mY CrEaTiVe SpAcE- Sumiya Tarannum

“ Design and Policy” is the word that anchored me to this course. I was always inclined to exploring creativity inside me but along with that I wanted to pursue my passion “ to impact human life”.

A few years ago, I was working for a not for profit which tasked me with a challenging task of capturing people’s perception on a sanitation problem. In specific the problem was on solid waste management and I had the opportunity to study the stakeholder and they systems. It was a journey that made me realize how human systems and the enablers in form of technology, resources, governance and power interact to provide services. While it was insightful to see how people from different background look at the problem it was also important discovery that I had that people needed a platform that motivates them to do something about a problem. Then we decided to come up with a visual model, which we decided to use as a communication platform for people to interact. It was a creative approach that was being applied.

As we started off the class understanding the definitions of innovation, creativity, markets and intuitions to think out of the box we knew something more exciting was up for us. I had 3 key learning, which evolved while working with the team, which I will be jotting down below:

First learning happened!

It began with team building exercise, where we were put out of comfort zone and asked to pick topic and teams. Initially it was a stuck moment but gradually by the end of the class unconsciously things were happening. For the first time it felt good to be “unstructured” and make a team and topic happen.

Second learning-Eureka!

We had to finalize a project idea from Peduto’s100 Days; 100 Policies to Change Pittsburgh and it was a week away. We were handed with big sheets and sticky notes. One of our team mate, brought the Peduto’s ideas as print out sheets and then we started the process. First we went about re-reading the definition of problems and what the Mayor expectations were. We started picking key words from these descriptions and started throwing them on a white board. Then we saw a theme that was generated through the strings of these key words and then we decided to connect them cutting across three areas Immigration , Historic Preservation and Culture . We also ended up coming with the problem definition in each areas and saw the intersection where each area could feed into other to generate a solution. The picture on the right shows the picture of how we walked through that journey.

Third learning!

I read the article By Sabine on design and policy where she talked about how design is not considered at the beginning of the policy making stage and only brought into focus when policy implementation phase appears. The author emphasized that design was required to be associated from the time issue was identified in the policy making space and asked the readers to think creatively on tools of design.

We intend to add to that journey and come up with a tool box at the least by the end of our project to inform people on how design thinking be brought to impact humans. One of the design student from our team offered an interesting tool called  “ stakeholder value mapping”. This map will try and capture value created all the stakeholders at each phase of the project.

We as our next phase intend to meet people from Global Pittsburgh, Vibrant Pittsburgh and PHLF who have done enormous body of work around cultural diversity and historic preservation areas. We hope to learn more from the people from these organizations.

Recently the talk by Mitchel on creating humanitarian space provided another window to look at problem uniquely. He is a perfect example who started with design and is moving towards the zone of influencing policy and people.

Today after 2 month down in the course I have broaden my thinking and learnt how to apply thinking and tools from different disciplines in solving problems that impact people and their lives. I will be delighted and motivated to see how our journey turns out in next few months.

-Sumiya Tarannum

Exploring CMU, Pittsburgh, and the Impact Lab

When I was applying for Master’s programs in Human-Computer Interaction, I wrote in my personal statement: “I’m tired of just analyzing things, I want to make things: things that will make people’s lives better.” That was the impetus for joining this Design and Policy class as well as gaining some new perspectives on problem solving in the real world from designers and Heinzers. The class also came highly recommended by last years MHCIers!

I was pleasantly surprised to learn about the great list of guest lectures that we would have in the class and that the focus of our semester-long project would be on local, Pittsburgh issues. Next spring and fall, I will be studying in Madeira, Portugal at the Madeira Institute of Interactive Technologies. Therefore, I really wanted to spend time this semester on exploring Pittsburgh and utilizing all the resources available here at CMU that might not exist abroad. In my opinion, Pittsburgh is a wonderful city that is completely underrated in other parts of the country (i.e. my home state of California!).

Of course, no place is perfect, as Mayor Peduto’s 100 desired policy changes reflect. Having worked for the federal government for the past few years, I quickly bypassed any projects regarding government efficiency. My first instinct is always to look for women’s issues because that’s what I’m passionate about, but there were surprisingly few on the list (none?). One of the policies that really caught my eye at the beginning of the semester was about bringing ferries or a more extensive water taxi system to Pittsburgh. While we were in the midst of finding groups for the Impact Lab, I found some students discussing financial literacy issues who also expressed interest in the ferry idea. We formed a group and proceeded with both projects in mind. It took one of our professors, Tim Zak, to ask, “What does success look like?” to narrow our focus and finally decide on working to create an environment of financial responsibility within Pittsburgh.

I’m excited about this area and exploring the many spaces between community, non-profits, technological applications, and communication design. We have a group of go-getters that has already yielded some fruitful research and ideas in the form of sketching and even role-playing what someone who wanted to use these financial services might say or do. I did hit one mental roadblock after discovering the initiative Bank On Greater Pittsburgh because our initial concept was to create something just like that! My gut reaction was a selfish one of disappointment in that this group was already getting started with the support of the Mayor’s office. What more could we do? But upon reflection, the answer is obviously a lot! Our next steps will be to work with the Mayor’s office and Bank On to figure out exactly where they need help and how design, policy, and technology can play a role.

It’s a great feeling to be working with a group of people I simply find interesting. A lot of team bonding comes when you just talk about your lives. I hope to learn more from them about the policy pieces and how to communicate with communities as an outsider. Together, we will “follow the money” towards an innovative solution.

-Katie, Team 5

Blog entry 1: What I have learnt about social innovation – Siyun Li

My father is PhD in Public Administration and my mother is the chairman of District Women’s Federation. Both of them have undertaken the work of community service for many years. In my eyes, my parents’ undiminished responsibility has warmed the society and thus, made them my role model.

I labelled myself as ‘good citizen’ all my life and I am always proud of that. Social responsibility is a big concept, but under my parents’ influence, this word is rooted in my heart and actually affect my behaviors. All the time, I follow the DO’s and DON’Ts I have learnt in kindergarten.

When I grew up, I started doing volunteer works. Partly it is because I think this is the right thing to do, and partly because a sense of pity results from my superiority since I was born in such a blessed family without worries for basic living and had chances of trying a lot of different things.

As my experience and knowledge grew, I begin to examine the deep reason of what makes the difference between beneficiaries and benefactors, the people who needs help and the people who has the capacity to help.

Completely opposite experiences happened during my study as an exchange student in US and a volunteer in a slum in Delhi, India and they brought me deeper doubts. At first, I thought that Delhi, as the capital, should at least have the basic and standard living conditions. But I was proved wrong: old people suffered from hunger and they have to do all the hard works to survive, the kids’ eagerness for education could not be satisfied, I learnt news about broken families being afflicted with illness and death, while as in U.S, people are living and working in peace and contentment under a well-established social security system without water or electricity being cut off and without the torture of diseases.

The distribution of resources is extremely unbalanced. This happened not only amongst different people and amongst different areas in the same country, it happen across the nations. If we say the uneven distributed resource is the reason to distinguish beneficiaries and benefactor, then who, or what causes such situation which cannot be solved over hundreds of years? And who, and in what method, can do something about it?

Once I was invited by one of my Indian student to her birthday party. When I arrived, I got to know that everyone in the party would help this girl plant a tree as I mentioned in my recent lecture about global warming. (picture above) At that moment, I was deeply moved by realizing what I did as a volunteer was taking effect. But at the same time I also realized that the influence a volunteer could make was limited.

Then I turned my attention to policy area and started my master degree in public policy. The more I learnt, the more I realize the importance of this problem and the difficulty of solving it. And the reality is, policy is not panacea. Sadly, sometimes policy is even poison. Social conflicts resulting from uneven distribution of resources become more intensive gradually. We cannot afford spending year after year launching reports saying “we must do something”, “this problem has to get everyone’s attention” while there is no one really coming up with an effective way of gradual improvement.

Of course, such a complex social issue cannot be solved overnight. It is related to all aspects: economic, technology, culture, education, etc. But is there any other things we can do to try to speed up this process or think of a better way to deal with it? Instead of gradual improvement, what about radical innovation?

In this sense, I am so happy that I selected this courses. I have never noticed that social innovation can be a possible way and that it can even be a subject. As we mentioned in the class repeatedly, “social innovation is something hard to be defined, but once you see it, you will notice.” Well, this class actually brought social innovation as a concept to my notice.

I believe that the real social innovation has no standardized procedures. Its magic depends on its ‘uncertainty’. As one the reading suggests, social innovation is a rare event. It involves interactions, amounting various parties over a relatively long period of time. It requires extraordinary leadership, careful analysis, causes and needs, appropriate context, supportive factors and a feasible implementation plan. However, even if you collect all the above elements, there is still no guarantee of the success of social innovation. So why people are so obsessed about social innovation?

I guess that is because it has the power to change. And this is because I believe the core of social innovation is think differently. Think outside of the box – that is one really important idea that I learnt in the class. And I guess that is why we need to group with people from different fields. Our differences in our backgrounds and in the way of thinking struck some sparks. And I guess that was how Benjamin Franklin began his great adventure in creating such impressive and influential innovation.

In our group project, I believe that all three of us are enjoying the process of discussion, and for sure they, as realists and data analysts, complement me as idealists who belongs to ‘action before thinking’ group. They let me understand what “Don’t take things for granted” means in the aspect of social innovation. Now I begin to learn how to analyze data which I barely did before. I don’t know what we will come up at the end, but it will be great, I promise.

To conclude this paper, I will like to bring up my favorite article I read so far in this course – ‘Rediscovering Social Innovation’. This articles brings up a really interesting concept that social innovation is most likely to happen in the intersection of business, nonprofit, and government sectors. I was really excited when I read about this article, one because I fully agreed with its title, second because I wrote exactly same idea in my undergrad university graduation thesis, talking about the merging of profit and nonprofit sector’s operations will generate big changes. Well, what can I say, great minds think alike!