Carlo Franzato

The influence of local powers on participatory design processes in marginalized conflict areas

This paper explores the influence of local forces on Participatory Design processes aiming at promoting access and inclusion, carried out in marginalized conflict areas. Social contexts are the synthesis of the forces exerted by local actors which become more and more influent on contextual dynamics in situations of local instability and struggles. We present and analyse a Participatory Design project developed in a Rio de Janeiro slum, within an NGO. Through a conceptual framework on power and on its exercise, we explain how project partners, participants, and local institutions and groups have influenced the project, to the point of preventing its implementation. The intention is to show how the context may condition the design project, to point out the difficulties in acting in conflict areas and to present factors that will help designers in dealing with them.

PRÁTICAS ESTRATÉGICAS DE NEGOCIAÇÃO EM REDES DE COOPERAÇÃO

O objetivo desta pesquisa e identificar as praticas estrategicas de negociacao com fornecedores adotadas pelas redes de cooperacao e analisa-las atraves da perspectiva teorica Estrategia como Pratica Social. O metodo empregado pela pesquisa foi desdobrado em duas etapas com procedimentos distintos. Inicialmente foi aplicada uma survey em 50 redes de cooperacao, permitindo a selecao de 14 redes com caracteristicas idoneas que foram analisadas mais detalhadamente por meio de entrevistas em profundidade e coleta documental a fim de manter coerencia com a abordagem da Estrategia como Pratica Social. Tres praticas estrategicas foram identificadas: equipe de negociacao; manual de negociacao e tecnologia extranet. A partir das evidencias obtidas, foi possivel perceber que as tres praticas identificadas se revelam como estrategicas, pois aumentam o potencial de ganho das empresas associadas, alem de fortalecerem a organizacao e colaboracao em rede, uma vez que incentivam a manutencao de mecanismos sociais entre seus membros integrantes.

Sementes de inovação social como alternativas à hegemonia

One of the main issues brought by globalization is the hegemonic affirmation of an ideology fostered by whom dominate the global financial and economical fluxes. This ideology valorizes and promotes competitive and predatory social practices. The same communication and information technology that has supported this process is becoming more and more available and accessible to a wide range of different social actors. It can be harnessed to disseminate alternatives that subvert the domination logic, spreading seeds carrying potential social innovations. This article presents seeding as a possible metadesign action, in the strategic design domain, to reach this positively subversive purpose.

Strategies by design towards creative ecosystems of social innovation.

This paper presents a way to organize social innovation processes, since the identification of opportunities to the diffusion of solutions, that is based on the ecosystemic perspective and on the design method. The ecosystemic perspective is crux in order to generate the innovation necessary to reach systemic changes in today’s unsustainable ways of life. According to the systemic thinking, the understanding organization processes of complex physical, biological and social phenomena, implies focusing on the network that connects the parts of a system, rather than to the single parts. Then, it implies paying a special attention to the network that connects the various systems and the environment (Capra, 1996). We are especially interested in creative ecosystems, that is, complex and interactive networks of social organizations and individuals, whose multiple and dynamic connections activate creative processes for the transformation of the world. Design is one of these creative processes. Actually, it can be defined as a creative process that aims at the development of sociotechnical for the transformation of the world. Towards sustainability, it is necessary that this transformation process both preserves and constantly creates favorable conditions for further future transformations. We adopt the strategic design approach since strategy is necessary to act within ecosystems. Morin (2008) recognizes that the ecosystems are instable and that such instability demands strategy. Moreover, the instability is not an obstacle for the action, vice-versa it is a necessary resource to assure the dynamics that allows the possibility of acting. In this sense, strategic design is proper for facing not only the regular, the evident and the possible, but also the unpredictable, the fortuity, the drifting and the mistake. From this basis, the paper tackles the literature gap related to the long-term sustainability of social innovations. Actually, it is still necessary to understand how to feed, scale and spread them, and to develop strategies in this perspective. Thus, from an ecosystemic perspective, the paper aims at discussing the contribution of strategic design to the developing processes of social innovation through a review of design, management and sociology theories. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/IFDP.2016.3289

Conexão entre micro e pequenas empresas e designers via plataformas de design

O presente artigo tem como objetivo analisar o desenvolvimento e o funcionamento de plataformas de design para a interacao entre MPE’s e designers, entendidas como instrumento estrategico para a insercao do design nestas realidades organizacionais. A partir de um referencial teorico sobre redes de cooperacao, design estrategico e plataformas de design, foi desenvolvido um estudo de casos multiplos de natureza exploratoria sobre esse assunto. Os casos estudados sao Projeto Maestro e Invalley Inovacao e Design, que permitem explorar aspectos diferentes das plataformas de design. Dessa forma, este estudo investigou a realidade atual de uma nova modalidade de negocio e contextualizou a importância das plataformas de design para alavancar desenvolvimento e pequenas inovacoes e, como resultados obtidos destacam-se: (re)conceituacao de plataformas de design, um novo mercado para prestacao de servicos de design, as consequencias do design e a importância da relacao no processo projetual.

Systems and Design: Beyond Processes and Thinking

A contemporary vision of design needs to be encompassed in the actual mutation of the productive and cultural contexts facing different systems of change. Conceived as a collective work, this introductory paper looks at these changes in the design field by identifying six possible perspectives that, albeit laying on parallel dimensions, present many interrelated aspects: productive, professional, creative, cultural, sustainable, prospective. The conclusive paragraph brings forwards an in depth analisys that offers an engineering vision of design cultures.According to the visions and conceptualizations from philosophers to design thinkers such as Habermas, Maturana & Varela or Levin, the design applied to digital artifacts, products and services —due to the convergence of media, communication, deceives and technologies— is becoming even more a a bio-sphere —or better to say with the words of Vernadskij— a Noosphere. The cultural shifting is represented both in the process side and in the approach to the whole design materials and outcomes. On one hand, the organizational structure is moving from an “industrial” approach characterized by a waterfall-process —organized in subsequent of well-structured phases— to an iterative activity —that cycle among ideation, prototyping, testing assessing and redesign phases before to implement and release a project— to the agile and lean approach of the information-era in which the project itself persist constantly in a work-in-progress status —where upgrades and updates have replaced new releases. On the other hand, the object of the project itself is deeply changing according to a vision of a digital ecosystem and consequently to the design approach that is moving from a fixed —a two-dimensional page borrowed-model— to a liquid, then fluid solutions beside the divergences of media and devices and the convergence of user context and experience. Paraphrasing Maldonando we’re moving from virtual to real, from intangible to tangible, from the web to intelligent environment, both digital and physical. In this hybrid space the design process gambles his challenge to change process and purpose embracing both a traversal and a deep vertical approach to single elements of the eco-system and the eco-system in its wide complexity. Nevertheless this transition implies design to face with the challenges of emerging and upcoming phenomena: the designer education —skills, competences, methods— in an hybrid context, the anthropological mutation brought up by the new generation of digital natives and finally the social impact and emotional implication of the confluence of virtual and real experience —mediated by technologies— that people live in their daily life. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/IFDP.2016.3013

Strategic design in the dialogue between design culture and company culture

The main goal of this article is to stimulate a cultural dialogue between design and companies. Strategic design, a result of this dialogue, is today one of the most relevant reflections for the evolution of design in relation to the development of companies. The analysis uses etymological and bibliographic resources as well as case studies in order to assess the potential of design for the development of corporate competitive strategies. Such potentials have to be structured in the organizations and be affirmed through the daily actions of designers. Key words: strategic design, project culture, company culture, competition.