Committee Meeting 3: Oral Defense Green lights!
Posted: April 8, 2011 Filed under: Committee Meeting, Deliverables, Process Reflection Leave a comment »Although this has passed a few weeks ago, I think it’s still valuable to post some of the visuals from my oral defense meeting and reflect on the process of my research thus far. Below are links to download the meeting packet and supporting visuals.
To reflect on the process of preparing for the actual meeting, it was a combination of finalizing/refining the overall synthesis of all of the theories that I had covered in my thesis research while also, visualizing and re-visualizing. This would entail more experience in co-evolving solution and problem, making a visual model to synthesize information (solution) which then enabled me to find gaps, holes or questions in my logic. The challenge for me it now being able to discern when I need to start modeling a solution in order to inform my process. Also, finding an outside perspective (thanks AM and Brian!) upon completing a solution model is invaluable to evaluating the model in order to find the discrepancies. Having that third perspective not only brings a fresh pair of eyes, it also forced me to be able to articulate my logic as I needed to be able to explain my thinking (show my math so to speak) in trying to engage others. If I couldn’t at least do that, then I knew for myself that I didn’t know why I was putting things together. Forced articulation, it’s a great thing.
As for the meeting itself, it was a whirlwind. I finally reached a final synthesis with the lenses portion of the framework the day before the meeting. From there it was just problem after problem with printers, both large and small. Thanks so, so much to my awesome friends and collegues, AM, Brian and BT (you guys are the best). Although I’ve always known that I could count on any of them for help, it was really a beautiful sight to see them working so hard to help me get everything ready in time. I don’t know if this is all that relevant to “Design” but I feel it’s important to recognize the value of collaboration, friendships, and relationships that have come about over the course of 2 years in grad school. Perhaps, it was collaboration that lead to great friendships and relationships. Something to think about…
Content Visuals from Committee Meeting 2
Posted: February 21, 2011 Filed under: Relevant Content Leave a comment »I’m attaching the new content visuals that I created for my second committee meeting. These should provide an overview of where I am with my research. I think it’s important to note that these are still work-in-progress, thus they will need to change and morph as I develop a richer and clearer understanding of the materials.
Currently I’m looking into stakeholder identification for the purpose of collectively framing a complex social problem, all within the context of social design (see context visual in resynthesis post). Through the research I conducted to develop my thesis proposal, I defined 3 stakeholder dimensions that could aid in a more holistic approach to identifying stakeholders/co-design participants. These consisted of:
1. Stakeholder Values
2. Stakeholder Relationships
3. Stakeholder Abilities
Each of these dimensions were synthesized from three disparate areas of social innovation scholarships: values from Social Entrepreneurship; relationships from Organizational Stakeholder Theory (utilized by Social Corporate Responsibility initiatives as well as other social change agents); and abilities from Social Change Theory.
Initial Synthesis
Values, relationships and abilities serve as lenses to view a person/people or situation space (see visual above). Within each lens there are different theories being explored to understand how each lens gives a different perspective of the situation space. This is where my research is at. The beginnings to understanding each lens exists in each research area, however, one of my tasks is to figure out how to brings these separate lenses together into a framework for identifying stakeholders.
The purpose of creating a framework is to provide an intermediate theory that can aid in connecting theory with practice, thus, the framework will need to be relevant to social designers. At a level that they can work with, understand and begin to develop methods/tools from. This is the driving reason to include “people” in my research.
Committee Meeting 2: Refining Fire
Posted: February 17, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »
Mark it up!
Notes from Pam
You gotta love the process of moving forward through critical engagement and inquiry… else your in the wrong field of work.
Yesterday was committee meeting 2. It was a whole lot tougher than committee meeting 1; however, everything that I got out of this meeting was even more useful/valuable than the feedback from meeting 1.
Where to go now
Now’s the time to reflect, reflect, reflect… I said that three times not only for emphasis, but also because it’s going to be a threefold reflection.
1. Reflection on my research space (delineation)
2. Reflection on why to involve people in my research (what only people know)
3. Reflection on all the research that I’ve conducted so far (keep on synthesizing)
And of course there should be an outcome/deliverable to achieving each reflection.
1. visualization of research space
2. action plan for involving people
3. new synthesis visual
Now to get this all done within the next week.
Deadline: Feb 25
Lots of work to do!
Re-synthesis, check it out!
Posted: February 9, 2011 Filed under: Committee Meeting, Deliverables, Process Reflection 1 Comment »As I was preparing for committee meeting 1, I reworked many of the visuals that I had done for the final proposal. This allowed me to deepen my own understanding of the research space through re-synthesizing previous information with whatever new information I had obtained. This new understanding was extremely helpful in organizing the complex information that I was presenting to my committee members.
NEW: Context Visual
Although, I didn’t think about what I was doing at the time (re-synthesizing), now that I’ve had time to reflect on my action, this notion of moving forward and back with incomplete information harks to one of the core competencies that Chris Conley wrote about, as well as the idea of co-evolution of the problem/solution space that Kees Dorst and Nigel Cross also write about. Interesting how these skills seem to all relate to what we as designers actually do. Well, I guess theories are theories for a reason.
Here’s a link to my committee meeting 1 documents: Committee Meeting 1 Packet
Moving on: Committee Meeting Round 1
Posted: February 9, 2011 Filed under: Committee Meeting, Process Reflection Leave a comment »Okay, so I didn’t get around to writing the blog entries that I listed last time. However, since we’re designers, we’ll move forward with imperfect information.
A few weeks ago, I had my first committee meeting with:
Chair: Lee
Secondary: Christopher
Tertiary: Pamela
It was awesome! Going into the meeting I expected the worst, that my committee would find huge gaping holes in my thesis proposal and logic for research. However, I was pleasantly mistaken. Not like everything came up roses or something like that. Rather my committee members were very attentive to my re-synthesis of information and were extremely helpful in generating ideas and things to think about as I moved forward with conducting research.
/*Reflection*/
For future meetings, with anyone, I think a little more confidence in myself can go a LONG way in getting people on board and excited about what I’m doing. After the first committee meeting I felt reenergized and ready to jump on the research train.
If I analyze the response I got from Lee, Christopher and Pam:
1. they provided support by telling me how excited they were about my project and how interested they were. Christopher offered a name that he would like to put me in contact with.
2. They were critical in an inquisitive way that felt explorative and eager (constructive), not harsh or criticizing (destructive). The questions and suggestions they offered made me want to go off and do work to find the answers.
3. They asked pointed and specific questions and provided specific feedback that I could immediately act on.
From my experience, these attributes are what make my committee totally awesome and invaluable. Hopefully I’ll be lead as a mentor by their examples.
Stop: Time to think and organize
Posted: December 7, 2010 Filed under: Stop Leave a comment »End of the semster! Final proposal… done for now. So what’s next?
I’m hoping to jump into conducting research December 14. First an action plan for the next few weeks, one for thesis and one for other parts of my life, as well as reflecting on this semester through blogging. So much to think about… so little time. So here’s the blog roll to come:
-Process Reflection: Month 3
-Reflection on action: Getting to Stakeholder Identification
-Reflection on action: Crafting a Research Question
-Reflection on action: Crafting a Research Proposal
-Interesting thoughts: Fluid vs Fixed Frameworks
Final Proposal, for now…
Posted: December 7, 2010 Filed under: Deliverables 1 Comment »Attached to this blog post is a pdf copy of my final proposal. It is complete, however, I know things will likely change, as is the nature of things. Anyhow, this is where my research is at this point, thus this document is the culmination of my entire semester’s work.
Each section of the proposal works to support the other, in that, any one section will give an idea about my where my thesis is going; however, to fully make sense of what this project will focus, on all the pieces should be read together. Although, it may not be the most thrilling read, should you choose to engage with this proposal, I hope you find the material as fascinating as I do!
More On Stakeholders: From the perspective of social change theory
Posted: December 7, 2010 Filed under: Content, Relevant Content Leave a comment »Lee brought up some interesting perspectives such as thinking about ways of working, cognition, interests, etc in relation to stakeholders. Initially, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with that, except take notes in hopes that it would all make sense at some point. Lee also lent me the book, “Theory U,” by Otto Scharmer. As I was reading through the intro for Theory U along with “Power & Love” by Adam Kahane, it finally dawned on me. Scharmer and Kahane were theorizing about social change and the abilities of leadership. This is where cognition comes into play.
Kahane proposes the idea that in order to create meaningful social change, change agents or leaders need utilize both ‘power,’ which is the drive to self-realize; and ‘love,’ the drive to unite or bring together. He likens this concept to the strength of a father complemented by the nurturing of a mother. Along a very similar line of thought, Scharmer, expands this notion into a theoretical process, which he calls the U Theory. He focuses on the changing the ‘interior condition’ of a person in order to lead effective social change. Driven by empathy, Scharmer states that in order to address the complex issues that we are currently faced with, leaders must possess the ability to maintain an open mind, open heart, and open will. In doing so, one can begin to see, sence, and then ‘presence’; thereby, integrating multiple perspectives into one and then responding with deep understanding.
/*Reflection in Action*/
Immediately, Kahane’s theory seems to connect to the ideas of vertical and lateral thinking of ‘T’ shaped people. Having an expertise that drives while, pulling from experiences outside of one’s expertise in order to integrate and generate stronger ideas. The connection between both Kahane and Scharmer, is a bit blurry still; however, there is a loose connection within empathy. The desire to understand in an of itself seems to bring together both power and love.
Although it’s not clear yet where this may take my research, I can group these as abilities. Abilities that social change theorist argue, are necessary to drive impacting change.
Knowing When to Say When
Posted: December 7, 2010 Filed under: Reflection on Action Leave a comment »/*reflection on action*/
I had a conversation with Lee to discuss the possible change in direction of my thesis. The key word here would be MY thesis. What I’ve realized, only recently, was that my biggest challenge wasn’t doing the work, or synthesizing, or making sense of complex ideas; instead, my challenge was determining my own interests. Figuring out what I wanted to research, what I find interesting or fascinating, was the most difficult process. One wouldn’t normally think so; however, this was true for me.
As I have a tendency towards diverging, it could be that I simply don’t like to converge. And I can see that in myself, I can be pretty indecisive. Although, I’ve found, for me, it’s not about not wanting or liking to converge or make decisions, it’s more about needing to make decisions. I don’t like to make decisions, until I need to make a decision. Till then I like to float around and explore. The tricky part though, is knowing when a decision needs to be made.
To take that thought up to a meta level, I’m starting to deeply understand why Solomon wished for discernment. I would too. Mastery and expertise is embodied in one’s ability to discern or identify. Amazing how something, that seems so simple, can make all the difference. Just thinking in terms of our process, identifying the problem affects the direction of the outcome. Identifying how we move through the process enables us to be more effective. Determining when to stop or when to move, when to reflect and represent, which tools to use, and in what situations— these are invaluable skills that a designer must master in order to be comfortable with ambiguity.
Getting Comfy with Stakeholders
Posted: December 7, 2010 Filed under: Content, Relevant Content Leave a comment »Since my last process reflection in November, I’ve continued researching within the area of stakeholder identification in the context of social problems.
Why is this important?
Considering that there is an emerging trend of designers utilizing a co-design approach for addressing complex social issues, the question that then arises is: how do you identify the appropriate stakeholders to include in the framing of a complex social problem.
Breaking this down, within the context of social problems, prior to the framing of an addressable challenge there is no central problem-owner as social problems involve a diverse range of ‘actors’ or stakeholders in many different ways. According to social change theorist, Otto Scharmer, social problems are challenging due to three layers of complexity dynamic, social and generative. Dynamic complexity refers to a problem area where cause and effect relationships are “interdependant and far apart in space and time.” Social complexity within a problem area means that, “the actors involved have different perspectives and interests. And generative complexity points to the notion that a problem areas’ “future is fundamentally unfamiliar and undetermind.” Given this understanding, social issues involve and encompass a wide, diverse range of people in the larger community.
Another factor to note, is the difference between issues and problems. Simply put, an issue is an important topic that is open to debate or discussion. It doesn’t have a single perspective. A problem, in reference to social contexts, are defined and ‘slanted’ in relation to those who have defined it. Thus, a problem only exists as it is defined.
The complexities of social issues combined with the dilemma of framing a problem, points to the importance of considering who is included in the problem-framing phase of the design process.
Existing Stakeholder Theory
My initial research into stakeholders lead to organizational stakeholder theory. At first, the connection between organizational stakeholder theory and social problem framing was not clear; however, further investigation proved to be significant in identifying the short falls of the existing theories as it focuses on the importance of stakeholder relationships. One article in particular, broke down stakeholder relationships in to three types: power, urgency and legitimacy. While many others focused on power and influence.
/*reflection in action*/
These appear to be relation based understandings of stakeholders, as power, influence, legitimacy and urgency are relative to something or someone. Without such a relationship, these concepts cannot exist. /*end*/
