PSDI at the Nelson Center

The founding contributors of the PSDI descended upon Brown University’s Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship for our first an introductory talk on Positive Sum Design where all of the panelists were in-person. The conversation began with a high-level introduction to PSD, followed by more topical applications of positive sum-related design work. Finally, we ended with a rich Q&A with questions from our audience.

We thank the Nelson Center for hosting us, as well as IIT’s Institute of Design for funding the trip.

PSDI Goes to Yale!

PSDI extends its heartfelt thanks to the Yale Center for Engineering, Innovation, and Design for hosting us on April 8. This introductory conversation spans a number of topics, from choice infrastructure to communities of trust to the multiplicity of value. The best part of the whole talk, however, is our Q&A at the end. We get great questions from the students at Yale that enrich the discussion and create some thoughtful back-and-forth. This one is long but it’s definitely worth the watch!

As always, if you have questions, or you’re interested in joining the Positive Sum Design conversation and supporting PSDI with your thoughts and words, reach out to makepositivesums@gmail.com.

How Do We Think About Value?

We welcome Ruth Schmidt to her first PSDI conversation! In this talk, Arthi, Ian, Ruth, and Will discuss wide-ranging topics around value and Positive Sum Design. How do we think about value in a positive-sum manner? How do we unveil or communicate these sorts of value? We just kind of went for it in this conversation, but some good ideas arise and we’re excited to share them with you.

As always, if you have questions, or you’re interested in joining the Positive Sum Design conversation and supporting PSDI with your thoughts and words, reach out to makepositivesums@gmail.com.

Can Design Be Post-Political?

In this first installment of the Positive Sum Design Institute Dialogues, Arthi, Ian, and Will discuss Ian's supposition that Positive Sum Design might offer the possibility of post-political design and discourse.

Dialogue brief

by Ian Gonsher, PSDI Founding Contributor

Positive Sum Design, like all design strategies, is the cultivation and practical application of a creative process. Creativity, in the most general sense, is a process that produces outcomes that are both novel and useful. [1] This process manifests itself through the behaviors of the individual, which are commonly understood and described in terms of the psychological development of the subject. The work of the artist or innovator is a familiar example of this trope.

But creativity can also be understood as a historical process. Drawing on the precedent of Heraclitus and Hegel, amongst others, we can apply an analysis of creative process that plays out as historical dialectic. This creative dialectic delimits what is understood to be useful and novel within the given context and frames the conditions of possibility. This can only be understood in terms of the that. And that can only be understood in terms of this, setting up a binary opposition that delimits and constrains the spectrum of possibilities.

To be sure, design as a mode of inquiry applies to the possibilities that exist within these constraints. Creativity can and does manifest itself as novel and useful ways of applying constraints. There are many creative ways to divide a pie. But there is also another move that can be made; a move not just within the given constraints, but also a move beyond the given constraints. We can reframe the game, so to speak. Both as a historical process and as a manifestation of the individual subject, creative process can reframe the mutability of constraints.

Just as one can describe these biases in terms of the way they constrain creativity within constraints that are naturally assumed to be immutable (e.g. availability bias), we can also analyze and critique the ways these biases produce zero sum games. The assumption of scarcity within fixed constraints, whether that assumption is accurate or not, tends to frame the stakes competitively as a zero-sum game.

This poses an important question of design, which is bound up in a fundamental ethical question; what kind of game should we choose to play? In political terms, if the Left is defined by the Right, and the Right is defined by the Left, each mutually defining each other, each constraining the stakes, each defaulting to competition over cooperation. By doing so, the possibilities for addressing urgent social challenges become radically impoverished. Politics is by definition a zero-sum game.

So, might Positive Sum Design offer creative paradigm that can truly claim to be Post Political? How might we cultivate opportunities to reframe the way we approach creative problem solving, and orient ourselves away from strict competition towards better communication, cooperation, and coordination?

Our ethics are grounded in how we orient ourselves toward the mutability of constraints. Constraints determine the stakes, and the kinds of strategies used to play the game. A game can play out within the established constraints, or a game can play out beyond the established constraints. The relevant ethical question, as well as the essential design question, is what kind of game should we choose to play?

Questions

1. Is there an ethical obligation for designers and creative practitioners to design for all

   stakeholders, reframing the game away from zero sum biases and win/loses, and

   towards mutual gain and win/wins? Does doing so offer “Post-Political” possibilities?

2. How might we approach a critique of zero sum bias, and better understand ways

   Positive Sum Design strategies might reframe the game, offering a fuller appreciation

   for the mutability of constraints?

3. What set of practices are appropriate for Positive Sum Design, and what precedent

   might we look at to apply best practices to design pedagogy and professional practice?

Notes

[1] Diedrich, Jennifer & Benedek, Mathias & Jauk, Emanuel & Neubauer, Aljoscha.

(2015). Are Creative Ideas Novel and Useful?. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and

the Arts. 9. 35-40. 10.1037/a0038688.

Panel

Ian Gonsher, PSDI Founding Contributor

L. Arthi Krishnaswami, PSDI Founding Contributor

Will Rutter, PSDI Founding Contributor