Fellow designers, marketers, and innovators,

I’m writing to tell you about the US National Design Policy Initiative. which is currently running a viral video campaign to support awareness of it’s project to leverage design to improve government. The campaign is based on short videos which address one or all of the following four questions:

1. What role does design play in US economic competitiveness?
2. What role does design play in the US democratic governance?
3. In what specific ways, would a national design policy further enable design to play those roles?
4. What would you pledge to do to help design play that role?

I’ve contributed the following video to the campaign, and ask that you consider making one as well:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zod4-Qacy0

You can view some insighful contributions on the project YouTube page. And you can go here for information about how to submit one of your own. This campaign is all “designed” to support the following mission:

The U.S. National Design Policy Initiative advocates for a governmental plan of action to support design in service of U.S. economic competitiveness and democratic governance.

The U.S. design communities seek to enable through a U.S. national design policy:

• design promotion to boost the demand for American goods and services,
• innovation policy to protect American intellectual property and support the People’s entrepreneurial spirit,
• design standards to guarantee inclusion, sustainability, safety, and quality in the experiences of the human remade world; and
• policy as designed to address design’s role in making American democratic values tangible to the People.

In a letter supporting the opening of the Fourth Federal Design Assembly in 1978, President Carter wrote:
Good design can help us meet our commitment to improve the efficiency of government…and reaffirm our concern for the human side of government.

Thanks for participating, and I look forward to watching your submissions.