Eventually, this newsletter will consist of more form and function, but as I get this project off the ground, my first five posts will highlight my first five days in South Bend from my own perspective.
This is day three of five.
Okay, for anyone who doesn’t remember (or has no idea), the premise of my project is to capture and share local perspectives from misunderstood or under-represented place-based communities in a way that changes the conversation about them on a broader scale.
Pretty simple, right? No, WRONG! Just kidding. Maybe. Ahh, idk... welcome to my mind right now! 😵
Luckily, over the last handful of years, I’ve been immersed into the world of human-centered design and this project is providing me with a wonderful opportunity to try to put some of those learnings into practice, so...
Let’s nerd out about designing for inclusive outcomes!🙌🏻🎉🙌🏻🎉🙌🏻🎉
One of the primary objectives for my project is to provide a representative community perspective. What does that mean? Great question. I began to reference it in yesterday’s newsletter, but I tend to surround myself with people who look like me, are the same age as me, think like me and do similar work as me. From my experience, it’s largely human nature to associate with people who share more similarities than differences and I don’t consider myself any exception to that rule. Therefore, the perspectives I’ve been exposed to in South Bend by default aren’t inherently representative of the community’s true diversity.
The good news is that it’s not the end of the world; it’s just a constraint! We can design for it. While we are on the topic, I also have a few other constraints: 1) the limited time I have in each city, 2) the limited capacity I have to execute this project as an individual, 3) the imperative of warm introductions over cold outreach and 4) the potential pitfalls of accidental tokenism or even convenient exclusion in my quest to be “inclusive”.
Don’t worry, we can design for all of that...or at least try to!
On my third day in town, that’s exactly what I tried to do with Jacob through this network mapping activity that I put together.
The activity only needed a few materials - varied Post-It notes, a couple Sharpies and a flat, waist-high surface aka a table. There were three phases to the activity. The first two created the structure of the activity and the third created all of the results. The phases are as follows…
We used the small, yellow Post-Its to settle upon demographic identities present in and relevant to South Bend. After a back-and-forth discussion, these ended up being:
Age
Racial diversity respective to South Bend’s population
Stories of immigration, both recent and historical
Natives vs newcomers, qualifying how long someone had lived in South Bend
A consideration of class and various types of capital summarized as the different ways that a place was being made for someone in South Bend’s future.
These categories weren’t comprehensive, but they were a start. If I were to revise them in hindsight, I would most likely include university affiliation, city affiliation, urban/suburban balance and the LGBTQ community.
We used the large, pink Post-Its to identify categories that broadly captured core focus areas where change was happening in the city. The categories we settled on were:
Economic Development
Abandoned and neglected buildings and spaces
Economic inclusion
Entrepreneurship
Creatives
Small Business owners
Community Leaders & Members to serve as more of a catchall
These categories failed to be all-encompassing on purpose since it was only my third day in town, Jacob only offered one perspective and I was hoping for the community to define its priorities.
We used the medium, orange Post-Its to identify potential connectors and participants in the community. Connectors would introduce us to the South Bend residents who had stories worth capturing and sharing. Participants would share their stories with why [here].
While it may not have led to a limitless supply of potential interviewees in our hour-long session, the exercise gave me a high-level understanding of the community, provided me with some prospective leads and, most importantly, illuminated the early blind spots and network gaps in my project.
The next day I ran the exercise again with five more people across three separate groups. From those iterations, I gained more context, the network grew and conversations with prospective connectors and participants began. I even developed a more comprehensive codification system including: 1) whether they were a connector “C” or participant “P”, 2) who could introduce me, 3) what capacity they operated in, and 4) when I planned on speaking with them.
It’s amazing how much information you can fit on one little Post-It note!