Letters to Australia

Letters from Australia

2011-03-05T10:21:00.006Z

If you weren't already aware, I recently moved back to my home city Sydney, Australia.

Sydney skyline sunset. Photo by Sophie G.

Having been away for 3.5 years it has been a major transition to assimilate (someone said to me that moving back is like having a 'reverse culture shock.' I have to admit that comes pretty close to what I have been feeling). While I ride out the transition, I have also been exploring design here in an Australian context.

The namesake of this post is with thanks to Nick, who asked before I left London if I could begin another blog called 'Letters from Australia.' While not the name, I have begun a new blog. It's called designsydney and looks at design in an Australian context, with a particular focus on design for services, public services and positive social change.

So please visit and join my continuing adventures to explore innovative uses of design in an Australian context. I shall continue to complete my PhD research from Australia, which also means I'll continue my investigations into the changing role of the designer, with a more focused look at the value of the designer in addressing social, economic and environmental issues.

Hope to see you soon at designsydney. Otherwise please get in touch via Twitter, LinkedIn or Academia.edu.

TEDx: Design for Health

2010-12-06T14:21:00.008Z

In October this year, I attended and spoke at TEDx Design for Health conference in Montreal. The talks were broad in scope, discussing how design and designers have been making contributions in areas of health research, products, environments, services and care.

I was invited to TEDx to speak about thinkpublic's project, Alzheimer100 which formed part of Dott 07 and has also had a lasting legacy which thinkpublic Founder, Deborah Szebeko and I wrote about in our 2009 paper, Co-designing for dementia: The Alzheimer100 project.

The conference organisers asked if I could speak about the project, its approach of co-designing the future of dementia care and the impact the project has had on national UK policy. One of the key ideas to emerge from Alzheimer100 was outlined as a recommendation in the UK government's National Dementia Strategy (2009).

To give a bit of background to the event, TED is a series of talks by inspiring people who have 'ideas worth spreading' (as per TED's strapline). All the talks are accessible on the TED website and TED presents people such as Bono, Richard Branson, Bill Clinton, Steve Jobs, Malcolm Gladwell, Alain de Botton and the list goes on. One of my favourite talks is by Sir Ken Robinson on how school's kill creativity and I have been to the TED website countless times when I've looked to be inspired.

TEDx uses the same concept and principles of TED, only the TED brand is licensed out to organisations and institutions who can independently organise their own events. Having been a fan of TED, TEDx Montreal made me quite nervous. I was also battling jet lag (having arrived the night before the conference) and was one of the last talks of the day. But in short, the presentation, with help from thinkpublic, went well.

As mentioned, I spoke about thinkpublic's Alzheimer100 project. The project occurred in 2007 under the Dott 07 programme. thinkpublic used the approach of co-design to create ideas for what the future of dementia care could look like. A key part of the process was to create these ideas with people most affected by the disease ie. people with dementia and their carers (both formal and informal). The project resulted in a suite of innovative ideas, with a key idea being a signposting service to help people access local dementia support and services.

Presenting the Signposting Service idea at the Dott 07 Festival, 2007

It was this Signposting Service idea that inspired national UK policy recommendations to improve the quality of life for people with dementia and their carers. My talk covered both the co-design process led by thinkpublic, and the legacy of the project which saw the signposting service, since renamed Dementia Advisors, be implemented in a number of sites across the UK in 2010 (at this moment in time, the Dementia Advisors service is now being evaluated by the UK Government). thinkpublic also kindly provided this 3-minute film to bring life to my talk and provide an neat overview of the project.

A100 (3 minute) from thinkpublic on Vimeo.

I always think how timely the Alzheimer100 project in 2007 was. Dementia is set to be one of the biggest social challenges of our time and a week before I left for Montreal, the World Alzheimer's Report was launched calling for all nations to make dementia a top priority. The report outlined key issues such as estimating that worldwide, the costs of dementia could top US$604 billion in 2010 and that currently, there are 35.6 million people living with dementia. The costs and number of people living with dementia are so phenomenal that there is no doubt we'll be hearing a lot more of this issue in the coming years. It'll be interesting to see where else designers can create a positive impact in helping address the challenges of dementia.

After the conference I had a lovely few days to explore Montreal. It's quite a European city, with strong French influences and very friendly people. The Latin Quarter, where I stayed and where TEDx was held, was very creative and dotted with wonderful eating places and shops. During my time in Montreal, I made the trip up to Mont Royal, with its expansive views over the city, and also went downtown, which was like a typical city of high rise buildings, shopping, museums and lots of tourists. It was a great time to be in the city as the leaves were turning colour for Autumn. As a final part of this post, here are some travel snaps.

The Hotel de I'Institut in the Latin Quarter where I stayed

The view from my room, looking toward Mont Royal and the Autumn coloured city

On the streets of the Latin Quarter (just up the road from the hotel)

On the streets of the Latin Quarter (just up the road from the hotel)

Downtown Montreal

The Plateau, which is heading uptown and toward Mont Royal

A view from Mont Royal

The Twin 6' Hearts sculpture by by Jim Dine (1999) outside the Montreal Museum of Fine Art (which had free entry to the permanent exhibition)

Chocolate fondue at Juliette et Chocolat

London Service Design Christmas Drinks

2010-11-30T19:01:00.006Z

Since 2008, London has been host to the service design community almost every month with Service Design Drinks nights at various locations around the city.

What started off a small gathering of service designers a few years ago has grown to monthly drinks nights, a handful of Service Design Thinks events, having its own servicdesigning.org website and now 14 (and growing) international cities in different countries all over the world doing the same thing.

On 3 December 2010 we'll be celebrating a special London Service Design Christmas Drinks.

It will be my last in London, as I head back to Australia to live in December this year. So if you're free this Friday and interested in service design and having a drink with the community please join us at the Slaughtered Lamb, Clerkenwell to say 'hello' and also 'goodbye' (until I'm back to visit London in the future).

The Slaughtered Lamb has been one of our favourite locations for drinks. It can get pretty busy on Fridays so if you're coming along, it'd be great if you could wear something red so we can spot you in the crowd.

While I am sad to leave the London service design community, I look forward to connecting with the Sydney service design community, who were actually the first city to sign onto servicdesigning.org. There's no doubt there's lots to discover, exchange and share back in my home city.

On the note of leaving London, this blog will still continue until I come to the end of my PhD. I have a few other plans in the works, so watch this space for updates. Till then, hope to see you at Service Design Drinks!

The different roles of the designer and their value

2010-11-19T17:38:00.005Z

The annual bbetween journal was published by Billy Blue College of Design and 2nd Road (both in Australia) in August this year. The topic was 'the value of design (thinking)' and there were many great contributors (check out the list here).

This year's bbetween journal cover

I submitted a paper about three (of the seven) roles of the designer I have been exploring in my PhD research. These roles were the designer as strategist, researcher and facilitator. The Dott 07 projects of Urban Farming, Design and Sexual Health (DaSH) and OurNewSchool were used to illustrate these roles of the designer and their value. If you'd like a read, download the bbetween paper here. Otherwise the key points were that:

The designer as researcher: Uses design research for inspiration, not only information, to inspire new ideas and opportunities;
The designer as strategist: Connects organisations to the real-life experiences of people to inform and influence strategic decision-making; and
The designer as facilitator: Adds tools to the facilitator’s toolbox to engage stakeholders and inspire their creativity to understand challenges and create innovative responses to them.

Having almost completed my PhD, I have seen that when we take a detailed look at the roles of the designer and compare and contrast these to roles in other professions, it becomes clearer where designers add value and have synergy to work collaboratively with other disciplines to tackle society’s most challenging issues.

Co-designing for Society (journal paper)

2010-10-26T17:42:00.006+01:00

This year the Australasian Medical Journal (AMJ) ran another special Design + Health edition to explore ideas in designing for health. Deborah Szebeko, founder of social design agency thinkpublic and I followed up our previous year's Co-designing for Dementia: The Alzheimer100 Project (2009) paper with this new one called, Co-designing for Society (2010).

In this paper, we elaborate more on co-design, its approach, tools, processes and practices using several of thinkpublic's projects. At the end of the paper we also touch on what next for co-design, especially in line with the political climate here in the UK where the Coalition advocates Building Big Society which sees “a society where the leading force for progress is social responsibility, not state control.”

The Design Council have also been actively exploring co-design and organising discussions among the design community to understand the practice better. Check out their published summary here.

'Personal projects'

2010-10-25T15:20:00.006+01:00

It's been a long time since I have posted here, and I make no excuses except to say that finishing a PhD is the hardest and longest process ever! But more on that later...

Today, I felt compelled to post something after a Skype chat this morning with my friend Natalie's MA Design class. This post is not just for designers, but everyone, who seeks a space for themselves that is totally their own. It's not a physical space, but a mental one. This space lets you explore your own ideas, passion and interests. It's what Ji Lee (a Creative Director a Google) calls 'personal projects.'

I first encountered Ji and Ji's personal projects in 2008 at the Graphic Design Festival Breda in the Netherlands (an earlier blog post and some photos can be found here). I was struck by Ji's Bubble Project. And on many levels. The Bubble Project is about giving a voice to the public in the one-way communication culture of advertising and media that surrounds us. Empty white speech bubbles on ads invite the public to fill in their own commentary.

I love the idea for inspiring the creativity of people, of giving them a voice, and also for the fun it evokes (check out some bubbles here on Flickr). A lot of it was reminiscent of the Dott 07 projects and there was no doubt that Ji and his project would be appearing somewhere in my PhD thesis.

But there was another level of Ji's project that interested me. That was the idea of doing 'personal projects.' Those projects where you give yourself the space, time and permission to explore and pursue your passionate interests that exist outside of work. I can already hear questions such as, 'But what if I don't have the time?' so I'm going to leave you for 8 minutes with Ji, and let him tell you a bit about the Bubble Project and explain what he's learnt about doing personal projects, including some thoughts about the concept of time. I hope it helps inspire the creation of your own space to pursue and explore passionate interests, just like Ji did.

Ji Lee: The Transformative Power of Personal Projects from 99% on Vimeo.

Service Design Drinks, 30 April 2010

2010-05-11T13:19:00.000+01:00

I've lost count of how many Service Design Drinks nights we've had here in London, and I'm also losing count of how many cities are joining the international network at servicedesigning.org! Awesome.

Last month, Service Design Drinks London happened on Friday 30 April on the top floor of the Old Crown.

This was a new venue for us and we had a private room, bar and DJ (thanks Jaimes!). The venue was a great size for the 60-something people who came along on the night (I did a head count based on the number of white name tags gave out that night).

I should also mention that in the room we had present city coordinators from four other international cities. These were Martin and Daniela, who host Berlin and Cologne (Germany); Re who hosts Dublin (Ireland); and Bas and Geke who host Amsterdam (Netherlands).

Top floor at the Old Crown (image from the Old Crown website)

Top floor at the Old Crown at Service Design Drinks London

You can probably just make out in the photo above, a projector screen in the background. In the week leading up Drinks, we put a call out for visuals of service design projects which would run as a slide show throughout the night. At such short notice, we received some really awesome visuals. Here's a taster below...

PhD researcher Dan Lockton (UK) sent us some of his work and research on Design with Intent: Using design to influence behaviour. If you are interested in exploring how design can shape human behaviour, Dan's website is definitely worth a visit.

The Design with Intent toolkit 1.0 by Dan Lockton

Interaction Designer, Roberta Tassi (Italy) sent us some visuals from the Service Design Tools website which she developed out of her university research in 2008. The visual map below shows and catergorises all the service design tools that feature on the website.

Roberta Tassi's Service Design Tools map

We also received service design work from as far abroad as Australia. Alex Cheek of 2nd Road (Australia) where I worked long ago, sent us 2nd Road's work on an Experience Portfolio which was done for a large service organisation. The Experience Portfolio is a loose-bound set of cards that shows photos, stories, needs and design principles that were used in the re-design of the organsiation's services.

Experience Portfolio by 2nd Road

Finally, thinkpublic (UK) sent us some visuals from two of their projects, one being You Can Kingston. This project looked at improving health services and activities of local communities in Kingston. Visit the website to find out more, or see the DesignWeek article 'Think Public battles health inequalities through design’ which profiled the project last year.

You Can Kingston project by thinkpublic

The slide show provided a colourful backdrop to the night. We also had a Twitter feed running at one point. After hours of drinking and talking about service designing, Service Design Drinks London came to a close for another month. It was a fantastic night and we're in planning mode for the next Drinks and Thinks in London, so keep an eye out at servicedesigning.org and/or join the mailing list here.

Hope that's enough of an insight for those who couldn't make it to the latest Service Design Drinks in London. For the contributors of our slideshow, it was fantastic you could have a presence on the night (especially those abroad). A big thank you to Dan, Roberta, Alex and Paul (of thinkpublic) and best wishes for forthcoming servicedesigning.org events in Berlin, Cologne, Dublin and Amsterdam!

Service Design Thinks 3: Service Design from Scratch

2010-05-05T18:15:00.001+01:00

I know I am really, really late on this, but below are some notes and photos from Service Design Thinks 3 here in London on 30 March 2010. We had an awesome turnout at the Sense Loft with drinks sponsored by radarstation.

On the night, we discussed the theme, 'Service Design from Scratch.'

And our awesome speakers on the night, were as follows:

Dr James Munro and Paul Hodgkin of Patient Opinion, a not-for-profit social enterprise that lets people share healthcare stories and experiences to help improve the UK's NHS (National Health Service).

Zaeem Maqsood of First Capital a venture capital investment company who told us what it took to invest in a good idea.

Sophia Parker (The Resolution Foundation) and Katie Harris (Esro) who spoke about their experiences of starting up The Social Innovation Lab for Kent with Engine Service Design and Kent County Council.

Jaimes Nel (Live|work and fellow coordinator of Service Design Drinks and Thinks) who did a short presentation on my local take-away coffee shop, Grace St Pauls (who also just launched a new website this month) which has been delivering amazing customer service since it opened its doors in late 2008.

Nick Marsh (of EMC Conchango and fellow coordinator of Service Design Drinks and Thinks) hosted the night and also published his reflections and films (taken by Jaimes) of the presentations on his blog here.

Yesterday, while sifting through some papers, I finally found my notes from the night! Had lost them for awhile. If you are interested in knowing more about the themes I captured on the night, let me know and I can do another post shortly.

Otherwise, Nick has outlined reflections from the panel discussion that happened at the end of all the presentations. He blogged these to be:

The role of planning - a lot of service design practice is about planning, but when you are starting up, most people talk about the need to be agile and change plans quickly.
Sector specific knowledge - service design is generally sector agnostic, and deliberately 'naive' - 'we just focus on the customer', and yet successful startup services tend to rely on having experienced, knowledgeable individuals who really understand say, health care, or coffee.
Personal risk - service designers working in agencies don't have any 'skin in the game', yet taking a personal risk seems to be an important part of making a start up successful.
It doesn't stop - service designers, like all designers, like designing things - documentation, specifications, deliverables etc. But when you are running a new service business it just doesn't stop! There is no deliverable or design really, just the effective operation and growth of the organisation. (from Choosenick, 11 April 2010)

We're in planning mode for the next Service Design Thinks London, so watch this space! But if you have any feedback on the night (good, bad, how it could be better etc.) feel free to leave it below or email us at london@servicedesigning.com.

Dott Cornwall think tank 'Inspired'

2010-04-01T18:41:00.000+01:00

Last week Dott Cornwall and University College Falmouth hosted 'Inspired' a think tank to look at design in our times and discuss emerging design practice.

Present were designers, leading design thinkers, researchers, students and academics. We convened at the Bedruthan Steps Hotel sectioned across the hillside overlooking Mawgan Porth Beach. The views were amazing. Here's a taster.

Day 1
On Day 1 we heard presentations from two leading design thinkers, Nabeel Hamdi, Emeritus Professor of Housing and Urban Development at Oxford Brookes University.

And Ezio Manzini, Professor of Design at the Politechnico di Milano.

Both shared a broader and more international context for "Dott-like" (as Ezio called it) design. Following their presentations was a soapbox session. Each delegate got 3 minutes (and yes, it was timed with an hourglass) to say something about design that was on their mind. As you can see from the picture below, John Thackara was up first.

After a well-earned lunch we split into two groups to discuss either design practice or design education and research. I joined the latter and have to say it was a very interesting session. That's a brief overview of what happened on Day 1. Below are some soundbites I gathered from the various sessions.

The opening keynotes

Dott recognises that it is top-down and bottom-up. It is top-down in responding to EU policy and bottom-up in responding to the local people and their issues;

Nabeel began his presentation by saying that many students come to him to ask, "we like design but how do we make ourselves relevant?" Great question and certainly a very important one for design in our changing world today;
Nabeel had a lovely sentiment to express how design could be more strategic. He said rather then just design a house, designers should think about what a house can do;

I also liked Nabeel's comment that design (and designers) "disturb" situations. The slightly pessimistic notion of "disturb" reminds us that design and designers can disturb in positive and also negative ways;

On the plane from London to Cornwall, Ezio asked us from an English language perspective how we understood the word "territorial." He uses the word in the Italian sense, to frame the nature of Dott-like projects. "Territorial" in Italian recognises the complexity of the physical, cultural, social etc. coming together. But in English we tend to think of "territorial" as being possessive and it generally has quite negative connotations. The interpretations from different languages is really fascinating. I remember buying a notebook in Italy with 'disegno' printed on the front. In Italian this mean 'to draw" a core tool for a designer. Since purchasing the notebook I often wonder what key insights language can reveal to help us uncover more about design (of course language is well discussed in design literature such as in Boland and Collopy's book, Managing as Designing);

Ezio talked about Dott was as a "framework". That is Dott as a vision, as a way to connect people and host projects. Ezio showed some "Dott-like" projects from his network DESIS to frame an international context to Dott.

The soapbox session
Here are some themes I picked up:

Design education needs to change: Especially as practices of design change. But it is education ready to? It needs to be more inter-disciplinary, but how do we 'walk the talk' in these unmovable institutions? In education let's also consider children today who are going through an education system deficient of creativity (Ken Robinson's TED talk argued for more creativity in education. Check it out here);
What's missing from design practice at the moment? Mary Cook of Uscreates brought up ethics. How designers go about engaging with the public and dealing with situations appropriately? Let's also be more aware of the costs of designing, and the sustainability of projects. The financial, resource and time costs are high if a project ends and does not continue;
Let’s not lose the link of design to economy: This tends to get lost when we look at design for social issues. It is challenging to build sustainable design businesses to do work only in this area (though I know many who have done so) and also challenging to measure and evaluate design's return on investment (ROI). That is ROI in its classical sense that business and organisations understand;
Design’s contributions to social issues: include that of being able to engage people in issues and in policy. Furthermore, designers can bring better usability, sustainability and desirability to public services. Designers can integrate these aspects into the sector's concern for cost, scale and time;
What are the roles of others that participate in design projects: such as the clients and project stakeholders? We take them on a journey which can often be challenging because it can be a different approach to what they are used to.

The academic and research breakout session
I feel like I need to write a bit more than soundbites for this one. It was a great session and many valuable things emerged for design education. Ezio early in the discussions said that to be interdisciplinary we need discipline and design is a weak discipline. Jeremy Myerson added that when design polytechnics gained university status they let go of practice but then forgot the theory.

We spoke about how we needed to understand the core of design. Ezio framed it well by saying that design thinking is broad and we agreed that it can be done by many others who aren’t trained as designers. But there is also design knowledge which is the core of the discipline ie. the USP of the designer, the toolkit the designer brings to the table etc.

Lucy Kimbell mentioned that other discipline don’t recognise a design paradigm. This made me think back to the design + businesses debates where designers lamented that they often didn't have a seat at the management table (See 'Are design schools the new B-schools?' at InterSections 07). That comment really frustrates me because we identify with the fact that we are a weak discipline with no recognizable paradigm for how we can be relevant to other disciplines. We also makes little attempt to learn the language of the other disciplines, and this not only divides us from within, but means we have difficulty talking to other disciplines. The challenge of language is not specific to design. Long ago playwright George Bernard Shaw claimed, "England and America are two countries divided by a common language."

When we understand the core of the discipline, designers might be better placed to respond to what Nabeel called “thematic organization” of the world’s "wicked problems" (Rittel and Webber, 1973). Wicked problems require an interdisciplinary approach, and interdisciplinary contributions due to their complexities. Nabeel described thematic organization as a way of framing problems around issues that become everyone’s problem. One could say that Dott 07 was thematically organised in emphasising five issues of health, energy, education, food and mobility. We have all been touched by these issues in some way, so they are our problem. Ivo of thinkpublic once said to me that by "allowing people to identify the problems [they] become part of the solution."

To sum up the point Nabeel and Ezio were making was that if we knew the core of design better, we'd be more likely to step up to bigger challenges as we'd understand what a designer's role could be ie. what a designer could bring the table.

The last part of the session, Jeremy asked what would our research agenda should look like. Some of the delegates mentioned that designers don’t do enough reflective practice or critical thinking. The divide between academia and industry also came up. I shared my experiences of doing this PhD to say that the role of academia and research could be to collaborate with designers to do more of what we all are not doing. A dynamic relationship between academia and practice, on a very practical level, could become a mutual learning experience and contribute to the discipline.

Day 2
On day 2 the delegate group was far bigger and Geoff Smith of UCF remarked that Dott Cornwall was “internationally distinctive and locally relevant.” It linked very much to Ezio’s presentation which showed us “Dott-like” projects happening around the world.

The highlight for me on Day 2 was a presentation by Mat Hunter, Chief Design Officer at the Design Council. Mat spoke about the narrative of emerging practice where the design ethos had moved from designer-centred to user-centred design to co-design to co-production. In short designers went from designing the next generation toaster or poster, but now designing the "next generation healthcare service journey system". The middle part of Mat’s presentation was framed by the notion that “the act of selling design alters it.” And he touched upon a key issue in my own PhD research which was about the articulation of design activity as process model. It’s great to simplify design activity for communication purposes with a client, it but it risks “corrupting” our understanding of design. A lot of what is done in designing Mat says, "is inexplicable" so we need to “watch how we talk about design.” Other interesting points Mat brought up were, where was the craft in all this? And we need designers to lead with a point of view, not just a portfolio and process.

After lunch, three parallel breakout sessions occurred. These were led by two designers and were around service design; community-inspired design; and collaborative design. I attended community-inspired design led by Mary Rose Cook co-founder of Uscreates and Justin Marshall a researcher at UCF. Mary spoke about design-led methods/tools for engaging people on two levels. First was the need to get them into the room (or sometimes go to them). And the second was the need to have people talk to us.

In the final part of the session, Justin spoke about an academic-led project called Bespoke. It aims to increase social inclusion through community journalism in an area called Preston. The project is still underway but many, many issues are arising ranging from ethics, to behaviour change, to policy, to the naming of the project etc.

Reflecting on my time at the think tank, I think it was very much about gathering floating sentiments and commentary as to what appears to be happening in design today. I spoke to a designer shortly after the think tank and he told me he thought design practice had already changed. I know many others believe that design is constantly changing (eg. John Heskett, 2003). But where pushing the boundaries of practice is concerned we'll not always be sure of what comes next. And that's what's absolutely fascinating about having the opportunity to look at Dott and the design community as it applies design in new and different situations. I thought Emily Thomas of Aequitas Consulting summed up quite nicely how we should recognise design in the future where she said, “some of it is a little about the faith, because it’s about the future.”

Visiting Dott Cornwall

2010-02-25T11:21:00.011Z

Around the charming towns of Cornwall, either by the windy seas or undulating hills, a whole lot of design is taking place. And in a different sense to what much of Cornwall would have known before.

Cornwall is a county on the SE tip of England. Well-known for its dynamic creative industries, and also historically for its tin mining, Cornwall went through being one of the most prosperous areas of the UK to becoming one of the most deprived when mining could not keep up with its foreign competition, and industry shut down altogether. Today, Cornwall's economy is mostly sustained by tourism. Usually associated with beautiful imagery of the seaside, beach and quaint little towns (not to mention cream teas, Cornish pasties and celebrity-chef eateries such as Rick Stein restaurants and pub, and Jaime Oliver’s fifteen ) Cornwall's geography is one of the most beautiful and attractive in England. The other industry which thrives in Cornwall is the creative industry, and during my short 2-day stay in Cornwall this week, I already met an interior designer, graphic designer and lighting designer, all who have their own businesses. And most of them, often defined by their design degree (a focal point of the county's creativity is the University College Falmouth (UCF) which runs design degrees) now work across all design disciplines. For example the interior designer I met told me he also designed furniture and did graphic design. The design disciplines are certainly blurring, and also evolving.

Last year, design in Cornwall ramped up several notches with the launch of Dott Cornwall. A programme of work, run in partnership with University College Falmouth and Cornwall County Council, which will showcase ten visionary design projects, showing the potential of a design approach in regeneration and services to make a positive difference to the lives of people, communities and organisations in Cornwall. Dott Cornwall is the second Dott initiative spearheaded by the Design Council. The first having taken place in 2007 in the NE of England called, Dott 07.

I made a trip down to Cornwall this week to visit Dott Cornwall, UCF and also attend Open Dott, an event which invited the public, the partners, project stakeholders and designers to experience and share the progress of the live Dott Cornwall design projects.

Image from Dott Cornwall website

Held in the Royal Cornwall Museum on Tuesday night, Andrea Siodmok, Programme Director of Dott Cornwall and John Thackara, former Programme Director of Dott 07, author and founder of Doors of Perception, opened and hosted the night. The new Dott Cornwall website was also launched on the night, a great resource to keep-up-to-date with all Dott Cornwall happenings.

Screen capture of Dott Cornwall's website

Five presentations from the Dott projects were the feature of the night. These projects updated their progress. Most have only just completed their research phases, gathering insights from local people to inspire new ideas:

Move Me by live|work
This project looks at how a design approach might help shape behaviour toward more sustainable mobility. Cornwall is a region made up of quite small towns, only a short drive away from each other, and much like in my home city, Sydney, almost everyone in Cornwall has and uses a car as their main form of transport. The designers at live|work also cite many behavioural factors related to the high dependency on cars, such as habits and perceptions of public transport (such as expense). But, the designers also discovered that while people depended on cars, they had a strong conscience of a loss of community feel by filling the town streets with congestion. The designers see this tension point as an opportunity for a design a solution (coming up in the next phase of the project).

Living Well by STBY
This project, led by STBY looks at practical ways to develop and inspire more sustainable practices among individuals and in organisations. So far, the designers have undertaken extensive research with people to capture opinions on sustainability, and also identify what projects and activities in the area of sustainability already exist. These insights have been used to inspire many project directions, and these project directions are currently being decided upon, to take the Living Well project forward.

Cornwall Works 50+ and Cornwall Works 50+ Cares by thinkpublic
These two projects work with Cornwall's older communities in the areas of staying in and/or finding employment (Works) and finding opportunities for care and support for older people (Cares). So far, designers at thinkpublic have undertaken research with people to gather personal stories from these communities. These stories will help inspire new ideas in the next phase of the project for both employment and care for older people in Cornwall.

Designing Communities by sea communications
The neighbourhood of Pengegon, Camborne is one of the country's most deprived areas and designers at sea are working with locals to help discover community facilities and services that are more resident-led, rather than authority-led, to help improve lives. So far, the designers have undertaken research with local people including producing several films to convey the experiences and voices of locals. You can view these films on YouTube here. One of the most fascinating things to emerge from the films is the enthusiasm of the locals to own and take responsibility for their local facilities and services.

Eco Design Challenge
The final live Dott Cornwall project is Eco Design Challenge (EDC). EDC, an educational project, was run in Dott 07 and is running in Dott Cornwall again. EDC gets Year 8 students to measure their school's carbon footprint with an Eco Calcuator. The students then work with design and social entrepreneur mentors to help create new ideas to reduce their school's ecological and carbon footprint. In June 2010, all schools will submit their ideas to EDC and by July, winners of the EDC will be announced. So far, EDC has engaged 34 schools in Cornwall to take part, and the school students are currently working on measuring their carbon footprint. The next phase of the project will be to pair schools up with mentors to create new ideas to address sustainability at their school. For more information, resources and updates, head to the Eco Design Challenge website.

The night wrapped up with some opinion voting on the Dott Cornwall projects.

Voting on the live Dott projects

And also a bit of networking.

Networking after the presentations

The following day, Dott Cornwall and UCF hosted a Design Workshop for UCF design students. The workshop generated loads of creative energy and high-level enthusiasm for Dott, as much as the Open Dott event the previous night. If this is anything to go by, Dott Cornwall will certainly be a fantastic programme to demonstrate, once again, how designers, local communities and organisations can work together, using a design approach to address social issues and improve the livelihoods of people.

Presenting ideas at the design workshop at UCF

Service Design Drinks, 26 February 2010

2010-02-25T11:04:00.004Z

This Friday 26 February will the be the second 2010 Service Design Drinks in London! Here's all the essential info:

Date: Friday 26 February 2010
Time: From 7pm
Location: The Bunch of Grapes. 2 St Thomas Street, Borough, London SE1 9RS (it's just a hop away from London Bridge tube stop)
RSVP: Sign up on Eventbrite here (and see who else will be around)
And to find us, look for the Service Design Drinks London sign!

If you can't make this one, we'll be doing a regular Service Design Drinks London on the last Friday of every month. So sign up to the mailing list here to keep up-to-date with the latest happenings.

As you already know, the cities of Amsterdam (Netherlands), Dublin (Ireland), San Francisco (USA), Sao Paulo (Brazil) and Sydney (Australia) organise and host Drinks and other events via the servicedesigning.org website. We're pleased to announce that Berlin and Cologne (Germany) organised by Minds and Makers and Glasgow (Scotland) organised by wearesnook have also joined servicedesigning.org!

Remember, if you are traveling to one of these cities, check in at servicedesigning.org and to see if anything is on. And if you, or anyone you know from another city is interested in coordinating service designing-type events, please get in touch with us at london@servicedesigning.com. We'd love to have a chat and help by providing tools and insight into organising and hosting events and activities to help develop service designing communities around the world.

LTA Newsletter | Dec 09 & Jan 10

2010-02-04T10:41:00.003Z

Service Design Drinks, 29 January 2010

2010-01-25T09:46:00.003Z

This Friday 29 January will the be first 2010 Service Design Drinks in London! Here's all the essential info:

Date: Friday 29 January 2010
Time: From 7pm
Location: The Bunch of Grapes. 2 St Thomas Street, Borough, London SE1 9RS (it's just a hop away from London Bridge tube stop)
RSVP:Sign up on Eventbrite here (and see who else will be around).

The Bunch of Grapes, Borough

For 2010, we'll be doing a more regular Service Design Drinks London. Drinks will now happen on the last Friday of every month. So if you can't make this one, put it in your diary and hope to see you at another this year!

We'll also have more info on the next Service Design Thinks shortly. The next Thinks will be exploring the theme, 'Service Design from Scratch.' To ensure you're up-to-date with the latest, sign up your details on the mailing list here.

Finally, you might have already seen on the servicedesigning.org website that Service Design Drinks and Thinks has gone global! The cities of Amsterdam (Netherlands), Dublin (Ireland), San Francisco (USA), Sao Paulo (Brazil) and Sydney (Australia) are now connected to servicedesigning.org so if you happen to be traveling to one of those cities, make sure you check in and to see if anything is on (you never know!). And if you know anyone from another city interested in coordinating service designing-type events, please let them know they are most welcome to get in touch at london@servicedesigning.com and we can help them do the rest!

Icsid World Design Congress, Singapore 25-27 November 2009

2009-12-21T09:30:00.006Z

Following the Icsid Design Education Conference was 3-days of the Icsid World Design Congress. Congress was the 26th conference organised by Icsid and attended by 700 delegates at Singapore's massive and shiny Suntec City.

Here's what the conference website has to say about the 3-day Congress:

The Icsid World Congress will bring together the thinking of 9 Design2050 Studios, 4 Keynote Speakers and the Congress Facilitators in an interactive forum where delegates will engage with them and each other to propose solutions to many of the critical challenges we face today [...] Our aim is to develop ‘real world’ solutions that are viable within current and future scenarios, for a more sustainable economy and society in 2050. [...] We believe that the challenges we face over the next 40 years represent unprecedented opportunities to develop new products, processes and solutions that will be the foundation of a new sustainable economy.

The theme was very similar to the Changing the Change conference I attended last year. Here's a short excerpt from Changing the Change:

The conference Changing the Change seeks to make a significant contribution to a necessary transformation that involves changing the direction of current changes toward a sustainable future. It specifically intends to outline the state-of-the-art of design research in terms of visions, proposals and tools with which design can actively and positively take part in the wider social learning process that will have to take place.

The key differences between the conferences was their location (European vs. Asian) and also where the propositions/solutions were being driven from ie. In Changing the Change content mostly came from design researchers while Congress brought together design studios and practitioners.

Below is a neat image from the Icsid website which illustrates an overview of the specific streams under the conference theme and also identifies the studios, keynotes and facilitators.

The first day of Congress began with design commentator, Bruce Nussbaum interviewing Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Singapore's Minister for Finance. Shanmugaratnam was very eloquently spoken, painting us a picture of where Singapore has been and where it seeks to go in the future. But Shanmugaratnam needed a big steer by Nussbaum at the end of the interview in addressing design thinking for Singapore's economic policies. As Nussbaum blogged upon reflection:

The sophisticated insight and knowledge shown on stage by Minister Tharman lead me to expect that the government will probably get it right as it promotes the evolution of Singapore from an efficiency-centric society to a mixed efficiency/creativity model. But it might accelerate that progress by bringing more of Singapore’s smart young Gen Y generation of creatives into policy-making positions right now. A global mega-city of Singapore’s excellence can’t afford to let any of its young go.

Presentations by the studios followed, beginning with former Director of Design at BMW, Chris Bangle. Bangle's take on a design proposition for 2050 was not a hard and concrete solution, but a philosophy for design.

WOHA Architects were quite the opposite end of the spectrum, proposing a masterplan for Singapore 2050.

Protofarm brought together a consortium of designers to present future scenarios for farming. During the keynote, shorter presentations from Revital Cohen, Frank Tjepkema, Futurefarmers, Dunne and Raby and 5.5 designers covered a broad scope of propositions ranging from Dunne and Raby's Edible Wilderness to Cohen's use of human organs for energy where the "body becomes a farm" and we are more reliant on ourselves. Check out Protofarm's 10 minute film here.

The following panel session, facilitated by a brilliant, Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator at MOMA (New York) discussed: the need to do "less talking and more doing" as "leading by example is always best"; that the relationship between design and science is growing; that design education needed to bring in other disciplines for designers to work with; questions around whether design should be measured; that design looks to be moving from human-centred to nature-centred; and that designers have a responsibility for designing stuff, but also designing the intangible.

Lunch was served in the foyer and the rest of the day, delegates could visit the Studio spaces. I wanted to sit in on Toshiko Mori Architect's Studio session on Design Blind Spots 2050 which looked at the evolution of design practice, particularly in the area of the designer as part of large-scale co-operations to address issues beyond the built environment. Or as they write on the Congress website:

As the spectrum of global governance shifts away from post-war models, design practice has the opportunity to assume an increasing role in developing systemic frameworks to confront new scales of risk endemic to the 21st century. At the interface between specialized disciplines that regulate economic, environmental, societal, geopolitical and technological pressures, expertise often exists in isolated silos. As a result, these ‘Blindspots’ catalyze even greater and more prolonged risk [...] Our proposal is to interpret blindspots within causal chains as discrete opportunities to resituate the role of design as an integral function; locating it further up on the “food chain” of global risk decision making systems. By evolving design agency beyond reactionary problem solving, it will be allowed to assume a more proactive function within global risk identification and prevention mechanisms so crucial now and into 2050.

I was intrigued by the studio's research and proposition because it places designers as one agent of change in a co-ordinated effort and also looks toward finding opportunities for designers to take on greater role in society and government in the future. Unfortunately the studio session didn't run, but I did get to speak to Landon Brown who heads up the research initiative within Toshiko Mori Architects which is named Visionarc.

The studio presented a provocative keynote the following day which called for designers to change current modes of practice and step outside our known discipline of design and engage with others. The studio also asked designers to: seek to define problems from the top (rather than just "inherit" them); work toward directing policy; visualise strategy; facilitate know-how; direct planning; and identify blindspots in opportunity and risk.

Emily Pilloton's keynote on her initiative, Project H Design also called for a change in current modes of practice. Project H, as she described, was driven by what she sees as a need for an "industrial design revolution." Pilloton's initiative engages product designers to do work for the developing world and in her keynote, she presented reflections on Project H in the form of 6 design roles. These were:

There is no design without (critical) action;
Work with, not for;
Start local and scale globally;
Create systems, not stuff;
Document, share and measure;
Build (the latter what Pilloton described as a "lost art for designers" these days).

Some of the principles are the same as those discussed and outlined by John Thackara, for example in his book, In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World (2005). Speaking of books, Pilloton also just published a book this year on Project H and "product design that empowers" called, Design Revolution. One of Pilloton's final slides was, Project H in numbers, and here they are for your interest:

Other keynotes on Day 2 included ones from Arup, who presented their work on the Design 2050 Challenge which imagined the world in 2050, and Philips, who presented the scenarios for the future of healthcare 2050.

These were the last presentations I was able to attend as I had a flight to catch to Sydney that afternoon. I really enjoyed my time at the conference. It was fascinating to see how designers were seeing our world in 2050 and the provocations and propositions they presented to inspire and enthuse the design community to not just follow the future, but take a bigger role in creating it.

Other related links
Icisd World Design Congress event archive on the Icsid website

Icsid Education Conference, 22 November 2009

2009-12-18T08:01:00.002Z

The day after Service Design Thinks, I flew to Singapore to present my paper, Perspectives on the changing role of the designer: Now and to the future, at the Icsid (International Council of Societies of Industrial Design) Education Conference.

The theme of the conference was design education 2050. The intent of my paper and presentation was not to say how design education in 2050 should be, but inform design educators on what designers were doing today in the context of the public and social sectors. I hoped this might help inform pathways for educating tomorrow's designers.

I spoke about the design projects in Dott 07 as exemplars of where some designers were doing work today and profiled the different roles of the designer I interpreted from my research on Dott 07 (see image below for the seven dominant roles I drew from the Dott projects).

Seven roles of the designer in Dott 07

I also talked about the broader context of which this was all happening and how there were several enabling factors right here in the UK which help create an industry of design consultancies working with the public and social sector. These factors included the policy context, access to funding and enterprise tools, the open-mindedness of clients etc.

Finally I talked about what I have come to find in my research around this movement of 'designing for social good' (which has several names such as design for social impact, social design etc). I mapped the numerous initiatives (programmes of design projects) which were happening around the globe to demonstrate design's and the designer's contribution to society (see below). Included on the map was Dott 07 but also Project H, of which the organisation's founder, Emily Pilloton would be a keynote at the following Icsid World Design Congress.

Map of research-led and practice-led initiatives in designing for social good from my conference paper, 'Perspectives on the changing role of the designer: Now and to the future'

The feedback I received on my paper presentation was really positive, and the conference delegates had excellent things to say about Dott 07 and its project and how inspired they were to hear of them. Many delegates approached me to say that they had definitely thought about designers contributing in this way, but had not known that initiatives like Dott 07 existed with projects that had already happened.

Presenters at the Icsid Design Education Conference

In summation for the rest of the conference, I have to be honest and say that I found it difficult to take all that much away from the presentations I saw. The theme was very broad and I didn't feel as if the presentations I saw addressed the theme in a direct way. I felt some presentations didn't address the 'so what' for design education 2050. This was a bit disappointing, but maybe the theme was too broad for a one-day conference with presentations a maximum of 20 minute each in length- a very small amount of time to sink one's teeth into the subject matter and have a good discussion about it.

But having said all that, I did meet some really great people at this conference who were enthused, inspired and passionate about design education for tomorrow's designers. It was also great to visit the Temasek Polytechnic who hosted the conference and provided exceptional hospitality including a lovely lunch under the sun on the college grounds.

During lunch we got to tour the Polytechnic and I noticed the Greater than 60 Design Centre (though we didn't get to tour inside). The Centre addresses the demographic of the aging population and how design can provide "ideas and solutions that will make the ageing lifestyle a creative and an exciting one."

The following Icsid World Design Congress was a bigger conference focusing on design in 2050. It got several design studios from around the world to propose their ideas for what design in 2050 could look like. I'll report on this shortly so stay tuned!

Published paper in the Australiasian Medical Journal, Nov 2009

2009-12-17T07:45:00.000Z

Last month, the Australiasian Medical Journal (AMJ) published a 4-part series special issue on design and health.

Image from the AMJ website

Editors of the journal, Moyez Jiwa and Christopher Kueh, write in their Editorial titled, 'Designing the Future in Health':

The design of the structures in which we work, rest and play serve the health agenda by ensuring that all who use those facilities, irrespective of their physical or cognitive capacity are able to contribute to society. Designers also claim that human emotion is a very significant confounding variable in design for health. Therefore authors in this special edition of the AMJ suggest that the aesthetic qualities of the objects and symbols around us, indeed the very clothes our healers choose to wear, have a significant impact on our experiences and ultimately on the speed of recovery when we are ill [...] We seek to foster the debate which will ultimately change the way we craft solutions to global health care problems from dementia to deafness, from the packaging of medicines to how we find our way around hospitals, from tools to measure the severity of pain to the design of websites to promote self help.

I am pleased to announce that Deborah Szebeko (Founder and Director of thinkpublic) and I had our paper on the Dott 07 project, Alzheimer 100, published in the 3rd of the 4-part series.

We worked on this paper for many months earlier this year. Our intent was to give insight into the Alzheimer 100 project and the co-design practices of thinkpublic. The paper is titled, 'Co-designing for dementia: The Alzheimer 100 project' and if you click on the title, it will automatically download a pdf of our paper. Otherwise, visit the AMJ website where our paper sits alongside other design and health papers in Volume 1, No. 12, Design and Health III.

If you get a chance to read our paper, please let us know if you have any thoughts or feedback (positive and/or critical) as we'd love to hear from you!

I feel really honoured that we had the opportunity be part of the journal's initial design and health conversation. I'm excited to see where the AMJ goes from here in discussing and debating design and health, contributing valuable stories, insights and lessons for the future of healthcare and livelihoods of everyone in society.

Service Design Thinks 2, 19 November 2009

2009-12-16T11:54:00.005Z

Last month, the second Service Design Thinks night happened in London at the Sense Loft in Soho.

The theme of the night was to discuss service design at scale.

We had three brilliant speakers:

Steven Baker: Who talked about designing a mobile banking service for 21st century Africa called M-PESA which went from 0 - 2 million customers in just one year;
Julia Schaeper: Who has been working within the 4th largest organisation in the world, the UK's National Health Service (NHS). Julia spoke about building design capability within the NHS to upskill people to support cultural change; and
James Gardner: Who spoke about service innovation within one of the UK’s largest banking groups.

We have more photos on Flickr here. On the night, we also launched the global servicedesigning.org website which hosts several other city chapters. Alongside London (UK) the cities of Amsterdam (Netherlands), Sydney (Australia) and Sao Paulo (Brazil) are now connected and bringing service designing people together.

If you would like to be a city host, please get in touch with us on london@servicedesigning.com and add to the network of events for people who are service designing around the world.

LTA Newsletter | November 09

2009-12-15T15:09:00.004Z

LTA Newsletter | October 09

2009-11-14T13:49:00.004Z

Click on the image and you'll be able to read the text. The blue links won't work with the jpeg, they only work with a pdf version. If you would like to be emailed pdfs of my monthly research updates, please email me at fiorucci [at] hotmail [dot] com.

BusinessWeek's 21 people who will change business

2009-11-02T18:26:00.003Z

I'm probably a bit late on this news, but I just wanted to point out this interesting article by BusinessWeek who profiled some known and familiar faces to me. The list of 21 designers compiled by BusinessWeek identifies intelligent and innovative thinkers looking to shake things up in the business world. A special mention and congrats to Ré Dubhthaigh, co-founder of Radarstation (UK) and Quinn Chow, who currently works at my former workplace, 2nd Road (Australia). Great work guys!

While you're on the site, check out the top 39 design master's and MBA programmes from North America, Europe, Asia, South America and Australia that integrate design thinking and business.

Design for development: Seeing beyond the world of wealth, 10 October 2009

2009-10-16T16:17:00.001+01:00

On a sunny Saturday afternoon, a group of us gathered inside Oxo Tower's riverside warehouse, the Bargehouse, to discuss and debate issues in Design for development: Seeing beyond the world of wealth.

The discussion was hosted by the MA Design for Development class at Kingston University along with Anne Chick who leads this very first year of the course. Anne summaried the course as a, "pathway for design activists" exploring, "who they are, what they do, what their subject is..." The first ever DfD class just graduated, so coinciding with the discussion was a small exhibition of the seven graduating students this year.

The discussion was driven by the question: "How can the benefits of design be extended beyond the world's wealthy?" and after a small analysis of the question itself, discussions began among the 3-person panel which included John Thackara (author, founder of international network and conference Doors of Perception and former Programme Director of Dott 07), Ann Thorpe (author and PhD researcher) and Guy Robinson (Director of Sprout Design). The event was chaired by, Alistair Fuad-Luke (author and design facilitator).

The event was quite long (3.00-5.30pm) so I shall do a short summary of what each speaker said and also bullet points some of the following discussion. I had a few notes and questions of my own which I'll share with you at the end of the post.

Speaker summary
John raised four practical points in response to the question. He said that:

We need to start (in the location of) where we are and think about how to translate questions into design questions;
Designing for development is by and with people;
We need to empower people to do what we do (for sustainability in the project itself); and
We need to think about whole systems and the designer's role as facilitator in bringing people together to be the host or placeholder of conversations among groups of people.

Ann discussed some great issues, which I felt weren't adequately explored in the following discussion. She questioned the current professional design business model of client services. She says this model makes it challenging to set up a design studio to do work for the developing world. She asked a further question: who else is the client in the developing world? There are many stakeholders here. Ann identified a few existing professional design business models:

Institutional ie. design companies such as IDEO who are working in this area
Pro bono (of which I have seen many such initiatives as Architecture for Humanity use)
Altruism ie. volunteering (such as Design 21: Social Design Network)
Academia ie. involving students in live design projects (such as Rural Studio)

Of the institutional and pro bono models, we might group the work we do done under the umbrella of a social enterprise. After outlining this topology, Ann asked: So what economic models exist for designers in this area? Doing design work for development is well and good, but designers need to make a living too.

She also went on to ask: Is what designers do in the space of development, a political act? Ann thinks so. This led her to discuss design in the political sphere and the lack of experience designers have with engaging with politics directly. And designers can engage with politics on both on a national level (eg. the recent US national design policy initiative) and local level (and I am quite sure all the spaces inbetween).

Guy spoke about the role of the designer, reflecting that in his practice his role has ranged from that of a professional consultant, to facilitators, to researchers, to innovators and entrepreneurs (which provides nice support for my own research). Guy extended a bit on Ann's point on design business models saying that they needed to be more innovative if we are to spread and empower design ingenuity in others.

In the Q&A, a few questions/comments I noted down were:

In the context of development, designers are seen as craft makers, and not enough on the more political or strategic end
What are the skills and knowledge of designers in this context?
What is special about designers?
What is our IP?

My notes and reflections (or maybe I should call them my key questions)
In research, it's great to have loads of time to read and think about addressing questions which are raised in practice. I know as a designer, I just had to find a way to stop and reflect, because being in delivery-mode all the time just kept on raising new questions adding to the already long list I already had. The discussion on Saturday however raised more questions for me (but that's ok because they are actually questions I have been mulling over too):

Is it a role for the designer to also be engaged with politics? I tend to think we do it already by default, communicating our message via design propositions and solutions because we are unhappy with the status quo. But if we did think of design as a political act, would that change the way we looked at and approached our work?
Are there economic models out there to support designing for development? Or do we have to really work with the current context and think of creative new ways to make a living as well as work in areas we feel passionate about? I always think we just need to talk to an economist about this. Or maybe it's an entrepreneur, or venture capitalist, or someone doing research/working in economics and/or business.
How do we make design relevant to the various contexts we are wanting to work within? For example, how do we go about making design relevant to development agencies if they currently understand designers as crafts people? The same kind of question parallels for design and business space as well, because most business people (like my friends in banking, finance, law, accounting etc) still mostly understand designers as only stylists, decorators etc.
What is our role (skills, knowledge, IP, position in politics etc.) in these new contexts? I can kind of help answer that one in my PhD research, but Dott 07 was about development in the developed world. Nothing wrong with that, but I am interested in our role in other contexts too, such as those countries we might call transition economies or the developing world/global south.

So, those are some of my notes from the Design for Development panel discussion last Saturday. I really enjoyed the energy, the issues, the questions... I do have more extensive responses to the questions raised by the panel, audience and my own as listed, but a blog post is not quite the appropriate space to discuss this. So I tried to respond to some of these questions in a paper I just submitted last night for a conference happening next month. I'll let you how I progress with it. But the paper was more beginning the conversation (thanks to the word limit). When it's been reviewed/published etc. maybe I'll blog some of the uncut, unedited version here.

Service Design Drinks, 23 October 2009

2009-10-02T18:00:00.006+01:00

We're doing it again! Come join Service Design Drinks in London.

Date: 23 October 2009
Location: The Slaughtered Lamb, Clerkenwell. 34-35 Great Sutton St, London, EC1V 0DX
Time: 6pm onwards

I'll be handing out small red stickers so we know who we can talk to about service design :) You don't need to have one, but the pub is open to the public so it makes it that tiny bit easier to identify others.

You can find more info on this forthcoming Service Design Drinks on Eventbrite.

Or visit servicedesigning.com where we'll be posting films from Service Design Thinks shortly!

Interdisciplinary discovery through design workshop, Monday 28 September 2009

2009-09-29T13:21:00.011+01:00

Yesterday I was at the Interdisciplinary discovery through design workshop, hosted by Tom Inns of the University of Dundee and who leads the research initiative, Designing for the 21st Century.

Here's what the workshop invitation said:

The Designing for the 21st Century research initiative was originally conceived as a platform for building new interdisciplinary research partnerships between the engineering and technology communities and researchers in the arts & humanities... A broad portfolio of projects have delivered on this agenda, interestingly however, many have gone far wider bringing in researchers and stakeholders from across the UK research council communities. In all of these projects a design research perspective has allowed interdisciplinary research teams to explore a range of business and social issues in new ways.

This one-day workshop will profile the work of six research teams that have worked in this way. Participants at the workshop will then have the opportunity to reflect on the emergent roles for design research within the interdisciplinary research landscape and strategies that might be adopted to capitalise on this approach.

Throughout the workshop, it wasn't defined if we were talking about design research in practice or in academia. But the good thing for my own research is that it is currently working in both contexts ie. My research topic looks at the changing and expanding role of the designer, and my research process is a discussion about a researcher looking into design (the latter is key to a PhD because one's research process needs to be articulated in order to asses the reliability and validity of research findings or theory).

The workshop was held a the Imperial War Museum in London and was well-attended by mostly academia, quite a number of people from the Design Council and a few PhDers such as myself as good friend, Qin Han, aka Design Generalist.

I did tweet some notes during the event, but operating my new phone isn't quite at the level of efficient translation of my thoughts, but I do want to thank Lauren (redjotter), Fergus, Tamsin, James and Nick who responded to a few tweets (and I did try and include some of your comments in the conversations) and thanks to those who watched updates.

The workshop began with a presentation from Tom. He spoke about the current archipelago of design practice which sees many different islands represent current and emerging practices of design such as product design and service design.

Tom and Tom's archipelago of design

I love this analogy because it not only maps a terrain but also reflects the state of the different design practices, which are always similar in nature but aren't often connected in any other way. It also illustrates many new islands of design practice, which have popped up alongside the traditional modes of product, fashion and communication. These new island include service design, social design, design for development, design for sustainability etc.

Furthermore, Tom's archipelago is influenced by deltas (design history), currents (such as design thinking), lighthouses (such as the Design Council), cold fronts (lack of research funding for design), oceans of uncertainty, banks (of management), inlets, streams and the analogy goes on.

The research projects for the Designing for the 21st Century initiative were to act as ships either navigating the islands, or landing on them to explore ethnographically what was happening on the islands. Either way they were, as Tom mentioned, to be the Scott of Antarctica- finding new knowledge about design, especially since traditional notions of design have changed (or expanded) over time. One of Tom's slides showed this and below I have adapted a short cut version of his slide:

Traditional notions of design -------> Extended roles of design

generating ideas ---------------> facilitating ideas
managing trade offs ---------------> negotiating value
visualising the tangible ---------------> visualising the invisible
accommodating uncertainty ---------------> navigating complexity
profiling users ---------------> mediating stakeholders
synthesising futures ---------------> synthesising strategy

Adapted from Tom inns presentation for IDD, 28 Sept 2009

We then had five presentations from the Designing for the 21st Century initiative to give us insight into the initiative's projects. The projects profiled were:

Improving healthcare through design research by Prof Alastair Macdonald, Glasgow School of Art: Looked at how visualisation and participation could help in healthcare in the Ideal States project
Mobilising older workers through design research by Prof Jeremy Myerson & Jo-Anne Bichard, Royal College of Art, London: Looked at reinventing the workplace for the aging population in a project called Welcoming Workplace
Engaging audiences through design research by Prof Chris Rust, Sheffield Hallam University: Looked at the My Exhibition project which sought to explore how “affective” communication could help personalise experiences.
Designing interdisciplinary research by Dr Lucy Kimbell, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford: Looked at the Designing for Services project which explored how service designers worked with SME's involved in science and technology
Reducing crime through design research by Adam Thorpe & Prof Lorraine Gammon, University of the Arts, London: Looked at the Bikeoff Project where design was used to help reduce bike crime.

To give an overall feel for the projects, some commonalities I noted seen across the projects included:

The wide variety of stakeholders used on each project
This made the methodology complex, such as in Lorraine Gammon and Adam Thorpe's project where they attempted to visualise the process (check out their methodology map here)
A bit of theory was often overlaid on the project to help explain it, and most of the time the theory was literature from another discipline
Most projects were done "through" design ie. the academic researcher was doing the project as well as reflecting upon it. Lucy Kimbell's project however took a more ethnographic approach to exploring designing services in SME's. But this last point raised the question I had at the beginning of the day which was, were we talking about design research in academia or in practice?

After the five presentations, it was a break for lunch and back for a workshop.

The workshop asked us to reflect on the presentations and contribute our notes on what was the role of design research? More specifically, what perspectives, skills and methods do design researchers bring to the table?

Below are some tweets I got back when I asked the question on Twitter:

Jamesamperi: "Role of design research- to inform, inspire & set parameters around the activity of design giving it a better chance of success"

fergusbisset: "Role of Des. Res. is to make explicit what has hitherto been implicit within process of design and amongst the design community"

TAMSINA: "Role of design research... [doing all we can] for the sake of designing awesome experiences"

In our group we talked about the spectrum of doing design research in academia and in practice. Some differences were noted, such as more time and more theory being overlaid in academia. Some key words we identified among our individual scribbles in response to the question were:

Giving people a voice
Navigating uncertainty
Openness
Communication
Flexibility

Under the the question, what skills and methods do design researchers contribute we said:

Flexibility
Rapid learning
Iteration
Awareness (of people and markets)
Visualisation (making the implicit explicit, thanks Fergus)
People-centred
Bringing insight

The same kinds of words did keep on popping up and TAMSINA tweeted in response to the 2nd group of words: "Basically all the skills of a designer then!?! Design research is an oxymoron." The first part of Tamsin's comment was later repeated by a delegate in the final group discussion.

Tom did a quick overview of all the posters, drawing our attention to the fact that openness came up in many of the posters in response to the first question. Delegates raised issues with this saying that with openness, who owns the project? And also, how do Uni's teach this?

Under skills and methods, Tom drew out the fact that participation was the dominant theme, and mentioned that workshops were a great platform to allow this. A delegate commented in response to this theme that design and its visual nature allows a more democratic process as its not tied to a particular vocabulary.

The final exercise we did was listing challenges and opportunities for design research and what some action steps could be. My small group chose to focus on Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and we noted that the key challenge was having all disciplines in silos and a key opportunity would be to have them all work together by identifying, supporting and rewarding a catalyst. We also spoke about shifting paradigms of HEI's from places of teaching to places of learning. It reminded me of Sir Ken Robinson's awesome TED talk where he discusses creativity and how schools kill creativity.

In the final discussion for the day, more observations and issues were raised. Here are some I noted (but I think Qin might have more soon):

Design academia and practice need a better relationship
We have been talking about "different manners" of design research today
Design as a word has many uses which can be confusing

The workshop ended at 4pm and I went home a bit exhausted and soaked like a sponge! But it was great to hear more about the Designing for the 21st Century projects, Tom's design archipelago, reflect on design research (in academia and in practice), meet new people, old friends and also consider where my own research sits in the wider context of academia and practice.

- Update -

For further reflections on the workshop, see Qin Han's Design Generalist blog post. She goes indepth on the Bikeoff project and also Lucy Kimbell's presentation on Designing for Services.

Lauren Currie's blog has a public lecture of Tom's at Dundee University's MA Exhibition. Titled, The End of Design, both Lauren and Qin tell me Tom adapted this lecture for the workshop presentation written about in this blog post. Lauren's also posted a video of the lecture, so check it all out here.

Greengaged: Systems for common good

2009-09-22T17:12:00.008+01:00

Today I was at the Greengaged event, Co-opportunity: A Day for World Builders. I only stayed for half a day as there's a PhD deadline looming at the moment... The event was hosted by the Design Council and asked:

How could we create (banking and financial) systems for the common good?

I was attracted to the event for a few reasons:

The event was curated and facilitated by author of The New Marketing Manifesto and The Green Marketing Manifesto, John Grant, who's work I have been familiar with when I was a MA Business student. Grant wrote the best marketing "textbook" I came across. It was the closest I saw marketing "theory" come to placing people at the centre of product and service development and marketing;
Co-production/co-design/co-creation looked to be keys theme to the day;
The opportunity to think about how one might re-invent the banking and financial system. When I worked in business and management consulting, most of my clients were banks or financial institutions. They were all after disruptive innovation, paying more attention to the customer experience and using design to do this but also for innovation and transformation. But today's work shop threw up a whole bundle of issues, I have to say my previous work, largely overlooked. These issues had to do with sustainability, common good (though some of our projects were leaning toward ideas for community) and global issues (while some of the projects recognised the global context our projects weren't so focused on these issues).

The event attracted an interesting mix of people. From designers, to entrepreneurs, to educators, to people in advertising and a former banker. The agenda was sketched out by John, and peppered with presentations for example we heard about the Brixton Pound project from Josh Ryan Collins who's been working on the project at the New Economics Foundation. Josh (about to undertake a PhD himself next year on the subject) spoke about the concept of money and what its functions were in the real world. I had never really thought about it much before so they were interesting questions to reflect upon. Josh also stated how, "everyone has a skill that is valued by other people" but went on to say that our currency system is unable to effectively value those skills. After Josh's presentation, the (potential) combination between local skills and local currencies was swirling around in my head.

John's mapping of the day's agenda

But the day moved on at pace and continued with was lots of brainstorming of ideas and issues and John shared many stories of systems for common good that he's been identifying and researching for his forthcoming book, Co-opportunity (by the way, the book is being co-authored in a similar way to Charles Leadbeater's book We Think, which was done where people could access the progress of chapters and feedback to the author. Click on the following links to check out Co-opportunity and feedback to John).

The workshop

We also shared many examples, of systems for common good, among ourselves. One of our tasks of the day was to come up with new ideas for banking and finance using existing systems/models and connecting them to a banking and finance context. Some ideas from the groups included:

Mortgage pooling: An idea inspired by babysitting credits among a community of families where time credits are exchanged for babysitting each others children;
Banks as museums: Thinking about the experience of banks like one might think of designing a museum to appeal to the five senses;
Making banks more transparent: In the way Facebook is transparent with providing insight into the lives of our friends;
Peer-to-peer recommendations for banks: Which reminded me a bit of Tripadvisor, Ebay or the way one can leave comments on Amazon.com.

The morning provided lots of food for thought, much like the RSA event last night, so it was a pity to have to go home to continue tackling the research methodology chapter of the PhD. But am learning how important it is to punctuate a long process like a PhD with bits of inspiration, diversity and loads of new stories.

The RSA debates: Design, cities and citzenship in the 21st century

2009-09-21T21:35:00.006+01:00

Tonight I attended a live debate at the RSA titled, Cities and Citizenship: Surviving the 21st Century. Here's what came into my mailbox many weeks ago, and what the website said:

What does it mean to be a citizen in the 21st century? What is the relationship between the way we design our city and our perception and experience of citizenship? Is it time to redefine Londoners’ obligations, responsibilities and rights to improve the liveability of our city? Are we equipped to tackle the environmental and economic challenges we face?

These questions and more will be tackled in a debate on Cities and Citizenship which kicks off the London Development Agency’s New Urban Agenda Debates in association with RSA Design and Society.

There were four speakers and one Chair and the subject in debate was urban planning and architecture and their contribution to citizenship through the design of cities and spaces. It was a bit off-the-beaten-track from what my research is directly about, but I always think it's good to gain other perspectives from the expansive field of design. Below are some notes I jotted down, and some questions the debate raised for my research.

The first speaker was social entrepreneur and founder of the community support organisation Bromley on Bow Centre, Lord Andrew Mawson. In his opening he said:

"Governments understand the shape of the forest, but don't know what's going on underneath the trees."

He emphasised that we shouldn't be designing our cities top-down nor bottom-up, but inside-out ie. working with people from within communities and organisations. This point supports some of the good practice models and lessons from Dott 07. Projects like Alzheimer 100, DaSH and OurNewSchool all took the approach of working inside-out, but they also worked outside-in to bring in the end-user perspective to help better decision-making.

Lord Mawson also emphasised people and connections, something Maggie Breslin, a designer from the Mayo Clinic recently discussed in her presentation at the recent Transformation Symposium hosted by the Mayo Clinic (13-15 September 2009).

At the end of his presentation Lord Mawson stated that we needed:

vision + leadership + design to connect the people from within

That's spot on, but I wondered who exactly can take on such a role? It's most likely not done by one person, but a few. In vision + leadership + design, designers can do the design very well, but is it also their role to do the vision + leadership too? If so, what if designers don't get to have that level of influence immediately? What is our point of entry into organisations? That entry point rarely allows us to create the vision (yes, designers are good at communicating and devising a vision, but we often need someone to invite us to help create the vision first) or be the leadership (again, designers can be leaders, but entering into an organisation or community as strangers doesn't usually mean we have credibility or influence straight away).

The other speakers were architect, Wolf Prix, whom I lost track of, but I did pick up where he mentioned that city planning should take a leaf from Muhammad Ali's book. Ali was a great boxer because he could change his strategy during a fight ie. spot the problem before it became a problem. I agree that there is a good lesson in there for city planners, especially since a lot of city planning is about systems and in previous experience, problems in systems usually only become visible when the system is already very broke.

Author and journalist, Anna Minton, spoke about the argument in her new book, Ground Control : Fear and Happiness in the Twenty-First-Century City, where she critiques urban design as not being democratic enough today, and how it is linked to social behaviour. Anna discussed "defensible space architecture" ie. the implementation of things such as CCTV and the placement of security guards which creates the perception that the corresponding space is one of restricted behaviour and is unsafe, doing away with the idea of natural surveillance. The clear link between the design object/space and social behaviour was really interesting because I know a lot of designing for social issues/impact/innovation is focused on behaviour change. It made me think, should we be reviewing architecture, looking at discussions which have already taken place around the connection between the design and behaviour?

The final speaker was Chief Executive of the RSA, Matthew Taylor. He asked a series of questions, but the first was the most interesting: How can buildings services, spaces etc. give us stories (or clues) as to what kinds of citizens we should be today?

It's a fascinating question to ponder and I am going to leave my notes and reflections there. Will have more to blog from tomorrow at the Design Council's Greengaged event, Co-opportunity: A day for world builders.

Design Collaboration: Northumbria Uni's brand new resource

2009-09-17T09:18:00.001+01:00

My friends and Northumbria colleagues, Emma, Joyce and Kath have been busy working on the brand new DesignCollaboration.org website:

"A space for design tutors to reflect, review and explore collaborative learning in design teams."

A screen grab of the DesignCollaboration.org website

While the site currently says its for design teachers, I believe it is relevant to any design project that demands collaboration. The site contains three key sections:

Explore collaborations: a place where one can see good practice design collaborations
Share your projects: where once can upload collaborative projects
Teaching resources: containing learning activities to help collaboration in projects

My research is most relevant to the Teaching Resources part of the site where one can find tools to help identify roles of designers in projects. Other content at this part of the site include tools to:

Form and mange a design team
Understand the design team
Communicate within the design team
Reflect among the design team
Assess the collaboration

There are also some neat filmed interviews with designers on the site. It's always great to hear different design perspectives straight from designers themselves.

The site was only launched last night, so more additions are to be made. Designcollaborations.org hits on a key issue for designers as collaboration is no more something a designer 'might do' rather its an essential skill for today's designers working in our highly connected, complex and technological society.

Photos from the Designcollaboration.org launch at Northumbria Uni last night

Redesigning Business Summit: The Big Rethink

2009-09-15T18:11:00.005+01:00

An exciting partnership between the Design Council and The Economist will host the Rethinking Business Summit to be held in London from 11-12 March 2010. The summit will explore high level design thinking in business. Here's an overview from the website:

Powerful forces are revolutionising business. It's happened before and it's happening again. Today's challenges mean customer needs are changing and fast. We need to start thinking of new ways to compete. The Economist's Redesigning Business Summit will show you how.

Procter and Gamble, Samsung, Google, Amazon and Apple know what's needed - they use design thinking.

The Economist, in association with the Design Council, is inviting business leaders to sample the fresh thinking that business needs to seize opportunities in a volatile world.

LTA Newsletter | August 09

2009-09-11T09:04:00.001+01:00

Reflections on Service Design Thinks 1

2009-09-09T13:07:00.010+01:00

Last Thursday, 3 September 2009, around 50 people gathered at the Sense Loft in London to attend the very first Service Design Thinks (SDT) event. Thinks grew out of the design network that were attending Service Design Drinks, an informal gathering of people interested in service design to meet and share a few drinks every two months or so.

A fuzzy photo from my mobile of Service Design Drinks 3 in April 2009 at the Slaughtered Lamb, Clerkenwell

Service Design Thinks 1 was, "The first in a series of practically focussed talks and debates featuring an inspiring range of practitioners from across the service design and innovation spectrum."

The night had a great turn out, and lots of fun (see some photos I uploaded on Flickr this week). Nick Marsh opened SDT 1 profiling four broad areas for presentation and discussion. These were:

Evaluation
Research
Design and
Management

Nick opens the first Service Design Thinks event

SDT1 audience with Noar and Jaimes filming and recording the event

The following notes are my reflections on the four presentations, mostly drawn in relation to my current research.

The first presentation was on evaluation by Alice Casey, who recently began working at NESTA as a project manager. Alice was scheduled later in the evening, but had to catch a train to Scotland that night so we made a last minute change in the programme and began with evaluation. The move seemed in line with one of Alice's key messages that was- when it comes to design projects we need to be thinking about evaluation earlier in the piece.

Alice spoke about how service design project could better address evaluation. She shared four key learnings with us from her side. These learnings were:

It's never too soon to think about evaluation;
Involve people in the evalution process;
Appreicate the policy context; and
Tell a compelling story, as "not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted" (as she quoted from Einstein).

Next up was Jo Harrington of Engine who talked about research in service design projects. Engine have always been very open with their design research tools (see their some of their key methods here) and Jo shared with us some tools he used on a recent Engine project. I thought the most interesting part of Jo's presentation was how he went beyond the research tools and spoke about the importance of personal devices when one is doing research. For example Jo talked about the "ethnographer's jumper" and "the cup of tea" as devices which further help break down barriers between researcher and participant. Jo and Re (in the audience during Q&A) both spoke about how tools mediate the relationship and interactions between researcher and participant, and it's really up to the researcher to make everything else happen.

Joel Bailey, from The Team, who kindly sponsored drinks for the night, gave us insight into work he had done in the Government and how he used design on various levels- from cosmetically changing the look of websites to creating better usability, which was linked to hard evidence that design does make a difference in the public sector. One interesting thing I noted from Joel's presentation, and also Karl's (who was to follow) was their comments on not necessarily calling what they do service design and that labels usually happened in accordance to what the client calls it. In the case of Joel, Government-speak was more "service transformation" than service design, a reference to the 2006 Varney report on Service transformation: A better service for citizens abd businesses, a better deal for the taxpayer.

Karl Humphreys from MoMat was the final presenter and spoke about how we could better bring stakeholders together in a project through propositions and prototyping. He profiled propositions as being clear on the 'why' and 'what' of the project. In his experience, Karl found that propositions were a great point of reference for the team at any time throughout the project. In prototyping, Karl spoke about how one must build to show an idea and also build to discuss the idea. He mentioned that where things weren't prototyped, the project idea often suffered in the long run. He added that prototyping, was live and also interesting for the client and organisation, Karl called it, "great PR!"

SDT finished at 9pm and some of us grabbed another drinks at the local pub. For those who weren't able to attend SDT, all the presentations were filmed and will be uploaded on the website servicedesigning.

SDT 1 was a great success and only the beginning of what we hope will continue and move forward to contribute to the work, practice and projects of designing for services in the private, public and social sectors.

Dott 07 case studies published by the Design Council

2009-08-19T22:51:00.002+01:00

The Design Council have recently published a set of case studies from Dott 07. Follow the links below to find out about how designers in Dott 07 addressed challenges in education, energy, food, health and mobility.

The Designs of the Time (Dott 07) Festival, took place on the banks of the Tyne River between 16-28 October 2007.
The festival showcased the projects of the Dott 07. Photo by me.

Alzheimer 100
Led by thinkpublic asked, What practical steps can be taken to improve daily life for people with dementia – and that of their carers?

Design and Sexual Health (DaSH)
Led as a partnership between Options UK and Northumbria University's Centre for Design Research asked, How can sexual health services be made easier to access and use – and less stigmatised?

Low Carb Lane
Lead by live|work, found out, Leading a lifestyle with low environmental impact is a great intention, but can low income households afford it?

Move Me
Also led by live|work questioned, How can people from a small rural community – where public transport is infrequent and expensive and not everybody owns a car – get where they need to go without the need for new cars and roads?

OurNewSchool
Led by Engine saw that, Schools are often isolated from their community and don’t always provide a space that’s conducive to different sorts of learning and includes facilities for different community groups.

New Work
Led by Enabling Concepts with live|work saw that, Working in a very small business can be difficult. So can working people help each other solve the practical everyday problems?

Urban Farming
Led by David Barrie, Debra Solomon and Zest Innovations identified that, Global food systems are not sustainable. How can design help to create food within city limits?

EcoDesign Challenge
Led by Nick Devitt asked, How can young people concerned about the environment take practical action to improve their immediate surroundings?

From talking to Twitter: 10 Levels of Intimacy in Communication by Ji Lee

2009-08-07T15:36:00.007+01:00

This week I have been thinking a lot about how much Twitter has lodged its place in daily life. Ji's impeccable timing with this visualisation sums up more than I can say in words. Here's his neat graphic on 10 Levels of Intimacy in Communication.

Click on the image below to see more detail or visit Ji Lee's website, Please Enjoy, for this and more witty truths.

Universities exploring Service Design- An update

2009-08-05T13:42:00.004+01:00

In October last year, with the help of many others, I compiled a long list of Universities exploring Service Design. In February this year, Jeff Howard's Design for Service weblog tracks developments from US Service Design education. Leave a message for Jeff if you know of any other service design courses or universities not present on either lists.

LTA Newsletter | July 09

2009-08-03T12:49:00.008+01:00

I don't think I posted one from last month, but here's an update of what I have been up to in the month of July, and some progress on my research and thinking regarding the PhD.

Click on the image below and you'll be able to read the text. The blue links won't work with the jpeg, they only work with a pdf version. If you would like to be emailed pdfs of my monthly research updates, please email me at fiorucci [at] hotmail [dot] com.

Design and social change- entrepreneurship, economic paradigms and movements waiting to happen

2009-07-31T13:01:00.025+01:00

Today I read an article a good friend, and old colleague of mine, Natalie emailed me from Communications Arts magazine, titled Design ignites change: Design as social educator.

I have to admit, I have not read much from graphic or communications design of late. When it comes to discussing socially responsible graphic design, and as the article points out, I often find graphic design sees it a bit too narrowly in terms of working for not-for-profit clients and/or using environmentally friendly materials. Both of which are really important, but social responsibility goes deeper than that. The Design ignites change piece has actually made me reconsider my view on the discipline that I started out in as a designer. Mark, who authored the piece and also runs Worldstudio, a marketing and design agency, proposes some really interesting viewpoints which got me thinking about the viability of pursing socially responsible design.

The article brings up so many issues. I wish I could discuss them all here, but blog posting is not really for essays, and I am only blogging this because Communications Arts doesn't actually provide a platform for readers to discuss the article and provide their perspectives. In short, here are some interesting things I drew from the article.

The designer as social entrepreneur
Mark says:

"We designers have the ability to contribute so much more. As the definition of designer expands we should add social entrepreneur to the list."

Like this because it provides nice evidence for my own analysis on Dott 07, but I wanted to profile it here because it prefaced a simple, yet elegant explanation for what designers are doing as social entrepreneurs:

"Those designers in the forefront are using their design-thinking skills to develop and execute their own solutions to social problems-pushing the boundaries of what design can do."

The author gives the example of Rural Studio, which Mike told me about last week. Rural Studio gets architecture students out of the university studio and into the real world of designing and making/implementing community housing and social projects. These projects are undertaken in some of the most deprived areas of the USA, and designers also grapple with the reality of those less fortune than themselves.

Image from Rural Studio website

Economic paradigms for design
The article also brings up channels for showcasing design work as exemplars of design that ignites social change, and I have to say that as I was reading, I was expecting to be a bit disappointed as I thought the article would launch into something about how we should promote the social work and good, designers do. While it is great to provide evidence of what designers can do, it also begins to turn the attention of non-design audiences toward sentiments such as, "gee, look how pretty that piece of communication is" and reverts design back to its widely held perception of just making things look pretty.

But, Mark spends the rest of his article addressing critical issues that often don't have as much to do with designing per say, but other challenges designers must contend with in order to work in socially responsible design. Now this is the interesting bit.

Mark says:

"How do we create space for designers to do this type of work at the professional level where concern about the bottom line is often the driving force. All too often the professional design community generates a flurry of activity around social issues in the form of a manifesto, a symposium or conference without much follow-through. The road is paved with good intentions, but in comparison to all of the discussion, there rarely seem to be enough tangible results."

This is a question my supervisor, Bob and I have been discussing since we attended the Changing the Change Conference (CtC) in Turin over a year ago. The conference addressed broad issues in design and sustainability, and mostly from a design research point of view, so there were many, many academics, and a few designers, presenting on the potential good, design could do for society and the environment. Bob and I felt one key thing was not being addressed with enough weight at CtC, and that is what Bob calls the "economic paradigm" of designers working in these areas. ie. How do designers make a living while doing this kind of work?

I have to say though, I did see one presentation by Work Worth Doing (WWD) on this issue. WWD founder, Alex, talked about one of their projects, Now House, a demonstration of a low energy home.

Image from Now House Project website

It was in fact a R&D type project funded by one of their clients to explore the possibilities of low energy homes. At the end of his presentation, Alex, spoke of the difficulty in doing this kind of work where at the end of the day, he has to run a business and make a living.

So the question, as discussed with Bob and asked by designers Alex and Mark, burns in my mind. And it's also been interesting to see that this question seems to only be be asked by designers, and not addressed by those studying design in an academic sense. Having come from a business background as well, I have been quite interested in the business models of design, and the viability of projects such Now House and those run by Dott 07. Dott 07 was special, like Now House, because it guaranteed flexibility for designers to explore uncharted territories without the risk of losing funding to do so. But these opportunities are rare and don't come around often, so how does a designer make a living out of doing such projects? Mark says that attitudes need to change:

"... in order to create a sustainable model that not only promotes this type of work, but also encourages it in the marketplace."

Though I think Mark refers to attitudes of designers, but what about clients and commissioners of design? Is it a designer's responsibility to change that too? How far can designers go in doing this? Wouldn't it be great if someone could look at economic models for design to function in this space? The first step, might be to look at the design companies whom I listed in my post Design and social the social sector, who run businesses doing great design work on social issues.

Movements as motion or change in position
The final thing I want to say about Mark's article is that he critiques the fact that "movements" can be well-intentioned but not actually go further than that. He asks of movements such as the Designers Accord (DA) "a global coalition of designers, educators, and corporate leaders, working together to create positive environmental and social impact":

"Will the Designers Accord be yet another well-meaning but ineffective movement in design history?"

Logo from Designers Accord

Wikipedia says a movement is, "a motion, a change in position." I guess depending on your view of what a movement is, it can be a motion ie. a move forward in which DA is when one looks at its widespread support. And/or a movement can be a change in position, which the raises the fundamental ideological question of does it mean to be a designer today?

I think the discipline is really grappling with this now. When design students enter uni with an intention that they are about to spend 3 or 4 years making beautiful objects, this contrasts starkly against the journey of some, who get a little disenchanted with this because in the journey of discovering design, we see that the potential for design is that there is so much more to design (than just pretty objects. Though I agree with the fact we still need designers for this too).

And when this happens, we find ourselves in this fog... asking what exactly are we doing? Do we even call it design? And then when it comes to finding a job, do we take the traditional road which gives us job security and finance OR do we find/create our own thing/business to explore design + make a living + do what we want to do OR do we set up a community with intentions of adding to this movement OR do we take time out to try and figure out what this all means for design, designers and our own identity....

("..." is purposely added to indicate that there are probably many other avenues others might have taken)

On a final, final note Worldstudio is a partner in setting up a programme called Design Ignites Change which "promotes and encourages talented high school and college students across the country to use design thinking and innovation to create messages for, and solutions to, pressing social problems."

Service Design Thinks 1

2009-07-29T14:31:00.001+01:00

From Service Design Drinks to Service Design Thinks... join us on Thursday 3rd September at the Sense Loft.

Image from Senseloft.com

Here are some details on the event.

Beyond ‘what is it?’ towards ‘how do you do it well?’ Service Design Thinks is a forum for conversation and discussion around service design practice.

Building on the success of the growing Service Design Drinks network, Service Design Thinks is run by service designers, for service designers.

Each event presents inspiring perspectives and reflections on service design practice, to spark conversation and debate and ultimately, move service design thinking and practice forward.

The focus is on practical, inspiring stories and observations from people who design services every day. Each speaker will talk for 10 minutes, with time for questions and debate, followed by plenty of time for what Service Design Drinks is best known for - drinking, and talking about service design!

For this first session we’ve kept it simple and pulled together four speakers to discuss the four broad elements of a service design process - research, design, evaluation and management:

Research: Jo Harrington

They’re called hard to reach for a reason: Notes and perspectives on researching ‘other’ user groups.

Jo is a designer and social researcher with a background in working with young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. He currently works for Engine Service Design and is a board member of a homeless charity in London.

Design: Joel Bailey

The explosive website: How digital damages service experience

Joel has nine years experience using digital technologies to transform services. As Service Design Leader and Head of Transformational Government at businesslink.gov.uk he was responsible for integrating services across 19 government departments, at the same time as making them more user centred. A glutton for punishment, Joel’s now trying to do the same for healthcare, working with NHS.uk in his role as Director of Service Design at the Team.

Evaluation: Alice Casey

How was it for you?: Techniques for evaluting the effectiveness of user engagement in public service design

Alice is currently a project manager for the Big Green Challenge at the NESTA Lab. Prior to this she worked at the charity Involve looking at how people are engaged in the decisions that affect their lives, and how better public involvement can improve society, policy making and public services. She is also an RSA Design Directions judge.

Management: Karl Humphreys, Momat

Managing as designing: Client side thoughts on the challenge of managing multi disciplinary service design projects.

Karl is a freelance service design and innovation consultant, specializing in creating end to end service experiences. Prior to starting his own practice, MoMat, he worked at BAA as a Service Innovation Manager, and before that at Orange and Nortel Networks designing mobile services and products.

Service Design Thinks is organised by Nick Marsh, Jaimes Nel and Lauren Tan and the talks and questions will be recorded and published at: http://www.servicedesigning.com/

Many thanks to the Team for their support in providing generous refreshments sponsorship, and to Sense Worldwide for providing the remarkable Sense Loft as a venue.

The event is actually sold out. Please visit servicedesigning.com to sign up and leave us a message on the mailing list at the bottom of the page as we might have more tickets soon!

New Designers, London

2009-07-18T20:56:00.009+01:00

Each summer, New Designers, showcases design graduate work from a long list of design schools around the UK. I have actually never been to a New Designers show, but this year, I was asked by the Design Council if I could do a presentation that would give design graduates insight into what it's like working as a designer today.

A friend once said to me, at Uni we are taught just one way to use our design skills and creativity. The aim for my presentation was to show design grads other ways designers can, and have been, using their skills and creativity. I briefly profiled a dozen designers and their work, to show where design could go. The list extended from being social entrepreneurs to bringing design thinking to policy.

I think the presentation went down well. For design grads who have spent the last 3 to 4 years focused solely on product, graphics, fashion etc. it might seem a stretch to take their design skills and creativity into areas as unfamiliar as policy. But on Wednesday night's Awards Night, architect Amanda Levete, opened the night by saying:

‘There is a financial crisis, but there is not a creative crisis. It is an incredibly exciting moment, the moment to be bold, to think big and to think diagonally because hand in hand with creativity goes entrepreneurship...Your trump card is your creativity.’

After going through some inspiring work of designers, I talked about some skills to think about beyond design. Two days before the presentation, Ken Musgrave, Leader of Design Competencies at Dell, wrote on FastCompany's blog, Beyond Design, 10 Skills Designers Need to Succeed Now. In my bookmarks I also have marked, Design Observer's blog post on the Top Ten Things They Never Taught Me in Design School, and designer Rory Hamilton's website, Everything I Know, which Rory says is about getting years of design experience out of his head and into the world.

My presentation was the last of 4 presentations by the Design Council. The other presentations, delivered by Antonia and Tess, brought insights into graphic design and furniture design, and looked at aspects of setting up a design business.

After the presentations, I did a short tour of New Designers with my friend, and Class of 2009 design grad, Rachel. I first visited Northumbria University's Design For Industry stand. My friend Emma said it looked like an Apple store (nice).

We checked out the work of two award-winning Northumbria Uni grads (go UNN!). The first was New Designers Designer of the Year award winner, Nicola Morgan's amazing inter-locking garments.

And Robin Grasby's desk, which was awarded the 100% Design Award and looks like every designer's dream desk, kitted with a ruler running along the bottom, white board, drafting table and cutting mat (I was very tempted to ask where I could buy one myself).

I was also impressed by Goldsmith's exhibit, which didn't focus on design student work, rather on other important aspects of design, such as the design process (and it's vibrant creativity and messiness).

And also asking questions and engaging people in a conversation. One such, was this brilliant poster asking whether design should be political. Or not.

Looks pretty even to me... and looks like a good debate, if there were to be one. Here are some further comments.

They read:

Now more than ever! We must take responsibility
Design cannot be ignorant of the world it exists in
Design can change the world for the better = good politics
No... politics should be designed (good point RD, I know you wrote it!)
Yes, Gordon Brown is funny looking
Design anarchy

New Designers provided lots of inspiration and great vibes from design grads (even in this economic climate). When I got home from the show, I tweeted:

"Back from big day at New Designers. Best wishes to the class of 2009 design grads. The world needs your creativity!"

For other blogging on New Designers see:

Odd Things Does a nice critique of presentation spaces at New Designers this year. Next year design grads should definitely check out the post and discussions.

Leeds Festival of Design Activism: Postgraduate Research Colloquium. Thursday 2 July 2009

2009-07-09T08:45:00.003+01:00

On a sunny Thursday in Leeds, seven PhD students, two facilitators, two potential PhDers and one interloper attended the one-day Postgraduate Research Colloquium to share, explore, develop and discuss PhD research. Here's what the website said:

The Postgraduate Research Colloquium is intended for PhD students working in the field of Design Activism. It will provide an opportunity to explore critical issues in their doctoral studies and receive extensive feedback on their work from facilitators and fellow students.

Katie Hill, who organized the event intended the colloquium to be a comfortable space where PhDers could spend time talking about their research with other PhD peers. The sessions were PhD-student led, rather than academic-led (the latter being a common model for conferences).

We began the day with a short exercise to think and reflect on life as a PhDer. The exercise was a reminder that we have lives outside of our PhD’s. We listed three great things and three challenges with doing a PhD and stuck our Post-it notes on the wall. An interesting observation was that things like time, freedom and focus were both great things and also challenges.

The day was split up into two sessions. In the sessions, we were given 10 minutes each to present and then had 30 mins for discussion time. Our facilitator Wendy had a neat idea to write on coloured Post-it notes a question, a suggestion and an issue, we saw for each person’s research. This was really helpful as sometimes we ran out of time to discuss everything and each of us could take away a handful of Post-it notes to reflect on.

The day wrapped up with a plenary. Guy Julier, Head of Research at Leeds Metropolitan University, and Clive Dilnot, from Parsons New School for Design in New York, joined our plenary to hear how the day went. Joyce and Wendy, the two facilitators gave a short wrap up on the day.

Joyce told us briefly about the broad scope of work being undertaken by the PhDers in her group. The research ranged from fashion social enterprises, to digital storytelling, to ecological literacy, to critical approaches to service design, to mapping worldviews of designers in relation to sustainable design strategies. This group’s reoccurring theme was about being honest and transparent about the research process.

Research methodology was a theme in both groups. I think most design PhDers have come to know enough people now to see that academic design research is digressing from traditional academic research practice. Every design PhDer I know has been actively exploring new research practices around how design is being investigated in an academic context. This has been a big theme of my own research. I have presented my research process numerous times now with the underlying argument that the subject matter of design requires a researcher to deal with it in a different and much less scientific-way in order to extract, understand and communicate the richness of design.

Joyce recently authored and presented a paper on a handful of design PhDs which use new and different practices of research to undertake academic investigations into design. Her paper was presented at the EKSIG 2009: Experiential Knowledge, Method & Methodology conference last year and was titled, Capturing tacit knowledge: documenting and understanding recent methodological innovation used in Design Doctorates in order to inform Postgraduate training provision. You can download the paper here.

Wendy, expanded on the other group's theme to say that in our group, we also spoke about transcending disciplinary boundaries. We had talked more about the challenges we found as doctoral research in design is still pretty much in its infancy.

Clive closed the session by stating that in just our small group of researchers, our research topics were so broad and varied. If PhD research is to expand the field of design into the twenty-first century, it will not be about taking the path we all know best. Instead it will be taking the lesser known path because the destination we seek for our research- into, for or through design, is something we are never going to be quite sure of during the process.

The PhD Colloquium was followed by the Design Activism Practitioner Conference. I'll publish an update of any reporting from Leeds Met here.

A Dott Cornwall update

2009-07-08T14:11:00.004+01:00

Dott Cornwall now has a complete leadership team! Today, Design Week announced that Andrea Siodmok will be Programme Director working alongside Robert O'Dowd as Executive Producer (announced in Design Week last month, 17 June).

Shall be great to see Dott Cornwall move ahead as "Dott 2.0" as Andrea says in Design Week today.

Challenges for design education

2009-06-30T09:04:00.004+01:00

As I have been investigating new and different areas designers have been taking design, the issue of design education often comes up in conversation. Are design schools educating designers to meet tomorrow's challenges? This question has come up in both literature and in conversations.

I found an interesting article in 2007 by Adobe's Design Centre's Think Tank titled, Graduate Education: Preparing designers for jobs that don't exist (yet). Author, Anne Burdick is Chair of the graduate Media Design Program (MDP) at Art Center College of Design (in the USA) and she documents her observations of where designers have been taking design, from being researchers to entrepreneurs, to strategic thinkers, to knowledge producers. Burdick questions current models of teaching, "that rely exclusively on apprenticeship and/or technical mastery." Burdick says, "To prepare for a future in flux, students must learn to be adaptable, agile and strategic. Clearly this calls for a new kind of pedagogy."

But the real reason for this post is to provide a link to a pamphlet released by the RSA on Monday called, Social animals: tomorow's designers in today's world (thanks Mike for letting me know).

The pamphlet, authored by Sophia Parker, profiles the nature of design graduates today, reflecting on the world they have grown up in which has channeled their interests toward the environment, the public and the social sectors. But the pamphlets suggest these interests are a bit at odds with current models of design education. To illustrate, the pamphlet flags up six challenges for design educators in educating students in public service design. In short (ie. paraphrased here) it says education that needs to encourage students to learn more about:

Turning insights into action;
Co-design and the participation of people (also considering ethical codes of conduct);
Prototyping services;
Seeing the ‘bigger picture’ meaning taking into account the wider context projects operate in;
Communicating well both visually and verbally, including the ability to pitch ideas for investment;
Being not just problem solvers, but also ‘problem finders.'

I agree with all of the above. Many, if not all of them, I identified in my own research as important and also as a strength of the designers I interviewed and know. In the above six points, turning insights into action, prototyping and communication visually are strengths of design practice over many other disciplines. I discussed these points in an earlier post on design in the social sector.

As we continue our journey of watching design enter new frontiers, it's wonderful to see design practice applied in new contexts, develop and shape with a bit more clarity.

Design at the Health Innovation Expo, London 18-19 June 2009

2009-06-26T09:39:00.012+01:00

The other week I attended the Department of Health's Health Innovation Expo. Among a sea of shiny hospital gizmos, five design companies exhibited at the NHS Institute's Design Zone and Workshop space, showcasing what design could do for service innovation and improvement in health.

Here's what the expo's website read:

Today’s designers are expanding their domain by using innovative design methodologies and techniques to redesign public services and address the social challenges imposed on society. We believe that building the knowledge and skills to use this type of design as a strategic stimulus to healthcare innovation will help the NHS tackle some of the challenges around our ageing population, chronic disease, health inequality and rising public expectations, especially in a time where the global economic downturn will aggravates [sic] existing pressures on our health system. At the NHS Institute we’ve worked and learned from this new breed of ‘designers’ translating their techniques to empower the NHS workforce create the high quality and personalised services.

The five design companies which exhibited were: Engine, thinkpublic, We are all designers.com, live|work and impact innovation. See some photos from the expo below.

Engine

thinkpublic

Image from Thinkpublic website

We are all designers.com

live|work

impact innovation

Alongside the showcase, both days held 30 minute workshops by all the design companies so attendees of the expo could interact and experience design methodologies in action.

All the workshops were really different in delivery and lots of fun. There were interactive exercises to get us thinking about challenges and pitching ideas, models that helped explain clearly how design could be applied in a health context, experiencing the design process live and a focus on key design methods such as prototyping.

I got a really positive feeling from the workshop attendees who ranged from commissioners to doctors to trainers in health. The showcase and workshops demonstrated to them how design brings a different perspective (or a different way of seeing) of how health services can be developed, designed and improved. This different perspective is both people-centred and creative ie. services are developed putting the people, not a piece of technology, at the centre of its development. It's also a creative process which can bring loads of new and different ideas and also be fun.

Equally as important is prototyping. Before services go live, design gives a space for testing and developing the service before its launched. I met a few workshop attendees and one of them told me about how he developed a service, only to launch it and find no take up. He mentioned that this was the "hard way" of learning that the people who will use and interact with the service, need to be part of its development. We also talked about prototyping his services, and he was in attendance of all the workshops so I left most of the conversation on, 'what is prototyping' and some examples of its effectiveness up to the designers.

I know some of the design companies have been present at health expo before, but being able to see them at the Health Innovation Expo and hear the feedback they were getting, was incredible.

I think the feedback the designers got at the expo is something to really illuminate here. According to them, the interest and positive feedback, has been unlike anything they have experienced at previous expos. I asked one of the designers what had changed. They mentioned government policy. I also suspect that it is also the ever-growing evidence from projects that highlight the potential for design in new and different areas, such as health.

The expo was great insight into the efforts of both designers and their clients in bringing design into the third largest employer in the world. The designers have such an immense commitment to innovating design practice by applying it to a new and different area such as health. And the collaborators and/or clients, in this case the NHS Institute, really do support the fact that design has something valuable to offer beyond posters, chairs, fashion etc.

I think design and designers are at a timely opportunity to really demonstrate and show how design can offer something valuable, beyond just how things look, to many other disciplines. I believe there will be exciting times ahead, and that we really are working toward breaking down old perceptions of what design is and can be.

For other postings on the Health Innovation Expo see:
steveleedesign

Design Activism in Leeds

2009-06-23T11:12:00.004+01:00

Next week I am off to the Leeds Festival of Design Activism. In 2007, the first workshop on Design Activism was held and was titled, Mapping Design Activism. Guy Julier of Leeds Metropolitan University described Design Activism as:

“... encompass[ing] a wide range of real-life processes from greening neighbourhoods to transforming communities through participatory design action.”

The workshop was a lively conversation of many different people and professions, and a report was produced post-workshop which you can download here.

At the Leeds Festival of Design Activism next week, I will be doing a presentation on my research. This will be on Thursday 2 July at the Postgraduate Research Student Colloquium, a student-led forum to discuss and explore our research topics and PhD experiences. Here's a short summary of the colloquium:

The Postgraduate Research Colloquium is intended for PhD students working in the field of Design Activism. It will provide an opportunity to explore critical issues in their doctoral studies and receive extensive feedback on their work from facilitators and fellow students.

Following this on Friday 3 July, is the Design Activism Practitioner Conference which:

... is devised to give voice to designers, artists, architects, students, performers, activists, observers and users of socially and/or environmentally committed creative practices.

Finally, on Saturday 4 July, the Gala Event will provide an opportunity for the delegates of the festival to get to know each better among music, events and great food!

Service / Design / Drinks / 4

2009-06-09T22:46:00.006+01:00

We're doing it again! Same time (7pm) and same place (Slaughtered Lamb, Clerkenwell) so join us for some design drinking on Friday 19th June.

Please let Nick know if you are coming along. Email him via drinks@servicedesigning.com

Look forward to seeing you there!

FastCompany's 100 most creative people in business

2009-05-19T17:42:00.007+01:00

This month, FastCompany magazine publishes the 100 most creative people in business. Of their list they say:

There are no rules about creativity. Which made constructing our list of the 100 Most Creative People in Business a tricky task. We looked for dazzling new thinkers, rising stars, and boldface names who couldn't be ignored. We avoided people we've profiled in the recent past. We emphasized those whose creativity addresses a larger issue -- from the future of our energy infrastructure to the evolution of philanthropy to next-generation media and entertainment. So read on. Enjoy. Quibble. Complain.

Image from FastCompany's website

Scanning the top ten it's great to see two designers feature on the list demonstrating that design clearly contributes to the business's (triple) bottom line.

Apple's Jonathan Ive tops the list at #1 for revolutionising the way we all listen to, interact with, exchange and buy music. Ive was first interviewed by FastCompany for breathing new life into the computer hardware and software industry. He brought not just functionality but sheer delight for many who would otherwise be engaging with a "beige box" everyday.

Design in Apple has propelled the company to generate no less than $US32 billion in sales last year and FastCompany touts Apple as the, "most successful and faithful marriage of business and design." No wonder so many of us look to (and desire) not just Apple products but the behind-the-scenes operations and philosophies of the company.

Apple illustrates that design is yes, user/customer-led, but if an organisation that wants to achieve Apple's success it needs design to be CEO-led. Apple says, "You need a CEO who gets it [...] Something like the iPod is a melding of design and user experience and marketing and pop culture, and you don't achieve that without coordination throughout the company."

The other designer in the top ten is Sandy Bodecker, vice president of global design at Nike. The top twenty adds another three designers to the list: fashion designer, Stella McCartney; architect Thom Mayne; and sustainable design program manager at Autodesk, Dawn Danby.

Check out more details on these designers, and the other 95 creative people who make it on the list at FastCompany's website, which also happens to have a really neat interface and content (eg. Wikipeadia, news and Twitter profiles of each of the 100 individuals).

Call for ideas for mobile phone security

2009-05-12T20:00:00.006+01:00

Image from Design Council

This Friday 15th May, the Design Council are hosting a briefing event for creative and innovative ideas to address mobile phone security. There is £100,000 up for grabs to develop such ideas, so register your interest and RVSP here.

Event details

Date: Friday 5th May, 2009

Time: 9am - 3pm

Location: Design Council, Covent Garden

Sustainability, Innovation and Design: A design PhD conference at Lancaster University, 15-16 June 2009

2009-05-07T18:33:00.005+01:00

Next month, I will be presenting a paper at the Design PhD Conference, Sustainability, Innovation and Design.

Image from conference website

Here's a bit about the conference from the website:

The Design PhD Conference is a collaborative event between ImaginationLancaster at Lancaster University and the School of Design’s Centre for Design Research at Northumbria University. The conference offers an opportunity for PhD students, Masters students, recent graduates and businesses to meet, exchange knowledge and ideas, and learn about the latest developments in design thinking, methods and research projects.

Alastiar Fuade-Luke, who authored the Eco-design Handbook, will be the keynote. Then there will be 6 presentations on current design PhD research which seems to cover a whole range of topics such as a critique of design thinking, design's contributions to improving the livelihood of communities in rural India and a comparative study of national design policies.

I'll be talking about Dott 07 and my research findings. Particularly in line with the roles designers have played, are playing and could be playing in public life.

Hope to see you in Lancaster this summer!

LTA Newsletters

2009-05-05T21:50:00.004+01:00

I haven't posted newsletters on the blog before. I wasn't sure if a jpeg would be enough for adequate viewing, but just discovered a big enough jpeg does just fine. If you click on the newsletter image below you should be able to read the April 09 newsletter with no problem (but please note the blue text does not link to websites. That only happens in pdf versions).

Each month, the newsletter provides an update on my research progress, thinking and activity and list links I find that may be of interest.

Please let me know if you'd like to receive monthly updates via email. Contact me at fiorucci@hotmail.com

Touchpoint (service design journal) and other service design knowledge disseminations

2009-04-29T09:39:00.001+01:00

The Service Design Network has just released Touchpoint, a journal about service design. Some of the content reviews the Service Design Conference held in Amsterdam last year.

If you are looking for other (more academic) reading on service design....

The Service Design Network provides a neat list here.

Service designer and long-time service design blogger, Jeff Howard, also compiled a great collection of service design-related articles, mostly from business and marketing journals here.

In 2006-7, Lucy Kimbell and Victor Seidel, set up an academic research project called, Designing for Services, which looked at observing and understanding service design in science and technology SMEs. Live|work, IDEO and Radarstation were the design consultancies who participated in the project. I blogged the event on my travel blog here.

D4S produced a blog, short film and publication which brings together multi-disciplinary perspectives on service design (highly recommended alongside Jeff's website to get a good grasped of the state of service design).

The Design Council also have a recommended reading list on service design here. Their Public Service by Design team are also doing timely and excellent work in the area of how designers can add value to public sector services. Some related links on my blog here.

Some service design researcher blogs I know of include:

Qin Han's blog, Design Generalist
Lauren Currie's blog, Redjotter

Some service designer blogs I know of include:

Nick Marsh, Choosenick!
Jeff Howard, Design for Service
Experentia, Putting People First ('service design' category)

Finally don't forget previous postings on this blog:

Design-led consultancies involved in service design
Universities exploring service design (which includes some links to conferences on service design).

Communicating to the Public: Vitae Poster Competition

2009-04-28T09:00:00.006+01:00

Last week I visited a sun-drenched Leeds University for a poster competition to communicate PhD research to the public. The event was organised by Vitae an organisation funded by the Research Councils UK (a partnership between 7 UK Research Councils) to help bring commercial skills to postgraduate researchers to increase their employability to industry. If you are a PhDer they have a great site of resources.

Vitae called for submissions of abstracts, which were proposals for our posters. From this, 100 PhD students were selected to design a poster in jargon-free language that a non-subject specialist could read in 5 minutes. This was the key judging criteria.

There were 5 Northumbria PhD students selected to submit posters. I met them and two staff from the Graduate School to spend the day viewing posters, having conversations about research and attending two very interesting presentations.

The first presentation was on opening us up to taking our research out in the public media space. Some ideas were to:

Make a documentary
Design a children's storybook
Approach newspapers and magazines (as journalists are always looking for news)
Use the internet
Approach the University press office

The second presentation was about commercialising scientific research. The research was on the ability of our ear to detect the location of sound. The research found that while the ear was good at detecting the location of sound, it could not detect the location of sirens due to their frequency. In times of crisis, we need to be directed by our senses. Fires are the worst because in low visibility, we cannot see green exit lights nor can the ear detect the location of the siren.

This research went on to develop a low frequency siren that could direct people in low visibility. The siren has since been adopted by ships, universities and in vehicular tunnels. The key message here was to encourage us to seek a connection in our research to real-life situations.

But back to the posters... I found the poster exercise and event really valuable. The process of designing the poster meant I had to try and put the bulk of my PhD on one page. Here's a photo of my poster.

The poster submissions were very impressive and there was great variety. From seeing others and the winning posters, I definitely got a good feel for what I could do next time to better engage the general public in my research.

At the event I also found it really valuable to have a conversation about my poster. I had a few requests to talk through the poster and this helped me see that some of my language use could be improved.

If you are a PhD researcher, I would really encourage designing posters to communicate research. Throughout my PhD I have been doing 'one-pagers' to quickly disseminate and share ideas. It's a fun process, it makes you think and it allows people to have a conversation with you about your research which helps refine language and clarify thinking.

A PhD friend of mine once said she felt "really uninspired" sitting infront of a blank Word document. I think we would be less inclined to feel uninspired infront of Indesign or a blank sheet of paper with a pen- ready to sketch, map, draw or even write.

I found a paper recently which assembled An Evolving Map of Design Research and Design Practice of which the author visually mapped design research and then wrote an accompanying narrative. I think this is a great technique to employ and the Dubberly Design Office (where I found the paper) presents some excellent and engaging examples of concept maps to get one started.

At the end of the Vitae event, most of us didn't walk away with prizes (there could only be 3 winners- 1st, 2nd and 3rd!). But we did walk away with exposure to loads of other PhD research and more ideas to better communication our research to the public.

Cornwall, the next region to host Dott

2009-04-27T20:05:00.001+01:00

I thought you'd appreciate some lovely photos from Cornwall, the next region where Dott will take place. I was down in Falmouth other week to give a presentation on my research and stayed at the very nice Greenbank Hotel.

I didn't know what I to expect but Cornwall was stunning. And a stark contrast to the city. I love the seaside towns, tiny streets and the surf shops dotted along the High Street which reminded me of Australia.

View from a room

The houses on North Parade

High Street, Falmouth

Cornwall fish and chips

Design in Alternative Futures at the Design Council

2009-04-24T14:51:00.005+01:00

It has been at least 6 months since the design community I know convened as we did at the Design Council last night.

The design and public sector community came together at the Design Council to attend an event called Design in Alternative Futures. The invited presenter was Dr Alex King from the Horizon Scanning Centre, a Government department that research, among other things, future scenarios to inform policy.

King’s presentation was interesting for a few reasons but mostly (for me, especially in consideration of my research) for the methodological side. King presented and characterized 4 future scenarios of where society could go (if not already there):

Perpetual Motion: An open and individualist society contextualized by free markets;
Shaken Open: An open and collective society, such as those common to Europe;
Self-service: A closed and individualistic society which perpetuates a focus inwards and toward family;
Protective Collective: A closed but collective society which advocates national identity.

Scenarios were certainly talked of in the Dott 07 projects. A regular question asked throughout the programme was ‘how do you want to live?’ and many of the projects proposed new and different scenarios dealing with issues in health, education, food, mobility and energy.

Designers commonly research, project and communicate future scenarios. Consultancies such as Sense Worldwide forecast trends using design-led research tools and my PhD buddy Ben is currently undertaking research that deals with future scenarios in post-crash worlds.

Skills and tools possessed by designers can help inform strategy, policy, planning, brands… and it was interesting to see King’s approach to such research and extrapolations. King’s scenarios work was undertaken over an 8-month period and included:

workshops
interviews
online brainstorms
stakeholder meetings
research (am guessing desk and literature) and
expert meetings

We had a great Q&A session afterward. You can always bank on designers to ask the good questions. Some asked: How were the scenarios presented to Government? How much impact did the research really have on policy development? Was the research used as reflective and learning tools in Government? And how do we, as designers, use this kind of research in our own work?

The last question I felt was probably the missing link for most of the audience and I wondered if King’s work, which intervenes and informs at the policy level, was a mismatch to the level most designers currently intervene in business, society and Government?

King presented fascinating and well-delivered research on future scenarios that got most of us thinking- what and how could designers contribute here? I don’t know if we are quite at the stage of informing policy yet. Though I suspect we should be in the future.

Here are some other reflections on last night's event:
We are: blogging

London / Service / Design / Drinks

2009-04-24T09:10:00.001+01:00

If you're interested in service designing, design thinking and drinking, tonight the third London / Service / Design /Drinks will be held in Clerkenwell.

If you would like more info and/or to join, please RSVP Nick at drinks@servicedesigning.com

No worries if you can't make tonight- There will be others to follow! Watch this space.

Reflections on Writing Across Boundaries, 30-31 March 2009

2009-04-06T16:16:00.010+01:00

The focal point of the Writing Across Boundaries project is an annual workshop held in Durham. The workshop is aimed at third year doctoral students who are completing theses based on qualitative data and explores the relationship between data collection, analysis, and interpretation in the act of writing. Students are invited to reflect on the writing process itself as a form of social science thinking. Writing up from qualitative data can be a challenging but rewarding experience, and Writing Across Boundaries provides the forum for students to explore the theory and practice while still under the expert guidance of their supervisors.

From www.dur.ac.uk/writingacrossboundaries/

Early Monday morning I set off north to the pretty town of Durham for a two day residential to attend the Writing Across Boundaries (WaB) 2009 workshop. The workshop intended to bridge that “scary gap” from one's PhD data collection to writing up the thesis. It also had a secondary aim to be a time of reflection on our PhDs and on writing.

Bob Simpson (Durham University) and Robin Humphrey (Newcastle University) were the conveners and accommodating hosts to some-45 students over two days and one night at Durham University’s Holgate House, nestled in the countryside among gentle hills and lofty trees of Durham county.

In the workshops, we formed a few friendships, enjoyed loads of food and coffee, talked about writing and listened to an interesting mix of presentations on writing. The presentations came from many different perspectives such as:

How creative writing techniques can help in PhD writing;
The use of digital technologies as a possibility to go beyond writing;
How the act of writing helps one theorise;
The concept of the audience and the author’s standpoint.

But the most valuable (and I think much of the group would agree) was the opening panel of past PhDers who had attended WaB before completing the write-up of their theses. The past PhDers had all recently completed and passed their viva (an oral defense of one’s PhD). They spoke candidly about their PhD experience- previous and post-WaB workshop- and how the workshop contributed to the writing of their theses. There was a great Q&A session after the panel spoke, illuminating some of the most critical issues among the WaB group including:

The final thesis looks nothing like the initial proposal: All PhDers submit a proposal before starting their PhD to let their sponsors and/or Universities know what they are looking to find out. These proposals are quite specific and often throughout the research process many PhD’s end looking very different to the initial proposal. One person at the workshop put it well by saying that all proposal's should just state: “give me time and money and I’ll tell you something interesting.”

The “circulatory” of the PhD process: There seemed to be a consensus among the WaB group that a PhD is not a linear process, but a circular one. Some of us have found that we cannot retrofit existing theories to our research. This has required us to go back to discover, think and reflect more on what our research is telling us. Presenter Jennifer Mason actually said that a very few of us would be able to fit an existing theory neatly on top of our research and that most, would probably draw from many theories (ditto for me);

The issue of honesty: This “circularity” can be an issue in a PhD, especially in terms of how honest one should about finding out that your initial hypothesis is disproved by the qualitative data. The panel advised to be honest. They had been and it added value to their research analysis.

Kick starting confidence: The panel said the word “kick start” a lot i.e. that the workshop kick started their write up phase. It gave them a “permission” and confidence to go ahead a write up;

The idea of two theses: We talked a lot about the idea of having 2 theses. The first being the focused and “polished" one we submit, and the second being the one that pays homage to all dimensions of our research (the successes, the failures, the off-in-a-tangent thoughts etc). Bob mentioned that these dimensions were really important, and that through writing we could “rehearse and exhaust them.” Personally, I think it'd be great if PhDers could write a book as their second PhD;

The 'so what?' question: The 'so what' and the 'why' of one’s research is so important to remember- Why we are doing the research? What value is it contributing? Answering these reminds us of all the reasons for our commitment, of 3 or more years, to one piece of work.

Some practical steps toward writing

As well as workshop reflections, I also wanted to share here some practical steps for getting over the 'writer’s block' we all meet at some stage in the process. Here are some practical steps I noted down during the workshop that might help kick start the writing:

If you are not doing well to engage with reams of transcripts from interviews, one of the PhDers at WaB suggested picking up a transcript, picking an issue you see within it and writing about it. He mentioned one thing just lead to another...;

Ask a question, then write a response to it;

Jot down notes of thoughts about your research. Then write in examples and explain them;

Think less academic-speak and start writing things as you would say them. Think about how you would want it to be heard and received by someone;

Just do it: easy to say, but not so easy to do. One key reflection I took away from WaB was that writing-up was about confidence. WaB was about sharing all our issues and finding out that others experience and think in the same way too. For me, I know I always struggle with wondering if I am doing the right thing or not, and this can be a huge time waster. Now I would say- just do it, because all my doubts and questions, in terms of what I have been doing, were more than validated at WaB.

Some things to consider when writing up the thesis:

So we're over the writing block, but WaB pointed out some important things to consider:

Audience: Who is your audience will tell you a lot about how you should write, what you should write and what language to use;

Situating yourself in the thesis: How do you bring yourself into the thesis? After all, we all had a story and a reason for doing the research in the first place;

Keep the passion in the text: Don’t detach yourself too much in the write up;

Voice: Consider who’s perspective you tell the story from. One exercise we did was to write about someone irritating we knew from a first person, second person and third person perspective.

“The fine line”: In our last activity we got into groups to discuss some pieces of literature that we read before the workshop. We had to collectively list 5 reflections on the literature. My group talked and questioned a lot about how far we go on each side of the “fine line”. This is in terms of writing as:

Objective <----> emotive
(Where do we situate our viewpoint?
Taking into consideration that we are writing an academic thesis
but also want to engage the reader?)

Formal <----> informal
(How specifically do we quote people speaking in the thesis?)

Theory <----> narrative
(Could we weave theory and narrative together as well as Bryon Good did in his book, Medicine, rationality, and experience: An Anthropological Perspective)

Absent <----> reflexive
(Where do we situate ourselves in the thesis?)

Sensitive <----> literal
(How do we deal with ethics in qualitative research?)

There are so many more smaller reflections and notes I have from the workshop, but this is not the space for it all so I am going to finish up here. I thought WaB was a really valuable time of reflection in the middle of one’s PhD. The workshops brought a heightened sense of awareness to, and consideration of, one of the most important communication devices in human life- writing.

Walking to the train station, towards Durham Cathedral, after the WaB workshop

Writing Across Boundaries Workshop, Durham University

2009-03-30T09:00:00.004+01:00

Today and Tuesday I will be attending the Writing Across Boundaries workshop at Durham University. The workshop is for PhDers in their write-up stage of their PhD.

The WaB website provides some interesting and useful resources to get one into writing mode. Here's what they say:

The Writing Across Boundaries website is dedicated to the support of social science researchers who wish to engage more effectively with the practical and intellectual issues that arise in the quest to produce texts which are engaging, accurate and analytically insightful.

The Resources part of the website is pretty helpful and quite interesting. It discusses:

Drafting and plotting
The data-theory relationship
Narrative, rhetoric and representation
Hints and tips for writing

Literature 'top ten'

2009-03-27T11:47:00.003Z

Just a quick update on PhD and timing...

My research question currently stands at:

Understanding seven archetypes of designers
in the Dott 07 publicly commissioned projects
and their relevance to sustainable development contexts

I am in write-up stage at the moment
I counted that I have been doing my PhD for 21 months (yikes!)
With 15 months left and
12 months till I need to hand in a draft submission of the thesis for review.

I am currently pulling together my literature review. The ten selected texts below illustrate the scope of my PhD, inclusive of 2 key texts important for my research methodology. The texts below anchor my research subject matter and PhD. The list is alphabetical with short descriptors on why they have been chosen.

PhD scope

Boland, J., Collopy, F., Ed. (2005). Managing as designing. California, Stanford University Press.

Boland and Collopy write about developing a new vocabulary of design, to transcend disciplinary boundaries. In the case of MaD, they are looking at integrating design and management. For this PhD, developing new vocabularies of design in the area of design methodology is a key focus to enable us to see how design can contribute to the public sector.

Burns, C., Cottam, H.Vanstone and C. Winhall, J. (2005). RED Paper 02: Transformation Design. London, Design Council.

Think-do tank RED at the Design Council published some of the very first case studies on utilising design practice for tackling social issues. This paper also discusses philosophical and practical challenges of designers working in this area, especially where designers are making the design process more transparent.

Chris Jones, J. (1992). Design Methods. New York, John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Design methodology sits at the heart of design practice and the activity of a designer. Chris Jones was one of the founders of the design methods movement and his book, first published in 1970, is a seminal text on the subject. The design methods movement since the 1970's moved through varying schools of thought (of which Nigel Cross has published extensively on). Chris Jones rarely agreed with these schools of thought, distancing himself from the movement and the community when the focus of design methods moved toward being systematic and scientific. Chris Jones believed the more important aspects of design methodology where the people involved and the complexities of design projects and process. In Design Methods, Chris Jones identifies levels of complexities in design practice- a helpful framework for us to understand the different levels design can intervene in society.

Collins, J. (2006). Good to Great and the social sectors: A monograph to accompany Good to Great. USA, Random House Business Books.

Collins gives a great overview of the difference between the business and social sectors. Collins (and many others) cite the biggest difference between public and private sector organisations is source of funding. Collins also draws out common issues both sectors face.

Design Council. (2007). "Designs of the Time (Dott 07)." from http://www.Dott 07.com.

Dott 07 is the empirical focus of study of this PhD. It is uses 7 publicly commissioned projects as case studies to understand the utilisation of design methodology in public sector. These case studies profile 7 archetypes of designers in the public sector.

Cross, N. (2007). "Forty Years of Design Research." Design Studies Vol. 8(No. 1).

As mentioned before, Cross provides good historical overviews and summations of the design methods movement and their differing schools of thought since the 1960's. Cross writes extensively, and in more detail about this historical trajectory, in many published works.

Myerson, J. (2007). Pressing the Pause Button. London, Design Council.

Myerson chaired the InterSections 07 Conference held in NewcastleGateshead in October 2007. Myerson described the conference as a "watershed event" as the last event to bring together such high calibre speakers and address such contemporary design issues was 14 years earlier at international design summit, Design Renaissance, in Glasgow. In Pressing the Pause Button, Myerson summarises the key themes of the conference. He saw these as being four key roles of design practice: Designer as strategist; co-creator; storyteller and; rationalist. This summation provides a great starting point to ground the PhD research findings in contemporary design discussion and debate.

Thackara, J. (2006). In the Bubble: Designing in a complex world. Massachusetts, MIT Press.

Thackara discuss some key principles of designing in a complex world. Some of these principles were translated into Dott 07 and this book provides a very important foundation of which to understand Dott 07.

Methodology

Eisenhardt, K. (1989). "Building Theories from Case Study Research." Academy of Management Review Vol. 14(No. 4): pp 532-550.

Eisenhardt connects Grounded Theory and case study research in her paper and outlines a process to do so. This PhD's undertaking mirrors Eisenhardt's process.

Glaser, B. G., Strauss, A. L. (2008). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. USA, Aldine Transaction.

Grounded Theory is the generation of theory from the data collected. GT is the philosophical underpinning of the research approach in this PhD.

Dott Cornwall in the media and online

2009-03-15T12:14:00.002Z

I have been getting a few emails asking what I know of the next Dott. I posted earlier this month links to the tenders. Here is some other Dott Cornwall information recently published online:

Plans for Cornish Dott take shape (Design Week, 18 Feburary 2009)

First Dott Cornwall projects out to tender (DesignWeek, 09 March 2009)

Dott Cornwall can learn from the NorthEast's Festival (DesignWeek, 12 March 2009)

Teach me what to ask for: literacy, numeracy, design! (Design and Society, RSA, 13 March 2009)

University College Flamouth announces it will be working with Design Council, Cornwall County Council and SWRDA (South West Regional Development Agency) on Dott Cornwall

Dott Cornwall Flyer (Design Council)

Measuring innovation in the public sector, but to what end?

2009-03-14T12:40:00.001Z

On Monday I was at NESTA's international conference on Public Sector Innovation Measurement.

The day began with an international panel of speakers currently involved in research and policy development around innovation in the public sector. This was followed by a whole range of speakers from the UK and abroad, including researchers engaged in working on the Innovation Index for the public sector. NESTA is tasked with developing this index as outlined in the Innovation Nation White Paper, released one year ago.

NESTA's CEO, Jonathan Kestenbaum, opened the conference stressing the importance and need for measurement of innovation in the public sector because measurement shapes policy and the way public services are delivered.

The following panel speakers didn't hold back in outlining the broad challenges facing the UK public sector such as:

Demographic changes
Social trends eg. the aging population
Climate change
Economic downturn
Budget cuts

And a key question, echoed not just among the panel but throughout the whole day, was the issue of how we all understand innovation and the lack of consensus around this (it was interesting to note that there was less emphasis on people saying "defining innovation").

Here are some of my own notes and reflections from the conference:

Measurement shapes public service delivery and policy development. Measurement is therefore a critical aspect we must deal with
Measurement that deals with innovation is multi-dimensional and complex
There is a lot of hidden innovation, or innovation which is not visible and we must find ways to identify these
There is currently little data on public sector innovation and even less on measurement of it
There are many barriers in the public sector which impede innovation (eg. governance, incentives, organisational capability, understanding of innovation, process constraints, size and complexity of the public sector, bureaucracy, multiple stakeholders, reluctance to end programmes which are failing, few capabilities for organisational learning, lack of resources, lack of incentives, risk aversion)
Understanding (not necessarily defining) innovation is needed so we can understand where and how it's happening
The need to visualise measurement to get a "balanced picture" (panel speaker Svein Olav Nas from Norway mentioned this but unfortunately didn't expand much)
Public and private sector innovation differs

The most interesting presentations (and one of the best, for it's clarity and being jargon-free) was by Head of Service Design in the Department of Health, Miles Ayling. Ayling gave us an overview of innovation in the NHS, why it has become a focal area, what issues the NHS faces and what is being done about overcoming these issues.

About 18 months ago, innovation in the NHS was made a top priority. The rising expectations of citizens for public healthcare services, policy drivers (such as those stemming from the Darzi Review) and the recognition that the NHS has a significant impact on the UK economy led the NHS to establish a programme to focus on innovation.

Ayling spoke first about the fact that the NHS were very inventive with new ideas, but were weak on piloting and scaling them, for example that there have been cases where ideas have even been sold back to the NHS. Some other issues which impede innovation in the NHS include:

Leadership and vision of the NHS not having innovation "on their radar"
Misalignment of reward and recognition
Differing priorities
Short-term approach and outlook
A culture of competition rather than collaboration
Funding streams directed toward areas such as R&D, rather than to spreading ideas
Lack of access to information about what constitutes good practice in innovation

In response to these barriers a "legal duty" (or statutory responsibility) for innovation in the NHS was introduced.

In the Q&A session, one delegate asked Ayling to expand on what "legal duty" for innovation meant and Ayling's response illuminated a very interesting approach to how he and his colleagues see innovation in the NHS. Ayling declined to define innovation, and stated instead that innovation in the NHS was about- defining what organisational culture the NHS would want. The appeal of this perspective is that it allows flexibility for all the different parts of the NHS to reinvent themselves to do what is most appropriate to their own context.

And how would all this be measured in the NHS? Ayling didn't present indicators, but 4 key principles for metrics, these being:

Looking at the macro and micro
Looking at the short and long term
Keeping metrics simple and
Having 'powerful' rather than bureaucratic metrics

One final thing Ayling touched upon in his presentation was- who would all this involve in the NHS? He stated, everyone. This would require the need to look at all types of innovative outcomes such as:

Incremental innovation (those coming from individuals in the organisation)
Radical innovation (driving the market in a different direction) and
Disruptive innovation (redesigning the delivery of services and creating new markets).

One key reflection I left off my earlier list was something a delegate brought up at the end of the day, which unfortunately got mis-interpreted and hence not adequately addressed. It had to do with- to what end was innovation and the measurement of innovation for? Why be innovative? What would 'being innovative' achieve? These questions were not really addressed by the panel or the speakers despite the fact they were all talking about, researching and developing policy around innovation in the public sector.

The conference continued on Tuesday, but day one painted enough of a picture for my own research in terms of understanding current research, development and policy for innovation in the public sector and ideas and thinking on how it can be measured. If you are interested to know more about the Innovation Index, keep checking the website here.

Dott Cornwall tenders now open

2009-03-04T16:47:00.004Z

If you were intrigued by the last Dott (Dott 07) like I am, here's your chance to put your design skills, knowledge and ideas into practice. Dott Cornwall tenders are now open. For further information please see the Design Council website here.

Let's get creative - with design business models

2009-02-23T13:25:00.008Z

In my last post, I touched upon the challenge of economic paradigms faced by designers, especially those wanting to participate in the public sector. Today's Guardian supplement, Lets Get Creative, paints a perspective on the Government's involvement with the creative industry, one year after it launched, Creative Britain: New Talents for the New Economy.

Screengrab from the Guardian website

The article Cultural Stocktake, take the perspective that not enough is being done, despite the fact that Britain is a hotbed of creativity.

The UK still has the largest creative sector in the European Union, and probably, according to the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta), the largest in the world relative to GDP. Until recession hit, the sector accounted for 7.3% of total UK gross value added (GVA), and was growing at double the rate of other sectors."

But the problems are complex. The article cites the fragmentation of the industry, the small size of companies and the common, "shortage of high-level management expertise and a serious lack of investment, according to the research director for Nesta, Hasan Bakhshi. "We don't seem to be able to grow companies so that they are leaders in Europe, let alone globally," adds Sir Michael Bichard, chairman of the Design Council."

It seems that it's not necessarily more creativity and design needed in Britain, but rather acting on those enabling conditions (provided by Government), networking in the industry (as seen in the Creatives v crunch article), business knowledge and know-how (provided by design schools and other organisations eg. NESTA who run a Creative Business Mentor Network) and more (continued) investment in education, research and development (as Dyson states in his article, Man with a plan) which can help the economic paradigms of the design and creative industry.

I am sure there is loads more to add, analyse, synthesise, discuss and debate here, but just some starting points for some thoughts collected from and in response to today's supplement.

It is as the article ends, "The danger, it seems, lies in assuming that creativity alone is enough."

SEED Awards 2009: Call for submissions

2009-02-17T16:22:00.004Z

I was having a conversation this morning with my Supervisor on challenges of economic paradigms that Designers working in the public and social sectors face. So far, we have seen funded programmes such as Dott 07 enable Designers to work in these areas, but only a few have been able to build sustainable businesses to pursue and undertake work in such areas.

This blog post if for all the design students, independent designers and entrepreneurs out there looking to make an impact in developing and/or transition countries. The SEED Awards 2009 is something you might want to consider if you, "have an entrepreneurial and innovative idea that is locally-driven and has great potential to contribute to sustainable development in countries with developing or transition economies."

The award gives you, "A comprehensive package of tailor-made support services, worth up to $40,000... including access to relevant expertise and technical assistance, meeting new partners and building networks, developing business plans and identifying sources of finance."

The deadline for applications is 16 March 2009, so get moving and visit the site here!

Us Now (film)

2009-02-12T20:52:00.004Z

Screening of the film, Us Now, and Q&A with the film director, Ivo Gormley is on at the Barbican this month. Here's a synposis of the film and information booking:

In a world in which information is like air, what happens to power?

The world is on the cusp of the greatest social change since the invention of the printing press -everywhere, people are using the internet to share information, work and take action together.

For the first time in history, people have the tools to truly amplify group effort and can change politics, business and everyday lives.

Gormley’s inspired film follows the stories of the people who are redefining the meaning of ‘institution’ and asks politicians and thinkers including George Osbourne, Ed Milliband, Don Tapscott and Clay Shirky what all this means for our society now.

UK 2008
Dir. Ivo Gormley
58 min.

Screening and Q&A with Ivo
Barbican
25 February 2009
8.30pm
Cinema 2

Tickets: Standard - £7.50 online (£9.50 full price) / Barbican Members - £6.50 online (£7.50 full price) / Concessions £7.50

More details and online booking here.

Banks 'breaking all the rules' in bushfire (Sydney Morning Herald)

2009-02-12T08:57:00.009Z

It is heartbreaking to watch the online news about the Australian bush fires in the state of Victoria. Before moving to the UK, we traveled through country Victoria. One of our favourite places was the country town of Marysville.

Marysville was a small country town, just outside the Yarra Valley wine region, surrounded by beautiful dense natural bushland and waterfalls.

On Sunday morning, we learned the township was completely destroyed by the fires. We read this news in disbelief. It's hard to comprehend that a place we visited, very much enjoyed and hoped to return to one day, doesn't exist anymore.

Many fires are still burning in the state of Victoria, and the financial cost is escalating. In the news today, an Australian bank went to press about what they are doing to help. In response to the emergency situation, they are "breaking the rules" to set up temporary bank locations in townships destroyed by the fires as locals won't leave, fearing they may not be allowed to enter again:

"What the team did, breaking all the rules, is shove some money in a cash box, take some scraps of paper for deposit slips and then set up in the local library. It normally takes us six months to open a branch and they did it in 30 minutes."

What great empathy. What great service. And I think this just goes to show- if a large organisation really wants to do something- anything for their customers, they can.

Design and the social sector

2009-02-06T18:36:00.010Z

I often think of my story into this PhD as serendipitous. It really was about finding things in the right place at the right time.

When I was working in business and management consultancy, we did pro bono work with an Aboriginal policy centre to help them with their strategy to address the complex and long-standing issues in indigenous communities around Australia. For those of you who are not familiar with Australian history, we share a troubled story of white and indigenous Australia cohabiting. Things were much worse in the past but a legacy of this still exists in the present and shall do in the future if Australia is slow to move to address these issues.

Our work with the Aboriginal policy centre felt different to the other work we did with large organisations. For the first time, the top line vision was not about profit, market share or being a market leader. It was about well-being. Everything about this project tasted different and I was keen to explore more.

At the same time this project was running, I picked up Anita Roddick’s biography, Body And Soul: Profits with Principles. And then followed that by reading another biography titled Don’t look back: the David Bassau Story. Bassau was the founder of the first micro finance firm, Opportunity International. Both books celebrate life stories of people who weren’t designers or studied design, but what I noticed was that they shared similar innovative, lateral ways of thinking and acting to Designers that could help bring change to the lives of people. This was another thing I was keen to explore.

It was at this time I came across Dott 07 and the research offer online at the Design Council website. You can probably guess the rest of the story from here. So coming into the PhD, I had interests that loosely connected design to the social sectors, third sector, communities, well-being, development (as in the kinds of programmes run in the developing world)…. This was all just a hunch at the time, but while I was still working at the office, I came across micro finance firm Acumen Fund’s article on Designing Change: How venture philanthropy fund Acumen uses design thinking to help solve real-world problems. A year later (and a different country later) at the InterSections 07 Conference, Tim Brown of IDEO, talked about design for social impact and IDEO’s work with Acumen Fund.

Since my work with the Aboriginal Policy Centre I have kept an eye out for where design and Designers were involved in the social sectors and in the developing world. It's been over a year now and my list of references is growing. I thought I'd share as much as I know with you right here (listed in no particular order):

Blogs

Tim Brown (IDEO) blog
On the 10 big design challenges in the social sector.

Design for Social Impact Blog
The Rockefeller Foundation provided funding for the project and IDEO developed a workbook and guide for Design for Social Impact.

Design for India
Professor MP Ranjan explores on his blog where design can contribute to life in India, and around the globe. Here's a summary of the blog:

“Design is a powerful force that shapes culture and it is a professional activity that is beneficial for both community and business alike. This blog is for all those who are interested in exploring these wider manifestations of design as a critical human activity and would like to shape its application across all human cultural and economic activities.”

Putting People First, Experientia
One of my favouirte blogs with updates on all happenings where design is putting people first.

Companies

Many consultancies, whom we currently group under the umbrella of service design, are involved with using design in the public and social sectors. In the UK, companies like Thinkpublic, Participle and Uscreates have a steadfast focus on these sectors. Thinkpublic’s work with hospitals and the Alzheimer’s Society, and Uscreates work with education and health demonstrate applications of design thinking and skills to such areas. Here are some other companies involved in using design to address social issues:

Architecture for Humanity (USA)
A "charitable organization that seeks architectural solutions to humanitarian crisis and brings design services to communities in need... By tapping a network of professionals willing to lend their time and their talents to helping those who would not otherwise be able to afford their services, we support community development, help communities rebuild after disaster and provide pro bono design services to community partners around the world."

Design for Development (Canada)
A Canadian based company that "works with communities around the globe to develop meaningful and appropriate solutions to real world problems."

Design that Matters (USA)
A not-for-profit based in Cambridge, Massachusetts that "creates new products that allow social enterprises in developing countries to offer improved services and scale more quickly."

Engine (UK)
Service design and innovation firm, Engine, recently launched a S ocial Innovation Lab for Kent (SILK) which aims to put people at the centre of policy making.

Future Canvas (Australia)
Based in Melbourne Australia, Future Canvas “seeks to promote environmental sustainability and social connectedness through supporting, developing, and implementing a diverse range of creative, innovative and exciting projects.”

IDEO
All about what IDEO are doing and writing in this area.

Participle (UK)
"At Participle, we do two things: Firstly, bring together the widespread community level ideas and creative activity, and mix it with world-leading experts in any given field; Secondly, drive forward thoughts and actions around developing a new social settlement which can deal with the big social issues of our time."

Thinkpublic (UK)
Public service and communication design consultancy, Thinkpublic, "work to improve services and address social challenges. Our methods include social anthropological research, design, film and workshops. We work with the public and service providers to co-design products and services. Our services are designed to support 21st Century public sector reform and are transferable across all public services."

UsCreates (UK)
Dedicated to designing social change, Uscreates is a "creative consultancy that supports local organisations in delivering social change. We deliver solutions to national social problems at a local level working with Local Government, public sector organisations and businesses."

Work Worth Doing (Canada)
"An interdisciplinary design studio creating positive social and environmental actions for corporations, governments, and communities. Our current projects involve the greening of houses, preserving cultural heritage in Ontario, and understanding the intersection of design, society, and the environment."

Communities and Conferences

Designers Accord (USA)
"The Designers Accord is a global coalition of designers, educators, researchers, engineers, and corporate leaders, working together to create positive environmental and social impact." Core 77 inform us of a Designers Accord Town Hall Meeting in New York in March 09.

Design Can Change (Canada)
A Canadian graphic design studio's web platform bringing together the design community to join in sustainable practice. They are a bit like…

Three trees don’t make a forest (UK)
A UK not-for-profit to bring awareness to the design community about sustainable practice. Their ultimate goal is to have a zero carbon design industry. Check out their knowledge bank where they share tips for action on what Designers can do to make their practices more sustainable.

The Social Lab (UK)
Run by Thinkpublic is a space for ideas on social innovation and change.

A Better World By Design conference (USA)
"What are designers doing to address these critical issues facing today's world? How are engineers developing new technologies to improve life on earth? Where are entrepreneurs finding surprising opportunities in this mess? A Better World by Design will attempt to address these questions by demonstrating what professionals and academics are doing to promote sustainable development and change the world for the better." Check out their blog here.

Design and Development

UN Millennium Development Goals
So many opportunities for design...

Design Serbia
Currently under construction, Design Serbia is a programme of work to help support and catalyse growth of the Serbian design industry.

Designs of the Times (Dott 07)
A programme that brought together Designers and local communities to tackle issues in health, education, food, energy and transport in the North East of England.

Books and publications

Blessed Unrest (book)
A leading environmentalist and social activist's examination of the worldwide movement for social and environmental change.

Good to Great and the Social Sectors (book)
Jim Collin's famous book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't lays out business and management principles for great companies. In Good to Great for the Social Sectors, Collins looks at the application of these principles in the social sector.

RED (Design Council) Transformation Design Paper
Explores and discusses what Transformation Design is and some application of Transformation Design in tackling social issues.

Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered
E. F. Schumacher did well with the title, it sums up the book nicely.

Exhibitions

Design and the Other 90%
A traveling exhibition that began at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York, "demonstrates how design can be a dynamic force in saving and transforming lives, at home and around the world."

Massive Change
A traveling exhibition that began in 2004 that, "explores paradigm-shifting events, ideas, and people, investigating the capacities and ethical dilemmas of design in manufacturing, transportation, urbanism, warfare, health, living, energy, markets, materials, the image and information. We need to evolve a global society that has the capacity to direct and control the emerging forces in order to achieve the most positive outcome. We must ask ourselves: Now that we can do anything what will we do?"

Research and academia

Stanford Social Innovation Review
Research and publishing to share "substantive insights and practical experiences that will help those who do the important work of improving society do it even better."

Helen Hamlyn Research Centre
"People-centred design and innovation at the Royal College of Art."

Attainable Utopias
Lead by John Wood of Goldsmiths, AU looks at principles to achieve big visions of a better world.

Stanford D School’s Adventures around the world
D Schools adventures throughout the developing world to seek out partnerships for projects.

MA. Design for Development at Kingston University
The brand new MA, "focuses on the value of design as a vehicle for addressing social and ecological concerns in both the developed and developing worlds."

Designer as Change Agent by Banny Banerjee
Great paper on role of Designer as Change Agent. Presented at the Changing the Change conference in Turin in 2008.

Sustainable Everyday
The Sustainable Everyday Project (SEP) proposes an open web platform to stimulate social conversation on possible sustainable futures.

Design and new applications, where to next?

So that's the list... In Tim Brown’s blog post (very first link on the list) he asks many big questions, but one which has played heavily on my mind for a long time now is:

“... just like the social sector in general; we may be diffusing a small amount of capacity across a very broad range of problems.”

I tend to think this is what tends to happen with the design and business argument. Design has so many applications in a business and organisational context that it becomes so confusing and overwhelming. Both for the Designer to articulate where they can add value, and for the Client in understanding exactly where design can make an impact. I always think Design should focus on one killer app first, and build from there.

Since I left design-led business and management consultancy, I have had good time to reflect on what design's killer app is for business. I believe it is about applying design’s people-centred approach in business. Businesses, especially large organisations, just don’t know how to talk to and get up close and personal with their customers. There is pretty limited teaching of this in business school. More secondary applications of design in business are around:

Prototyping- Organisations pilot, they don’t prototype. Organisations commit a huge pot of money and resource at once rather than prototyping parts of it, or the whole thing rapidly (the public sector does this too and one Designer said to me last week it was like a "big bang" approach). Prototyping would allow organisations (and the public sector) to weed out failures and issues before launching into the final implementation and before the commitment of a lot of money, time and energy. I have seen this "big bang" approach with organisations I worked with and by the time the design capability was brought it, all we could do was illuminate issues (our direct client did not like this much) and re-engineer a few incremental improvements to make the product slightly better than it was. We were hamstrung because so much had already been committed in terms of resource and finance. It is in this space where Designers will argue they need to be involved earlier in the process, rather than downstream toward the end.

Communication- There is such a massive, massive opportunity for communication designers to work internally with large organisations on their internal communications (eg. reporting, service and product concepts, business models, organisational models, strategy etc). Forget for a moment advertising, promotions, packaging, branding… there’s loads of work for a communication designer within organisations. I can’t count the number of times a simple visualisation (even just a hand sketch) has added value internally in making pages of written text suddenly clear (a picture tells a thousand words), beginning conversations (especially around how something can be improved) and reframing a problem (as people see it differently as a picture).

People-centeredness, or customer centricity, is the killer app of design in business. Just last Thursday, Harvad Business School blogged, Becoming a Customer Experience-Driven Business. Design's people/customer-centered focus is cosely followed by prototyping and (internal) communications. What is the killer app for design in the social sectors?

(ps. Sorry for the lack of visuals in this post. It's word heavy and long enough to scroll through!)

Services Round-up Online

2009-01-30T09:17:00.003Z

Here are some recent links I have found on the web related to designing and developing services.

On the meaning of the design of services
Author of the blog Orange Cone, Mike Kuniavsky, has posted some notes on service design from a chapter in his a book he is currently penning. He tackles the hotly contested meaning of service design in his post, Detangling the meanings the design of services, and gives us insight into the different perspectives from the software services point of view and design point of view, which focuses on the end user. There is also a nice summary of service design-type concepts eg. Product-Service-System, Service Blueprinting etc. And finally, a list of references he has been using, including a like to Jeff Howard's comprehensive and informative Service Design Research site.

Designing services in the public sector
Here's a link to a blog posting on the Creativity and Business International Network on Designing people-centred policy: how can user centred design help public services. It was written by Nick Marsh of Engine. He mentions in his article design research, protoyping and co-designing for developing more people-centred policies. There are links to some of Engine's work in the pubic sector and some good links at the end of the article for further reading.

Service design is about three things
Idris Mootee, a business and innovation strategist, blogs that Service design is simple. It's about three things: creating compelling user benefits, optimising based on the separability of the service and makingeducated trade-offs between human and technology. Hrm, doesn't sound simple, but read on to the case studies to understand more what Mootee is getting at.

Live|work on Design for Darzi
Ben Reason of Live|work writes, Design for Darzi, for the Design Council website on applying service thinking to healthcare. Here's an excerpt:

As the Darzi Review makes clear, health services that care for people only when they become sick are not enough. We need to support people to lead healthy lives, stay out of hospital and feel good. This requires a shift from the traditional industrial thinking focused on quantity and productivity and a narrow definition of efficiency (how many cancer patients can we treat with these resources?) to a new way of thinking. At live|work we call it service thinking. A service thinking approach focuses on creating personalised services where we think about how to support the individual health needs of each and every NHS patient and help people to maintain their health and overall wellbeing.

Later in his article Ben writes about 4 key element of service thinking that they applied to their work with the NHS:

1. Personalise services for individuals
2. Design engaging experiences
3. Make the right connections with service users
4. Think about long-term sustainability

Great public service experiences
Here are some neat illustrated stories of great public services as experienced by some participants of the Public Service by Design workshops hosted by the Design Council in 2008.

The Obama Administration and Design

2009-01-22T13:28:00.005Z

Yes, it has been a bit Obama-rama lately around here and all over the web, but following up on the previous post regarding the design policy initiative for the US Government, I just visited The White House website and blog and I am really impressed.

Screen grab from The Whitehouse website

Great aesthetics (really impressive and I have to say beats Number 10.gov.uk handsdown), great usability and of course great content, including some nice visuals from within The Whitehouse.

When I visited the website I thought it demonstrated a great appreciation for good design, and when I explored further to The Whitehouse blog, I can see that many principles held by Obama's Administration align with that of design in Dott 07.

One of the very first postings on The Whitehouse blog states its intent to centre around three priorities:

Communication: for timely information;
Transparency: for openess and to provide a "window for all Americans into the business of the government" and;
Participation: (and I have to quote what the blog says about this. See below)

President Obama started his career as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, where he saw firsthand what people can do when they come together for a common cause. Citizen participation will be a priority for the Administration, and the internet will play an important role in that. One significant addition to WhiteHouse.gov reflects a campaign promise from the President: we will publish all non-emergency legislation to the website for five days, and allow the public to review and comment before the President signs it.

I can't go into detail here, but from my research into Dott 07, all the projects held these three priorities in very high regard with Designers acting upon them.

I am now really curious to know how the US Design Policy Initiative shall be received. I wish them the best of luck.

Deficiencies in design criticism and writing

2009-01-21T18:33:00.006Z

In my time procrastinating while writing up case study analyses, I came across some interesting articles on the web today.

The first was on the design community blog, On Social Design, initiated to promote design as a tool for change. The site's most recent article (as of today) was written by Kate Andrews titled, 'Design matters, like never before'. She starts by asking if we need to redefine what 'good design' means in our rapidly changing society.

There has been a lot of noise around the web lately on 'good design' and I don't know if I take more notice because the Design Council launched their 'Good Design Plan' last year. The 'Good Design Plan' is the Design Council's national design strategy plan for 2008–11, and in it they outline that good design is:

Sustainable design
A process
Joining creativity and innovation
Delivering value
And it’s the work of good designers (and good clients)

And on the note of design policy, earlier this month, 10 design proposals for 'Redesigning America's Future' were distributed to the all members of Congress and the (at the time incoming) Obama Administration. The very first proposal stated the need to formalise the American Design Council.

But I am going a bit off the point here having started with Kate's article... The point Kate is making is not what is 'good design', rather in order to explore this question further, we need better and more critical writing from the design community. I entirely agree with Kate on this because in my PhD research process, having to search and review design literature, I have to say it comes up pretty poor against the writing and publications of other disciplines (such as business, social science etc.). And it is for this reason that I am needing to contexualise my research into design, in these other disciplines (and yes, it is challenging doing literature searches and reviews that spans several disciplines, but why reinvent the wheel?).

Also ditto on Kate's note regarding the need for more critical design, and writing of it. From my perspective though, this deficiency was first brought to my attention about 2 years ago by my PhD buddy, Ben.

Ps. I have heard too many times people say that Designers aren't good a writing, but I believe that is untrue. I know loads of Designers who write as a form of reflection and/or even as a key part of their profession eg. Copywriters and graphic designers. This is not the reason I critique design literature.

For more on critical design and writing see here on Core 77.

Manifest Hope:DC

2009-01-20T12:49:00.007Z

Thought we might celebrate Inauguration Day right here with a link to a very interesting art exhibition called ManifestHope:DC. It exhibits the work of "artists who use their voices to amplify and motivate the grassroots movement that carried President-Elect Barack Obama to victory" and does so around 3 key issues: Healthcare Reform, Workers Rights and the Green Economy. Anyone can submit their art (online) and 15 pieces (5 from each category) are selected to be put on display. Here is a link to the winners.

Image from ManifestHope DC website

Live|work on 'Creating social solutions for MS patients'

2009-01-20T12:38:00.004Z

The International Herald Tribune published this article on Live|work's work in healthcare on January 16 2009. The article details Live|work's people-centred approach to tackling the issue of Multiple Sclerosis with the Ealing Primary Care Trust.

Thought it was interesting to note how the article describes Service Design:

Service design is one of the new disciplines that are redefining design by taking it into the realm of what's called "user experience." This is business school gobbledygook for ensuring that services (everything from online bank accounts to airline booking systems) can be used easily and efficiently. The service designer literally designs every aspect of the customer's experience by applying the type of thinking that designers use intuitively in conventional projects, such as analyzing problems and inventing unexpectedly effective solutions. Often they do this in collaboration with other specialists, like anthropologists and economists. Good service design schemes are so intelligently planned and executed that we barely need to think about whether we're using them correctly. The bad ones (and, sadly, we've all suffered from them) are confusing, inefficient and infuriating. How often have you been flummoxed by an impenetrable online booking system or call center?

New year, new thinking and new questions

2009-01-16T13:40:00.007Z

Happy New Year! I hope you all enjoyed the holidays, where ever you were and whatever you were doing. I got to enjoy the festive season in one of the most awesome cities in the world- New York!

I know I have a post brewing somewhere on some things I came across in New York, and I am not sure if it was these things or a 10-day break from the research did me a whole lot of good, but last week I refreshed, focused and revised my research question. I have a bit of expanding to do for it, but for now, here is it:

Understanding the emerging roles of Designers
in the Dott 07 public design commission projects
and their broader relevance to development contexts.

It's a new year and new thinking and new questions have been cropping up elsewhere. I have been scanning the blogs today and picked up on a few things...

Transformation, not Innovation

On the last day of 2008, Bruce Nussbaum declared that "'Innovation' is dead. Herald the birth of 'Transformation' as the key concept for 2009." Of course this was not met without loads of skepticism, criticism and some support (see the comments Nussbaum's post provoked at the bottom of the page). To give you a summary, here's a key part of the post:

The concept of “Transformation” ... implies radical transformation of our systems—education, health-care, economic growth, transportation, defense, political representation. It puts the focus on people, designing networks and systems off their wants and needs. It relies on humanizing technology, not imposing technology on humans. It approaches uncertainties with a methodology that creates options for new situations and sorts through them for the best quickly.

Most of the comments question, is this just a new buzzword/branding for/to replace innovation? In 2006, RED published a paper titled, Transformation Design. It's approaching 3 years now and while I think the content of the publication is great, the phrase "Transformation Design" never really took off. Did it?

Three (big) questions for Service Design

Another thing I came across today was my friend, Qin's, blog post on three questions she's posing to the Service Design world. Here they are:

Question 1: How do we change our understanding of the design process in Service Innovation?

Qin speaks to the shift in the creation of tangible (ie. in traditional design) to less tangible outputs and outcomes. I very much like her comment, "The uniqueness of service design is that the design outcome is a living system that evolves over time as a result of rich human involvement." This certainly happened in Dott 07 too, but how much do Clients, and other stakeholders, value this? How can this be evaluated?

Question 2: What are the designer’s new roles while working with multiple stakeholders?

Qin says, explorers, negotiators, as members of a design profession and facilitators. I have a load more to add here, but more in regard to the Dott 07 projects (as you could probably tell with my revised research question above).

Question 3: How would design’s value be recognised and accepted by other disciplines in Service Knowledge?

Qin not only asks how would design's value be recognised by Clients and stakeholders, but also by other disciplines that design is increasingly intersecting with (on that note, keep posted for details on the next InterSections conference in the UK) and including education. This is a biggie.

Please post your comments on Qin's blog here.

The Creator Economy and Service Design

Finally, here's an radio interview with Futurist, Paul Saffo, on the Creator Economy. Not an economy of creatives, but the idea that we have gone through Producer and Consumer Economies (which was about making stuff and then lots of it), and we are now in the Creator Economy where the central actor is not a Producer or Consumer, but where the person does both activities in same act, for example a Google user who uses (the product or service) and also produces (brings together online information). Seems Saffo and the Creator Economy has been around for awhile. The BBC reported on it in 2007.

Anyway, I thought, this sounds a bit like what happens when people use a service. See Rafael Ramirez's paper, 'Value Co-Production: Intellectual Origins and Implications for Practice and Research'. Sorry can only provide an abstract for you here.

Public Services by Design, Design Council (UK)

2008-12-08T17:03:00.005Z

The Design Council has been actively working on developing a new programme, Public Services by Design, looking at how Designers and design can help improve the public sector in the UK. The first workshop, hosted by the Design Council on 12 November 2008, has been disseminated online here, with full descriptions (words and videos) of what was presented, discovered and discussed.

The Design Council's Research Team also published a short Briefing titled, 'The role of design in public services' which can be downloaded here.

Furthermore, John Thackara writes, for the Design Council, about Transforming Public Services of which he discusses what happened in Dott 07 (and how), and some case studies from the programme.

Stay tuned here and/or at Design Council online for further developments on Public Service by Design.

A sudden surge in Service Design this month

2008-10-22T13:26:00.005+01:00

Hrm. Is it only because I am diving back into the literature this month or all of a sudden is everyone writing about Service Design? Here's some things I have picked up in the past few days:

Design Management Review on Service Design
Roberto Saco and Alexis Goncalves write Service Design: An Appraisal offering us "an overview of the field and practice of service design, including a definition (not as odd as it sounds, considering the wealth and breadth of issues that contribute to the design of services) and a look at how such companies as Ritz-Carlton, Herman Miller, and Egg Banking incorporate service into their design strategies. They also discuss trends in service design, including IBM's SSME (service science, management, and engineering) initiative, which seeks to encourage service-related research, and the UK Design Council's RED project, which explores the impact of design on social issues." You can download more Service Design articles from the issue here.

Fast Company Magazine: Using Design to Crack Society's Problems
Interesting how the DMI leaves us at the end on the topic of social issues.. This month, Fast Company Magazine profiles Hiliary Cottam and her company, Participle. Here' a bit of what they have to say: "Cottam is one of a new wave of design evangelists who are trying to change the world for the better. They believe that many of the institutions and systems set up in the 20th century are failing and that design can help us to build new ones better suited to the demands of this century. Some of these innovators are helping poor people to help themselves by fostering design in developing economies. Others see design as a tool to stave off ecological catastrophe. Then there are the box-breaking thinkers like Cottam, who disregard design's traditional bounds and apply it to social and political problems. Her mission, she says, is "to crack the intractable social issues of our time." View the entire article here.

Fast Company Magazine: Three More Who Design for Sociey
A little on what 3 others namely, Ezio Manzini, Marcia Lausen, and George Kembel are all doing in the same social design space.

Design Council Magazine: Service Design issue
The Design Council have archived all issues of their Design Council Magazine (DCM). Check out DCM Issue 3 which is mostly about Service Design.

Service Design Conference Amsterdam
And don't forget this one happening in a month's time. More info here.

Universities exploring Service Design

2008-10-17T18:11:00.016+01:00

Following on from the previous post, here are some Universities I know of exploring, researching and/or teaching (usually as a subject) Service Design. To date, there is no running course in Service Design (but I am aware there are definitely some on the cards shortly).

Northumbria University (UK)
In 2006, Northumbria University held the first Service Design conference called ISDN (International Service Design Northumbria). Since 2006 the University has held 2 other conferences around Service Design, one later in 2006 and the most recent, this year in April (download presentations and listen to podcasts here). I am currently doing my PhD research out of Northumbria and 2 other peers of mine are also exploring PhDs with strong Service Design themes.

Birmingham City University (UK)
Birmingham City University’s Service by Design programme is funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and seeks to raise awareness of Service Design in SMEs both in the private and public sectors. The SbD programme does this by developing their academics as “Innovation Managers” to work with SMEs. In September, SbD held a Dissemination Event explaining the progamme, experiences, learnings and results. You can download a presentation file of the event here.

Imagination Lancaster (UK)
Imagination Lancaster is a research lab situatated at Lancsaster University. One of the lab’s focal areas is Service Design undertaking research and projects into service design models, processes, evaluation and tools. See details here.

Carnegie Mellon University (USA)
Since 2004, CMU has taught and been involved in Service Design. CMU have also hosted conferences called Emergence in 2006 and 2007 exploring the boundaries of Service Design. Their next conference will be in 2009.Having worked with CMU design graduates before, I am quite familiar with their robust user-centered design methodology applicable to both products and services.

Kingston University (UK)
This year, just began a Master programme called Design for Development, which "focuses on the value of design as a vehicle for addressing social and ecological concerns in both the developed and developing worlds." Core modules include strands dealing with service design and sustainability, and optional modules include subjects that deal with human rights and politics.

Koln International School of Design, Koln University (Germany)
Since 1995, Koln University has been involved in Service Design research, teaching and publishing, spearheaded by Professor Birgit Mager. In 2005, Klon joined forces with other international Universities and design practices to set up The Service Design Network. In 2006 Mager founded sedes research (the Centre for Service Design Research) at Koln University.

Polytechnico di Milano (Italy)
Having produced some of the first Service Design PhDs, Polytechnico di Milano also runs a Master of Science course in Product-Service-Systems Design.

Domus Academy (Italy)
Offers 8 Masters degrees with Service Design strands throughout.

Laurea University of Applied Sciences (Finland)
In 2009, Laurea University will offer a Master of Business Management degree progamme in Service Innovation and Design. Click here to see more detail.

Kuopio Academy of Design, Savonia University of Applied Sciences (Finland)
A source tells me they are about to launch a BA in Service Design in Autumn 2008. I’d be keeping up to date with their News page to see when it finally launches.

Linköping University (Sweeden)
The University is currently undertaking projects around developing design techniques for service development, projects in healthcare, IT and learning labs for innovation. More details here.

Said Business School, Oxford University (UK)
This project, named Designing for Services in Science and Technology-based Enterprises (click on the name to go to the blog), ran from 2006-7 and looked at what would happen if you put Service Designers with science-and-technology SMEs. Academics also participated in the project, attending several workshops throughout the project process to make observations on what was happening. A key deliverable was a report published earlier this year, edited by Lucy Kimbell and Victor Seidel who lead the project.

University of Technology, Sydney (Australia)
As mentioned in an earlier post a few months ago, I completed my undergraduate design degree at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Service Design is a major one can do in their Master of Design Degree.

Here are some further additions to the piece I have been informed about.

(From Jeff Howard's Design for Service blog)

Rhode Island School of Design (USA)
Rhode Island's Service Design Studio is currently running a course which "explore[s] opportunities, tools and methods in the emerging field of Service Design."

Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design & The Danish Design School (Denmark)
The schools, in collaboration, will be piloting a Master of Interaction Design programme with a large Service Design component. See curriculum outline here.

(From Nico Morelli)

Aalborg University, School of Architecture and Design (Denmark)
Nico says, "We have been teaching design of Product Service Systems for about 7 years now, as a part of the Master in Industrial Design. Some of the outcome of this activity and some research, methodological and strategic results of our research is available at the wiki servicedesign.wikispaces.com."

(From John)

Illinois Institute of Design (USA)
Are currently teaching a class called 'Services in an Evolving Society.' The description reads, "This class will discuss the trends driving this dichotomy of constraint and abundance and explore how services can uncover new possibilities for people to live well in a resource constrained world."

(From Qin)

University of Dundee (Scotland)
The University's Master of Desig n degree covers Service Design in its focus on multi-disciplinary design research and practices.

Thanks Jeff, Nico, John and Qin!

Just in...

Glasgow School of Art (Scotland)
Their Product Design degree teaches Service Design, recognising that the term 'product' needs to also encompass the design of systems, services, interactions & organisational behaviours.