Harnessing the Creative Potential of Design for Social Good
Cheryl Heller with Rosanne Haggerty

Designer and business strategist Cheryl Heller, author of The Intergalactic Design Guide, talks with designer Rosanne Haggerty about how social design can help address our most pressing challenges, from poverty to climate change.

Design has built global brands, disrupted industries, and transformed our lives with technology. It has also contributed to the complex challenges we face today. Social design is a new kind of leadership. Cheryl and Rosanne discuss some innovative approaches for increasing creativity, strengthening relationships, and developing our capacity to collaborate—with the potential to transform everything from corporations to cities and to design ourselves for change.

Social design is a new kind of leadership.

It offers innovative approaches for increasing creativity, strengthening relationships, and developing our capacity to collaborate—with the potential to transform everything from corporate cultures to cities. It pushes us to become comfortable with uncertainty, to design ourselves for change.

In The Intergalactic Design Guide, business strategist and designer Cheryl Heller explains eleven common principles, a step-by-step process, and essential skills for successful social design. She illustrates the social design process with in-depth examples—from the CEO of the largest carpet manufacturer in the world to a young entrepreneur with a passion for reducing food waste. While change-makers like Paul Farmer and Oprah Winfrey have instinctively practiced social design for decades, Heller organizes concepts applied by leaders in diverse fields so that they become accessible to all of us, no matter the focus of our work.

From start-ups to global NGOs, The Intergalactic Design Guide provides both inspiration and practical steps for designing a more resilient and fulfilling future. Thought leader David Orr wrote, “If our industrial civilization was entered into an intergalactic design competition, it would be tossed out in the qualifying round.” This book points the way for us to change how we relate to our world, and to each other.

Join us on Friday, October 26 from 6 - 8 pm at The SVA Gramercy Gallery.

“This book fills the cavernous gap between our awareness and understanding of “design thinking” and “design doing”. The first truly useful guide for those of us working to have impact, it shares numerous case studies of people and organizations that have transformed reality by combining the skills of thinking and acting in a design context. An absolute must read for all of us looking to change the world in our own special ways!”

—Len Schlesinger, Baker Foundation Professor, Harvard Business School; President Emeritus, Babson College

“There are design problems and there are human problems. Cheryl Heller’s genius is to see them as one and the same with the goal of building human capacity, not just buildings. This is the framework for designing the design process.”

—David W. Orr, Paul Sears Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Oberlin College

“The Intergalactic Design Guide is a call for entries to design our way out of the civilization we have created, by using our collective creativity to change the human condition. Readers will come away transformed by the realization that we can use the invisible forces of social design to create a future where we live in a state of mutuality with one another and nature. This is one of the most critical design books of our time.”

—Ivy Ross, Vice President of Google, Hardware Design

Jeff Speck - Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places — at Politics and Prose at Union Market

This event, for Jeff Speck's Walkable City Rules is free to attend with no reservation required. Seating is available on a first come, first served basis.

Saturday, November 3, 2018 - 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Register now. 

How can the power of design be harnessed to address pressing challenges such as poverty and climate change? Designer and strategist Cheryl Heller will discuss social design , a new approach to navigating uncertainty and strengthening collaboration. She’ll share the principles and process of social design as well as case studies.

Join author and designer Cheryl Heller in a 90-minute webinar, co-sponsored by Security & Sustainability Forum and Island Press, to explore the principles of social design and how to apply them to vexing societal challenges.

Social design is a new kind of leadership.

It offers innovative approaches for increasing creativity, strengthening relationships, and developing our capacity to collaborate—with the potential to transform everything from corporate cultures to cities. It pushes us to become comfortable with uncertainty, to design ourselves for change.

In The Intergalactic Design Guide, business strategist and designer Cheryl Heller explains eleven common principles, a step-by-step process, and essential skills for successful social design. She illustrates the social design process with in-depth examples—from the CEO of the largest carpet manufacturer in the world to a young entrepreneur with a passion for reducing food waste. While change-makers like Paul Farmer and Oprah Winfrey have instinctively practiced social design for decades, Heller organizes concepts applied by leaders in diverse fields so that they become accessible to all of us, no matter the focus of our work.

From start-ups to global NGOs, The Intergalactic Design Guide provides both inspiration and practical steps for designing a more resilient and fulfilling future. Thought leader David Orr wrote, “If our industrial civilization was entered into an intergalactic design competition, it would be tossed out in the qualifying round.” This book points the way for us to change how we relate to our world, and to each other.

Join us on Tuesday, October 23, 5:30-7 p.m. in the Babson Executive Center, Fireside Room

“This book fills the cavernous gap between our awareness and understanding of “design thinking” and “design doing”. The first truly useful guide for those of us working to have impact, it shares numerous case studies of people and organizations that have transformed reality by combining the skills of thinking and acting in a design context. An absolute must read for all of us looking to change the world in our own special ways!”

—Len Schlesinger, Baker Foundation Professor, Harvard Business School; President Emeritus, Babson College

“There are design problems and there are human problems. Cheryl Heller’s genius is to see them as one and the same with the goal of building human capacity, not just buildings. This is the framework for designing the design process.”

—David W. Orr, Paul Sears Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Oberlin College

“The Intergalactic Design Guide is a call for entries to design our way out of the civilization we have created, by using our collective creativity to change the human condition. Readers will come away transformed by the realization that we can use the invisible forces of social design to create a future where we live in a state of mutuality with one another and nature. This is one of the most critical design books of our time.”

—Ivy Ross, Vice President of Google, Hardware Design

Businesses, governments, foundations and the social sector are investing millions of dollars in social design as the most promising methodology for solving the complex human challenges of our time. 

In this webinar, Cheryl Heller, Founding Chair of the Design for Social Innovation MFA program at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and President of the design lab CommonWise, along with Anne LaFond, Director of the John Snow, Inc. Center for Health Information, Monitoring and Evaluation (CHIME), will present an overview of what Social Design is and how it works. 

For the first time, Cheryl and Anne will share learning from research supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on how leading practitioners of social design are measuring the effectiveness of their work. 

Q&A will follow the presentation. Participation and specific questions for your organization’s needs are encouraged.