Friday, September 14, 2012

DUFFF - A Design For Life

During a recent visit to a deprived inner London estate I was struck by the invaluable work being done by the community leaders. “Don” (who prefers to remain anonymous) takes immense pride in rallying the local youth, organising “ball games” on the flyover, and generally sounding out the village elders on the estate about how to make “Trumpton” (again, anonymity rules) a place worth living in.

What struck me about Don and the rest of his crew was their ability to have fun and remain upbeat in the face of incredible odds. Tragically, Don’s mother died a year before he was born. But for Don and the gang, not only is life a game worth playing (even if you’re a poor loser), life is “the only game in town”. “It’s like a lottery,” Don observed as we were sitting at a blackjack table in the local casino at four o’clock one morning. “As long as you don’t put all your chips on black,” I chipped in. “My favourite colour,” he replied.

Lotteries aside, Trumpton is a mind-expanding case study in 21st century community relations. It provides an invaluable lesson in how community leaders like Don can provide strength and cohesion in the midst of all forms of wayward behaviour. “My light’s always on for people,” Don observes philosophically. “Anyone needs stuff, day or night, I’m the man.”

Don is the perfect example of a new breed of community worker that resists the conventional labels and categories that still define so much of our local government. Don’s not a regular “nine to five” man. Sometimes, he admits, he doesn’t get up at all. Is that so wrong? Don is a role model for his community, not because he’s bursting with qualifications, but precisely because his CV is adaptable. In fact Don admits he’s never had a CV, but that if he ever needed to he could always get hold of one. Exactly!

Designing Urban Futures Facilitation Foundation (DUFFF)

We need more “Dons” in our society. Right now Britain is crying out for them. And spending the last few weeks knocking back the brain juice in the vicinity of Don’s local turf has convinced me that his involvement in the Designing Urban Futures Facilitation Foundation (or “DUFFF” for short) would provide this new and exciting project with a real shot in the arm. So welcome aboard, “Don”!

What is DUFFF? Allow me to quote what Wan Tripp, Executive Facilitation Coordinator and Chief Communications Strategy and Policy Design Director of DUFFF, said during a press conference only last week:

“DUFFF is all about expanding the regenerative potential of participative networks, not just in the macro-sense of community expansion, but also at the micro level. This is all about facilitating the non-linear and geno-thetic-synbadd potential which links the local to the global through SPANER, and through viable intra-communication strategies, succeeds in actualizing the community’s FLOPP.”

Clearly this is a bold statement that we would do well to understand. But basically what I think Wan was crapping on about was that for far too long local communities have been held back by a mixture of overregulation and fuzzy thinking. This hasn’t just affected the people often unfortunate enough to live in them; it’s also stymied the possibilities for creatively minded individuals to prize themselves away from these urban wastelands. “Would the last person to leave Trumpton please switch off the light?” If only it were possible.

DUFFF is committed to the design of future communities. The Foundation – which includes an advisory panel comprising many of our country’s top brains (plus “Don”) – already presides over a significant financial war chest for “participative expansion and design coordination in intra-communicational mind policy regeneration software initiatives”. That’s food for thought. And over the coming months we hope to invest money in areas ranging broadly across architecture, design, needlework, ethnic pole-vaulting, flower synergy, dehydration and cigar research.

So where does DUFFF go from here?

DUFFF works in close partnership with the Right Path Party. Together we want to expand minds and regenerate windows of opportunity at the summit of creative thinking. We would like to hear from key stakeholders and community partners today – and particularly if you’re an experienced team builder, facilitator, regenerative designer, architect or 3D graphic illustrator, mind expansion software innovator, virtual geographer, ethnic pole-vault instructor, environmental activist… or just plain “Don”.

Contact us here today.

To find out more about DUFFF click on this site's links to The Right Path Party.

(Originally published 2 July 2007)

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