Exit to Community: Cooperative Product Design

Tuesday, July 21, 2020
10-11:30 a.m. Mountain Time
Webinar

View the video recording of the event here and the collaborative notes document here.

As inclusive design practices catch on, people in building tech tools are asking, "Who really manages the product roadmap? Who ultimately benefits?" This session features leaders from two startups currently working out a more cooperative approach to product design. They will tell us about the design practices that incorporate users, workers, and owners, including the trial and error and lessons along the way. We'll dedicate time to a facilitated discussion based on questions from participants, and conclude with strategies for more cooperative product design that you can try out in your startup or organization, too.

Speakers

• Grace Alexander (account manager, Hearken)
• Brian Young (founder, Action Network)
• Mara Zepeda (co-founder & senior manager, Hearken)

Resources

• Jennifer Brandel, "A New Chapter for Hearken, a New Chapter for Me," Hearken blog (June 25, 2020)
• Danny Spitzberg, "Cooperative Design: How Co-ops Center Their Members to Build Better Products, Faster," MEDLab blog (July 15, 2020)
• Brian Young, "How to Build Tech With, Not For, Movements," Civicist (November 4, 2018)

Hosted by the Media Enterprise Design Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder and Zebras Unite, with support from the Open Society Foundations, which are not responsible for the content.