Workshop 1: Past, Present, & Futures
Summary of our first workshop with the community co-designers
The first workshop started with building an understanding of the past and present portrait of the community. Every design intervention works on top of existing context and history. So making a platform to share community members’ honest reflections on the community is a crucial step of co-designing. Moreover, this served as a good introductory workshop because hearing each community co-designer’s interpretations of the past and present provide an opportunity to learn about who they are. In the end, we finished the workshop with a future-ing activity where we imagined Rose, Bud, & Thorn of thriving Sto-Rox in 2024.
The workshop started off with an explanation of the physical booklet. The front page has the workshop number, title, and progress bar. Co-designer can see where they are and where they are heading through the progress bar.
Focusing activity
Every workshop starts with a focusing activity. These can be viewed as icebreakers with the added purpose of easing people into the subject matter. The workshop being virtual, the focusing activity supplements people that time of walking into space, sitting down, and looking around. People are reminding themselves why and what the gathering is about.
Our focusing activity for today was the drawing exercise. The co-designers drew what they like to do in the Sto-Rox community and others guessed what that is looking at the drawing.
Community shared about kids, family, and neighbors they interact with. The sports events and local businesses they like to visit. From this, I could sense a strong community based on deep familial roots as well as a welcoming environment for newcomers.
Information
The workshop aims to stay in the head, heart, and hand model. Information is the head portion. I introduced the concept of co-design and participatory capital with small diagrams. These 2 concepts were the reason why community co-designers were here so I wanted to start with the most important concepts. I also formatted the purpose of the workshop in 3 questions; what is it, why we are doing it, and how does this fit into the overall project. Because of poor time management, I had to rush and skip this part which is something I need to improve on for the next workshop.
Activity 1: Capitals
The first activity was inspired by Kristin Hughes Community Workshop activity. Community members were asked to think of the capitals that Sto-Rox had. I presented several types of capital such as person, place, resource, to inspire them to think about unconventional capital.
In their own time, they were asked to thread the tags to each other to show how the capitals were related.
My personal takeaways were;
- There are already a lot of people who are bringing love, hope, innovations into the community
- Lots of initiatives, programs, changes popping up
- Great foundation (location, people, businesses, food!)
- This activity can help us think about the positive side of the negative.
To explain the last point, one of the co-designer talked about how there is a lack of diversity in the governing board. Through this activity, we pivoted that sentiment to the community having diversity. That was an asset we already had and the community was failing to utilize it.
Activity 2: Rose, Bud, & Thorn from 2024
This activity was when the co-designers really eased into the workshop mindset and opened up. They were asked to imagine we are 3 years into the future in the thriving community of Sto-Rox.
There was some initial confusion from the group, but when I explained it in a different way (“if someone from outside ask, wow, Sto-Rox’s changed a lot in 3 years! and it is so great! What happened?” What would you say?) co-designers had great ideas.
Rose surfaced a large discontent with the current government. They were exclusive, homogenous, intimating, and opaque. People imagined a different form of leadership. Bud showed us what people needed. More ownership for the normal people; homeownership for the renters, more black-owned businesses, also more sense of ownership of the community to build trust between people. They also talked about programs for the youth in Sto-Rox who has so much budding potentials. For thorns, co-designers talked about actionable things. Seeing clean streets and nice neighborhoods. And start generating better narratives for ourselves.
As a facilitator, I took my time with this activity, and it was easier for people to share and casually discuss.
Closing
Closing was very insightful too. Less structure had the value of letting people talk more freely. I wonder if this was particular to this group or if this was true in general. Striking a good balance of structure is something I need to think about. Highlights of what I’ve heard during closing;
- Spread positive narrative. If we talk about assets we have, we can get momentum for change.
- Hearing diverse opinions and viewpoints is a great direction. I am looking forward to the next discussion.
- We are finally bringing the people who have been doing big things for the community together.
- I am a part of a great team
- Let’s make a nationally recognized Sto-Rox!
Overall Reflection
Head: I’ve learned a lot and we begin to identify some of the needs and wants of the community co-designers.
Heart: It was amazing to see unified sentiments. I have so much respect for everyone and they are a group that makes this collaboration easy for me. There was some potential for different ideas and I hope we can examine that and work on them. There was a co-designer that felt a bit disengaged at times and I couldn’t figure out if it was because of the external reason or something we can improve on.
Hand: I need to work on the pacing. My advisor was very helpful in keep me stay on track and on time. But doing this virtually meant that I couldn’t look at the people at times and that broke the rhythm. I need to delegate more so I can focus on facilitating and creating that magic circle where everyone can be in the moment.
