Filed under: design thinking, made me think, service design, servicedesign | Tags: challenge, design process, fast company, post-it, service design, visualisation
Would you believe that the humble post – it note is causing quite a debate over at Fast Company. James Hunt is adamant they should be thrown out of the designers toolkit.
“It’s time to put that ubiquitous design photo of the Post-it to rest. Give it a break. Retire it.”
Now I think this is a little extreme but it did get me thinking. Post-it notes seem to go hand in hand with the service design process and I photograph post-its ALOT! But something Snook have become conscious of lately is the amount of websites and portfolios that showcase a random image of a wall of post its. What does this tell us? Well, not very much to be honest because we can’t see what is on the post-its.
“Post-its are visually arresting and like rolled-up sleeves, glasses on the table next to an open fountain pen, beautiful people on cell phones , architectural plans and cups of coffee on a conference room table they are visual shorthand for “hard work is being done here, we’re busy innovating!”
I like the response from one reader – “I suppose next you’ll be warning us that those who sketch in moleskines lack creativity”. He is right, everyone has to find the tools that work for them and the way they like to do things.
How to tangibly capture what we are designing is a challenge service designers face. So I suppose the lesson here is always look at a picture through someone else’s eyes – what does it tell me? what do you learn from look at it? what impression does it give?
“Designers themselves are producing increasingly immaterial–and un-pictureable–things.Whereas designers used to make buildings and interiors and posters and toasters, they now are just as likely to be designing services, systems, platforms, and protocols.”
The picture of the post it note was drawn by the fabulous Gill Wildman during a session about Douceurs.
What is the best use of post-it notes you have seen in a service design context?
Filed under: design thinking, made me think, people I like, Red Jotter Work, service design | Tags: facilitation, missions models money, mmm, service design, workshop
The team at MMM have designed a new phase / program / idea / service for their next venture and they invited me to help move this back-of-an-envelope document into a version of the programme where they have much more detail of the what/how/when/&how much.
Mission Models Money is a passionate network of thinkers and doers whose vision is to transform the way the arts use their resources to support the creation and experience of great art.
The first of three workshops kicked off last week with Clare, Rohan and Mark , a big white space, lots of walls, pomegranates and peas. The team have never thought about what they offer as a ‘service’ before and we had a really interesting conversation around this. For some, the word ‘service’ conjures up thoughts of transactional exchanges and for others it has much more positive connotations such as ‘being of service’ which leans towards the notion of the gift economy. I am fascinated by the way people interpret the word service and I learned alot from simply going out and asking people last summer.
The day began by me asking simple questions to ensure clarity, as we needed a clear and jargon-free explanation of their service offering. We spent time understanding this new phase as a service, mapping programme outcomes and relation to stakeholders and really imagining what MMM’s new service might look like from a user perspective. The trio got colourful with cartoons and story telling and it really helped bring it to life! You can see pictures of the tools we used and the outcomes generated here.
The next workshop is happening this week and we are inviting two of the key stakeholders along to bring their expertise and insights to the table.
Filed under: design thinking, made me think, people I like, Red Jotter Work, servicedesign | Tags: coten, design, education, graduate, graduations, service design, student
This week Snook are the special guests on the Coten Project. We made this video to share our views on service design education.
Service Design Education for the COTEN Project.
We talk about lots of things including our experiences of learning service design and the conversations we have with students and graduates who want to know more about the topic. For those of you who didn’t sign up to be part of the Coten Project you can post any questions / thoughts right here and we will get back to you! For those clever people who are part of it – please visit the main studio section and join in the conversation!
Filed under: design thinking, made me think, people I like, service design | Tags: community, design, experience, graduate, london, mydownham market, service design, services, sicamp, social, student
Wow. It seems a call out for ‘service designers’ is becoming a regular item on my to-do list… it’s my pleasure to introduce MyDownhamMarket …
SI Camp and The Young Foundation are teaming up to run an event in King’s Lynn. Young people will be entering ideas and 3 of them will get developed in a day. They are looking for service designers to get involved. They can offer travel expenses for people that come along, and food during the event. Ideally they’re after some students who want some experience or freelancers that can give up a day of their time.
So what’s it all about?
MyDownhamMarket
“MyDownhamMarket is all about coming up with new ideas to make your local area better using simple web and mobile tools. We’ll be bringing young people from the Downham Market area together with students and professional software developers and designers to create new projects that use web and mobile tools to make Downham Market better for everyone.Over the next few weeks, we’ll be hunting down some of the best ideas that could change something that matters in the local area. Ideas might be about finding a sports team, getting people together to clean up a park or ways of sharing lifts to school.We’ll be choosing three of the best ideas to help build at a day-long event 4th June from 9am-6pm at the Highschool with the help of a whole bunch of different people – from business students to professional software developers.”
Do it. It’s real service design for real people…
Filed under: made me think, people I like, Red Jotter Work, service design | Tags: architecture, david barrie, grassroots innovation, people, places, regeneration, scottish opera, service design, social innovation, speirs locks, visualisation
I described my time at Speirs Locks as a ‘day with a difference’. So what was different about it? Well, I spent the first half of my day in an old glue factory which was inspiring despite being freezing. I then ‘toured a site’ with an architect, something I have never done before. I spent the second half of my day in Scottish Opera, after a behind the scenes tour - a place I would never typically find myself and I played a beautiful grand piano at the coffee break – something I would love to do every single day but rarely get the chance to…
I was part of this day as a result of the work David Barrie is carrying out as part of an innovative collaboration between Architecture Design Scotland and creative organisations based in the Speirs Lock Area of North Glasgow.
David invited Snook to be part of an international workshop into urban regeneration through culture. The purpose of this work at Speirs Locks is to provide a framework and implementable plan that identifies what forward uses and actions should be promoted that will help Speirs Locks become a world class creative neighbourhood.
As the appointed ‘visualiser’ I spent the best part of the day listening and translating what I could hear into pictures. You can click the picture below and zoom in to get a flavour of the discussions.
I was also the ‘voice of social innovation’ (as David put it ) which was interesting as the majority of the people there were from architecture, arts, performance, planning, regeneration etc and I believe social innovation and motivation has a key role to play in any venture involving communities.
Things got really interesting when Adam, a member of the community, joined us and the conversation turned to the grits of grassroots and how we could make the most of what is already there. I asked the group to think about what we could all go and do tomorrow, that requires no funding or framework, just a thing, anything, we can do to engage with the people who live here…
The group split up into teams ; ‘Wouldn’t it be brilliant if?’ | Touchpoints | Whales and Plankton | -Ing the thing | to explore this notion of growing the people and then growing the place whilst thinking practically and economically. The ideas that appealed to me the most were:
- A ‘social kitchen’ where people go to share food, learn how to cook and prepare food and eat together.
- A ‘geek on a bike’ who wears black baggy trousers who can come and set up skype for you or sign you up to twitter.
- A ‘grant writer’ ( inspired by John’s experience of people who sit on the side of the road in India and type letters for people on their typewriters – and something I experimented with myself in St.Andrews )
As always, the day ended with lots of questions needing answered;
* What are the demographics of the future community?
* What will be the educational requirements of that community?
* What jobs will be offered by the site?
* What are the health and well-being needs of the future community?
* How will the site contribute to and express urban identity and civic pride?
* How do people socially interact on site?
* What are the opportunities on offer for independent business?
* What are the aspirations for micro-enterprises?
* How will neighbouring communities feel that the site is beneficial to their area?
* How will the site support the generation of new creative and social networks and enterprise?
* What opportunities will the site offer for personal development?
* What shopping facilities will it offer?
And last but not least, I made new friends : Tom Beardshaw , Laura Mc Naught , Gary Watt , Mhari McMullan and caught up with old ones. Definitely a day with a difference.
Filed under: design thinking, people I like, Red Jotter Work, service design | Tags: design, people, resource, service design, snook, social care, social work, tool, user, workshop
For the last couple of months I have been working with Research In Practice for Adults , designing workshops that will fuel the design of a resource for frontline staff. Self directed support is one of the main things going on in social care at the moment. As a result there is a huge culture shift happening for all front line staff involved.
RIPFA have designed a resource that practitioners can use themselves, not one that is used on them; so they can take control of what is happening to them and act. I am running three ‘Change Playing’ workshops to find out how practitioners feel about change.
I will be asking them to identify something that has motivated them that they/ their organisation has done, and something that has happened with a service user that has inspired them. Fundamentally, we want this resource to improve practice and give front line staff opportunities to talk about how the feel. We are also creating a depository for people to drop their own stories in .
Over the next two weeks I am traveling to Totnes, London, Manchester and Birmingham to deliver “Change Playing”. I will be working alongside Gerry Nosowska to draw upon the expertise, knowledge and insights of front line staff to ensure this resource is the best it can be, and the most useful for them and their colleagues.
If you would like to know more about the project don’t hesitate to get in touch. I will have some time in each city between trains and hotels, so if you would like to say hello just let me know.
