a little more focus on being human

Last week I attended  The Peter Bates Lecture People or policy? How to bring about social change:

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"Good leadership at every level is the key to bringing about real social change within communities. Susan Deacon, Professor of Social Change at Queen Margaret University, will discuss this, and other factors effecting social change at the Peter Bates Lecture.

The Lecture, jointly hosted by the University of Dundee and NHS Tayside, will take place at the University of Dundee’s Dalhousie Building at 6pm on Wednesday, September 23rd.Professor Deacon, former MSP and Minister for Health and Community Care, will examine the influences effecting progressive social change in Scotland. She will examine whether government policy or community-level initiatives are more powerful drivers of social change.

In particular, she will discuss a failure to take account of the importance of leadership at every level in our communities, and suggest that we need to give more recognition to the power of individuals to bring about social change."

Here are my notes from the talk... img164

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It worries me that myself and my old design studies tutor, who I spotted across the room, were the only people in the entire lecture hall taking notes...

I was very excited about the way Susan spoke about the human condition and truly listening to people, claiming the NHS had 'lost the plot and lost sight of what it means to be a person'. But there was no real conclusion as to how to achieve this - her ending phrase was ' we can make the world a better place by encouraging each other'. I'm not convinced. That's not enough is it?

design thinking, made me think, people I like, reading and writing, service designredjotterpeople or policy, peter bates, sketch book, social change, susan deacon, university of dundee, visualisation3 Comments