I am increasingly interested in learning/teaching myself methods for visualising networks and innovation systems in the context of intervention for ecodesign. There are a number of interesting tools and resources available such as network workbench, Pajek and many eyes. There are also some interesting low-tech versions such as Net-Map.

Net-Map is an interview-based mapping tool that helps people understand, visualize, discuss, and improve situations in which many different actors influence outcomes . By creating Influence Network Maps, individuals and groups can clarify their own view of a situation, foster discussion, and develop a strategic approach to their networking activities. More specifically, Net-Map helps players to determine

• what actors are involved in a given network,
• how they are linked,
• how influential they are, and
• what their goals are.

Determining linkages, levels of influence, and goals allows users to be more strategic about how they act in these complex situations.

According to ENDS, the European Commission is due to extend the scope and depth of the ecodesign legislation already in place within the EU. It will increase the range of products to include clothing, cleaning products, waste water, furniture and buildings components. This is expected to strengthen the ability of the member states to tackle those products with the highest environmental impacts.

These development are coming through the European Commissions latest work on Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) and Sustainable Industrial Policy. DEFRA are making worthwhile progress on the development of specific product roadmaps for SCP policies and mechanisms.

One of the weaker elements of all these developments is the the lack of convincing policy frameworks and mechanisms for sustainable consumption. There is still much work to be done in this area as was seen in the open debates at the final SCORE conference in March of this year.

There are a selection of interesting short essays on design in an emerging world on the Torino World Design Capital website. They are a welcome contribution to the debate on design in the context of sustainable development. For me they are a refreshing reminder that there is still momentum and debate in the design community on roles, perspectives and responsibilities.

Debating the power of people-centred design to affect meaningful cultural change

A new people-driven and socially engaged definition of design, which puts people at the heart of its process, is increasingly becoming a crucial paradigm in the global design discourse and practice. It has reinvigorated the field of design and the impact it can have on our lives, and provides a valuable addition to the other paradigms (e.g. political, technological, scientific, commercial) that have driven cultural and social changes so far.

There is not yet a fully settled consensus on how this people-centred design paradigm should be implemented, with some focusing more on culture (e.g. Ranjit Makkuni), others on sustainability, some emphasising business innovation, other focusing mainly on contextual research, and there are of course various degrees of overlap between these approaches.

Niti Bhan: Design for an emerging world

The technically proficient, the engineering experts, the world class designers are all who practice in conditions of abundance. They create with no shortage of materials, funds, resources, fuel or energy. If we need to design products and systems under maximum constraints using minimal resources, husbanding our natural resources and rationing our use, where better to begin seeking answers but amongst those who already live under these conditions?

Design policies for a sustainable future

Designers know they hold the key to more sustainable, responsible future. What is needed now is not just a variety of government regulated environmental or carbon emissions policies, but the willingness to address all the issues at the root level, by the entire design industry. As policy. As belief. As a mark of faith for future.

story originally linked from Core77

I have heard Professor Fred Steward speak on a number of occasions on the issue of socio-technical transitions and sustainable innovation. Although discussed in other domains and by many other researchers, his insights into social networks and innovation have always been inspiring and informative.

His recent research provocation NESTA , Breaking the Boundaries: Transformative innovation for the global good, was no less interesting. It is written as a more passionate tone and is therefore more accessible.

Two points that struck me were, What is the “global good”? and how do we move away from the “big science” perspectives and gargantuan thinking on radical innovation for sustainability. Many recent discussions on social innovation, hidden innovation and street innovation have left me wondering how can design dialogues and paradigms embedded in developed economies facilitate sustainable social change from a global perspective. Increasingly, I am more inspired to look to the hidden innovations that facilitate social change for sustainability. Much of what I am seeing from this hidden innovation perspective is occurring in emerging economies. How do we capture this creativity and change? Should we capture this creativity and change?

The forthcoming book OneSmallProject is inspired by living conditions in the working class neighbourhoods of Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Chicago, Colombo, Delhi, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Los Angeles, Mumbai, New Orleans, St. Petersburg, and Singapore.

One billion leftover people–typically called squatters, self-builders, slum dwellers, informal settlers, or displaced persons (it’s a big category)–claim leftover spaces in cities and live in unauthorized dwellings made of scavenged, leftover materials. If you know even one of the one billion, you’ve been touched by her or his life, even if briefly and reluctantly.

Now, I build small projects alongside architects, architecture students, artists, designers and the world’s working and urban poor, believing I have much to learn from them and my knowledge regarding architecture and design might have relevance in their lives.

Community activists, filmmakers, industrial designers, preservationists, writers, sculptors, photographers, architects, and many others are engaged as well, building more for others, wanting less for themselves.

http://www.onesmallproject.com/

Probably not, but Zotero is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work — in the web browser itself.

It boasts much of the functionality of bibliographic software while being embedded in your browser. Interestingly it is able to “sense” reference information from a web page.

Zotero integrates tightly with online resources; it can sense when users are viewing a book, article, or other object on the web, and—on many major research and library sites—find and automatically save the full reference information for the item in the correct fields. Since it lives in the web browser, it can effortlessly transmit information to, and receive information from, other web services and applications; since it runs on one’s personal computer, it can also communicate with software running there (such as Microsoft Word). And it can be used offline as well (e.g., on a plane, in an archive without WiFi).

Nokia’s user anthropologist Jan Chipcase was followed by the New York Times on his design research visits to the developing world. What is most interesting about Chipchases’s work is that the now fairly humble mobile phone is transformed through new context.

Something that’s mostly a convenience booster for those of us with a full complement of technology at our disposal — land-lines, Internet connections, TVs, cars — can be a life-saver to someone with fewer ways to access information. A “just in time” moment afforded by a cellphone looks a lot different to a mother in Uganda who needs to carry a child with malaria three hours to visit the nearest doctor but who would like to know first whether that doctor is even in town.

Some of the user insights and observations of Jan Chipchase are being transformed into design responses such as producing phones with multiple address books for as many as seven users per phone to support the practice of sharing cellphones inside of families or neighborhoods.

Future Perfect is the personal blog of Jan Chipcase and on a similar vein “thoughtless acts” is an interesting collection of images and descriptions.

The Difference Dividend: Why immigration is vital to innovation is the new NESTA provocation written by Charles Leadbeater. Charles has constructed an argument on the role of diversity, crisis and cultural flux in fostering innovation.

Charles gave a provocative introduction to this publication the other night in Cardiff. Some of the the most insightful aspects was the embeddedness of immigrants in the story of the economic development of Britain. I would like to explore the mechanisms of circular immigration in more detail.

I attended the one day course on Evaluating Complex Social Interventions: Randomised Controlled Trials and Realistic Evaluation at Cardiff University on the 23rd of April

Course description
“Many social interventions are necessarily complex, and the evaluation of such interventions can take a variety of approaches and address a multiplicity of distinct but inter-related research questions. Traditionally, there have been competing paradigms in evaluation research, with very different emphases over a range of dimensions including outcome vs. process; measurement vs. explanation; quantitative vs. qualitative; evidence vs. theory…….

In questions and in two facilitated small group discussion sessions, participants will discuss the challenges to and limitations of randomised controlled trials and realistic evaluation. Professor Laurence Moore will discuss recent developments in research methodology which integrate these alternative perspectives through complementary use of mixed methods. A final panel discussion will assess the potential for creative synthesis of the traditionally antagonistic approaches.”

Continue reading ‘Evaluating Complex Social Interventions’

This book provides an up to date review of research and thinking on the governance of sustainable consumption and production. It is largely based on output from the SCORE Network series of conferences.

I am currently reading this book but can recommend it to anyone interested in the business, design, consumer or policy perspective of SCP.

Purchase it here : http://www.greenleaf-publishing.com/productdetail.kmod?productid=2590

The Programme for the Promotion of Ecodesign in the Basque Country 2004-2006 was delivered by IHOBE. It offered a promising development in the area of ecodesign intervention.

The ambitious targets were matched with a number of useful outputs such as a new ecodesign manual, case-studies, a number of support services and a basque-language sustainable products website