[FT, Onsite, Nashville, TN] i-team Civic Designer, Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at JHU
Kandice Alexander
<kandice@jhupublicinnovation.org>The Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins University (the Center) seeks a i-team Civic Designer, Nashville, TN to support a new Nashville Innovation Team.
Innovation Teams unlock creativity from within city governments and the communities they serve. These teams take partners and stakeholders through an evidence-based process to tackle the big problems in their cities no one has yet been able to solve, generate more ambitious responses, and test and adapt interventions until they produce impact. They also work closely with the Mayor, the City's leadership team, and City departments to change the culture of city government.
Nashville is one of 25 U.S. cities joining Bloomberg American Sustainable Cities. Bloomberg American Sustainable Cities is a three-year initiative designed to leverage historic levels of federal funding to incubate and implement transformative local solutions to build low-carbon, resilient, and economically thriving communities. Building on the longtime leadership of U.S. cities to confront the overlapping crises of climate change and racial wealth inequity, the new initiative will provide deep support to selected cities to pursue transformative solutions.
The Civic Designer will play a central role in deploying design-based innovation approaches to support the Nashville i-team’s work on the Bloomberg American Sustainable Cities initiative.
The ideal candidate will have a strong background in design methodology and the ability to use and apply intentional design processes that includes research, ideation, and delivery with key stakeholders, including community members, centered in the process. Ideally, they will also have experience in designing and delivering impactful public sector programs or services. The Civic Designer is an employee of Johns Hopkins University and based in Nashville City Hall. The Civic Designer will report to the i-team Director.
The first of its kind in the world, the Center aims to advance the field of public sector innovation by marrying cutting-edge practice with world-class research to transform the culture of government, deliver exceptional results for residents, and inspire trust in public service. The Center is committed to working with communities focused on ending legacies of structural, entrenched racism and oppression. The Civic Designer must be willing to think about reimagined government, knowledge, and engagement models through the lens of dismantling these legacies.
Specific Duties & Responsibilities
- In support of the i-team’s bold, innovative strategy to jointly drive climate action and advance racial wealth equity, including greenhouse gas reduction strategies.
- Guide i-team colleagues, together with collaborators in government and in the community, through a rigorous innovation process, including research, synthesis and framework development, idea generation, prototyping, and testing.
- Design, plan, and deliver qualitative “design” research.
- Make research findings relevant and impactful through a variety of formats such as slide decks, stories, videos, experiences, exhibits, and design artifacts like journey maps, service blueprints, and personas.
- Employ user research best practices to create a seamless experience for city leaders, and collaborators in government and in the community.
- Develop templates, tools, and methods that government can use to improve service and program delivery.
- Create visual frameworks – like journey maps, service blueprints, and ecosystem maps – that help clarify complex challenges in human behaviors, relationships, workflow, and processes.
- Engage and collaborate deeply with local community organizations dedicated to promoting climate equity strategies that promote racial equity and economic inclusion.
- Plan and execute co-creation workshops with stakeholders to propose the most viable solution for the given problem.
- Stay up to date with trends in civic design and public innovation and develop materials spreading best practices and cutting-edge research and participate in a community of practice with i-teams in other cities.
- Prepare reports, summaries, presentations, visuals, recommendations, and other work products and present to city leaders, community members, BCPI staff, and other partners.
- Support the i-team and other city government colleagues in agile ways of working, including a high proficiency in using tools like Slack, Figma, Miro, Google Workspace, and work management software like Asana.
Special Knowledge, Skills & Abilities
- Ability to use and apply and intentional civic design process that includes research, ideation, and delivery with key stakeholders and community members centered in the process.
- Knowledge of design-based innovation methodologies, including expertise in determining when and how to use specific approaches, frameworks, deliverables, and facilitation methods.
- Superior organizational skills and ability to set priorities and respond quickly as priorities change.
- Strong interpersonal skills with an ability to build good relationships with peers and to interact with diverse stakeholders.
- Passion for and commitment to equitably reducing climate pollution and addressing the impacts of climate change and improving economic conditions for historically disadvantaged Black communities and other communities of color.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills and ability to collect and synthesize information and provide summary reports.
- Excellent content creation and writing skills.
- Experience in solving challenges related to race-based inequities in economics and climate is a plus.
- Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously and meet tight deadlines.
- Ability to work both cooperatively within a team and independently.
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor’s Degree in related discipline.
- Five years of design experience, including instructional, strategic, business, and product design, or related experience.
- Additional education may substitute for required experience and additional related experience may substitute for required education, to the extent permitted by the JHU equivalency formula.
Preferred Qualifications
- Graduate Degree in Instructional Design, Instructional Technology, Education, Applied Anthropology, Demography, Ethnography, User Experience Design or Research, Program Design or related field.
- Experience conducting user research and translating results into actionable insights.
- A clear understanding of the types of challenges municipal governments typically faces, either through direct experience working in government or in organizations that collaborate closely with governments.
- Experience working with community, government, non-profit, or private sector leaders.
- A customer service orientation and interest in and commitment to building solid relationships with colleagues and partners within government and in the community.
- Demonstrated experience in working with people from diverse backgrounds and a commitment to engaging with a wide range of residents, subject-matter experts, and partners.
- Demonstrated experience applying equity-centered design frameworks to past projects.
- A history of using service design and/or product design to scale initiatives or strategies, particularly in large organizations.