Some of what we have been and are up to…

In my last blog post here, I described how we had spent “a month of exploring what OE Strategy is about, what we want it to be about, and different ways of better achieving that. We’re motivated to work in multiple areas and in multiple ways, but think it might be best to be more focused.”

Well, our path forward since then has certainly not been more focused, though we haven’t necessarily come to the conclusion that it shouldn’t be. Nevertheless, we’ve maintained our overall focus on working with people and organizations seeking to make a positive difference in the world.

Among our recent consulting activities: Susan has been mentoring an international design agency, while I’ve been working on design (process) strategy with the head of a department at an Austin medical center.

Susan has continued her work with Vayu, which recently received the attention of ABC News:

I took my students to an Austin Forum on Technology & Society entitled, “Transforming Healthcare Through Innovation”…

…as part of an advanced theory course that I taught at the Austin Center for Design, an educational institution focused on applying design and entrepreneurship in the space of large-scale wicked problems. I wrote about the section of the course focused on healthcare in “Applying anthropology, design, and theory to medical education and medical practice.”

The reaction of the Dean of the Dell Medical School:

I wrote about the course as a whole in “Teaching theory at the Austin Center for Design.”

Susan spoke on ways to address wicked problems at Pivotal Labs Sydney.

I facilitated part of a “social impact create-a-thon” in Austin focused on creating safe ways for people to engage in constructive political dialogue, while Susan led design thinking workshops at Semi Permanent Sydney 2017 and spoke at “Inside the Minds of Brilliant Designers.”

We both taught more for General Assembly, me in Austin and Susan in Sydney and San Francisco.

I’ve got involved with a nationwide group of people seeking to do something to fight ageism in the workplace, following up on a piece I wrote about my experiences of it. I also participated in the recent Design and Exclusion conference.

And much more. A couple more small examples:

That last photo is of me at a recent Creative Mornings ATX. I just can't get enough of that monthly event.

Finally, we’re both putting together two events to occur during the upcoming San Francisco Design Week:

1. “Question Everything: Workshop to Help You More Effectively Design for Social Impact”
2. “Are Designers Becoming the New Activists?”

Watch our tweets — @oestrategy, @riander, @susanjwolfe — for more on these events and for more on what we are up to and care about.

Richard