This thesis demonstrates how the approach taken by design management employs multiple lenses to accelerate the diffusion of new technology, specifically as it relates to small-wind power.    The purpose of this study is to develop a model that can enable active knowledge generating cells across stakeholder communities. That can then be applied toward the diffusion of small scale wind power in coastal Georgia. Informed by primary research on the ground in the plains of Oklahoma and Coastal Georgia, and  reframing theories of Diffusion of Innovation (Rogers 2003), and The Social Construction of Technological Systems (Bijker, Hughes et al. 1999) this thesis challenges the paradigm that supports the idea that massive wind farms located throughout the central plains of the U.S. hold the most promise for the implementation of wind power.  Without challenging the physics of scale, this thesis will construct an argument based on the following hypotheses.

H1  Big wind's efficiency is significantly compromised by the distance from the wind corridor to major population centers through enormous infrastructure costs, environmental impact, and transmission energy loss.

H2  The major problems to be resolved are not technical, but behavioral and social attitudes regarding wind power.

H3  Metrics based on "efficiency" are biased toward power industry providers.  Rather than basing criteria on total costs to the power industry, a strategy that favors short term payback to individual users should become the basis for implementation.