Summary
The closing day of the conference centers on innovative strategies and design approaches that blur the boundaries between digital experiences and physical public spaces, including examples from transportation, education, childcare, and social services. Speakers explore how artifacts from the future can help envision and realize desired societal changes. A group of experienced designers and past conference speakers will reflect on standout themes and community insights gathered during the event, enhancing shared learning. The day culminates with a keynote by Amara Spence, who will discuss designing for liberation and the rehearsal of freedom, inviting designers to use imagination as a tool in constructing better futures. The program promotes provocative discussions that connect design to tangible societal impacts.
Key Insights
-
•
Design increasingly integrates digital and physical public spaces, creating hybrid experiences.
-
•
Artifacts from the future are powerful tools to envision and enact societal change.
-
•
Public spaces themselves are treated as design materials rather than static environments.
-
•
Sectors like transportation, education, childcare, and social services offer diverse examples of this blended design approach.
-
•
Reflection and synthesis by community leaders help solidify learning across the conference.
-
•
Ongoing dialogue through platforms like Slack supports active participant engagement beyond presentations.
-
•
Design for liberation involves harnessing imagination to build the worlds we aspire to live in.
-
•
Closing keynotes can serve as both capstones and visionary provocations for a conference.
-
•
Design leadership embraces both practical tools and speculative futures to drive innovation.
-
•
Community-driven reflection sessions enrich the collective understanding of design challenges and opportunities.
Notable Quotes
"Designing services that increasingly span the blurred lines between our digital and public worlds."
"Public spaces themselves become a design material to work with."
"Artifacts from the future can help us envision and live in the changes we're hoping to see."
"A group of dedicated designers and leaders will do reflection and synthesis of things that stood out."
"Closing keynote from Amara Spence about designing for liberation and the rehearsal of freedom."
"How we bring our imaginations to building the worlds that we want."
"It’s sure to end the conference on a high note."
"Today you’ll hear about varied strategies, tools, and design approaches."
"Connecting the conversations from earlier days with a lens on physical public spaces."
"Provocations from today’s speakers will spark exciting discussions."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"The blueprint is really within all of us — all the things that have brought us to this moment should come to our teams."
Jennifer KanyamibwaCreating the Blueprint: Growing and Building Design Teams
November 8, 2018
"There’s a tension between immediate evaluative research and more durable insights for future use."
Brigette Metzler Dana ChrisfieldResearch Repositories: A global project by the ResearchOps Community (Videoconference)
August 27, 2020
"Taking meeting minutes and assigning action items with director names reduced arguing and helped move things forward."
Carl TurnerYou Can Do This: Understand and Solve Organizational Problems to Jumpstart a Dead Project
March 28, 2023
"If you want to bring dots closer together, you have to constantly notice how things change in the moment."
John Mortimer Milan Guenther Lucy Ellis Patrick QuattlebaumPanel Discussion
December 3, 2024
"An engaged designer is a retained designer."
Dante GuintuHow to Crush the Talent Crunch
September 8, 2022
"Design is a service profession, a humble profession, less significant than the lives of the people we serve."
Richard BuchananCreativity and Principles in the Flourishing Enterprise
June 15, 2018
"Normally the theme leader would be talking about sleep deprivation because we’re overstimulated and excited by the talks."
Dan WillisTheme 3: Intro
January 8, 2024
"Failure is only the beginning."
Dan WardFailure Friday #1 with Dan Ward
February 7, 2025
"This is a weird time for research. Layoffs have torn through our field. I've been laid off too."
Chris GeisonTheme Two Intro
March 28, 2023