Co-creation is at the heart of how Enviu ideates, develops, and markets its solutions for social and environmental issues. With this guide we aim to share our experience with those aiming to involve a variety of actors for the development of solutions for complex issues. Currently, you can download the guide on PDF format, and soon you’ll be able to also order hardcopies. 

This guide is a live document that will mature with your contribution. For this, we have made the contents available on a wiki that will be used to develop upcoming editions. Simply click the “edit” tab, and co-create this guide with the rest of the Enviu community.

Q: Are there issues surrounging design for social innovation you feel are important to examine, yet are currently ignored? And how do you suggest we address them?

A: In my view, one of the most challenging issues related to design for social innovation is the quality of its results. 

In fact, when we discuss traditional products, in general, we have a language and the needed sensibility to discuss their qualities. Vice versa, when we talk about design for social innovation, things are quite different and we still don’t know how to do it. 

Let’s consider, for instance, a solution based on the sharing of places or products. Given the title of your magazine, Shareable magazine, I suppose that you think that to share is good. And I agree. But, what are the qualities you consider to give this positive evaluation? How do you discuss them? As a matter of fact you can share something in many different ways. We should be able to judge how much effective and economically viable each one of these different solutions could be. But also, and in my view, here is the major designers’ specific responsibility, we should have the criteria and the words to discuss different ways of sharing, endowed with different sets of soft qualities. As you can imagine, this is today a particularly challenging issue. 

What does Direct Democracy look like? Iceland is getting a new Constitution, written by ordinary people

"Iceland's getting a new constitution and it's really going to be the voice of the people."

From the Beaver County Times
Link to full article

"The sparsely-populated volcanic island is holding an unusual election Saturday to select ordinary citizens to cobble together a new charter, an exercise in direct democracy born out of the outrage and soul-searching that followed the nation's economic meltdown.

Hundreds of people are vying for the chance to be among up to 31 people who will form the Constitutional Assembly slated to convene early next year -- a source of huge pride for Icelanders who have seen their egos take a beating in recent years.

"This is the first time in the history of the world that a nation's constitution is reviewed in such a way, by direct democratic process," says Berghildur Erla Bergthorsdottir, spokeswoman for the committee entrusted with organizing the Constitutional Assembly."

*Photo courtesy of Icelandic Parliament

Link to post describing Constitutional Assembly

Iceland had never had any real constitution, but a "copy-and-paste" text derived from the Danish one, established in 1944, and where the word 'King' had been replaced by 'President of the Republic'.

Designers have traditionally focused on enhancing the look and functionality of products.  Recently, they have begun using design tools to tackle more complex problems, such as finding ways to provide low-cost healthcare throughout the world.  Businesses were first to embrace this new approach—called design thinking—now nonprofits are beginning to adopt it too.