Day Two was packed. Up early after a great opening night, we started at 09:00 in Säätytalo, Finland's House of Estates (also known as the former meeting place of Parliament). A more grand setting could scarcely be found in Helsinki and we're very grateful for the opportunity to share the experience of being there with all of the HDL Global participants.
Welcome to Säätytalo.
Marco began the morning by making the case for strategic design, telling a story about a swimming pool and a bus schedule, and playing a short animation.
Marco giving the first talk of the morning.
LaSalle Leffall was next, sharing his experiences on the President's Cancer Panel and their recent focus on environmental, systemic factors that contribute to cancer. To hear from such a well respected practitioner in the medical realm asking for more big picture thinking was a call to action that underscored the urgency of the conversation throughout the rest of the event. Whether in medicine, education, climate change, welfare, or other topics, stepping back to see the big picture is essential if we want to truly deliver real value.
LaSalle impressed everyone with a perfectly delivered oration.
Next up was a series of three brief presentations. These were conceived as "brain dumps" which would help establish a shared terminology.
Darrel Rhea, CEO of Cheskin Added Value, spoke on innovation, with a focus on the different between incremental and disruptive innovations and how those models demand different approaches.
Nick Mabey, CEO of E3G, shared his thoughts and deep experience with the realities of decision making in the political arena.
Eric Rodenbeck, Creative Director of Stamen Design, shared his group's work on using visualization to ask new questions, beyond merely documenting known facts.
To give everyone a chance to see more of the city, and to add a bit of refreshment, we took a walk for lunch at local restaurants instead of having it catered in.
Follow the big white balloons!
Returning from lunch, we split up into three concurrent panel discussions focusing on the HDL Studio topics from earlier in the summer. Each of these closed door open and honest discussions used the HDL Studios as a starting point and opened the conversation to our global group of participants. These sessions started with short videos such as this one from Education and a similar video from the Sustainability session.
Dan Hill moderates the Sustainability panel discussion with Oras Tynkkynen, an MP in Finland; Tuuli Kaskinen of Demos Helsinki; and Peter Sharratt of WSP.
At the close of the day we gathered together for a final presentation, this time from Rosanne Haggerty who shared her work at Common Ground. Rosanne continued the theme of housing which was brought up in the conversation between Minister Vapavaauori and Alejandro Aravena the previous evening, but her focus on homelessness and Common Ground's work to "eradicate homelessness" provided a different—and inspiring—view of systemic redesign in action.
Rosanne Haggerty closing the second day of HDL Global 2010.
Is there a better meeting space in Helsinki?
To honor Tenley Albright's long career fostering collaboration across many different communities, we loaded everyone on to boats for a cruise through the harbor and dinner at the Boathouse.
Keep following the balloons.
After-dinner conversation included a spirited debate about what was a more spectacular end to the day: an incredible sunset or Iiro Rantala's performance in celebration of Tenley. You decide:
One note of business: all panel discussions were closed-door and will remain private, but in the coming months we will be posting videos of the talks by Marco, LaSalle, Darrel, Nick, Eric, and Rosanne. In the mean time, if you just can't wait to see more there are tons of pictures on Flickr.
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