I think what I've been lucky to be able to do and to explore
his, how to take those skills? I learned in linguistics that
helped us really tune into and understand what people are
saying and what's underneath, what they're saying?
And apply that as a design, researcher and idea, dot org and
apply that to creating new Solutions.
Whereas Linguistics is a more academic Pursuit, right?
We're listening for the sake of understanding and design were
listening for the sake of being able to influence the outcomes.
Hello, and Come to designer. Jason, the podcast that talks
about the Nexus of design both today.
And tomorrow, I'm your host, Ben EF Johnson.
And today, our guest is none other than Shiner carry Shana
recently became the new Chief Executive Officer of the
legendary ideal dot-org. Yes, the nonprofit design
organization that leverages deep expertise in both design and
social impact. Sean-nós All place from her
experience in previously serving as executive design director and
chief Communications officer. She's worked alongside design
teams and communities to surface insights, to a lot new
possibilities. Create narrative that Inspire
action and share stories about the impact of design.
Chief also previously served as managing director and co-lead of
the New York Studio prior to joining the ideal dot-org, Shana
worked to expand access to Quality education, Healthcare
She's also helped launch and grow a number of mission-driven
startups, both in Europe and the San Francisco Bay Area, a social
scientist at heart. She holds a degree in
linguistics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and
outside of work. She's happiest Barefoot on the
beach somewhere, or at home in Brooklyn Shana, Welcome to our
podcast. Thanks for having me.
It's a nice to meet you. It's really great to have you.
Join us in first? Let me say congratulations.
Thank you so much. You newly elevated.
GTL of Ideal dot-org. What was the first thing that
went through your mind? When you receive the call or
text or email? That's it.
Shauna you're our next leader. Gratitude is probably the first
thing that went through my mind, being trusted to Steward this
organization and the people who work in it, that I care so much
about and to keep doing this work that I believe in feels
like such an incredible privilege and I'm just really
grateful to have a new chapter. Speaking of new chapter.
I love this quote from your announcement.
Ain't a co.design approach. Ensures people have authorship
over the services systems and policies that directly impact
them. This is what I believe ideal dot
orgs. Next chapter is all about
harnessing the power of design to create systemic change that
is rooted in visions that communities have for their own
futures, for our audience, who may be familiar with idea as the
consultancy talk, a bit about the formation and creation of
ideal dot-org, Idea dot org spun out from Ideo. 11 years ago to
exclusively work on social impact and social justice
challenges. So we partner with nonprofits
and government and social Enterprises to help them
accelerate their mission. Serve the populations that they
serve in a better way. We're really focused on using
design and harnessing the power of creativity to really Foster
systemic change alongside our partners over the last decade
has been incredibly bold amount of work in Project.
You've gone after. What was the first project that
really scared you? We're gonna die idea.
What was the problem? That was so wicked.
That you thought this is insane for us to even try pretty much
every project I've ever get Space without a day.
When it scared me. And I think that's good and I
think right. If we don't get a little scared,
we're probably not Aiming High Enough.
The first project I ever did, audio dot work was focused on
increasing. The incidence of reporting of
sexual violence. So supporting largely women and
children to have access to counseling and legal support and
Supportive Housing and our partners provided all those
services, but they can't help anyone who doesn't perform it in
the first place. And so, it was really about
ensuring people knew about the services that are available to
them. And helping, folks, take that
first step. Like so many of the other issues
that we work on audio door. That's really a problem that is
about trust. And creating a sense of safety
for people. And so I think it's scary.
Anytime you're trying to design and you have to change the
Dynamics of social dynamics. Seen a group of people.
So designing, for trust designing for agency, designing
for safety. Like those are sensitive topics,
but they're also not easy ones, and so I think I was new to
design in that project, but also I was really cognizant of how
consequential We're going to be for the people that didn't
deserve. And so when we do design work in
service of social justice, we have to carry with us enough,
levity to be creative but also be grounded in that.
These are the problems that shape people's lives.
I'm gonna take them really seriously finding that balance
was something that, you know, I always have questions up.
It's something that from day one has felt like a really important
Challenge and conscionable. One of the things that I also
noticed as how you've intentionally built your studios
around the globe. Is it often that you see a lot
of synergy across the studio spaces with the work you have in
Nairobi and in New York in particular, I think the
interesting thing about having studios in the US and in Kenya
is that there are ways in which we can really learn from each
other, and share, and there's a lot of overlap.
So, for example, reproductive Health Care is an area, we work
a lot in we work, right? In Dallas on reproductive
Healthcare and Spain access to clinics and services and we work
in Uganda on that same issue. And so I think having teams were
working on some of the same challenges in such different
context allows us to see patterns, we might not otherwise
see allows us to learn from each other but when it really gets
down to it a challenge like ensuring someone has access to
good reproductive health care is about the same Dynamics, no
matter where you were right. It's about good providers.
That availability of care. Having a safe and supportive
environment to ask questions about having clear information
that resonates with your context in the way you think about
planning your life and so many ways.
There are similarities across those videos and then I think in
other ways we're able to draw upon and Inspire each other
through, the ways are different cultures and different lived
experiences show up in the design work.
And that's been really interesting, is the contrast
between those two things. One of the things that you
outline, really in a success, is looking at that ideal dot-org,
you talk about, finding in rows, to Wicked problems, which we've
mentioned, but you also talk a bit about what it takes to
really scale design Solutions. It seems like you're hinting at
that even with this conversation about the reproductive help
Channel. Just what have you seen that?
It takes to find the in road to the wicked problem, design a
solution. But then deployed at scale.
What are some of the learnings are things that you've come up
with? Our process has really anchored
in understanding that finding out what the right thing is,
right? And finding out how to get that
right thing in front of the most people are actually two separate
design processes, right? So often figuring out how to
solve someone's challenge or how to what the right new service or
product, or experiences is really about testing, lots of
different things about prototyping, lots of potential
options. It's also about ensuring that
the folks who are most impacted by the outcome of that design
process have a seat at the table, not just at the beginning
of the throughout and have the real power to Define what the
outcome of that project will look like and to give feedback
and to have influence. And so really understand that
like the output of a process like that is often a pilot.
It's a first step, it's about getting enough of a solution.
That you can start to measure what works and understand why.
And also start to understand what are the critical components
of that solution that would need to exist in any context and so
that first design process really about asking what do we need?
And then to scale solution is a set whole second effort Wich is
to ask, how do we get it all the places it needs to be?
And don't example, I might give you.
So we worked in Ethiopia in the public health system there on,
designing, a new reproductive Health, Service, that engages
couples and Saying basically, life planning counseling that
also includes a module on Family Planning.
And so really help couples overcoming the taboo of the
topic of Family Planning and have a conversation about how
many children they want to have. And when and also enables women
in the context of that environment, to access the
healthcare that they figuring out what that solution was that
we needed to be counseling base. That it should engage young.
Couples figure out what the right tools and information are
there going to be contextually relevant.
That's one design process that we did in.
There with our partners, at PSI with behavioral, scientists with
Cadre of young, Ethiopian co-designers, who worked
alongside our team and that got us to a really strong pilot
where we could seize up to 75% of girls adopting, a new
contraceptive Services, we have those sessions but then that
success meant that the Ethiopian government wanted to scale it
into the system nationally right and figuring out.
How do we make this thing that works in one place?
But we have a lot of control over the variables of how do we
make it work in a distributed nationally.
Small Health Care System. That's a whole design exercise
in itself where we need organizational, designers and
systems designers, and business designers to help us extract.
What's working? Well about the first pilot
version and how do we create a version of this, more modular,
able to be rolled out at scale, without losing the pieces that
make it some fective often when we pick something that's worked.
Well, in one context and we scale it.
We don't take the time to really treat that as a design exercise
and understand what those most critical components are.
And so, what made the system work in one place gets Down in
the scaling process. And so, by really treating this,
a separate design exercise, we're able to isolate and invest
in and support the pieces. They're going to create the most
important outcomes in the long run, which struck me as
interesting. It's how you describe these as
two separate design exercises. So if we follow that, that
Trooper, if minute, do you have two separate teams?
How do you determine what design Talent you need in the mix for
the problem? We don't necessarily have two
distinct teams, think about design and scaling but we have a
lot of different. Skill sets that are not in
different moments of the process, right in particular.
I think about a phase that is about optimizing and scaling an
intervention and making it accessible to more people.
I'm looking for people who can help us understand what's
working, so that might be an impact evaluator, it might be a
design researcher. I'm looking for someone who can
help us designed in the constraint.
So whatever the system were trying to scale within our.
So I might be a business design or an organizational designer,
who can design the right incentives, training tools,
business models. Going to underpin and support,
the long-term success of sustainability.
And those are skills that are also really important in the
first design were designing a pilot, right?
But they are may be utilized in a slightly different way and
they have a different mandate right, which is to focus on that
aspect of scale and to focus on scale with quality, which is not
the same thing as just scaling, right?
We can often hit, many numbers but the outcomes are the most
important part when you're working in, right?
That's my back, right? So I have this question and it's
going to be a play on the words because you're so Giant InDesign
what corrects you to design from Linguistics.
That's a good question and not a straight path and no requirement
that it had to be. I'm just sure that listeners may
be curious that you maybe at first, guess who majored, in
linguistics, what a great distinction to hold?
You know what, drew me to study Linguistics was I have always
been fascinated by how we communicate as people and what
that says about us, what that says about, we value, who we are
the families and communities. He grew up in and so Those same
things led me to design ultimately, but through a rather
circuitous path. When I graduated from college, I
decided to focus on social impact and social justice work.
So I worked in community health organization's, I worked in
education and I was really drawn to figuring out how we make
these systems work. Better for people, write and
design came into my world. Sort of, by happenstance.
I learned about idea da towards work.
While I was working in some of these organizations.
Is that are much like the partner organizations we work
with now and this idea of human centered design and starting
from a place of deep listening and also testing and
prototyping, many solutions. It's like Creative Energy felt
really compelling as an answer to some of the challenges I was
seeing in the organizations and the spaces I was working in.
No one is more surprised that I that I ended up in a designed
for her and for the last nine years.
But I think what I've been lucky to be able to do and to explore,
is how to take those skills. I learned in linguistics that
helped us really tune into and understand.
People are saying and what's underneath, what they're saying,
and apply that as a design, researcher and idea, dot org and
apply that to creating new Solutions.
Whereas Linguistics is a more academic Pursuit, right?
We're listening for the sake of understanding and InDesign we're
listening for the sake of being able to influence the outcomes.
So that's how I ended up here. But it's definitely been
incredible. And sometimes really humbling
process over the last nine years to figure out how to apply my
skills. Best in service in the gold, we
have the design organization. It's so wonderful to hear that
Journey. And it speaks to what we've been
sharing about this Nexus of design today.
And tomorrow for design adjacent, it's actually kind of
a design adjacent path, where you're taking those skills into
snatcher leading into the space. Following this idea of Journey.
How do problem late in organizations, and I say it like
that, on purpose, organizations that are bringing to the table.
These Wicked problems. How do they find you as ideal
dot-org? How would an organization find
its way into a partnership with you?
There are probably as many routes into partnership with us.
As there are organizations, we've worked with okay?
All right, I would maybe classify them as aspiration
leading organization so we okay and work with Partners who, see,
a future that they want to build towards and want some support
getting there and taking steps towards it.
And so organization sometimes come to us with a challenge,
like they have a program or part of their work isn't operating
effectively as they like it too. Other times organizations come
to us with a big bold idea. Something they've never ever
seen before. Do they want to try out and
they're looking for someone to take that leap with them.
Okay? And make their idea tangible and
real, and something that exists in the world.
Often we work with organizations over and over again.
So, we have certain Partners like a light form of the
American Refugee committee, or like the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation, folks that we've worked with a number of times
and who have shared goals, you know, our mission is to design a
more just and Equitable world and organizations that.
Share that Vision, we tend to partner with over and over
again. Since there are so many things
that need to happen to realize that my And as we're always
looking for more than just you are aligned to that and ready to
try some new things together. Do you have moments where you're
working for partner and they come to you with with a problem
with a small p and you're able to elevate and show them that
there's a solution to a bigger problem with a bigger P.
They can go after where you're able to elevate, even their
thoughts of what impact could be.
So we adopt a really co.design Centric approach to the way that
we work, right? When our partners come to us,
they often have an outcome goal in mind, but how we get there is
really open, okay. And so, So, we bring together
coalition's of people from communities from implementing
organizations, who serve live with that challenge every day
and are most proximate to it and have the highest stakes in the
outcome of that work, right? And together, try and really
Define what's going on here. What is the problem?
Let's look at this Challenge from multiple angles and Define
together a shared blueprint for success.
And what that looks like, coughing that process of seeing
the problem from a different angles.
And I've been fighting so many different kinds of people into
the process and kinds of stakeholders.
That often changes. Every frame is the way our
partners are, they talked a little bit, a lot about that.
You know, we've had conversations about teamwork
about collaboration but we've never really had a chance to dig
into this concept of Coalition building.
Hmm, which are expanding the voices and perspectives at the
table in a really intentional way.
So kind of talk about some of those powers that you see when
you start to really dig into Coalition, we're really focused
on trying to create systemic and enduring change, I guess is
where I would say. And that's About not just
mitigating are addressing the symptoms of a problem, but
actually trying to influence the conditions that create that
problem, right, right. And in order to do that, we have
to attack a problem from multiple different leverage
points though, both address and create better products and
systems and services and institutions that people
interact with every day. But also to influence the norms
and beliefs, that underpin, all those things over time, it's a
long game. And it pretty much always means
working with many different actors.
Some of whom don't see eye-to-eye right, right?
And so, if we believe that's what success looks like and that
we believe that's the way we're gonna get to that enduring
change that We crave, we have to be able to collaborate with a
really diverse Coalition of people who have influence over
different levers in that system who have a different vantage
point on that system who bring different skills to the table.
So that means we're gonna have to collaborate in a pretty
radical way in the same way that like in many creative
institutions for a long time, we've had to create Sinclair
roles and expectations around. What collaboration will look
like to enable it to fry. We're having to do that at a
much wider scale. We take on these big systems
challenges, right? We're having to create those
clear roles and agreements and Clarity and right and shared
Vision among a much wider set of people.
And the power of that Coalition building and of working
together, even though it might feel cumbersome in moments is I
think that you end up with a blueprint for change.
That is so much stronger and imbued with the hopes and
aspirations and the wisdom. It's a wider set of people.
Then repeats have been involved in the design process, all
right. It's really inspiring to hear
you talk about the work that you're doing the trials
tribulations challenges but more importantly the rewards and
impact for many of our listeners, especially those who
are starting their careers. There's an interest in this
Nexus of design and social impact.
What advice would you have for our listeners?
Who were starting to explore new careers and new models for
careers about how they can connect design and social
impact? I think the most important
advice I would have is to focus on outcomes if you're trying to
design for social impact. And so I think in design and
design education, as I understand it.
Having my gun design school myself, I think we can focus a
lot on the what what are we creating?
What are we making? What is it?
What does it do? And I think in social impact
their social justice work. It's incumbent upon us to focus
on the outcomes. And the impact that those things
can have in the world and really anchored of those.
And so, I think that the practice that not all designers
are taught. I think it's a practice that
novel design, firms focus on. But if we're gonna focus on
issues like health and education and livelihoods things that have
such a meaningful impact on people's real lives.
We have to hold ourselves accountable as designers to
something a much higher bar, the novel Solutions, we have to
create things that actually ship triangle flag.
That's one piece of advice. I would give is early to
practice that orientation, which I think it is a This, when
you're creating things and to make sure that your ideas and
the things you're designing are actually laddering up to
meaningful change and to be self-aware about when they have
it. You know, we all have had
moments where you missed the mark but it's important to be
critical and to learn from those moments and not just trying to
brush it under the rug and we try to do as an organization and
on the about org I'm something I tried to do my own personal
practice. I think that the other advice I
might give to folks who are starting out and interested in
starting their current design and focus on social impact is
too. Not worried about the career.
You want have 15 years from now is to really just focus on.
What is the interesting problem or challenge you see in the
world that you are passionate about that, you feel like you
have something to offer to it, right?
Find the people who who understand that challenge who
are addressing it in a way that aligns with your values and ask
how you can be of service. To me, design is most powerful
when it's an act of service. It's using our creative tools
and skills, and saying, what can we offer the folks who are
trying to solve the problem? What can we do?
To the table. And for me designs role in these
sorts of challenges is really twofold.
It's to help align our often a really diverse and Broad
Coalition of stakeholders and he's our creative process to
help create a shared vision for change that we can all operate
from and move towards. And I think it's using our
creative skills and abilities to help.
Take the first steps towards that future to make ideas.
Real in the world to build evidence.
That, that change is not only possible.
It's inevitable. We're going to get there and To
build momentum. That only comes from actually
testing and trying things out in the world.
And so I think yeah, fine people in organizations who are doing
amazing work and ask how you can use your creative skills to help
them. When you're looking to build the
team, where do you look to find talent?
I am always looking for people who could help idea, dark
achieve remission. So we even are often where we're
bringing in folks to our team who are coming from different
backgrounds in design. So whether that's folks who are
incredible, communication design, Is he bring a really
unique lens to the way they think about visual communication
or business designers, who can really take, the institutions
were working with and help them figure out and understand how to
implement the things. We're suggesting even when it
feels aspirational and higher. In other cases we're looking for
folks who have real expertise and lived experience addressing
the issues that we're focused on.
Right. So we have on our team who are
really specialized around Healthcare education around
financial services and we're also looking for people who
possess the of course, out of Collaboration skills, which
includes enthusiasm and Imagination and includes the
self-awareness to be able to know your own blind spots and
work in collaboration with others who possess different
skills and expertise. So those people can come from
anywhere and we always have an eye open.
I asked a question looking at the team, it's immediately
apparent, how diverse and dynamic, the group is that you
put together for each of your projects.
So, it's you nestled into the Helm of being the CEO of ideo
dot-org. He talked a bit about the next
chapter but I'm going to ask more directly.
What's next for ideal dot-org? What's the next step in your
evolution in making an impact on the world?
The work I'm most excited about right now and probably honestly
the work. I've always been most excited
about and I be about work is when we're able to create new
Solutions and services that address really pressing and
Urgent needs today. But that also start to influence
sometimes subtly and some types of birds of Li the underlying,
Dynamics that create those challenges are trying to tackle
in the first place. And so whether that's working in
mental health and creating interventions that address the
underlying stigma that Still Remains and so many communities
are on accessing mental support or whether that's working on
digital financial services in East Africa, that paved the way
for women to have more agency and how an earning and spending
money in their household or whether that's, you know,
working in reproductive health care and creating interventions
that Actually put more power in the hands of the people seeking
care. That's what I'm really excited
about. I think design at its best is
both re-engineering the systems around us to make them work
better for people but also bringing that like Artistry to
helping people feel differently and see themselves differently
with each other differently. And so the more that we can do,
the better designing for transformation designing for
Equity designing for Resilience and designing for
transformation. Those are words that repeat on
ideals website and really are at the heart of the work that Shawn
is doing and i.org, I can't think of a better way to close
out our conversation with your thoughts on the future Shawna.
So thank you for joining us. Thanks so much for having me.
It's a nice to meet you. And thank you all for joining
in. This has been an incredible
episode of design, adjacent the podcast.
We look at designs impact both here and abroad.
Both today and tomorrow. Thank you for joining us with
our guests, Shawna carry CEO of Ideal dot-org.
If you want to find out more information about their work,
please visit them and ideal dot-org.
Thank you show notes for this episode will be available on AIG
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