Rahaf Harfoush

January 13 2009 @ 5pm at the Social Innovation Lab in OCAD. (100 McCaul Street)

I have been working with my good friends Torch Partnership on a cool new project called  Unfinished Business for the last year or so and it has been an amazing experience. It’s an experiment in project design for a program of collaborative innovation, which explores methods of fostering expertise using open systems of collaboration around the convergence of: visualization, collaboration, participation and design.

I am very pleased to announce that as part of this initiative, we have launched a monthly Speaker Series in association with the Social Innovation Lab (sLab) at the Ontario College of Art and Design.

The first session will feature yours truly (me!) and my colleague Scott Thomas, the design lead on the Obama campaign as we discuss the roles of Design and New Media in the Obama campaign.

Event Description:

Scott Thomas and Rahaf Harfoush will lead an interactive discussion on how Design and New Media played an instrumental role in the Barack Obama campaign. Thomas and Harfoush will explore the innovation of both campaign tactics and political strategy. In conversation, we will explore the impact of many forms of openness on participation in the 2008 presidential campaign. Are the progressive tendencies evidenced in the campaign flash-in-the-pan phenomena or a kind of sea change in technologies of engagement.

About Scott:

Scott Thomas (a.k.a SimpleScott) is constantly seeking the simplest answer to complex problems. Scott began his design pursuits studying architecture before bouncing to graphic design and web development. In 2006, he and 5 others began a design collective, lovingly titled, The Post Family. The group is devoted to supporting each others design habits, from silk screen to letterpress, from illustration to blogging, in an effort to “get back to the hand”. In 2007, Scott’s career took a dramatic leap when he was invited to join the New Media team at Obama for America. The chance encounter led Scott to becoming the Design Director of the historic Obama Presidential campaign. Scott plans to continue designing for social causes that might just someday change the world.

Part of the openness concept is that these lectures are FREE! So here is the event link, and I hope to see you there! Spots are filling up quick though so don’t wait too long.

You can learn more about Unfinished Business here. I’m also linking to a post that I wrote on the Unfinished Blog a while ago about Social Interactions and their impact on our network called “Digital Intimacy: Dunbar’s Number Evolved.”