We really enjoyed the session we ran recently on designing with despair, and our next one will look at shame.

It’s another powerful emotion that we often feel the need to run away from, and avoid at all costs. But a recent experience in the theatre made me think a bit differently, as this video explains.

If you’d like to come to our session, it’s on Tuesday 31 October at 11am EDT which will be 3pm in the UK (NB a four hour gap while clocks are changing). Places from $5 to $40, details here.

In this little video, I reflect on Jon Alexander’s book Citizens. He challenges our default role in society of being consumers - where our sense of power is, crudely, that of a shopper. We decide what we want and use money to get it. The trouble is, this often puts on a hamster wheel of doing work of questionable meaning to buy what are often products with limited real value.

Instead, he suggests we think of ourselves as citizens, co-creating the future with each other, less enslaved to hype and using up the planet’s limited resources.

We’d say that unhurried design should be about creating real value, not simply making unsustainable products seem easier or more beautiful.

I made this video the other day, partly in response to the conversations Jordan and I have been sharing here. I think as planetary crises mount, we need to embrace the challenge of how we work together creatively, instead of distracting ourselves with tribal consumption, or just dumping our fears onto others.

We’re going to keep exploring this subject, and we’d love to hear your thoughts too.