Hi Birger,
I was thinking about making a reply along the lines you posted. Now it is not necessary.
On a separate note, I still believe in social design as a separate discipline, not as an adjunct of product design. Again, the examples with organizational design, community design, and service design. Service design is par excellence social design. I see it as activity design and treat it that way in my research.
From this perspective, a sociologist might chose to specialize in research, but also, in social design. Of course, sociologists get an extensive training in research. But not in design. A one-week course in design would not help them at all. Even one course would not help them. I understand your example with the librarians who will take a crash course on design, but would not be able to design (library services, etc.). Also, general theory would not help them. Design is learned only by doing. It is a skill, and like all skills need to be practiced in order to be learned. Learning by doing (in the studio).
I see design as a job position rather than a major, although in many cases there is overlap. Let's take architecture as an example. Architecture is typically taught as a design specialty. Also, the majority of architects work as designers. That is why most of us perceive architects as designers. However, an architect who works in capital planning/managing of investment projects is not on a design job position. An architect who is a code compliance inspector is not on a design job position. In that profession, being on a non-design job is an exception from the rule/practice. Paradoxically, architects do not have enough training for the non-design jobs. And of course, no training in research. That is a major difference compared to the science majors.
Now, the sociologists. They are educated as scholars and researchers. Most of them go to work in academy as researches and educators. We perceive them as academics, scholars, researchers. We haven't seen them yet working as designers, I mean social designers. There will be a long way to make that happen. I mentioned that the main problem is that the society is not ready/mature yet for this and creates numerous hurdles.
In order to produce social designers, we need to train them both in their content area and in design methodology related to that content area. In addition to a vehement objections from society, there are no mentors, no textbooks, and no academic programs to develop social designers. Crush courses would not help. We need studio/project organization of the curriculum.
There are other issues as well. Once we start talking about social designers, we need to consider that practice problems are not disciplinary, they are always multidisciplinary. (This is only a quick definition for this conversation.) So, the social designer by definition will be a multi- or interdisciplinary professional. Of course, each social designer will have strong areas and not that strong areas of expertise. That is why we need a team to put together expertise in many areas. The multidisiplinarity of individual team members will help them communicate better, including understanding better each other's proposals and suggestions and building up upon them.
We still haven't seen the real social designers. There are social scientists functioning in design mode. The closest example to this is ergonomics and ergonomic design. But we still don't have programs where they will take a person with social science education and then train this person to do social design, to design social entities. The ergonomists function still within the framework of product design. And in that realm, there are physical designers with extensive social science training. Still not pure social design.
At this time, there are several fields that are actually social design fields: service design, instructional design, etc. However, there is information that they have started as a non-social design fields and still carry the DNA of non-social design disciplines.
Another question is about the boundaries of social design and physical design. Can you design a service, just the activity, without the environmental supports for that activity? And how the division of labor and teamwork will happen in this case? I agree with a number of statements by Birger. But there is still more work to be done in this area.
Half a century ago the Moscow Methodological Circle created a kind of activity theory that was intended to work as a methodological guide for social design. Initially, they focused on educational/learning design because many of their members had background in education. They looked as education as designing a new person. You may say that this is too much totalitarian, and it is. Later they branched into organizational design, design of managerial behaviors/activities, design of organizations as self-learning systems, etc. At that time, the social system that supported them crashed and their work dissipated.
The biggest issue we have is to decide what is design. After we master this, it will be much easier to communicate. We will have a common conceptual ground and terminology, will be able to focus better our presentations and arguments, and will be able to read each other in a similar way. At this time, we have terminological deficit, use the same words for different things, and our communication is often disrupted by misinterpretation.
Just a few ideas. Some of them are controversial, some are not finished, and some might be wrong.
Best wishes,
Lubomir
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Birger Sevaldson
Sent: Friday, July 03, 2015 9:54 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: SV: Re: Expertise in Design and the Risk Backlash for Gaps in Knowledge
Dear Lubomir ,
on second thought my reply came throug a bit wrong. I would love sociologists to learn design. I just dont think a short course will do. Double educations seem interesting but most often it seems difficult to pursue and maintain both. So yes to sociologists becomming designers but it does not replace the fully trained designers. Just as designers with some sociological insight only works within limitations and needs handling wit care.
Then the construction of collaborative teams is an interesting theme.
Warm regards from sunny Tønsberg.
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