Social Science and Design Workshop

This is a design workshop to demonstrate how social scientists (can) use design to make (sense of) economic things to be deployed by actors in organizational contexts. We will use Search Engine Design as an example. Participants will use design and social inquiry tools to study Google’s search engine and then drawing on this research, dismantle this engine. We will have three design groups. No prior experience in design or computing is required. The objectives of this workshop are 1) to help social scientists discover their potential as designers, 2) show how social theory is key for designing economies, 3) demonstrate design tools that can be used for social research.

Koray Caliskan is an economic sociologist and organizational designer. He is a tenured Associate Professor of Strategic Design and Management at Parsons, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Design Strategies, and Associate Editor of the Journal of Cultural Economy. He designed the strategy of MaMame, a social innovation project bringing together cooperative and LLC in economizing under-represented women’s labor, which won the Entrepreneurship of the Year Award in 2017 from Microsoft. He directed & produced many award-winning fiction and documentary films, including Esma, shown at the Cannes Film Festival. He is the co-founder of the strategic design studio, The Wrong Department, with practices in London and NYC. His last book, based on this research, Data Money: Inside Cryptocurrencies and their Communities, Blockchains and Markets was published from Columbia University Press in September 2023.