Designing a better world at Northumbria

Last week I went to Newcastle for this one-day conference to pick up some tips on how to design a better world.

The opening session was really about a discussion of what ‘better’ means to different people, I particularly like Julia Lohmann’s idea of ‘nothingness’, where people have more time to think and enjoy life rather than busy getting it stuffed by stuff…

I am rather impressed by the two speakers from Philips. Gavin Proctor talked about their extended product life cycle that goes beyond the line of consumption, but into disposal and recycle of Philips product as well.

The closing keynote was from the brilliant Josephine Green, who previously worked as the Senior Director of Trend and Strategy at Philips Design. She took us through the change we are experiencing in terms of social structure, or in her words ‘from pyramids to pancakes’. Couple of key characters of the pancake society is around the distributing innovation, collaboration, community and sustainability. Well, according to my knowledge, you can find some related arguments in Zuboff’s Support Economy and Gary Hamel’s Future of Management – both talked about the power shift towards stakeholders and their role in open and social innovation. It is quite inspiring to see how international company that previously has a reputation in manufacturing, such as Philips, stand up and talk about what social change means to them and how they face the challenge to move ahead.

And for fans of social innovation, here is a link from her presentation regarding some tools and methods for social innovation that may interest you: www.socialinnovationexchange.org

There was a concern expressed at the conference regarding whether it is too optimistic to this bright future Green presented, as the environmental scientists are basically telling us it’s too late. Well, wonderful Ms Green replied ‘it is our moral responsibility to keep optimistic in difficult times.’ and she also said ‘Life is a bitch.’ – wise words!

Interestingly, the next day of the conference, I found this rather odd little box outside Waitrose in Newcastle city centre full of green tokens. So it was the Community Matters Theme from Waitrose. They ask their customers to help them choose how much they should fund in community projects, so their investment is driven by community for community. Customer who shopped in the store were given a green token to vote for the community project they would like to support, and then Waitrose will invest money in these projects according to the result of the voting. A rather engaging approach to present community development to Waitrose's customers, don't you think?

By the way, I voted for the wild animal one, and then an lovely lady passed by me, put her token into the same box and told me 'nice choice~' - haha!

So supermarket is catching up by placing themselves as an active part of the community and support local development. Why don't we have Waitrose in Dundee? Can we vote for that as well?

Interdisciplinary Discovery Through Design

This workshop was hold on 28 September by the Design for 21st Century in the Imperial War Museum. The workshop aimed to collect the diverse knowledge in the room to contribute ideas for developing new design policies by (1) presenting five design research project in the Design for 21st Century initiative to share their empirical learning (2) stimulate discussions about topics of the contribution of design researchers on reflections of these five projects and in general.

Amongst the five project presentations in the morning - all interesting projects - I was especially impressed by two.

The BikeOff project was based on the idea of design against crime. The project looked at design for bike riders' security issues, and developed ideas that can go on to further commissions in manufacturing. At first glance, it was a typical multi-disciplinary design project with inputs from crime scientist, designer, engineers, social scientist and many other extended stakeholders. What I find interesting is the way the project was managed with what they called 'An Open Innovation Research Approach'. The project demonstrated how using overlapping research processes carried out by different stakeholder groups achieved the transformation from multi-disciplinary to inter-disciplinary, where the hybrid ideas start to emerge in prototyping stages, and also the design outputs became more diverse. Especially the approach was good at efficiently develop product (perhaps services as well) to explore unrealized marketing needs, rather than develop predicted outputs as planned in the first place. Guess this is what was missing in many NPD and NSD literature. We were taught to be so busy controlling and defining the process of design that it becomes so easy to forget to enjoy the discovery, the iterative exploration that leads to new territories.

The other one was the Design for Services project presented by Lucy Kimbell – I believe most of you guysa are familiar with this project. In her presentation, Lucy talked about the designer’s unique approach to generate knowledge through practice, which was not really discussed much in other of her publications. Although I temporary moved my research focus a bit away from the whole knowledge creation literautre, it was still nice to hear other's reflections on a similar subject.

We were then asked to discuss in groups and to fill in paper that describes the contribution of ‘design researcher’ – and somehow this is a confusing term. As some people in the room came from an academic background, thus researcher means ‘people who studies design’, but others (like our group) saw the role expended into the researchers who actually worked in design processes and contribute to the design outcome. If we look at the five projects presented in the room, all reflected a part of knowledge on the ‘study of design’, but most of these learning come from actually conducting the design practice. So did it mean ‘design research = design’ then?!

Out of all the answers we put on the paper, I personally found ‘giving people a voice’ is the one that capture design reearcher's perspective the best. As it could suggest the use of visualisation but keep the empathy and the central focus on people (either as user, stakeholder, or research subjects…) When one of the participants in the final discussion part pointed out that ‘imagination or creativity’ is missing from the key skills of designers. Is that we are just too close and we don’t see it anymore? No, I don’t think design profession is all about creativity or imagination. Everyone is creative and imaginary if they have the confidence and the voice to communicate, to share, and to impress. The value many of the pioneering designers in the field – a lot of them in Service Design but also many from other design areas – is to give people the voice and the confidence to be creative and imaginary so that they can see, create and implement solution for their own problems.

One of the highlight of the event to me, personally, was actually meet many of old friends who share a similar interest in Design and Research. Lauren Tan, a PhD in Service Design as well as good friend also blogged her thoughts on her blog. A pleasant surprise was to meet Ahmad Beltagui from Nottingham University Business School at the event, who then introduced me to a really helpful paper on 'What is not a Grounded Theory', which motivated me to kick off the Research Design chapter this week. Sometime, I do wonder why we keep going all over place to attend these events and perhaps we thought we know the presentations so well already. But what I often found out is that when a group of people with a similar interest were put in a room under a certain task, good stuff do come out from somewhere we didn’t expect.

... more picutres on Flickr ...

the end of design? the re-brith of design!

Yesterday we had a truly inspiring lecture from my brilliant colleagues Tom Inns and Mike Press in University of Dundee, as part of the Master of Design student project exhibition opening.

Tom took us back to his river of Design History. He also predicted that the sunny but highly pressured area of emerging design archipelago (service design included of course) which looks at real issues in our complex life is suggesting a re-birth of Design as a discipline. The world is witnessing an revolution brought about by new ways of communication, of living with the natural and artificial environment around us and of operating corporate, thus new generation of designers are exploring their ways into the challenging but exciting future – the best examples of which is right here on the Master’s exhibition.

Mike suggested that we were here not looking at the end of a master programme, or the end of design, but were celebrating the new beginning of a different journey ahead of our Master graduates, as well as us as designers and design researchers. Design is about the vision, the imagination of what the world was like, should be like and could be like. Mike introduced some of his design heroes (well, in fact most of them were not really recognized as ‘designers’… ) who believed that design is valuable to improve life by different means of, for example public services, engagement and empathy. ‘Nothing was too good for the public’ as Mike stated in his speech, there was a time when designers and artists were actively engaged in communities in public services to deliver effective, efficient and empathic solutions and motivations. It is time we look back upon these heroes, and set out a new phase of design which described as ‘Social Design’ by Mike. How do we create alternatives to social issues? There were principles suggested in last night’s presentation as:

• Empathy and user-centred,
• Co-creation and co-design,
• Service focused,
• Cultural inclusion,
• Socially engaged,
• Empathasis on well-being, and
• Connected.
  

These principles as well set out the guidance of the 13 projects undertook by the Master of Design students for the past year. If you are interested in having a look at these projects in more details, please visit http://www.dundee.ac.uk/djcad/mastersshow/design.htm

As well for more information about the Master of Design course at the University of Dundee, please visit http://www.masterofdesign.co.uk/

The one-hour lecture was videoed and it is expected to be made available online soon. I am providing a lecture note just to easy your waiting ;-]

Design Thinking Blog

Tim Brown's Design Thinking Blog... talks about co-developeding the toolkit with small holder farmers. Check out their HCD toolkit developed, can be used as a starting point of prototype with customer or to create various versions of it for individual design program. There is no need to re-invent the wheel !

Here is his talk on TED about creativity and play. He talks about how to take role-play seriously with customers can improve the design of intangible systems such as service ans social relations. The emotional attachment people spend on the role-play can be used as an empathy tool for both designer and stakeholders to understand the set-up situation. Playful exploration and playful building are the other two tools he mentioned in the speech... worth checking out as well :-)

He is brilliant, isn't him?

Visualising Information

Came across this piece about Information Design via Puting People First. Being a follower of Tufte and Wurman, I always believed the power of visualisation when it comes interprate complex information. As a typical diagram freak, I am very keen on getting the story behind the image across to the audience. A good piece of information design work should allow the reader to read the meaning and also tell a story in great details while combining the media materials with their own imagination.

Also thanks to JB, I found this beautiful video that presents the wonderful use of motion diagrams to tell a vivid story about how the world is changing from Hans Rosling on TED.

David Townson Visits...

Had a wee chat with David Townson early this morning on the service design managing topic... Bits about the Service Architecture concepts and the on-going organisational structure revolution... Couple positive feedbacks on some of my ontological assumptions of new design practice and knowledge diffusion - an inspiring guy he is!

I am really looking forward to meeting him again after my wild travelling later this year for a small pilot - hopefully my thoughts will be more matured and research questions sharpened(!)

David gave a lecture on his experience as a product designer + service designer + design manager this morning. He did a session with M.Des and MDE students this afternoon on a detailed case study on Move me and blueprint as a method.

Glad that David also touched on probing, mock-up, quick prototyping, prototyping test, persona and scenarios... I will talk about these methods next Tuesday, so it's always good to have these words buzz around for the students!

Doodle of the day~

Randomness & Chaos - what a life!

Managed to get up early this morning for Seaton's 'WICKED PROBLEM & STICKY TOFFEE PUDDING' - a lecture for the Master students I teach in the School of Design. Unlike scientific problems, most of our design problems, of course design research problems included, are wicked problems that are not only complicated but also complex... solving such problems (eh, perhaps handlling would be a better word) is like putting your finger into a sticky toffee pudding - sticky & messy. It is just impossible to pull out one bit... everything is linked and of course nothing is easy to be left behind.

Right after that, my friend, also a PhD researcher, Emma Murphy talked about research methodology. I am really happy to see that my talk in two weeks time on Action Research and methods will fit perfectly into hers today...

Right after Emma, Space&Place has Dr Norman Alm talking about Randomness. His example of the importance of randomness in Darwin's evolution, in comparison with artificial intelligence and computer programming , is a very interesting one. Basically he is saying that there are very simple element of any system: natural or artificial. And these elements make complicated results by re-producing itself according to some simple rules. What makes situation complex and also allows the system to survive any comlpex environment or solving complex problem is the occasional randomness inhabits in the system itself. Therefore, for a species to survive, the gene has to create random mutant that allow itself to increase the change of adaptability. For a robort, it has to be able to make random decisions to allow it to jump out the cyclic reforming codes - you know all these 0&1... One thing learned today: random number can be produced by computers automatically and it needs to pass a randomness test to be a qulified random number!

Also contribute to Emma's talk, here is my 'doodle of the day' - don't mistake it as a negative sign towards lecturers, my doodles can only be stimulated by really inspiring speeches!

a new world

Terry Iwrin's lecture on the first day of Master of Design course, very impressive!

Terry talked about how assumptions projected by designer's world view influence their way of working and thinking and, of course, design. She talked about we as designers should find the balance between specialising in content and details and seeing connections between things.

She continued to argue that our worldview influence what we can perceive and what we cannot perceive, and designers (or professions that engage any kind of cooperation with other beings... basically that is everyone on earth...) should be aware of this pre-set bias of our own worldview and accept 'other ways of thinking'. I agree that the most important point here is that there is really no 'correct' way of thinking, only different styles of thinking. However, we as human have the power of influencing other ways of thinking by method, as simple as, conversation. Awareness is much more important than correctness!

Her touch on chaos theory is interestingly related to my own research in organistional dynamics, where certainty and control has become out-of-date way of organising. Instead, navigating through 'wicked problems' is the new topic. Understanding, exploring, and tolerating new phenomena, either inside or outside any individual/ group/ organisation becomes the key of surviving.

'Chaos is creative, flexible and often stable, but it always defies predictability and control. '

She also talked about 'wicked problems' (the problems that are often ill defined and has more than one solutions and... change over time...) and 'tame problems' (well, the opposite...) in terms of design problems. I just notice that Prof. Seaton Baxter is going to do a lecture on wicked problem on 7th Oct. He never disappoints me with his unique presenting style and always refreshing points~ can't wait!

Strathclyde Service Science Workshop

Got a call on Sunday and I was on my way to Glasgow on Monday... ignoring the promise of transfer report delivering deadline on the same day...

It is a workshop under the name of 'Service Science'. And according to the key presenter Raymond Fisk, the name doesn't really matter, you can add whatever you are doing after the 'Service ____?'... so basically 'service design' is a correct term in this sense...

In the morning a presentation was given by Prof. Ray Fisk, a marketing guy from Texas State University. Starting with the story of the elephant and the blind men... ha ha... which is surprisingly suitable to describe the situation in service ____? nobody really knows what they are doing, everyone just see a part of the whole thing, while the whole thing is just too complex for one discipline/perspective to totally understand. His proposal of changing 'service science' to 'customer science' particularly interets me, as the argument in my research is always putting the customer in the heart of organisation operation. Also, he touch the importance of arts (design included), in terms of embracing emotions and creating joy.

the main point of the afternoon discussion are: the concept, the cross-discipline collaboration and the T-shape professionals who can realize the former two. Our group discussion is mainly focused on cross-discipline/function units collaboration: its efficiency, its effects (overall maximisation), and the power of organisational culture on these issues. Very interesting discussion among the group, we've got a manager from RBS, two academia from marketing, one from NHS doing risk management, one IT engineer and me, designer. I notice the use of language is possibly the main bia in communication, each profession has its own glossary to describe the same thing with slightly different words... somehow it becomes confusing. Although within 'service science' most of the jargon are agreed, still once the concept was understood with the existing knowledge in different disciplines.

A paper comes with the workshop is the white paper from IBM and Cambridge University, called Succeeding with Service Innovation. Worth reading! Funny enough that it starts in almost the same time as I started my PhD, and this publication is out in April,2008. Most of the arguments in the paper are the same as mine -- only in more beautiful sentences... I am happy that it means I am on the right track here. Although disappointingly, the definition of Service Science is the short for SSME-- Service science, management and engineering. In the footnote, it says SSME can be extended into SSMED -- Service science, management, engineering and design. Seems that the theory construction of design is still a dearth.

Naomi Klein's speech in Dundee

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

Naomi Klein gave a quite powerful speech yesterday in Dundee University. It was mainly about her new book The Shock Doctrine. A thesis about what happened after a national crisis. She showed a rich knowledge about her researches into couple of Latin American and Affrican countries, along with a broad view of the global environment that impacts the crisis strategy carried out in these countries.

I 'd better not talk too much about the content of her book, as yet I haven't read it... Do not want to mislead anyone, including myself...

the movie on her website is worthy check-out.

I happened to read through one of her articels on her website about the earthquake in China, and her opinions on the current goverment reactions in the crisis strategy. Unfortunately, I cannot say I would totally agree with what she states... obviousely she still needs more time to do her research on China. As a country with a quite different history in captallism development, it might be too rough to judge it simple with a westernised evaluation system. Especially with her political position, it might be difficult for her to capture a strong, yet often over-looked by many researchers in the west, a cultural perspective in China's crisis strategy.