Observing society as a whole and in all its contradictoriness, we can see that, alongside numerous unfortunately extremely worrying tendencies, signals are also emerging that indicate the existence of promising cases of social innovation (creative communities and collaborative services) the results of which can be considered as positive steps towards sustainability (and that, even if the moment they are minorities, have to linked to some major on-going trends, as: the demographic change, the growing environmental pressure, the evolution towards a knowledge-based network society). The possibility for these weak signals to reinforce, to spread and to become a mainstream tendency, at the moment, is only potential. Its realisation will depend on several interwoven factors. One of them is what designers will (be able and willing to) do to enhance this social innovation and to steer it towards more sustainable directions. What does it mean to design for the very peculiar kind of social innovations that is characterizing the contemporary society? To steer and to collaborate in directing the new designing networks, designers have to use specific capabilities and skills. They have to recognize promising cases of social innovation, to make them more visible and to better understand them (that is: their strengths and qualities, on one side, and their weak points and difficulties, on the other). And, finally, they have to contribute in making these promising cases more accessible, effective and reproducible