Today, we are learning from Isabelle Swiderski.
With over 20 years of experience in design, strategy, storytelling, and education, Isabelle focuses on using design-led approaches to support social and environmental activism and systems change.
She runs Seven25, a multidisciplinary consultancy that helps global impact-driven organizations engage their audiences and stakeholders through multimedia storytelling and design strategy. As a podcast host, solutions journalism correspondent, and independent filmmaker, she explores and amplifies the stories of social justice innovators and ecosystem builders who are redesigning the world’s systems for greater equity and inclusion.
Isabelle also serves as a Visiting Associate Professor at both The New School / Parsons School of Design and Pratt Institute, where she teaches courses on sustainable business models, and ethics in design practice.
Ecosystem weaver and facilitator. Collaborator and perpetual student. Nature lover and cook.
Let’s get started…
In this conversation with Isabelle Swiderski, I learned:
- 00:00 Intro
- 03:10 Filmmaking is the most intense collaborative experience that you can imagine and the relation to systems change.
- 04:30 The Protagoniste network for designers. Design thinker and maker, make impact and make money.
- 09:30 Create a space where people can experiment. Remove the feeling that there are right and wrong answers.
- 12:20 It is easier to pit us against each other than it is to speak to our common humanity.
- 14:35 Why Silicon Valley developed at a much quicker pace than the East Coast of the US.
- 15:25 A need to work together to save ourselves.
- 16:55 An attachment to ideas becoming our identity.
- 18:15 The importance of being better equipped to name our biases and perspectives. Questioning your framing of the world.
- 21:20 Seven25, one of the first B-corps in Canada, is about social innovation. Moving people from knowledge to action.
- 24:35 Stakeholder mindset – doing good and doing well. We are not advocating for free work.
- 30:05 The narrative that only certain things have value.
- 32:30 The people who have two or three jobs to make ends meet, are being stripped of their ability to show up as citizens.
- 35:45 The importance of listening in a conversation and a great personal example. It takes the pressure of being right all the time.
- 40:00 How do we learn and connect the dots? How is collective wisdom created and how is it disseminated?
- 44:25 The exchange of ideas is an opportunity for all of us to learn. (different from teaching and transferring knowledge).
- 49:20 What is your super power?
- 53:50 We can improve the Inner Development Goals with better implementation. Meet people where they are.
- 54:30 There is this artificial separation, as if, we can put on our work suits and become this profit machine.
- 56:30 How do we make visible what is already happening, so we can reach the resources faster.
- 57:50 How can we each find our invitation to contribute?
More about Isabelle Swiderski:
- https://www.seven25.com/
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/isabelleswiderski/
- https://vimeo.com/isabelleswiderski
- https://open.spotify.com/show/6H0jsmaV6yqVOb83R2WHC5
- https://hello-seven25.medium.com/
- https://www.protagonistenetwork.com/
Resources we mention:
- Inner Development Goals
- Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking – Matthew Syed
- Nora Bateson – Warm data
- Curious Minds: The Power of Connection – Perry Zurn and Dani Bassett
- The Spirit Level – Richard Wilkinson en Kate Pickett
Video of the conversation with Isabelle Swiderski
Watch here https://youtu.be/msa6lozF0xs
