EBBF Podcast Episode 17: Design Processes that Enact Social & Organizational Transformation

The Ethical Business Building the Future organization, otherwise known as EBBF, is a not-for-profit that aims to promote moral and spiritual wisdom and principles found in the teachings of the Baha’i Faith and the great religious traditions of the world, such as the principles of justice, respect, trustworthiness, integrity and unity.

#discoveringhow is EBBF’s podcast series where you can hear personal experiences and insights from EBBF members — each episode offers you stepping stones, fresh ideas, and the personal learnings of people who believe that ethical business can and should build the future.

Today, we discover more about design processes that enact social and organizational transformation. Stephanie Akkaoui-Hughes utilizes her work as an architect to promote a variety of ongoing and adaptable human interactions. She practices architecture in a way that promotes social transformation by deliberately creating incompleteness, impermanence and imperfection to invite the collaborative participation of people. The design process she uses can be adapted to create anything transformative.

But first, Jelena Hercberga is a Ph.D. researcher at the University of Bristol in the UK. Her work focuses on perceptions of difference contributing to the larger question of how society can organize itself to embrace ongoing encounters with difference. She says an organization or individual doesn’t gain self understanding only by knowing oneself. Rather, the greatest self knowledge comes from deliberately interacting with those who are different than we are in some way. She also believes that goals like justice or diversity must be redefined as we progress and are never fully completed. 

If you’d like to know more about EBBF, you can check out their website: http://ebbf.org/

You can also read an interview with Daniel Truran, EBBF’s director, here on Baha’i Blog, EBBF: Ethical Business Building the Future – An Interview with Daniel Truran.

And lastly, you can read our conversation with the host of this podcast on Baha’i Blog as well: An Interview with Jean Parker, Host of EBBF’s Podcast Series ‘Discovering How’.

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Naysan Naraqi

Naysan is passionate about using the arts and media to explore the teachings of the Baha’i Faith. Back in 2011, Naysan started up the Baha’i Blog project, channeling his experiences in both media and technology companies to help create a hub for Baha’i-inspired content online.