Author Archives: dialogicdesign

July DwD 7.14.10 | Dialogue & Framing Reality

Written by dialogicdesign. Posted on July 14, 2010. Filed under DwD Session. No comments.

July’s session was Framing Reality and Scenarios of Social Meaning, hosted by Greg Judelman and Peter Jones.

In each session this year we have explored a pressing issue or question from the group’s experience, or brought to the sessions as a concern for dialogue. Reality handed us a good question after the recent G20 meeting.

We explored ways of framing the concerns we sometimes call “problems.” Impelled by the urgent and messy mix of issues we saw emerging following the G20 security event in Toronto, we inquired into the framing of the situation. What are the opportunities inherent in the problem as constructed? How do we establish and pierce through a problem frame so that the true concerns we share in common might emerge?

Our deck presentation:

Framing and Scenarios – Design with Dialogue – July 14, 2010

View more presentations from deltasounds.

A visual reflection from Patricia Kambitsch reveals impressions of the dialogue leading into scenario formation.

June DwD 6.09.10 Appreciating Appreciative Inquiry

Written by dialogicdesign. Posted on June 3, 2010. Filed under DwD Session. No comments.

In June’s Design with Dialogue we go in-depth with Appreciative Inquiry, a technique for affirmative conversations that lead to shared understanding about situations or goals. The session will be led by Dr. Douglas Reid, a strategy professor at Queen’s University School of Business and graduate student in OCAD’s Strategic Foresight and Innovation MDes program. Appreciative Inquiry,, developed at Case Western Reserve University in the 1980s by David Cooperrider, was originated as a practice for coordinating positive dialogues in organizations, and it has emerged as a social design approach over the last few years.

AI built on earlier work conducted by action research theorists and is intended to expand a system’s capacity for cooperation and change potential by aligning members through shared affirmations of what is best, desirable, or cherished in a jointly-faced situation. After briefly outlining the rationale and background of AI, Doug will lead the group through an exploration of a sample problem (created and confirmed by the group) so as to demonstrate the AI technique and show how it expands the potential for cooperation through definition of shared aims or goals.

Doug provides a brief article discussing Appreciative Inquiry that may help participants gain an orientation to the practice and its power in design, organizational inquiry, and social action.

Register today on Eventbrite, and introduce yourself if your first time!

March 23 Bodystorming with Dennis Schleicher

Written by dialogicdesign. Posted on March 28, 2010. Filed under Dialogue in Action. No comments.

Thanks to the 15 people who joined us for a special Design with Dialogue session with Dennis Schleicher, who joined us via Skype videoconference and guided a bodystorming master class. Attending were 5 graduate students from OCAD’s MDes Strategic Foresight and Innovation, 5 from Toronto’s CFC Media Lab program, and 5 Toronto designers. Dennis’ presentation is attached following :  Bodystorming

And the following videos show the group’s presentations of one of the bodystorming scenarios given to the group:

A Future Voting Scenario – Team 2

Another Future Voting Scenario – Team 3

Bodystorming at Design with Dialogue from Peter Jones on Vimeo.

Bodystorming Toronto

Written by dialogicdesign. Posted on March 20, 2010. Filed under Dialogue in Action, DwD Session. No comments.

Design with Dialogue invites OCAD and design community participants to a special session welcoming Dennis Schleicher, Director of User Experience for Sears, to Toronto Tuesday March 23 from 7-9:00 p.m. This interim (DwI) event was just made possible by Dennis’ willingness to participate with us again in Toronto, and on this occasion to engage graduate students from the OCAD MDes Strategic Foresight and Innovation program. To register please use EventBrite and add your name.

Dennis’ workshop provides an introduction and practice of Bodystorming as a method for engaging people in simulating experiences and processes by designing them through joint acting and improv of envisioned situations. Dennis writes  about three types of Bodystorming on his noteworthy blog site Tibetan Tailor.  Maybe you can guess which one we will do, and come prepared to play.

Dennis Schleicher is Director, User Experience Architecture at Sears Holdings in Chicago where he builds the teams that build the online brands for Sears Holdings Corporation, mainly Sears.com and Kmart.com. He has worked with American Public University Systems, Ford, Chrysler, General Motors, United States Air Force, Microsoft, Comcast, Dominos, White Castle, Bosch, and Numara.

Dennis uses his background in business and industrial anthropology to design interactive products to support the way people communicate and interact in their everyday and working lives. He is actively involved with the Information Architecture Institute, the ASIST Special Interest Group of Information Architecture, Overlap, and the Interaction Design Association (IxDA).

March DwD Session: 3.10.10

Written by dialogicdesign. Posted on March 4, 2010. Filed under DwD Session. No comments.

March Design with Dialogue explores the purposes and styles of conversation in organized planning and design situations. Ryan Coleman presents concepts from the Focused Conversation method, a process formulated and taught by Institute of Cultural Affairs. We explore a group conversation using the method, and explore the extension of FC with visual reflection, in large and breakout groups. Peter Jones presents Conversational Performance of Design, from the recent Interactions article. Complementing Ryan’s exploration of FC, Jones presents an opportunity to model the meaning and intent of conversation as expressed and received. The session closes with reflection (visual and verbal) on the purposes and practices of conversation as intentional communication.

Hosting the Chaordic Organization

Written by dialogicdesign. Posted on February 18, 2010. Filed under Uncategorized. No comments.

Toke Moller of the The Art of Hosting community recently posted a link to the Art of Hosting in chaordic design process.  A picture of the process, nearly identical to the Kaos Pilot project model, is found on the Chaordic site and linked here. 

A full description of the process is provided on Chaordic.org:

The chaordic design process has six dimensions, beginning with purpose and ending with practice. Each of the six dimensions can be thought of as a lens through which participants examine the circumstances giving rise to the need for a new organization or to reconceive an existing one.

Developing a self-organizing, self-governing organization worthy of the trust of all participants usually requires intensive effort. To maximize their chances of success, most groups have taken a year or more on the process. During that time, a representative group of individuals (sometimes called a drafting team) from all parts of the engaged organization or community meet regularly and work through the chaordic design process.

The steps involved in conceiving and creating a more chaordic organization are:

Develop a Statement of Purpose

The first step is to define, with absolute clarity and deep conviction, the purpose of the community. An effective statement of purpose will be a clear, commonly understood statement of that which identifies and binds the community together as worthy of pursuit. When properly done, it can usually be expressed in a single sentence. Participants will say about the purpose, “If we could achieve that, my life would have meaning.”

Kaos Pilot Guide to Social Innovation

Written by dialogicdesign. Posted on February 9, 2010. Filed under Social Change, Social Innovation. No comments.

Design with Dialogue has hosted two Kaos Pilots in recent months, founder Uffe Elbaeck in October and Bruce Mau KP intern Jonas Skafte. We admit to being enchanted with their loosely-defined Chaordic project process and their action-oriented learning preference.

In recent discussions I have asserted the Kaos Pilot program is one of the best design thinking schools in the world. Perhaps it is the best pedagogy. Because if “design thinking” is ever going to reach beyond the abstractions of thinking and into the understanding of participation, it needs an arena of trial and performance. Their recent Social Innovation – A Travel Guide presents a series of guidelines, experiences, programs, and innovators in the SI landscape. Maybe you’re in there. We have posted it here with KP blessing.

The redesign-of-design now taking place in curricula around the world misses the point. The redesign of social change institutions, movements, and networks is an emergent process that evades easy designerly labels.  While graduate design and business education programs are attempting to fit social and systems transformation into their programs, no discipline is big enough to contain a people’s movement. We are compelled to participate, commit to action in communities and organizations, and learn and continue.  The KP project model places the Pilot in front of action by articulating Idea, Needs, Purpose, Values, Concept, Roles, Structure, Practices. Let their Travel Guide help you find the way.

February DwD Session: 2.10.10

Written by dialogicdesign. Posted on January 25, 2010. Filed under Dialogue in Action, DwD Session. No comments.

At January’s Design with Dialogue Mark Kuznicki and Daniel Rose shared the essential principles and spirit of Peter Block’s book, Community – The Structure of Belonging.  Community presents Block’s theory and practices of neighbourhood development and provides guidelines for organizers to facilitate more effective community gatherings.

We invited members of the DwD community to participate in the design and facilitation of a community gathering called ChangeCamp, taking place in Toronto on February 16th. A dedicated (Interim) practice and planning session is being held at the Centre for Social Innovation January 28th, 7-10, if members of the community are interested.

The Feb 1oth DwD session will be a continued preparation for the ChangeCamp event and everyone will participate to refine the core questions that will drive the process. This is a chance to experience some of the practical advice that Block offers in Community and how it can work in the “real world”.  Mark and Daniel will use our feedback to evolve the design of the ChangeCamp on the 16th.

Everyone welcome, please register on eventbrite.