Design Altruism Project Arguing With Success
When I moved away from paying work and into probono full-time, I didn’t realise that it would eat at my every available moment. But it has. And that’s my excuse for not keeping up with DWB.
This morning I woke up to an email from David Stairs of the Design Altruism Project. I scanned through, then got stuck into my day job.
Several hours later, Google Alerts jostled me to take another look at what David had cared enough to send.
And it was this look that brought me here. To DWB. To share with you…
Arguing With Success: My concern with the popularity of Facebook design groups and socially conscientious design blogs is that, rather than muster wider awareness, they will cause both a false sense of general accomplishment, and result in donor-fatigue.
The growth of a category of what are called “slacktivists,” people who use their interest in design/politics to justify joining online groups and building websites for remote non-profits, fails to address the world’s problems with feet-on-the-ground solutions.
At the end of the day isn’t it the person with the most mud on his or her shoes, not the one with the most conference speaking engagements, who is doing the important work?
Agree or not, you have to admit that it is certainly something to think about.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go off and rustle up a few generous souls…
Technorati Tags: Design Altruism Project, Designers, non-profits, probono
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I couldn’t agree more. I’ve written books about a substantive discovery about altruism. The books show how we can improve our designs, products, processes and interactions. Often people are more interested in talking the talk, but if walking the walk includes reading a book about a discovery they’ll pass that opportunity right by. So, I agree with you about the weaknesses that you note.
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I admire your probono work, even if it has it’s challenges.
Muy buen blog de diseño! great blog! thanks from Argentina.
This is so true. It seems that every day on Facebook I receive at least five requests to receive some kind of little green plant to help prevent global warming. Many times, people attend conferences, or speak at them, send and receive frivolous Facebook “plants,” or post blogs on how we should all be doing more to help out some non-profit organization. And then they don’t ever do anything else to really get stuff done. On the flip side, though, if no one handed out flyers about upcoming fundraisers or any other act to create awareness, fewer people would even know to help out. It seems that a healthy balance is required, and also an understanding the some people have the talent needed to plant the trees while others have the talent needed to raise the money to buy the trees.
“At the end of the day isn’t it the person with the most mud on his or her shoes, not the one with the most conference speaking engagements, who is doing the important work?”
Most of the time, people who do all the dirty works are left unnoticed and unappreciated. This is a very sad reality that a lot of people experience.