three day seminar focused on media, design and community

On February 16th-18th, Cadence attended the 7th annual Media Learning Seminar. The seminar was held in Downtown Miami and was free to registered users thanks to the support and sponsorship of the Miami based Knight Foundation. Knight Foundation focuses on innovative ideas that promote quality journalism, engages communities and strengthens the arts.

The seminar began in the Knight Information Culture Lab with Boston based Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI). During their interactive design studio, philanthropies and media leaders worked together to help learn how to find new advances in problem solving in the community. DS4SI called this process “human-centered design” and said it started with a simple premise: How can we help people live better? By revisiting our City’s problems using the “human-centered design” process we all can come up with solutions – whether it’s a gadget, media outlets or community engagement projects that can effectively embrace change. Working on solving these overlooked elements of daily life, we can make our cities better places to live once we learn to “design to relate rather than design to inform”

The three day seminar was also highlighted by inspirational key-note speakers who focused on why we care about our cities and how we can continue to correctly inform and engage the community with the right media tools. “Getting the information right, and getting the right information to the right people are the first steps in making any community successful”, noted Carol Colletta, Vice President of Knight Foundation Community and National Initiatives. Colletta continued to state that we have to focus on talent, opportunities and place as a strategy for the success of our cities. “Good places keep and attract good talent”. As Landscape Architects, we couldn’t agree more. Connecting the social landscapes with well-designed physical landscapes and places allow people to connect with one another in the public realm.

This seminar was a reminder that there are many other like-minded individuals and organizations out there that want to see effective change. Cadence was founded with the triple bottom line as a core value. It is always our desire to produce designs that are socially, environmentally and economically viable. It was an honor to join the other attendees and share our ideas. The emphasis on good design and community engagement projects that this seminar revolved around shows hope that we can keep reinventing these processes to make sure our cities are places we never want to leave.