Ending the Social Design Cooperative

It’s been a fun playground while it lasted, but without a feasible generative forward path visible within our constraints, the Social Design Cooperative has lost its sustaining energy and has closed its virtual doors. Final session participants did some retrospection together, and our sense is that there’s plenty of community energy going into social design - and where it’s going is into all of the designs and projects that we’re directly working on in wider society. And so, in the grand improv game of life, we cheerfully say “new choice!”

While the Cooperative experiment has ended, this probably isn’t the last you’ll hear from the Social Design Club overall. The SDC Discord remains, and Joe has an eye towards breathing new life into that space and making another run at broader community building at some point down the road.

Until then, this is James signing off, with much gratitude to hosts Margaret, Niran, Daniel, Flavia, Jakob, James S, Rafael, and to the many presenters and attendees both recent and long-term. May your designs be systemic, integrative, holistic, enjoyable, and useful to humans and humanity. ☮