Our story began in 2005 when two colleagues decided to start a new kind of company. “Not a design agency, not a research firm, but a make-a-difference-firm.”
For five years we worked with innovation groups in large companies, connecting the mindset of designers and decision-makers to the realities of life for the people affected by their decisions.
But we felt a pull toward something else. “Problem-solving” is a dull tool for the the challenges we saw—old and powerful patterns of inequity and racism, oppression and trauma, and environmental harm. And “innovation” is a shallow word for the rich possibilities we saw—people’s urge to come into right relationship, connect and care for one another.
So we changed our direction. Since 2011 we have been schooling and practicing, drawing from the many areas necessary to the work of social pattern-shifting: social complexity and emergence, hosting and facilitation, social therapy, group co-creation, art, theater and improv, work with power, oppression and trauma, personal development and the tangle of personal and social transformation.
Today we are growing our ensemble of collaborators, determined to live the relationships and culture of belonging we want to see in the world.
We seek organizations with whom we can co-create in service to their own transformation, development, and progress toward a world where all belong.
Principals
Hanna du Plessis
“…I embarked on a different mission: to transform myself and share what I learn with others so that we can get good at the collective work of healing, repairing, and re-weaving.”
Marc Rettig
“I’m a corporate expat with a gift for seeing complexity through a poetic lens. I believe people can deepen their work by connecting to a wilder, more soulful experience of participation in the world’s becoming.”
Collaborators
Monocultures of experience, education, identity and perspective don’t serve the challenges we face, and never did. The questions of our age are too big for any one point of view, and white folks have centered themselves and insistent on their ways for too long. We seek to shift this pattern by collaborating with people who challenge, change and complement us.
Looking back, we have collaborated with people who keep on inspiring us. This includes collaborating with
- Sheba Gittens with whom we are in a long-term collaboration to shift an organizational culture away from white supremacy and towards liberatory relationships and practices
- Medina Jackson as we co-hosted the learning group called, A Liberated Life
- Gemma Jiang, with whom we co-hosted the Spring 2021 Adaptive Space Learning Group
- Michelle King on hosting longer term anti-racism trainings and living into the Beloved Community
- Maurice Stevens with whom we co-hosted Deepen Lead Now
- Ti Wilhelm with whom we also hold a long-term space for white people in philanthropy to work with their internalized racism and work together
As we look ahead, we seek to build a team that celebrates the true complexity of our world. While we are not able to hire someone right now, we hope to find enough financial flow to support both part-time and full-time roles. If you feel drawn to collaborate with us, please contact us!
Partial client list
Nonprofit
Humane Society
John Snow Inc.
Social Capital Markets
Academic
Carnegie Mellon University
Ohio State University
Sewanee, University of the South
Government
NASA JPL
Argonne National Laboratory
Corporate
Bose
Highmark
Hitachi
Honeywell
Microsoft
KitchenAid
Nissan
Philips
SONY
Spotify
State Farm
Whirlpool
Local
Bike Pittsburgh
Breathe Project
Center for Creative Reuse
JCC Center for Lovingkindness
Leadership Pittsburgh
Radiant Hall
Trying Together
Key relationships
SVA Masters in Design for Social Innovation
Hanna and Marc are both founding faculty members of the Masters in Design for Social Innovation program at the School of Visual Arts. For the past ten years they have taught the Fundamentals of Design for Social Innovation course. The course provides a community and the time to extend the theoretical underpinnings of our work, and New York City as a lab for exploring the edge of practice with our students.
Carnegie Mellon School of Design
Carnegie Mellon has redesigned its design masters program to include questions of social complexity and organizational and societal transition. As adjunct professors of practice, we are proud to be part of their exploration into this new practice, and the practice of preparing students for such work.
Reach Global Design Research Network
Our roots are in the design community, design as process, and deep practice of design research. As members of the REACH Global Design Research Network, we value this continuing relationship with a vital and evolving community of practice. Fit is the U.S. partner. Other partners span a remarkable diversity of geography and culture: East and West Europe, Africa, China and Southeast Asia, and Central and South America.