'Personal projects'

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.

Visiting Dott Cornwall

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

Icsid Education Conference, 22 November 2009

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

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.

Dott 07 case studies published by the Design Council

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?

SEED Awards 2009: Call for submissions

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!

Design and the social sector

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 Social 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!)

Dott 07 Explorers Club

The final Explorers Club for Dott 07 happened last Wednesday night, 12 March 2008.



The evening brought together a community of Dott 07 people- the Dott 07 Team, those who were deeply involved in the projects and those who have been enthusiastically watching and supporting the Dott 07 initiative over the past few years.

I was going to write up the night, but Claire has done a really wonderful job on the Dott 07 website. She reports all that happened on the night which you can find here.

A Research Update

I have almost completed my first phase of qualitative research which has involved interviewing the Project Clients of Dott 07. I had two main aims for this phase:

1. Look at developing an evaluation model for the Dott 07 programme, using insights from both the design and client side to see what kinds of criteria are similar and different;
   
   
2. Understand the experiences and learnings of participating in a design project from a client-point of view.

The first aim has changed a lot. I have never really liked the word evaluation. My instinct was that evaluation was not what I was doing with the Dott 07 programme, but I know I will need a set of criteria to discuss across all project that are at the least, “intelligent and consistent”, as Jim Collins says in his book, Good to Great and the Social Sectors.

I have just 2 more interviews to go and have thoroughly enjoyed doing all of them. One of the most enjoyable aspects of my previous work was meeting and talking with new people, getting insights into their daily experiences, and thinking about how design could have an impact through the products and services we were helping our clients develop.

During my first phase of research, I got to travel a little around the north east region of England. I had to go to Middlesbrough for some interviews and squeezed in a trip to the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA), which was showing a major exhibition called Bauhaus 1919 - 1933. It was wonderful to see some key pieces from the Bauhaus Archive in Germany.



While my interviews for the PhD take on a very different aim, I really enjoyed listening to people’s experiences on a design project. It’s something that I was always curious about in my old job and the PhD gave me a platform to explore this a little.

The process did not come without some learnings. Here are some which I think are important to point out:

• Planning, organising, interviewing and transcribing takes a long time! Plan accordingly;
  
  
• I wrote up a planning document, inclusive of aims, before I begun interviewing. I found it was a great reference to go back to to ensure I was clear on my direction;
  
  
• I drew upon my previous experience in practice as a design researcher which was really valuable. Everything from filing documentation into envelopes to writing up Confidentially Agreements, were things that none of the academic research methods books told me;
  
  
• Confidentially Agreements help lots! I wanted and needed honesty, and part of being able to get that was making sure that the interviewees knew exactly what I was going to do with the data collection;
  
  
• Some of the Project Clients I met at the Dott Debates, which proved to be a really helpful introduction. I was able to let them know who I was, gauge their interest in being interviewed and get a sense of their roles on the project. It made it much easier setting up the interviews;
  
  
• The interviewees found the use of visual aids really helpful in remembering and discussing the design outcomes. It had been 4 months since the Dott 07 Festival and everyone could use a little reminder;
  
  
• I think it’s important to mark out a core set of questions. In some later interviews, where time became an issue, I wasn’t clear on a core set of questions and had to go back to the interviewee to ask them these questions later on;
  
  
• Above all, have fun! The task is a crucial part of the data collection, but if you can’t be yourself and connect with people, you’re just not going to get the feedback you want.

An InterSections Overview from Jeremy Myerson

Jeremy Myerson, Chair of InterSections 07, has produced a 15 min podcast summarising the key themes of Intersections.



He begins with setting the conference in a historical context, but the main focus of his podcast discusses '4 new models of design practice' which emerged from the conference. These being:

1. Designer as strategist
2. Designer as co-creator
3. Designer as rationalist
4. Designer as storyteller

The podcast also includes snippets of the keynote speeches. You can listen or read the transcript from the Design Council website here.

Jeremy's synthesis of the conference was a great validation point for my PhD question, which is all about:

'Understanding the role of Design Practice in public design commission projects, and their broader relevance to Service Design contexts.'

Some Reflections on InterSections

The InterSections Conference has come and gone like a blinding flash of design stars (Tim Brown, Richard Seymour, John Thackara, Sir George Cox, David Kester to name a few...), black-clad delegates, awesome keynotes, stimulating presentations, long lines for tea, coffee, coats and packed lunches in clear bags all on the banks of the Tyne River NewcastleGateshead.







It was an awesome 2 days of presentations. The breadth and calibre of speakers were impressive for their provocative, stimulating and eye-opening presentations.



Hats off to the conference producers (ie. Kevin Mcullagh, the Design Council and Northumbria University) on pulling together such diverse design subjects and issues.

I thought Core77 put together a good write up of the event. Check out Day 1 and Day 2 of the conference on their blog.

Instead of repeating what happened, I thought I would post some reflections here.

Here's what emerged from my mind map after Day 1:

- Lots of people, strong sense of energy and anticipation

- Logistics were not good- long lines everywhere (could have benefited with designers here but I think we were too busy networking) and what was with the stapled programme (guess had a nice hand-made feel to them..?)

- Steller presentations that outdid the break-out sessions

- 'Are the D Schools the New B Schools?' break-out session was disappointing. It sounded a bit like Nussbaum on BusinessWeek, only live. I thought we, as designers, could have gone a step further and discussed pragmatic ways design and business could foster an exchange

- Thought the Service Design panel got too hung up on definitions of Service Design and didn't focus on the key issue which was supposed to be about 'know-how.' Did I learn anything new? Not really, but great for validation of my future research

And on Day 2:

- I was impressed with the keynotes and presentations on Day 1, but Day 2 was awesome!

- There is so much out there we just don't know, until someone introduces them to us (thanks Peter Higgins). Such great work, ideas, stories, thinking... all out there waiting for us to discover it

- I appreciated a presentation solely focused on people. Because they really need to be featured as much as the rendered pictures of products

- The issue of different generations was brought up (though discreetly) on both days. I believe this is an important one to focus on especially given that emerging design studios are pre-dominantly run by designers in their 20's and early 30's

- Great observation, whoever made it, on the dominance of males both as delegates and speakers. Glad to see that others were picking up on it because it seemed quiet obvious. Also rightly questioned as, 'was this saying something about the state of the design industry today?'

- Richard Seymour challenged us with some great propositions (something like 10 in total). Getting us to really think about what we do as designers, our roles, our responsibilities and the thing I think we can forget from time to time which is, remembering why we are designers in the first place

And overall... I walked out of the Baltic feeling upbeat and excited to see where we go from here in this time of transformation. As one speaker noted, the media paints such a doomed picture of the world with pressing issues such as the environment and globalisation, and I do think, as designers, it is important that we continue, more than ever, to inject optimism, excitment, engagement and humanism into the world.

Dott Festival | Day 8

The final day of the Dott Debates was a double-whammy with 6 hours in total of presentations and discussions. All, but one, were chaired by John and I thought he did a great job in opening, connecting and closing presentations, people and discussions.

Low Carb Lane

After a few hours meeting and greeting as part of the Dott Crew on the Festival site, I joined the Debate titled, Low Carb Lane, named after the Dott 07 project that happened in Ashington with service innovation and design firm, Live | Work.

Alex from Live | Work condensed almost 2 years of work and layers of complexity in the Low Carb Lane project in just 15 minutes. The brief for Low Carb Lane was to reduce the carbon footprint of a home in Castle Terrace, Ashington.



When one thinks of making a home more environmentally sound, a whole host of products come to mind such as water tanks, double-glazed windows, half-flush toilets… but what Live | Work discovered when they spoke to the broad group of stakeholders in the project was that people in Ashington weren’t going to have much interest for costly, bolt-on solutions when they had more pressing issues such as vandalism and arson to deal with.

Vandalism and arson were of course symptoms of a much deeper problem, which was lack of finance. This was a vicious circle where the tenants couldn’t pay their rent, which led to the unlikelihood of landlords investing money into the home, which then gave tenants little incentive to take care of the home and make efforts to pay the rent and the cycle goes on… It was a ‘catch 22.’ Throw in other issues, such as the fact that while the Ashington community were not rich with money, they were rich with pride and often refused charity and handouts, and you have a very wicked problem.

In Alex’s short 15 minutes he drew out the key needs in working towards solutions (which I have collated here to be):

- it’s not only about carbon emissions but also about community spirit
- it’s about providing incentives for all stakeholders
- it’s about empowering the residents
- using the landlords as the starting point and finally
- removing financial barriers

So what was the solution? A service called Saverbox and Nesco’s smart metering system.



It begins with an energy usage audit and then signing up to Saverbox which links financial incentives to reduced energy usage in a household. To provide a tangible touchpoint of this service, Nesco’s smart metering system is then installed. The metering system brings to life a household’s energy usage with visibility of financial incentives.



Joanne, Director of Business Development of the NEA (National Energy Action) then presented some startling facts on fuel poverty which is ‘the inability to afford to adequately heat the home’ (Boardman). Fuel poverty is liked to a whole host of issues such as poor health, inability to take care of the home, inability to pay bills and causes of damage to the home, such as condensation. The value of Live | Work’s Saverbox idea is to act as the catalyst to help eradicate fuel poverty.



Ian Mansfield of nPower, added to Joanne’s contextual overview and supported ideas such as Saverbox, in achieving the UK government’s reduction of carbon emission targets.

In the Debates session we discussed a whole host of issues such as retro-fit vs. replacing homes, opportunities for partnerships with the Saverbox idea, the role of design in the project… but I think the biggest take-away I gathered from the discussion was the complexity of energy. Alex summed this up when he said,

‘… every aspect of energy is complicated… there are so many obstacles and hurdles in the way and it’s not just people being difficult.’

Eco Design Challenge

The final Dott Debate around the issue of education, was rich with ideas, discussion and lots of networking happening afterwards. It kicked off with presentations by the Eco Design Challenge team, Nick and Rachel. Nick gave us an overview of the programme which involved 86 schools and thousands of Year 8 students in the North East designing solutions to reduce the carbon footprint of their school.



A toolkit was provided online for the schools to kick off the program which involved the students diagnosing their school’s carbon emissions. Again, information graphics helped bring to life the energy usage in schools, for example this is what a school with a high carbon footprint would receive after their diagnosis.



The Eco Design Challenge Team provided workshops for the teachers and linked up volunteer designers with schools to help them make tangible their ideas. Rachel gave us some insights into her experience with this.



The Eco Design Challenge approach overall was what they called a ‘light touch’ and here’s a slide to convey what they meant:



The programme was a great way in engaging the next generation designers and leaders with creating ecologically sustainable solutions. The Challenge was also a competition and as mentioned in a previous post, the winning schools got funding from NESTA which will help further realise their ideas.



Our New School

Julia of Engine presented the project of Our New School, which involved the local Walker Technology High School and ideas for how they will use their Building Schools for the Future (BSF) grant from the UK Government for improving their school.



Engine begun with viewing the school as a social system first. Spending time at the school, living the lives of the students, teachers and parents was part of a rich discovery process which enabled them to gather key insights for idea generation.

The outcomes of the project were:

A 7-year student learning journey, mapped as a process to show complexities and how these would be supported along the way




A briefing document, with the content co-designed by the school community, for the architects



A game to scale the project and enable other schools to do the same



Steve Gater, Principal of Walker, also gave a presentation beginning with ‘our new school is about people.’ He spoke about his school and some things he’d like to see in the future such as a school which is:

- ‘inviting, stimulating and inspiring’
- considers physical and virtual spaces for the community
- embraces technology
- redefines learning journeys of the students guided by the knowledge that the students ‘are the benefices’

The final presentation captured the bigger context of both projects. Hannah from the BSF Leadership Program spoke about the key issues of insufficient time and energy available. She had stated upfront that both the projects had ‘people with passion and drive [and] if we could replicated those we’d be sorted.’ Hannah also pointed out the need to put children ‘in the centre’ for the BSF programme which will provide £65 billion to schools all over the UK.

The Eco Design Challenge and Our New Schools projects are such great demonstrators of what design and designers could do to help the creativity of people in the school community. The energy and passion is definitely there. Ideas for scaling the projects, as seen here, show that time to do it is within reach. The government’s funding completes the picture for it all to happen. My question is, what are we all waiting for?

Dott Festival | Day 7

Today's Dott Debate was on Food Systems and Cities. The Debates were opened with a guest speaker from Toronto, Chris Hardwicke, who took us through some interesting initiatives of the city's involvement in food systems.





Ulla-Maaira Mutanen from Helsinki then spoke about the coupling of mobile phone technology to deliver information by pointing at and scanning RFID tags on products.



I quite like the idea of being able to know the origin of products, how far its travel and the personal stories behind them, all of which may be shared through this technology through word, images and sound.



If 'markets are conversations' (Locke, Searles and Wienberger) then this technology can help ordinary people see the stories of products and also bring people together. Ulla made some interesting points around social networks and the fact that companies cannot buy or control the stories that people share.





After a short break, John led a panel discussion with Tim White, Director of Regeneration from Middlesbrough Council, Chris and Ulla.



Tim spoke about his experience on the Dott 07 Urban Farming project having 'been an eye-opening experience' because initially the Council had thought 'very little' about food. Here's more of what I managed to capture from Tim...

'What came into my office were off-the-wall ideas for growing food in town... I thought it wouldn't work... but was carried along by the enthusiasm... and I was please to see it work well. Our role was to push along [the project] and open the door...Middlesbrough was a grassroots-driven activity. We need to go forward like this in future years...'

Urban Farming

After lunch, the Urban Farming project team gave us an in depth look at the project. Seeing as I have posted the Urban Farming project space pictures up in a previous post, I thought I would document here what will be happening next.

Ian Collingwood, a regeneration consultant who was was integral in making the Urban farming project happen, mentioned that the project concept 'fits strategically with the local area agreement' as it contributes to:

- education and learning
- making the community safer and stronger
- health in the region
- involvement of older people
- economic viability



Ian spoke of the legacy Urban Farming has already begun to leave behind, such as:

- the local health authorities who have set aside money to provide 6 local schools with allotments to grow food for the students to eat
- the development of a Jamie Oliver Fifteen-style restaurant to help put 15-19 year olds in jobs where they cook local food for the town
- the beginnings of a food co-op, where all the money it makes, is put back into the community to help lift people out of poverty through setting up credit unions
- developing ideas around a database for the skills of the growers, so knowledge on growing food can be shared
- organising a Christmas Dinner for the schools where celebrity chefs help cook the food that has been growing since the end of Summer.





Some of the previous Dott Debates had mentioned that while the Dott Festival closes this Sunday this was not the end, but only the beginning. The continuing activities and initiatives from the Urban Farming project in Middlesbrough couldn't be clearer evidence of this fact.