Dear Future, I'm Ready‪!‬ Digital Society School & Transformational Studio

Listen to our FINAL(!) episode of the #21for21 podcast 🚀  🌏  with Christian Bason, director of the Danish Design Center, author and thought leader on mission driven design. 



Christian sat down with Marco (Unfortunately, Carola was still not able to make it due to personal circumstances) and talked with Marco about complexity, the role of design centers, the role and responsibilities of designers, governments and companies, and about stretching the future, for us all and for a more beautiful planet.




🎤 We should get the thinking back into Design Thinking. Design Thinking is what has gotten us into the boardroom and the 🎤corporate lingo. But we are not getting much further as it has reduced design to a set of processes and methods.


🎤 We (Danish Design Center) can drown you in toolkits😉 But I think we should have a nuanced perspective on what design is and what the role of the designer is.


🎤 To work on these complex issues won't be for all designers. Some of us will move into more strategic positions, but many probably won't. And that is fine. We need to re-think 'Design Thinking' in this way.


🎤 Our role is to raise agenda's, to direct design education but at the same time train current professionals and executives with the latest tools and mindsets that are needed.


🎤 Designers can work together with farmers to positively envision a future, with nature as a stakeholder, that can be beneficial for all. And interestingly enough... don't forget: the dining table is the epicenter of the transition.


🎤 Regulation is driving innovation, putting incredible pressure on companies. This is an incredible opportunity for designers. Designers can be the glue that binds and bridge all layers and parties.


🎤 As innovation labs/ design centers... If you want to work with real systemic change, we have to build new infrastructure. It is important to be open and available for a wider set of actors and entities. Not just inside institutions.


🎤 I am really first and foremost a storyteller... How might I tell the right stories, so that we can truly address the challenges we are facing as humanity and the planet?


🎤 Dear Future, I am Ready to stretch you. I am ready to expand you and I am ready to shape you in a way that is good for us all and for the world we live in.




Listen to the episode below 👇 🎧

 



About Christian Bason



Christian Bason, CEO, Ph.D. leads the Danish Design Centre (DDC), a non-profit foundation backed by the Danish government. Pursuing missions across green, digital and social transitions, the DDC creates new opportunities for innovation and sustainable growth for business, organizations and designers. Previously, Christian was Director of MindLab, the Danish government’s innovation team, and Business Manager with Ramboll Management Consulting. Christian is the author of eight books on innovation, design and leadership, including Expand: Stretching t

Listen to our latest episode of the #21for21 podcast 🚀  🌏  with J Bob Alotta, Media activist, filmmaker, movement strategist and current Vice President, Global Programs at Mozilla.

J Bob sat down with Marco at the Society 5.0 Festival in Amsterdam on October 12-13 where she was one of the keynote speakers. She talked with Marco about building movements for transformation, Mozilla as a driver of change, activism in times of uncertainty and of course, fueled with the topics of AI, big tech and the digital society.


🎤 We find ourselves in our own echo chambers and this makes us feel we don't have to be accountable to each other. The real truth is that we are interdependent.
🎤 This means you and I are engaged in this tension filled relations and then actually where there are consolidations of power and weatlth these are untouched. And this design is deeply problematic.
🎤 We already have power and value. There is a dominant naritive that has us think we don't. But the gorgeous opportunity is to be inventive together and to be thoughtful about what we can produce and collaborate on together.
🎤 Fear is preventing us to do most of the things we need to do at this point.
🎤 Dear Future, I am Ready to not be afraid!

Listen to the episode below 👇 🎧

About J Bob Alotta
J. Bob Alotta is a veteran movement builder and nonprofit executive working at the intersection of technology and communities. Now serving as Vice President, Global Programs at Mozilla, Bob leads several ambitious initiatives to make the internet and artificial intelligence more trustworthy and equitable. These include the Mozilla Festival (MozFest), which convenes tens of thousands of technologists, artists, and activists each year. The Data Futures Lab, which reimagines new, better ways for data to be governed. The Responsible Computer Science Challenge, which is training a new generation of ethics-minded technologists. And more.

Links

Welcoming message by Mozzilla 
IMDB profile
J Bob on Twitter
J Bob on Instagram

Listen to our inspiring new episode of the #21for21 podcast 🚀  🌏  with Roland van der Vorst, head of innovation of the international Dutch bank Rabobank and former professor of TU Delft and founder and director of Freedomlab.

Roland sat down with Marco at the Society 5.0 Festival in Amsterdam on October 12-13. He talked with Marco about transitions, looking at things differently, the role and responsibilities of corporates and academia in these transformational times, and of course what it means to be a creative voice and designerly thinker in a corporate environment.


🎤 I am not so interested in what is happening in the world, but more in how we deal with it. The fear we experience is most alarming, even more than the situations themselves.
🎤 Transition always starts in the mind, from within us. One of the biggest transitions in our mind is that we now start to understand that we as an individual are not the center of the universe. It all starts there, without it we can't change our behavior.
🎤 Technology is sold as being 'open', but at the same time technology forces us to fixate.
🎤 Don't mix up dreams with goals. Goals you evaluate based on results, dreams you evaluate based on your intention.
🎤 It is extremely exciting to be in a bank. Especially because is not going to change over night, but at the same it needs to change. That is my challenge, both from an intellectual and entrepreneurial perspective.
🎤 Dear Future, I am Ready to open up!

Listen to the episode below 👇 🎧

About Roland van der Vorst
Roland's professional life is dominated by two activities: trying to understand things and to put things in motion. The first has lead to various books, columns and lectures. The second has put on the path of entrepreneurship. I have always worked at the crossroads of strategic thinking and creative thinking. The last 16 years I did so by advising clients in various industries on brand development. I have managed professional organizations and put my strategies into practice by being an entrepreneur in both Europe and Singapore.

Links

TU Delft page including overview of books written by Roland
LinkedIn of Roland
Weekly columns by Roland
Profile of Roland by Rabobank

Listen to our new episode of the #21for21 podcast 🚀  🌏  with Matthew Wizinsky, a designer, researcher and educator. He is author of the amazing new book 'Design After Capitalism'.

Matthew talks with Marco and Carola about transition design, the role and responsibilities of academics and educators in design, new visions on the design profession and about capitalism from a designer’s perspective. Matthews's perspective.


🎤 As designers, we perhaps don't fully grasp what our mission is currently.
🎤 There are so many forms of design, but the kind I talk about is 'design at the scale of the human body'.
🎤 Transformation has also moved designers in many cases into powerful positions, designers are now in the board room. But, then, what do we do now?
🎤 We are trying to reform design, so that it can transcend capitalism.
🎤 My argument is not one of revolution, but rather one of erosion. How do we slowly erode the systems and situations we are stuck in.
🎤 Dear Future, I am Ready to design after capitalism. I hope you come with me!

Listen to the episode below 👇 🎧

About Matthew Wizinsky
Matthew Wizinsky is a designer, researcher, educator, and author on contemporary issues in design practice and research. He has over 20 years of professional experience in communication, interaction, exhibition, and experiential design, and he consults organizations on future possibilities through strategic foresight. He is an Associate Professor in the Ullman School of Design at the University of Cincinnati, PhD researcher in Transition Design at Carnegie Mellon University, Associate Editor for the communication design journal Visible Language, and the author of Design after Capitalism (MIT Press, 2022).

Links

Personal Website
Book - Design after Capitalism

Listen to our fascinating new episode of the #21for21 podcast 🚀  🌏  with Ruurd Priester, 

Ruurd talks with Marco and Carola about the stack of crises, doughnut economics and how he thinks we should transform (the) design (field) for good.


🎤  Most designers are in fact not designers, because they are working in the current or old economic models. And designers solve problems, and the old economic models are in fact the problem...
🎤  Dear Future, I am ready to work for the younger generation, so that their powers will be released for good.

Listen to the episode below 👇 🎧

About Ruurd Priester
Ruurd is a systems thinker/doer, a social entrepreneur and researcher, with many years in digital design, marketing, innovation and strategy. He is Co-Founder and strategist of Groundforce Studio, which developed the Doughnut Economics Action Lab website and platform. Ruurd is Co-Founder and Acting Chair of the Amsterdam Donut Coalitie, Co-Founder and strategist of Climate Cleanup, and a former Research Fellow at the Amsterdam University of Applied Science – where he is also leading the sustainability program re-set. Ruurd's favorite motto is from Charles Eames: 'eventually everything connects'.

Listen to our dazzling new episode of the #21for21 podcast 🚀  🌏  with Celiane Camargo-Borges, pioneer in imagineering, researcher and founder of designing conversations where she advocates the power of dialogue. 

Celiane talks with Marco and Carola about the potential of dialogue, collective creativity, Imagineering Design and social change.


🎤  How can we (as educators) shift from being owners of content to facilitators of learning processes?
🎤  Our focus on 'fixing things' blinds us from the process, which is inherently part of transformation.
🎤  Dialogue is a resource do design an environment in which people can become creative and innovative.
🎤  Dear Future ,I am ready to jump, I am ready to experiment and create a future with diversity and inclusion, combining regeneration of nature with our economy.

Listen to the episode below 👇 🎧

About Celiane Camargo-Borges
Celiane Camargo-Borges is faculty at Breda University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands and visiting professor and guest lecturer at several universities around the world such as University of São Paulo in Brazil, University of Padova in Italy, University College Aspira in Croatia, among others.  She is also the founder of Designing Conversations (www.designingconversations.us), where she consults, designs and delivers workshops and process design within a diversity of areas where creativity, imagination, innovation and dialogue are central. In addition, she is a member of the Taos Institute Board, serving as a PhD supervisor and facilitator of workshops and online courses.

Episode transcript
published soon