Small change vs. systemic change

I'm at a socially responsible design conference today called Systems for Inclusion, and we're in the midst of the second panel of the day. The speakers have been good and interesting, and they're all doing some great work. An attendee (and member of the organizing committee) sitting behind me made a striking comment, though: despite being a conference supposedly focused on the interaction of design with broader systems (that are currently mostly exclusive), we don't really have anyone talking about those systems or what could or should be done to change them. The policy people, the finance people, the politicians are almost totally absent; the interventions are mostly small scale.

I don't dismiss or denigrate the small scale, local interventions; in fact, I believe that local action is always the place where the rubber meets the road as far as just or unjust effects. But to focus almost exclusively on the local is to ignore that there are larger influences and forces that have enormous impact on the local and what can happen there. At some point, some people do have to take on the systemic change at the systems level. It's a huge problem, and generally too big for one person, but we have to discuss what needs to happen and mobilize to do it.

Of course, this is an ongoing tension and a dynamic balance. I never know where I sit on the spectrum myself; I've been a huge proponent of focusing on the local this last year or so. I guess I'm being pulled back in the other direction a little bit by this conference.