Welcome!

Welcome to the official blog for RISD's advanced studio, Design for Social Entrepreneurship, Fall 2008. This course aims to cultivate social entrepreneurial designers by investigating the power of products, systems and services to create positive social and environmental change both internationally and domestically.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Thanksgiving Homework

1. Update your blog with recent project information.
To include your presentations, please post them on slideshare.net, and then you can embed the show into your blog.

2. Write a blog article about your Thanksgiving break and dinner.

3. Continue developing and furthering your projects. 
You will present to the class on December 4th with ppt. as preparation for the final. This will be your opportunity to get feedback on both content of your project, what you need to push or change, and presentation style.

Happy Turkey Day!

Friday, November 21, 2008

Acumen Fund TED Talk

Founder and CEO of the Acumen Fund, Jacqueline Novogratz, gives an inspiring talk about overcoming global poverty.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Mid-Crit Deliverables

Thursday November 20th
Mid-Crit

10-15 minute Powerpoint Presentation
Deliverables: 

Briefly: (about 3 minutes or less) 
-What Organization have you been working with? 
-Summarize their mission
-What type of work have you been doing with them?
-What are some of the barriers you have identified as opportunities? (if you narrowed in on one , just focus on this one barrier and do not discuss the other points)

In Depth: (about 10 minutes)
-Prototype(s) of your design idea(s) (If you have narrowed in on one design, just discuss this one design and the different components of it)

Briefly: (about 2 minutes)
-Outline your timeline for the rest of the semester and what you hope to achieve by the end.

DeSE on Nextbillion.Net


An article I recently wrote in reflection of the Better World by Design's social entrepreneurship panel is now posted on nextbillion.net here. DeSE is highlighted, with links to our new website.

Be sure to keep those blogs updated! I am going to add links to everyones' blogs under projects so people can follow along. 

Thursday, November 6, 2008

DeSE has a website!

DeSE now has a website! 

Projects and information are still being uploaded. 
The header was one that came with the template. If anyone would like to make a DeSE header, please email it my way.

Thanks,
Sami

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Systems Design Example- Tangible Steps for Tomorrow

IDEO in partnership with the Kellogg Foundation formulated a system to improve elementary education through holistic thinking and designing. 

Take a look at their illustrations and how IDEO uses story-telling to convey their ideas in a clear and visual way. 


Tangible steps toward tomorrow - Get more Creative Writing

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Email In!

Email Sami all assignments from the first half of this semester in PDF format including: 

9 Page MDG Research Pages
TED Talk Research
Product Precedent
StoryBoard
ThemeBoard
Final Exercise 2 page layout

Due this Thursday

If your file exceeds 10 mb, you can use: www.Yousendit.com 

Human Centered Design

Human Centered Design
View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: design ideo)


The HCD Toolkit abridged for DeSE

Saturday, November 1, 2008

A Field Guide from IDEO



We will go over this toolkit Tuesday morning in class.

In collaboration with Gates Foundation and IDE, IDEO created and JUST released a Human Centered Design toolkit. This resource was created to help organizations working with smallholder farmers but can definitely be translated to the work we are doing in class!

For your upcoming interviews, read the Field Guide here. Some sage advice given includes:

During observations, look for:
» Things that prompt shifts in behavior
» Work-arounds and adaptations
» Body language
» Things people care about
» Anything that surprises you
» Anything that questions your assumptions about how the world works
» Anything that you find “irrational”

Thanks IDEO!

Videos Now Available!

For those of you who could not attend Thursday's lectures, they are now available on DeSE's YouTube Channel! Below is the first clip of Tanya Fields' profound lecture on the power of community activism for social change and what we as designers can do to make a difference.