By Kprecia Ambers & Debbie Aderinkomi, AIGA MN Diversity & Inclusion Committee
“Inspiring, celebrating, and promoting diversity within the design community.”
Background
Going on it’s third annual event, the Design + Diversity Conference strives to one-up themselves every year. The “conference has sought to inspire, celebrate, and promote diversity within the design community.” Their goal is to support “emerging under-represented designers with a passion to make a positive change within their communities as well as the creative industry” and their communities. Attendees can learn and make connections with industry figures as well as fellow creatives.
The Breakdown
Conference Co-founders Timothy J. Hykes and Antionette Carroll, split the information filled event into three days. Each day provided new insights and opportunity to learn. Below is a breakdown of our mini adventure and insight on topics we learned.
Workshops
Day one took place in Centene Center for the Arts and composed of six workshops. Two workshops were ran simultaneously for two hours, giving participants the option to choose which topics they wanted to explore. These workshops allowed for much interaction amongst groups, fostered discussions, and allowed opportunity to make connections. Here are the workshops we attended:
“Speaking up can educate those who are not aware of their ignorance…”
Designing Inclusion Into Your Process for Measurable Impact
Lead by Lennie Mowris & Gage Mitchell, co-authors of AIGA’s Path to Impact, this workshop explored how to build inclusivity into your work space. Grouped into teams, participants were challenged to create the worst possible work environment scenarios and then evaluate the situation. Each group wrote down what the company and co-workers could have done differently, but Lennie encouraged people to think about what the protagonist could do for themselves. It’s important to recognize your voice and power. Speaking up can educate those who are not aware of their ignorance and also create possible change within a companies structure.
Who’s At Your Table?
This workshop was lead by Erika Harano who is an Associate Manager of Learning and Education at Creative Reaction Lab. Creative Reaction Lab’s goal is to support and train a new form of leaders — equity leaders. These are individuals who are embedded in the community. They put equity and people first while building by using existing resources within their community.
What is the first step to community centered work? Language setting. According to Creative Reaction Lab this means defining important terms such as diversity, inclusion, equality and equity. All of these terms are related, but are also very distinct in meaning and purpose.
Keywords
Diversity is the identifiers that make us unique individuals
Inclusion is accepting, celebrating and embedding said differences
An example used during the workshop was being invited to the prom (diversity) and actually being asked to dance (inclusion).
Equality is being the same (ie. status, opportunities, rights)
Equity is fairness. It resolves around systematic and network outcomes, with the ultimate goal of liberation.
“How can you use your power on the behalf of others?”
The workshop concluded with an explanation of power. Power is the ability to use influence to the behavior of others. We all, more or less, hold power in our respective spaces. It important to think deeply about what this means. How can you use your power on the behalf of others? When should you give up some of your power? These were closing questions posed on the audience.
Open Space: Design and Diversity in Challenging Social Contexts
De Nichols a social innovator, created an open environment that invited participants to engage in social challenges that they care about as designers and collective brainstorming. Breaking into groups each individual had the choice to explore a topic and dive into ways in how those challenges can be taken into action. Questions ranged from, “how to market a business to allow opportunity to diverse groups?” to “how to deal with individuals who are against creating a more inclusive work space?” These discussions were powerful and really created a space to openly speak about issues that are typically avoided within our society.
Keynote Presenters
The next couple of days took place in the conference’s second location, The Moto Museum. Each keynote speakers shared impactful stories and took the audience on a deep dive into their personal lives and company missions toward becoming more diverse and inclusive. Audience participation was highly encouraged and this allowed individuals to ask questions, share their opinions, open the floor to networking, or simply listen and reflect. Each speaker recognized the issues within today’s societies and understood the importance in working toward change. These speakers include:
The Designer’s Weakness: Understanding the Role of Power and Privilege
Presented by George Aye | founder of Greater Good Studio
My story of including and being included
Presented by Archana Thiagarajan | Director of Design at Adobe, enterprise designers team lead for Adobe’s Experience Cloud, and suite lead for Adobe’s Utah Diversity and Inclusion Council.
Designing with (Non)designers: Building Relationships to Enable Co-Design
Presented by Isabelle Yisak | Experience Designer at Business Innovation Factory & Khessia Jean Baptiste, Elementary school teacher in the Palm Beach County School District
Designing Equal by Design
Presented by Aaron Mann | University of Missouri – St.Louis alum and Winner of the 2017 AAF’S Mosaic Awards: Student Multicultural Advertising Campaign for his senior thesis project “Equal By Design”.
Thinking Critically about Machine Learning and its Social Impacts
Presented by Jamila Smith-Loud | User researcher at Google on the Ethical Machine Learning Team.
The Education of a Design Educator
Presented by Ruki Ravikumar | Director of Education at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
I Shouldn’t be on this stage right now
Presented by Paul Sohi | Technology evangelist, product designer, and lead of the iconic projects program at Autodesk.
Inclusion While Distributed
Presented by Lori McLeese | Global Head of Human Resources for Automattic, the company behind WordPress, Woocommerce, and so much more.
Access by Design
Presented by Grace Kim | Design and research lead at Twitter and leads its consumer and business-facing product design and research efforts.
There’s enough to go around, fam!
Presented by Crystal Matin | Consultant at Slalom, a co-organizer of Strange Loop Conference, and diversity in tech/business advocate.
Grassroots Information Design: Lessons in Equitable Data Storytelling
Presented by Jessica Bellamy | Creator of GRIDS: The Grassroots Information Design Studio, 2017 Adobe Creative Resident and Motion Infographic Designer
Opening Doors that have been Closed by Ageism, the Under-the-Radar Diversity Issue
Presented by Richard Anderson | Consultant and Principal of OE Strategy, providing human-centered research, strategy, & design thinking for organizations.
Inclusion and Representation in the Design Curriculum
Presented by Jennifer Rittner | Content Matters Consulting Firm
The Ethics of Diversity in Design: A Leader’s Role in Providing Access, Fostering Culture and Affecting Change
Presented by Timothy Bardlavens | Sr. Product Design leader at Microsoft