Design Lab with Bon Ku – Details, episodes & analysis

This week we talk about how real food is the best medicine. Dan Barber is chef and co-owner of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York, and the author of The Third Plate. A fierce advocate for sustainable, ethical farming and cooking, Barber’s opinions on food and agricultural policy have appeared in The New York Times and other publications. He also co-founded Row 7 Seed Company, which brings together chefs and plant breeders to develop new varieties of vegetables and grains. Barber has received multiple James Beard awards including Best Chef: New York City (2006) and Outstanding Chef (2009). President Barack Obama appointed him to serve on the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, Sports & Nutrition. Barber continues his work to blur the line between the dining experience and the educational, bringing the principles of good farming directly to the table. This episode was recorded live at the 2023 Aspen Ideas: Health Festival. Special thanks to the Aspen Ideas team for making this happen! Bon also wrote a blog post for the event, 5 Reasons Why Clinicians Should Think Like Designers. Episode mentions and links: Blue Hill Farm Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture Book: The Third Plate Row 7 Seeds Chef Dan Barber brings new veggie varieties to the aisle with Row 7 Seed Company Michael Mazourek: Culinary Breeding Network Dan’s photo credit: Richard Boll Follow Dan: Twitter | Insta Follow Blue Hill Farm: Twitter | Insta Episode Website: https://www.designlabpod.com/episodes/128

This week we talk about simplicity as a strategy. Howard Belk pulls double duty as Co-Chief Executive Officer and Chief Creative Officer of leading global brand experience consultancy Siegel+Gale, which he claims is one (or two) of the six best jobs on the planet. He is an entrepreneur who helped a 50-year-old branding firm reestablish industry leadership by embracing its disruptor legacy. Since his arrival at the firm in 2004, he and his colleagues have established Siegel+Gale as The Simplicity Company, truly the go-to firm to help untangle the mind-bending brand mash ups that result from the entrepreneurial adventures of the CEOs they love. Over his career, he has partnered with Fortune 500 clients to embrace the power of simplicity, purpose, experience and design to transform and grow their companies. Today, he is one of those rare birds who understands both business and design, and more importantly how to embrace one to succeed at the other. Episode mentions and links:  Siegel+Gale Siegel+Gale: CVS Case Study Siegel+Gale: BMS Case Study Howard’s photo credit: Madeline King Howard’s restaurant rec: Omen Howard’s book rec: The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore Follow Howard: Twitter | Insta | LinkedIn Follow Siegel+Gale: Twitter | Insta | LinkedIn Episode Website: https://www.designlabpod.com/episodes/127

On today's episode, we are going to talk about designing for health equity. Adriane Ackerman is a community convener, strategic innovator and life-long rabble-rouser. She currently directs several programs at the Pima County Health Department in Southern Arizona, including a $4 million grant program from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Minority Health to Advance Health Literacy, the department’s new Cultural Health initiative with its pilot project, SaludArte, the emerging Pima County Network for Equity and Resilience (PCNER), and the first ever Office of Health Policy, Resilience, and Equity, all of which aim to increase health literacy and equity through innovative models, by elevating and centering the leadership of historically and contemporarily excluded communities. Adriane holds dual Bachelor’s degrees in Political Science and Urban & Public Affairs and seeks to bring the depth of her lived experience to bear as she convenes, facilitates and uplifts the work of harm reduction from within bureaucracies and community partnerships. Robert Fabricant is Co-Founder and Partner of Dalberg Design, where he brings human-centered design and innovation services to clients looking for new, creative approaches to breakthrough innovation and expanded collaborations in the field of social impact and international development. Before Dalberg, Robert Fabricant was the Vice-President of Creative for frog design, where he managed frog’s global leadership across Design Research, Product Design, Software Design, and Experience Strategy. Robert writes about Design and Social Impact for publications like HBR, SSIR, Fast Company, Rotman Business Journal, MIT Tech Review, ChangeObserver, and Core77. He is a member of the adjunct faculty at NYU and SVA. His client portfolio includes experience across verticals including financial services and financial inclusion, social impact, mobile and technology, healthcare and public health, and media. Robert has an MPS in Design and Technology from NYU and a BA from Yale University. Episode mentions and links: https://www.fabricant.design/ https://dalberg.com/who-we-are/our-leadership/robert-fabricant/ https://www.adrianeackerman.com/ Adriane’s previous work: https://www.portlandpeoplescoalition.org/ Adriane’s restaurant rec: La Indita (a mixture of native Sonoran, Pascua Yaqui, and Tarascan cuisine) Robert’s restaurant rec: Le Succulent Follow Adriane: LinkedIn Follow Rob: LinkedIn | Twitter Episode Website: https://www.designlabpod.com/episodes/118

Liz Salmi is Senior Strategist of Dissemination for OpenNotes at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. In this role, Liz helps hospitals and health systems understand the changing nature of patient-clinician communication in the digital age, and interpret and implement research emerging from the “open notes” movement. After being diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor at age 29, Liz immediately put her digital communications skills to use by blogging, chronicling her daily symptoms, and seeing how much she could learn from her online patient portal. Today, her research areas of interest include studying how healthcare professionals and patients are connecting through digital tools and joining as partners in research. Liz leads the Brain Cancer Quality of Life Collaborative, a multi-stakeholder group dedicated to advancing science and improving the quality of life for people with malignant brain tumors. Liz was named e-Patient of the Year by the Society for Participatory Medicine.

Guidione Machava is an entrepreneur, designer and community builder. He has experience leading teams, coaching designers, and creating together products and services that positively impact people’s lives. He works across diverse industries and sectors, bringing early ideas and concepts to life for World Bank projects, scrappy startups and nonprofits in Africa. He is the author of “Design Sutra'', a collection of design principles for designers in the early stages of their careers and founded the World-class Designer School, the home of brightest design minds in Africa. He recently organized the World-class Designer Conference which included speakers such as Debbie Millman, Marty Cagan and designers from the largest companies in the world. In 2018, Google named him one of the best community builders in Africa. Bon and Guidione talk about creating the future of design in Africa, organizing a global design conference and life in Mozambique.

Katie McCurdy is a design consultant, autoimmune patient and founder of Pictal Health. After years of struggling to communicate about her own mysterious symptoms, Katie created a new way for people to tell their health stories visually, so they feel heard and understood as they work with their doctors to get the right diagnosis and treatment. She’s also spent a decade joyfully using visual communication and human-centered design to facilitate team collaboration and improve our healthcare experience. She lives, skis, hikes, and eats chocolate in Burlington, VT. Bon and Katie talk about designing visual health histories, why hospitals should hire designers and improving communication between patients and healthcare professionals.

Larry Chu, MD is a Professor of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine and Director of the Stanford Anesthesia Informatics and Media (AIM) Lab. Dr. Chu is an NIH-funded clinical researcher and is Executive Director of Stanford Medicine X, the world's longest-running and most-discussed academic program on patient-centered emerging technology and medicine. He has written eight books, over 50 papers and over 50 book chapters in academic anesthesiology. He is a member of the editorial advisory board for The BMJ, one of the most influential general medical journals in the world. Bon and Larry talk about flattening hierarchies, creating safe spaces in healthcare, co-designing with patients and embracing curiosity in the culture of Medicine.

Mokena Makeka was raised in Maseru, Lesotho and New York. He is an accomplished architect, artist, curator, designer, global leader, scholar and urbanist. He is at the forefront of thinking on contemporary inclusive African Cities. Mokena studied architecture at the University of Cape Town and has executive leadership qualifications from the Harvard Kennedy School, Oxford University and Wits University. He is adjunct professor at Cooper Union, New York and at Carleton University, Canada. In 2015 he was a Young Global leader at the World Economic Forum and he is an Aspen Fellow in leadership. Currently Mokena is a Principal at Dalberg Advisors. He is also the founder of the House of Makeka, a premium lifestyle suite of design and product experiences. He has won international awards with his urban planning firm Makeka DesignLab/Works. Bon and Mokena talk about design as a human right, how hip hop culture informed Mokena’s architectural philosophy and understanding people through the environments they create.

Michael Ngigi is the co-studio Lead of ThinkPlace Kenya where he leads a team of designers drawn from over 8 different countries. He’s passionate about Africa and unlocking the potential of the continent through design thinking. Michael has traveled across Africa understanding the different cultures and connecting people with solutions to their challenges. Early in his career he acknowledged the power of supporting people to identify their own challenges and the magic of facilitating the process of solving these challenges on their own. Michael is a board member of Design for Health, a global initiative led by the United States Agency for International Development and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and sits on the Technical Advisory Group of Living Labs, an initiative by PATH. Michael is also currently studying at the Harvard Business School Program for Leadership Development. Bon and Michael talk about his incredible journey from living on the streets of Nairobi to becoming a designer, incorporating design in public health projects and throwing our biases out the window.

Antionette D. Carroll is the founder and CEO of Creative Reaction Lab, a nonprofit social enterprise designing healthy and racially equitable communities for Black and Latinx populations through education and training programs, community engagement consulting and open-sourced tools. Creative Reaction Lab is a movement challenging racial inequities in the education, media, health and healthcare, and government and public service sectors. Prior to CRXLAB, Carroll spent 10 years in the advertising and marketing industry. Antionette has held national leadership positions on diversity and inclusion at the AIGA and multiple non-profit organizations. Bon and Antionette talk about what it means to be a redesigner for justice, the relationship between health and equity, and her journey in design.