SDS 2022 Kick-off

A new year full of social design development

Social Design Showdown is kicking off her 3rd year and we are looking forward to continue working on the deepening of the Social Design practise. This year we will continue to facilitate several events and strengthen the several Action Teams. In this update we elaborate on last year’s results and the scope for 2022.

Events

In 2021 we were able to organise 4 wonderful events, welcoming 80 participants on average. The four themes we worked on were ‘Commissioning’, ‘Knowledge’, ‘Inclusivity’ and ‘Impact’. We are constantly iterating and improving the format of the events with variable success? Some of our lessons we will implement in the upcoming events:

• The outside perspective is here to stay: we want to inspire the social design community with fresh and critical views from outside our own community: policy makers, sociologists, change experts, etc. They can all force us into some well-deserved self-reflection.

• Autonomy of the events: after two years we gained a bunch of experience in setting up our specific event format. We are working towards a transferable event so everyone in the community can step up and organize an event they are passionate about. Social Design Showdown wants to facilitate you with the audience, communication channels and curation of appropriate content.

• Less talking, more doing ;-): we are makers, so there should be a good balance between talks and break-outs. We want every event to be insightful for you, but also produce relevant insights during the events. Getting together and discussing relevant futures is a must to develop as a field.

We need you as ‘antennas’ to let us know which themes are absolutely relevant for the bigger social design community. What topics and themes deserve a place on the event list? What content is topical and asks for debate?

Let us know before March 28 at info@socialdesign.nu.

Action Teams

Our initial setup is to use the events as milestones and develop tools and publications in Action Teams. Action Teams are groups of volunteers who deepen a certain theme, develop a tool or make publications to reflect on our practise. This year the core team of Social Design Showdown wants to extend the support of these Action Teams by setting up several projects and initiatives to elaborate our field and connect social designers.

• We are collaborating with universities and academies to close the gap between education and the design practice.

• We are continuing our efforts to support recent graduates to find projects and gain experience as a social designer.

If you want to help in developing the social design practise, then reach out to us anytime at info@socialdesign.nu to collaborate!

Looking forward to another great year full of exciting and useful initiatives!

Team Social Design Showdown