The design and implementation of the DKI Question Campaign is rooted in the DKI philosophy of designing for the margins (DFM). Designing for the Margins is based on the principle that design which is in the service of the public is best approached by designing first for those most disconnected and/or marginalized from the “mainstream” of society. We believe that by staking our design tent around those at the margin we can create a design that is far more inclusive of the overall diversity of the public.
In order to truly build an inclusive global community and to support the public to identify and work together to address issues it cares about, dropping knowledge needs to learn how to effectively engage the complexity of the global public. This complexity includes but is not limited to language differences, gender and generational differences, access to communications technology, and cultural norms for engaging in dialogue.
If we do not attend to these types of issues in how we construct and develop dropping knowledge, we will only create another forum for the privileged and thereby contribute to widening gaps between rich and poor, men and women, black and white, east and west, young and old, and so on. Dropping Knowledge needs to demonstrate to the world that its approach is useful for creating innovation in democracy – i.e., that it has and continues to develop ways to effectively include the complexity of the global public in shaping public conversation and action for social change.
To produce these results, dropping knowledge will develop partnerships over the next two years to achieve four objectives:
- Further test and refine our products with key populations whose voices, vision, and leadership are currently underrepresented in public conversations that shape public learning, visioning, and action to create a common future. We will partner with organizations who want to use DKI products and processes — our Question Campaign, ToFV, and Living Library — to include and engage the diverse publics they serve in order to identify, discuss, and address issues important to those publics, issues that impact their lives, communities, and common future. DKI and its partners will work closely together to learn how to adapt current dropping knowledge tools as well as develop new ones to ensure that underrepresented populations are fully included in shaping both social learning and action.
- Use what we learn from this work to create products that can serve the global public.
- Build the global community that uses and helps co-create DKI products, processes, and resources in order to learn about and advance social change.
- Discover how DKI impacts those who use its products, processes, and resources – including, and especially, what difference it makes regarding social change important to the global public served by DKI.
In sum, DKI partnerships need to design for inclusion and community building — to create products that meet the needs of diverse publics and impacts that are important to the publics served.
