So I did what lots of college kids do and went on Wikipedia to figure out what Guerilla Tactics were. I typed in Guerilla warfare first to see what found. Good old wiki gave me a really nice definition with some word choices I really enjoyed. It basically said that this type of warfare was one where there was usually was a small group of COMBATANTS using military tactics including AMBUSH, SABOTAGE, RAIDS, and THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE to harass a larger less mobile traditional army.
I took this awesome definition and thought how social designers apply this notion into their design process and came up with this. Guerilla in spanish means "little war". All these pieces of information started flooding my mind. We (aspiring social designers and do gooders in the world in general) see and come in contact with many social problems in our daily life, we decide to pick one social problem to focus in on. We must attack this problem as if it were our own "little war". We must AMBUSH and use the ELEMENT OF SURPRISE to shake things up to create a buzz on this social problem. We must create something that will stop someone in their daily routine and say HEY, YEA THIS SUCKS, LETS MAKE IT BETTER!
When we see things that don't normally fit in where they should fit in, it sticks out in our minds and we remember it. The more we are bombarded with the issue, the more we remember the issue, the more likely, I feel, that we will do something about the issue especially if it hits close to home in our own lives.
I personally think that using guerilla tactics for addressing social problems is a great way to stir up the pot and make people think. It's fun, innovative, and bold, everything social designing should be. :)
