursue design in college or beyond. University of Oregon Design Camp 2011.
The following article is about a school in my old neighborhood, the South Waterfront area of Portland, which is often advertised as the largest green community in the country. It's also home to an inordinate number of dog owners, some of whom have difficulty cleaning up after their pets. It sounds like this project would be a great one to approach from a design-thinking persepctive, and I wonder how "policy-based solutions" might differ from design-based ones.
Southwest Charter School Students Tackle Poop Problem
Southwest Charter Middle School Students recently presented their project, "Poop Problem in Portland", at a Project Citizen competition at the statehouse in Salem. The presentation won first place in the state, and is going on to represent Oregon in the national showcase in L.A. this summer! This presentation addresses the issue of dog owners not picking up after their dogs in the South Waterfront neighborhood. Students conducted research, including surveys and interviews, and proposed a policy-based solution and action plan. Presentation includes visual panels and a research portfolio.
Students will give their presentation again at Umpqua Bank on Tuesday, June 7 at 1:00 pm and on Friday, June 10 at Portland City Hall at 9:30 am.
Southwest Charter School Students Tackle Poop Problem
Tuesday, June 7, 1:00 pm – 1:45 pm
Umpqua Bank, 3606 SW Bond Avenue, Portland, OR Map It
Friday, June 10, 9:30 am – 10:15 am
Portland City Hall, 1221 SW 4th Avenue, Portland, OR Map It
“Whatever happened to steros? I seriously stopped caring about music because of computers. It sucks.”
A former student just posted this on Facebook and it woke me up to the fact that I do not buy, search out, or listen to music the way I used to. I’ve almost completely lost interest in finding new music. I used to chalk it up to changing priorities, but I think a bigger part of it has to do with the movement of music from analog to digital.
I listen to way more pop music than I used to, in part because I think I can perhaps prevent the passage of time if I can sing along to Gaga at the gym (hey it’s hard to keep up with the 20-year-olds. might as well start by knowing their music) but mostly because it’s still so pervasive. If the digital format opened up the marketplace to independent musicians it also provided a way for inane pop hits to multiply and reproduce at an alarming rate. Show me the difference between Sean Kingston’s “Beautiful Girls” and “Nothin’ on You” by B.o.B. and I’ll show you a single song cell that was divided into two revenue streams.
My husband still has the capability and patience to seek out and find new music and so most of what I listen to these days has been selected by him. The joy I used to feel in finding something unique in a record bin has never been replaced by a digital equivalent. I don’t know how much money I spent in my teens and twenties on rare, limited edition, imported, japanese-only, colored record, poster included, vintage, original pressing pieces of vinyl (or even CDs). It was a lot. Both the physical element of the acquisition and the excitment of unearthing some piece of history or rarity in the record bin has been lost in the digital experience.
I know a lot has been written about this, and that lots of digital experiences have been created to simulate the old record-buying experience – Portland’s Jackpot Records has a virtual record rail on their website where you can see the newest releases, similar to the physical experience of walking into the store and seeing the employee picks wall – but it’s obviously not the same. And for all the information the digital experiences provide, I still feel like there’s a lack there. Is it the missing physical element? The ubiquity of ratings and reviews that spoil the record before you’ve even listened to it? Or perhaps the fact of realizing that so many other people out there want and are listening to the same thing you are. How do you reproduce the feeling of being in the right place at the right time, at Amoeba Records trolling the used bins and finding something you’d been looking for that wasn’t there yesterday?
A depressing article in the Oregonian about further reductions in the state’s public school art, music and library programs presents yet another example of the need for a major rehaul of our education system. Everyone knows educators and administrators want to do their best, we need to find a way for them to feel compensated for their efforts while balancing the budget. One of the most ripe areas for a radical design-thinking exercise and yet the numerous stakeholders make it near impossible. With a kid a few years out from entering school I’ve already started looking at our options and comparing notes with friends. Many are going the private school route even if they believe strongly in the idea of public schools. Those who attended public school during a time of competitive music programs, theater, choir, a fully staffed and open library, and numerous art classes don’t want to their children will have a truncated experience. And who can blame them?
Update September 10th: Worldstudio is sponsoring a competition for high schoolers to “redesign their school” in partnership with professional designers. The project ends December 31, 2010 and carries a $10,000 award for the winning team!
Millersburg, Oregon
Hipster on a fixed-gear
Bruce Nussbaum’s recent post on IDEO alumni moving on to lead cultural organizations got me thinking about Oregon’s 2010 gubernatorial race. John Kitzhaber, former governor of Oregon, is running. Kitzhaber is a likable guy. He’s not exactly Average Joe, but he might appeal to him. His campaign slogan might be “comfortable and friendly, just like your favorite jeans.” In fact, Kitzhaber’s unofficial uniform includes wearing jeans everyday, sometimes in combination with sport coats and boots, evoking a cowboy vibe.
Oregon is a strange place, a land of contradictions. If you live in Portland the rest of the state and its concerns are easily forgotten. Driving down the I-5 corridor the last few Fridays has gotten me back in touch with the variety of Oregonians and their vocations. In that 100-mile stretch you see lumber mills, vast swaths of level farmland, livestock, and mobile home manufacturing plants. What you don’t see are fixed-gear bicycles, food carts, or hipsters, unless they’re returning to school at the University of Oregon after a weekend at home. I mention these things in particular because they are images we associate with creative types, the people who are supposedly running the engines of a new economy in Oregon. Right now unemployment in Portland for these creatives stands around 20% (although unofficial estimates put it much higher) similar to the levels of unemployed lumber workers when stricter logging regulations began to kick in during the 1980′s.
These two seemingly dissimilar groups, the country and city mice, if you will, have something in common. Namely, the inability to get a paying job in Oregon. It is the biggest challenge facing whomever is governor of Oregon. Which makes me wonder if Kitzhaber is really the best choice. Is comfortable and friendly going to get us anywhere? Politicians are perhaps the most regular users of ethnography. They spend their days trying to understand and empathize with people, though it’s arguable to what use they put insights they may gather. Is there some transformational person who could unite Oregon and its varied constituents? I don’t know if IDEO is ready to start turning out political candidates…
"Show2008, a biennial exhibit, displays over 50 examples of unusual and stimulating furniture design and provides designers with a place for peer and public recognition and dialogue. Show2008 takes place at Portland State University's Shattuck Hall through October 2008 and is presented by fix."
I still haven't had a chance to visit the show since it opened on First Thursday when I was otherwise occupied, but it's also open at very awkward hours. I've been to Shattuck Hall at PSU twice in the last week and the show wasn't open either of those times. Seems like it would've been a good thing to have it open prior to Andrea Zittel's lecture when 300+ people were wandering through?
The show is located at PSU and open through the month of October
M + W + F 1 – 5pm
Portland State University
Shattuck Hall
1914 SW Park (at Broadway and Hall)
Special Designer Q&A Panel
Tuesday, Oct. 21st, 6:30pm
Design Within Reach
1200 NW Everett
