A few weeks ago, the Association for Community Design hosted their annual conference in Detroit. The theme to this years conference was eMERGEenc, and my proposal was selected to present during the Community Design Round Up Session on Friday of the Conference.  Only being familiar with the organization through social media and their online presence, it was great to be able to put faces to names and really see who the community is, both locally and nationally, that make up this Community Design community.

The conference was 4 days worth of wonderful networking events, great speakers and presentation, and tours of several Detroit neighborhoods. The guests ranged from students to much experienced individuals in the profession… and big name firms to freelance designers. But, no matter the individual, our shared passion for good, community oriented design was obvious.

Being held in Detroit, and sponsored by previous challenge partner, The Detroit Collaborative Design Center, the conference touched in depth on the revitalization effort and the role community design is playing in the process. However, by no means were our conversations limited to the city of Detroit, or even cities in General. One break out session I attended discussed natural disaster remediation issues in Kingston, NC. While  there were lessons learned in the NC precedent that were obviously applicable to Detroit, issues you may find in the city, such as inclusivity of meeting locations, were irrelevant  to the discussion on NC.

While by no means can the benefits I gained from attending the event be summed up in words,  will leave you all with a few of my favorite bits from the event.

1. If you’re doing cool shit, people want to hear about it.. so talk about yourself.

2. Community design means designing WITH communities, not FOR communities.

3. Tripled bottom line businesses can be described like a spiral… made up of the steps align, gather, make, reflect, and share,  you grow outwardly as they are repeated… and its easier to see where you’ve been and where your going.

4. Silence is consent.

5. Good design is invisible, but good design process is transparent.