RED

Designing new public services presentation

I've had lots of requests from people who heard me speak at conferences in the US recently for a copy of my slides. The presentation sets out why we need a new generation of public services and a new(design-led) method of creating them. I talked about our two healthcare projects, designing for behaviour change and transformation design. Click here for a pdf of the presentation and a (very) rough transcript.

Download presentation

Download script

Jennie Winhall | LINK | DESIGN METHODS + HEALTH PROJECT + PUBLIC SERVICES + TRANSFORMATION DESIGN | COMMENTS (0)

Transatlantic tripping

In the last few weeks I've spoken at three great conferences in the US on the future of design:
Emergence06 at Carnegie Mellon on Service Design,
IIT's About, With & For on user-centred design,
And the Sarasota Design Summit.
I talked about three things: the need to design a new generation of public services, what RED is learning about how to design for behaviour change around issues like climate change and chronic disease, and transformation design as a way to bring policymakers, economists, designers and innovators together to create new solutions.

The excitement around design thinking and where it may lead businesses has been growing in the US for some time now, and these conferences highlighted the power design has to inspire and transform organisations and their offerings.
Most interestingly for me, I found a huge appetite out there for applying design to social issues - and judging by the number of relevant presentations and discussions it's a fast-growing area.

READ MORE..."Transatlantic tripping"

Jennie Winhall | LINK | EVENTS + RED TEAM + TRANSFORMATION DESIGN | COMMENTS (0)

Fill your pod with...Strategy

Last week IIT held their annual Design Strategy conference in Chicago. The event focused on how design innovation can drive business strategy and you can listen to it here.

Chris Vanstone | LINK | TRANSFORMATION DESIGN | COMMENTS (1)

A Prescription for Innovation

New Fast Company article on SPARC. One of the examples featured in our Transformation Design paper. Thanks to Nico Macdonald for pointing it out.

''The Mayo Clinic's new SPARC lab is driving experimentation at the frontier of health care. How? By getting physicians to think more like designers... Mayo is wrestling with the same issues that designers routinely tackle: In an increasingly competitive field, how do you differentiate yourself? How do you generate fresh ideas and implement them in a timely fashion? And how do you make sure those ideas actually benefit customers?... [The acronym] stands for "see, plan, act, refine, and communicate," is meant to remind participants of the design-oriented methodology so they'll continue to employ it when they return to their departments.'

Chris Vanstone | LINK | TRANSFORMATION DESIGN | COMMENTS (0)

Transformation Design

After invaluable input from many of you who read this blog, the final draft of our Transformation Design paper is now finished. Many thanks to all of you who have shared your work, ideas and comments with us. We couldn't have done this without you.

We believe that there is huge potential in this approach. This paper is a call to action to all designers and non-designers wishing to work in this way to join us in developing transformation design as a discipline.

The paper begins to set out the characteristics of the emergent discipline of Transformation Design. It identifies a nascent but growing community of practice. It highlights an under-supply of designers equipped to work in this way. And it explores the market for, and the challenges facing, designers who are starting to work in this new discipline.

This paper forms the basis of ongoing work at RED. We are keen to build a community around the practice of transformation design.

We have highlighted a small number of examples in this text. There must be many more of which we are unaware, and many other groups who are beginning to work in this way. If you are part of this, we would like to hear from you.

Our work is open source, so we are open for you to fervently agree, violently disagree, and above all to share your views with us and to share other examples by commenting below or sending us an email. Click here to read the final draft

Chris Vanstone | LINK | TRANSFORMATION DESIGN | COMMENTS (0)

Transformation Design

We will soon be publishing our second RED paper - a call to arms for the Design Industry to embrace an emerging way of working that we call Transformation Design. The paper identifies a growing community of practice and a body of work that begins to set out the characteristics of this emergent discipline. It explores the market and the challenges facing designers wishing to work in this way.

Here's a draft excerpt which set out what we see as the core characteristics of Transformation Design practice.

UPDATE:
The final draft is now available here

Chris Vanstone | LINK | TRANSFORMATION DESIGN | COMMENTS (0)

Script Debate at Design Museum

The RED team attended Script last night - the Design Museum's inaugural design debate event last night, in support of Hilary Cottam, who was asked to sit on the panel.

Colin Burns, RED's Design Associate joined the debate from the floor.

Designers only do 3 things - and they are all activities shared with many other professions - so who's not a designer..?

| LINK | TRANSFORMATION DESIGN | COMMENTS (0)

Stop looking at what everyone else is doing

To add to the current state-side design fever Business Week have launched a new innovation channel on their site. Yves Béhar is offering a five step recovery programme on how to get through the rush and maintain your creativity."

Step 1: If the client asks for the next iPod, your answer should be, "Are you the next Steve Jobs?"

Step 4: Stop looking at what everyone else is doing

Via the excellent Noise Between Stations

Chris Vanstone | LINK | TRANSFORMATION DESIGN | COMMENTS (0)

Design vs Business

You may not agree with it all but LukeW has put together a table comparing a business approach and a design approach. It's partly informed by Tim Brown's recent article in Fast Company which should have been mentioned on these pages a long time ago.

Chris Vanstone | LINK | TRANSFORMATION DESIGN | COMMENTS (0)

Design and Social Policy Debate

Last Night Aiga London (American Institute of Graphic Arts) held a thoroughly engaging and useful debate, that explored the potential of design and social policy, stimulated by Hilary's wining of Designer of the year and the work of RED and the Design Council. The discussion marked a broadening of scope for the monthly disscussions of Aiga.

Speaking were Ben Rogers of the think tank ippr - who worked with RED on the Touching the State Project (He cited it as being the most enjoyable project he's ever done), Richard Eisermann - director of Design at Design Council and James Woudhuysen, Professor of Forecasting and Innovation, De Montfort University who was happy, as ever, to act protagonist.

Nico Macdonald, chairing the event had set questions for the panel to answer and the audience to discuss:

Do design methods offer a new approach to social policy?
What skills do designer have that are relevant to social policy?
Why design in social policy now? Is it just in vogue?
Who's asking for it, public or politicians or designers?
Does the public want co-design?

Chris Vanstone | LINK | TRANSFORMATION DESIGN | COMMENTS (0)

It's all happening in the States.

Last week IIT ran a design strategy workshop in San Francisco featuring two of the pillars of transformation design Patrick Whitney of IIT and Peter Coughlan - practise leader of Transformation at IDEO. (Who indcidentaly is usingn the term co-creation)

If we're talking IIT it's also worth mentioning their newish master of design methods degree.

Peter Me was lucky enough to but go wasn't too impressed - but there are some good notes on Peter's talk. Read them here:

Chris Vanstone | LINK | TRANSFORMATION DESIGN | COMMENTS (0)

And at Stanford...

... the website is up for the much heralded d-school:

They talk about 'design being the glue that binds multidisciplinary teams together' and 'solving big problems in a human centered way'

Can't wait to see the projects. They promise to tackle difficult, messy problems including stopping drunk driving, building better elementary schools and developing environmentally sustainable offerings.

Seems like we have some allies across the water - good luck.

Chris Vanstone | LINK | TRANSFORMATION DESIGN | COMMENTS (0)