An untitled ride
It has always been exciting to me to do things for the first time, not knowing what will come, not knowing how to do it and just throwing yourself into an unknown space. The past week I have been on my first multi day cycling trip. The act of cycling through a country with only your own body power and energy was an important experience and gave me a lot to think about. You experience your environment in a new way, the scents a long the way, the road you are riding on, the flexibility to stop whenever you want and the deep connection with nature.
I have been a designer for over ten years and I have had the opportunity to work for amazing companies with amazing people to learn and grow from. Something that always keeps me going is the need to improve the status quo and not accept how things work today. This urge of improvement has brought me to discover service design as my craft and focus work on development and global health, which I was able to immerse myself into and learn about at my previous job. The energy and commitment with which professionals in global health advocate and work for improvements inspires me deeply and the level of depth in expertise that they bring is admirable. The complexity of the problems is exciting and challenging at the same time. There is so much work to do, and I believe designers can contribute a lot.
However at the same time I started to feel the urge to question it all, question the role of design, question development aid, question companies and business targets and the growth driven economy we live in and I am part of. Once you figure something out well, there comes always the next step of scale, duplication, replication, scalability, increase, efficiency and cost savings. In the world of constant growth, you suddenly you find yourself doing too many things at the same time, making decisions ill informed, using your gut feeling when you would need evidence, coordinating too many tasks, jumping ahead, running too fast, forgetting things. I am an idealist and I believe we need to work towards finding more sustainable forms of living and working as today.
When I was cycling, I realized how much you can achieve with your own willpower and energy and the freedom of exploration. But also what are the limits of it and how you are influenced by the environment in which you ride. It was beautiful to choose your own path but not knowing how it will look like and needing to take all the challenges that come along the road, a step uphill, strong headwind, a broken tire, hunger and no café in sight. Cycling for many days teaches you a lot about your own strengths and weaknesses and helps you learn how to use these in order to reach your destination at the end of the day. But it also teaches you the importance of good partners, to help you ride through the tough days, stay focused and re-evaluate the goals. This experience made me reflect of how much we are trying in todays work environment to achieve too many things at the same time and that really often we end up doing things like riding too fast without breaks or forgetting to look at what kind of road we are on or not finding the pedals on our bike.
In the beginning of June I left my dream job as Director of Service Design in a company working on development and health challenges to pursue an independent path. It was a difficult decision and not an easy step to do, but I had the urge to go and explore what I can do on my own without compromising my energy, curiosity and willingness to continuously question the work that I am doing.
The main questions, that I want to explore are:
- How can designers add best value to improve people’s lives and wellbeing where its most needed
- What shape does development work take in the future?
- What types of collaborations and networks we need to tackle tomorrow’s problems?
- How can we create sustainable ways of working and living towards an economy less focused on growth and more in touch with our environment and human nature
I am excited to go on this path with partners around the world, who are invested in the same questions. One of them is Damaris Rodriguez, an amazing and visionary designer, who talks about her path here. Others will follow soon.
Together we have set out to build a new collective of experienced global design minded professionals with the aim to inspire, connect and integrate with groups in the development sector. We believe in a sustainable world that promotes diversity and equality, and we need new ways of working and new ways of creating value. We are by choice a flexible, adaptable and diverse group without the operational and managerial constraints of a commercial company to be affordable, accessible and impact driven.
My past work has led me to dive into and learn more about women’s health and rights, and I think I have found a deep passion here. As woman and a mother I deeply care about issues of maternal and new born child health and equality in work and life. These topics will continue to play an important role in the collective and will shape the way we will talk, work and engage with each other.
For now its an untitled ride, but it will turn into something with a name and a meaning very soon. Stay tuned and join us on this path.
