Co-designing for Society (journal paper)

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.

Greengaged: Systems for common good

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.

Redesigning Business Summit: The Big Rethink

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.

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?

New Designers, London

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.

Call for ideas for mobile phone security

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

Design in Alternative Futures at the Design Council

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

Public Services by Design, Design Council (UK)

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.

Graphic Design Festival, Breda

Last month, I presented international design research by the Design Council at the Graphic Design Festival, Breda.


The seminar was titled 'Design and Personality' and instead of repeating myself, find out more info on the Design Council's brand new blog. Or read my text copied from the blog, below:

"A brand new celebration of graphic design took over Breda for 6 weeks in May and June under the banner of The Graphic Design Festival Breda (GDFB).

Graphic design proliferated the city with exhibitions, public installations, seminars, workshops, events and 100’s of visiting and invited designers and researchers from all over the world.

The focal point of the Festival was the opening of the first-in-the-world, Graphic Design Museum, a sharp new space in the city tracing the history of Dutch graphic design and inviting international designers to exhibit their work.

This month's featured designer is Ji Lee who has displayed some of his personal work, such as The Bubble Project, a way for the public to engage with our every-growing advertising and media culture, and make their own voice heard.

The Design Council was also invited to present an international perspective of design at a seminar during the festival. I talked about ‘Design and Personality’ and how personalities in graphic design influence the work of designers and carve out new areas for them to work within."

Ji in action in Breda.

A Look into International Design Centres

Over the Easter weekend I visited Copenhagen, Denmark, and Malmo, Sweden. I have had a keen interest in international design centres for many years now, especially those funded by Government.

Two destinations I put on my list to visit was the Danish Design Centre (the UK Design Council equivalent in Denmark) and the Form/Design Centre in Sweden.

The Danish Design Centre is all about design exposure.


Located on a central city road and open to the public, it contains a cafe, shop, numerous exhibition spaces and a conference centre.



Visitors have free access to the shop and cafe, but a small fee is required to see the exhibitions which celebrate Danish design, design in business, designers in society and design icons.



The Form/Design Centre is much smaller and tucked away in the Small Square of Malmo.


It is also open to the public and is entirely free to enter. Spread across 3 floors are exhibition spaces, a shop and a cafe which invites visitors to sit down, have a coffee and browse international design magazines.


Shortly after returning home from Denmark and in the Design Council's library, I met a group of people from a Design Centre in Malaysia. I am yet to find their website, but when I do I shall post it up here.

Other international design centres or bodies I know of are:

Design Institute of Australia (Australia)

The National Design Centre (Australia)

German Design Council (Germany)

Centre for Design and Innovation (Ireland)

Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organisation (Japan)

Better By Design (New Zealand)

Norwegian Design Council (Norway)

Design Singapore (Singapore)

Hong Kong Design Centre (HK)

Design Council (UK)

Corporate Design Foundation (USA)

Design Management Institute (USA)

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.

InterSections

Tomorrow the InterSections: Design Know-how for a New Era Conference begins at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art at Gateshead Quays.

Hosted by Northumbria University's School of Design (where I can be found on a daily basis), Dott 07 and the Design Council, it was a sell out conference 2 months ago and looks to be a great 2 days.

There will be capture of the conference here, and on the official InterSections Blog.

Four months on…. The Initial Project Application (IPA)

It’s now 4 months into my PhD and I have spent the past months transitioning from Australia to the UK; from big city to regional city; from full-time work to full-time student and while it has been a bit of a roller-coaster challenge, the dust has finally begun to settle.

Over the past months I have spent time getting to know the projects and the designers who have worked on them. I have also spent time with the Dott 07 Management Team and the Design Council. I have found conversation to be a powerful learning tool, especially with the lack of Service Design literature on designing public services (two key references here are the work of the former RED unit of the Design Council and Jim Collin’s monograph titled, ‘Good to Great and the Social Sector’).

The designers have especially helped me with recognising what have been the most topical and challenging issues in Service Design, and I thank everyone who has spent time talking with me.

The IPA is a research proposal I have to submit to the Northumbria University for approval of my study over the next 3 years. The University also needs to know that I will be making an original contribution to knowledge.

Here’s a brief overview of what I submitted (and the Panel just reviewed it today). My working title is:

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

To flesh this out, I will be looking at the design practice (that is the methods, processes, tools, techniques and roles of the designer) used in the Dott 07 public sector projects. I will be looking at 7 projects, which used Service Design-type practices. These projects are:

1. Alzheimer 100
2. Design and Sexual Health (DaSH)
3. Low Carb Lane
4. Move Me
5. New Work
6. Our New School
7. Urban Farming

These 7 projects will form a case study, which will build evidence and an argument for the value and role of design in public sector services.

My original contribution to knowledge lies in thinking about Dott 07 as an artificial ecosystem, created by the Design Council, for designers to experiment and play in. The implications of this mean that there are conditions bespoke to the Dott 07 programme, that may not be relevant to the broader context. For example, the tolerance of failure in Dott 07 projects may be higher because the funding partners (the Design Council and One NorthEast) are not going to pull the plug like a commercial client might if things go a bit hairy. What I intend to do is identify what is bespoke to Dott 07 and what can be applied in the ‘real-world’ of Service Design. I hope to make a contribution here to the embryonic discipline and along the way, design a method to do this. I know that designers, researchers, academics are creating these artificial ecosystems all the time, but how do you then transfer and apply the knowledge and ensure a legacy?

To further illustrate what I mean, the Designing for Services project at Said Business School, Oxford University is a programme of similar nature.

A bit about Dott

Designs of the Time (Dott ) is a ten-year programme, to be initiated every two years in a different region of the UK. Each Dott consists of a suite of public commission projects utilising design-led interventions (i.e. Design processes, methods, tools and the roles of designers) to involve people (the public) in designing solutions to local issues. The key issues were:

- Education
- Energy
- Food
- Health
- Tourism
- Movement (transport)

The first Dott (Dott 07) was undertaken in North East England between 2005 and 2007.

To celebrate the projects, a showcase Festival will begin tomorrow on the Tyne River at Baltic Square. I will be blogging updates of the Festival here.

About a PhD in Design

My name is Lauren and I am undertaking a PhD in Design at Northumbria University. My PhD is co-sponsored by the Design Council, London and Northumbria University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The brief set for my PhD is to explore emerging methods in design, namely Service Design, using the Design of the Times (Dott07) regeneration program happening in the north-east of England as my main case study. By case study, I mean a few things (and this list is not exhaustive):

• Capturing the stories of Dott07 ie. What has happened
  
• Capturing the design methods that have been used in Dott07’s many projects
  
• Capturing the learnings from the projects and look at what we might possibly take forward into Dott09 (and what would best be left behind).

I have set this blog up as a platform to share my ideas and add some discipline around capturing thoughts for my PhD. I welcome your thoughts, comments and questions in response to my posts and have opened up posting to everyone (ie. You don’t have to sign in as a Blogspot member).

I hope you enjoy reading and interacting with this blog. It’s one of the many ‘activities’ I have in store to engage people with my work and research, and also help me develop my thoughts throughout this three year journey.