Design for Disruption

In this episode of Design for Disruption, the Hairpin team talks to Hilken Mancini. She’s a veteran of the Boston music scene, nonprofit founder, local business owner, and punk rock aerobics instructor.

From playing in six different bands to founding Girls Rock Campaign Boston, Hilken has spent decades creating DIY-style — making something new from scratch that you want to exist in the world but doesn’t yet. (Disruption in action!)

We talk to Hilken about the DIY ethos of punk rock, as well as making a living while making art, youth empowerment, and when it’s time to pass the nonprofit leadership torch to make space for different perspectives.

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Executive Producer: Kristen Hughes

Editor: Susie Blair

Narrator: Nick Tetrault

You can learn more about Hairpin's work by visiting www.hairpin.org.

The public health sector has faced unprecedented challenges (and dare we say it, disruption!) since the beginning of the pandemic, and has been at the forefront of public discourse. When it comes to communicating about health, what challenges are public health professionals facing—both related to COVID-19 and more broadly? What lessons can other sectors learn about developing messages that break through the clutter, inspire trust, and promote behavior change? 

In this episode, the Hairpin team talks to Stacey King. She’s the Director of Field Practice at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and co-leads their Academic Public Health Volunteer Corps. The program was started last March in response to COVID, and mobilizes students and alumni to support local public health departments in Massachusetts with data collection, contact tracing, and health communication. Prior to that, she worked for the Cambridge Public Health Department, where she led health promotion and marketing efforts and later served as Director of the Community Health & Wellness Division.

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Executive Producer: Kristen Hughes

Editor: Susie Blair

Narrator: Nick Tetrault

You can learn more about Hairpin's work by visiting www.hairpin.org.

Philanthropy—like all parts of the social sector—is experiencing the impacts of the multiple, overlapping crises of our current moment. How has fundraising changed in response to these crises, and what are the approaches that organizations should be utilizing today? To get some insight, in this episode the Hairpin team speaks with Ellie Starr, a development executive with over 25 years of experience at leading nonprofit organizations. She’s also the CEO of her own consulting company, Starrs Aligned (www.starrsaligned.com), which she started at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this episode, the Hairpin team speaks with Nat Kendall-Taylor, CEO of the FrameWorks Institute—a think tank that helps organizations more effectively communicate about a wide variety of social issues. While many of us in the social sector work to advance aspirational solutions to systemic problems, there are deep and durable myths that run under all of our work and challenge our efforts to build support and make change. We hear from Nat about these myths—individualism, fatalism, tribalism—and how they characterize the cultural divide that the recent U.S. election exposed. In a sector whose success depends on stakeholders coming together, how do social advocates navigate this fragmented moment? And is our national polarization as deep and intractable as we are led to believe?

Learn more about FrameWorks: www.frameworksinstitute.org

In this episode we talk with Gibrán Rivera about radical responsibility. Gibrán is a master facilitator and an extraordinary thinker. He helps guide the transformation of leaders, networks and organizations. He pays particular attention to the dynamics of power, equity and inclusion. His work focuses on getting people and organizations in touch with themselves, their passions and their purpose so they can develop the capacity needed to navigate complexity.

Learn more about Gibrán and his work here:

In this episode of Design for Disruption, we talk to Kim Szeto, the Program Director for Public Art at the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA). We learn how the pandemic and nationwide reckoning about racial justice inspired a rethinking of NEFA's programs. This lead to the launch of Public Art for Spatial Justice and Collective Imagination for Spatial Justice, programs that fund projects that aim to build a future where everyone has the right to be, thrive, express, and connect in and across public space."

To have any hope of real relevance and impact, it is essential to put people first—placing your stakeholders at the center of everything you do. This means understanding, truly, who they are and their evolving needs, and designing with—and for—them to co-create solutions that meet their needs (not yours)...

The disruption just keeps coming—triggering new challenges and realities every day for individuals, communities, and organizations around the world. We’re in the midst of an unprecedented collision of major crises: A public health crisis, an economic crisis, a crisis of racism and equity, and in the US at least, a crisis of democracy, and there are more.... All while the biggest disruption yet for humankind is gathering force all around us: Climate change. How can organizations not just to survive, but thrive in an unknown, dynamic future? They must design for disruption!

Radical Why: Why, really, does your organization exist? Unearthing this will require going beyond reflexively reciting your mission statement, or describing your programming or product/service offering.

Radical What: What value do you uniquely and fundamentally create? Embrace user-centricity: Think in terms of the functional and emotional benefits you deliver to your stakeholders. Be ready to pivot what you do based on changing conditions, to continue to achieve your Why.

Radical How: How do you meaningfully engage and support your stakeholders and audiences? Envision what it would be like to act on your beliefs and project your full, deepest self. Identify what you are willing to risk to achieve what you believe in.

Welcome to the Radical Now. It’s a holy s@#t  moment of disruption that won’t be going away anytime soon. It’s blowing up societal paradigms, chewing up long-established systems, sowing death and destruction, disproportionately and unfairly impacting groups and populations among us, and causing many to grieve a life that used to be, while we grapple with the fact that “normal” worked for only some. But at the same time, all this disruption is creating glimmers of hope—activating people in new ways, opening up new opportunities, and pointing to different, better paths forward in terms of how and who we value, and how inequities are confronted and addressed. One thing is certain: These are complex times that are testing our values and beliefs, and demanding immediate, existential action by individuals, communities, and organizations.

So, what can organizations do to navigate the mind-numbing, ground-shifting change of the Radical Now? Hint: Hunkering down and waiting for this all to blow over is not an option. Neither is treating it like a crisis to be managed with a predictable beginning, middle, and end; that playbook just won’t work anymore. Time to embrace your Radical Why, What, and How!

Visit designfordisruption.com for more information or reach out to us at [email protected].

In this episode we explore adaptive leadership in this new dynamic normal. How can organizations stay grounded and relevant when the full scope of this crisis is still emerging. And, why it is important to avoid the trap of the "hero" story.