How Can You as a Lone Designer Start Improving the World?

I've been talking a lot about what I call 21st Century Design and the need for designers to attack the important societal issues of our age. Well, suppose I convinced you; what do you *do*? You're a lone designer. What is it that you can do to actually do these issues? Because no single person can tackle these problems. It's going to take a *group* of people.

So, let me, though, talk about the different kinds of *you* that we might be talking about. You might be somebody just graduated from design school trying to understand where to start in order to do what you consider to be something that really helps the world. Or you might be an experienced designer. Or you might be working in a company, and so you enjoy the company, but you'd like to change the company and move it – going into

doing much more important work for the world. And also stop doing detrimental work. Stop designing things that destroy the environment in bringing together the materials and destroy the environment in disposing of the items. How would you do that? Or you might be in a design  consultancy and you want to change the kinds of businesses you're doing towards ones that are more societal – you know – more benefit to society.

These are hard questions, and there are no  really easy answers. And the answer will vary a lot depending upon *you*: What you are interested in, what your skills are and what you're able to do. I was recently talking to a woman who was educated in design at the Institute of Design in India and then moved to the United  States and got a master's degree from one of the major design schools in  the United States and then got another degree 

– actually – from Yale University in graphic design but was unhappy with the kinds of tasks and jobs she was trying to do. She didn't think that they were really going to make a difference in the world. Yeah, she could find a good-paying job, but that isn't what she really cared about. She cared about making a difference. What she did was she found the organizations in the larger cities that were actually already  working on these societal issues.

They were trying to take care of the homeless, trying to bring food to the people who were hungry, trying to improve the educational system or trying to teach people who were unable to go to schools. And these jobs were very close to what she cared about. And so, she came in, she volunteered to work with them; eventually, she was hired by them, and that is how she actually changed her job,

by searching out the groups in the world that  were doing the things that she cared about. Now, let me tell you – you don't make as much money when you're working in the non-government organizations or you're working with the  small groups in the cities. But you have much more satisfaction because you can see that you are  helping change the world. So, that's one way. Another way is to try to, yes, find the big organizations  that are *already* doing this and join them.

That's how you learn; that's how you get a lot of experience. You might find that's your permanent career, or you might find that after a while you've learned a lot and you can now go off on your own or in working with some other group that maybe  is more aligned to what you care to do, but you get a start by educating yourself, by being part of this larger team already addressing the issues. And if you're in a company and you'd like  to see if you could move the company, now, that's a different path,

because you have to be in a position of – first of all – some authority to make changes in the company, and that  means you have to move up in the ranks. And the way to move up in the ranks is to learn more about the company, and how the company runs and what the different areas of the company are. And you have to understand the financial side, and you have to understand the sales side and the service side and the product marketing side; and you have to understand the customer base, and you have to understand, well, basically a tremendous amount about this complex system

that we call a company. And as you learn more and more about the company, you're able to give more and more advice to the people, the administration of the company – things that "Hey, you know, I've noticed that there's this problem here or there's this opportunity here or we can do new things here." And that's how you get promoted; and when you get promoted, you have a bit more authority. Now, you have to remember the companies are not out to

save the world at great costs, because they need *money* to do this; they have to be successful. If a company isn't successful, if it isn't always earning a profit, then it no longer will exist, because it needs money in order to pay the salaries of people, in order to buy the equipment and do the new kinds of things that you wish they would do. So, a company has to be profitable; so, you have to figure out how to convince the management to change the direction,

but also you have to figure out how they will continue to make money while doing this. It is possible, but it's not easy. And companies are often not used to venturing out into new areas where they'll be doing noble, good things. But some companies are. And maybe you need to change your company. Look at a company that's actually  trying to do good in the world. There are many kinds of companies, by the way, so the companies are incorporated.

In the United States, there's something that's called a B Corp. We have different kinds of corps. There's a C Corp and there's an S Corp, but there's a B Corp. And the B Corp is one that says: "In our basic foundation, the bylaws of the company, we say we owe our responsibility to the citizens of the world, to the environment, to our customers and to our employees.

Now, you might ask, "Well, isn't that what all companies do?" And the answer is *no*. Most companies say, "We owe our allegiance to our *shareholders*, the people who own the company, the people who own stock in our company. And so, our job is to return money to them, return profits to them because they give us money so that we can do things, and part of what they expect is that we return profits to them, and so our allegiance is to them,

not to our customers, not to our employees, not to the communities in which we live." Now, I happen to think that's *wrong*. In fact, I think it's *immoral*. But that is a fairly common business  philosophy that's accepted throughout the world. The B Corp attempts to change that by  saying, "We're a company that's going to look out for the good of the world, for the community in which we are, for the environment, for our customers and for our employees – all of whom must be treated well."

So, find those companies. They know – they already have made the first major step to doing good. So, yes, if you want to work on the major societal issues, those are very difficult; there's no easy step to doing that. But it's one of the most important things that designers can do.