Caring To Do Good

I was asked recently what it means to do good work. A loaded question one might say, especially to an applied design researcher, but in many ways, it’s also devilishly eloquent. It did get me thinking, what does it mean? Is it listening; does it come from trusting our everyday processes to bring out the inner self and face challenges in a focused manner? Does it come from knowing how a piece of work is connected to improving the quality of people’s lives; understanding the values of an organization and applying these in a prudential way; finding the courage to keep going during a challenging project; being bold and ambitious; calm and considered?

What is mesmerizing to my mind, is that within the act of pondering this deceptively simple question, there are also an abundance of philosophical musings: What is meaning? Who determines meaning, and, good? Why is this important? To whom?

These are not for this moment of deliberation, but what is, is how a short and familiar question, can be magnificently enlightening.

In this issue, we bring a series of articles from a mixture of senior and junior researchers from across our international community who pose humble questions and share how they are caring to do good through design research.