Dear Victor:

I'd just like to post my point of view.
I used to think of "social design" or "design for need" in more or less the
same way you are thinking about it.
In fact, I was willing to dedicate myself to that kind of design work in
life and somehow despised working on design for market needs.
Nonetheless. Having been back in my country (Colombia) for 5 years now,
after 3 in the UK, and having had the experiences I've had, I have acquired
a new perspective:
Design for social need, in a country like mine, may mean as well to work on
design for market needs. What I mean is that our economic situation is such
that, if you can help in any possible way the micro and small enterprises to
make their products more profitable, or/and more competitive, you're aiding
many social needs. For example, as these companies grow, or earn more money,
employees will be paid a little bit better (at least the minimum salary, in
most cases they are not paid the minimum, which in Colombia now is
approximately US$100 per month), and then you'll have a chain of issues
related to social needs tackled.
On the other hand, the development of this economy, aids the overal
development of our country's economy. Which in turn would help towards
ending our neverending civil war which causes SO MANY human problems
(Colombia is the country in the world with the second biggest problem of
people displaced, we have many many war injures, and children are fighting
with guerrilla groups).

In many cases our SME's have to "fight" against multinationals which are all
over the country, and in many cases they are trying to export their goods
too, with so many efforts... it's not easy at all. But each of their stories
is so full of hope, it really makes you emotional to see them act in the
middle of this mess and still be able to have some kind of success.

Overall, what I mean is that, in developing countries like mine, many
aspects of life that in developed countries are given for granted, here they
are not still being tackled. So for us, our need is to really work at the
root of our problems, aid the economy.
On the other hand, it is of course still imperative, in the meantime, to aid
the people suffering the present situation's consequences, and there, the
kind of design activity you propose would serve a good cause.

I would also like to say that I think it's important for those willing to
work in this area, to do it WITH people who are part of the context in which
the problems are happening.

I have written to the Design for the World people several times, trying to
get any answer, and I have never been responded to... I was hoping that my
students in the University I was working with, could do some work with the
Institution. But I never got any answer at all. And so it makes me wonder if
those of us who are direct witnesses of the world's design needs could
really have any say in such a group.

I know all my words are not directly tackling your point on the relation of
design with social institutions, but I thought it would be important to get
my perceptions on the topic across anyway.

regards,
Maria Camacho.




----- Original Message -----
From: victor margolin <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, September 20, 2002 10:50 AM
Subject: design for social responsibility


> Dear colleagues:
> i would like to follow up Jan Coker's comments about design for
> social responsibility. At the Common Ground conference I presented a
> paper on social design, written with my wife who is a professor of
> social work. In the paper, we argue that social design can become a
> new paradigm for designers as a complement to market design. We don't
> say that social design is independent of the market but rather that
> in the market product sales are the first priority and for social
> designers, addressing human needs, particularly those of marginalized
> populations, is the top priority. This is not to say that socially
> valuable products can't be designed for the market. We see a
> continuum between market design and social design. But we argue that
> by considering social design as a paradigm rather than an instance of
> the broader concept of design, we give it more power as a project and
> can begin to delineate how a designer would work according to this
> paradigm in a way that is different from the way other designers
> work. We believe that a designer working with social workers and
> helping professionals needs to understand something about
> intervention strategies in the social welfare fields as well as what
> the social situation of such people is. In fact, we propose a
> research agenda for social design and argue that it is possible and
> valuable to create a distinct Masters program for social designers
> that would involve internships with social service agencies, courses
> in social welfare, social policy, and other social sciences, etc.
>         I support the idea of an organization called Designers for
> Social Responsibility or something like that as it serves as a focus
> for a new kind of thought that is concentrated on problems that have
> been neglected. Papanek made a start years ago but he had no training
> in social work/social policy and, although he and his students had
> good ideas for projects, he was naive about intervention strategies.
> There is a new organization, Design for the World, about which Ken
> Friedman recently posted some information that I sent him. Design for
> the World, supported by all the international design organizations,
> has made a good start to develop a program of projects that  are
> driven by social need. Check out their website (I don't have the url)
> and also subscribe to their electronic newsletter (which I believe
> you can get information about on the website). The paper I presented
> at Common Ground is available on the CD-Rom that contains the
> conference proceedings and will also be published sometime this fall
> in Design Issues. I think the discussion of social design as a
> distinct form of design practice can be a fruitful one and I want to
> reiterate my own belief in the importance of thinking about it
> separately from the wider practice of design so that it does not
> continue to be subsumed within another paradigm that undercuts the
> need to develop it fully on its own terms.
> Victor Margolin
> Professor of Design History
> University of Illinois, Chicago
>