Helsinki Design Lab: Strategic Design in action

Dark matter.  That caught my attention.  I was lunching with Bryan Boyer, one of the designers at the Helsinki Design Lab.  We were in a relatively new little restaurant in Helsinki talking about changing the world — through strategic design.  One of the motivations for attending the early July 2012 EGOS conference (European Group for Organization Studies) was to visit the Helsinki Design Lab.  HDL web site: http://www.helsinkidesignlab.org/pages/about

HDL is well known as a group of movers and shakers that are part of SITRA — the Finnish Innovation Fund.  Bryan and his colleagues have recently released Recipes for Systemic Change (their book) is downloadable here: http://www.helsinkidesignlab.org/pages/studio-book

I was fortunate to have two hits of Bryan — one at lunch and then another when he presented a broad range of information about the activities of the HDL to a small group of conference delegates.

Here are a few highlights:

• SITRA – In 1967 the Finnish Innovation Fund was funded by a 700 million Euro endowment.  SITRA reports to the Finnish Parliament.  In the 1960s it focused on R&D funding, in the 1980s on Venture Capital.  Now it is more about impact investing, systemic change and ”avant” policy.
• What do you do when money is not an issue but the one thing you want to buy – doesn’t exist yet? STRATEGIC DESIGN at SITRA uses tangible projects as innovation vehicles where investment opportunities do not already exist. They look for where there is value in the system. These are alternatives to white papers – a way of lobbying. They are looking for new ways to be convincing. Implementation is key.
• Bryan set the context by talking about macro trends — we are having acute difficulties in our decision-making structures.  There is overall friction in the system along with general expressions of anxiety globally — riots and wars.
• Examples of positive responses to this are Helsinki Restaurant Day/Festival – people open their kitchens in their communities – 200 new “restaurants” on that day and the urban environment demonstrably changes for a day – and then the city goes back to “normal” .
• Exploring the concept of “Dark Matter” – e.g. regulations, code, financing, maintenance, insurance  HDL sees dark matter  as the “material” of design.  DARK MATTER: o How do we procure? Incentivize? o Does it cross silos? o Does it generate political capital? o Can it motivate policy change?
• Example:  Low2No in the Jatkasaari district.   Working towards carbon neutral cities What is the right simplifier?  HDL used the building as a probe to find innovation opportunities – where do discrete opportunities exist? They found one in the fire code that was stopping them from using wood frame construction. Questions come up in the course of “doing” – that is really where you expose the opportunities.