Redjotter

With an enthusiasm for service design, design thinking and social innovation, Lauren Currie is a member of The Social Design Taskforce who passionately believes that designers have the ability to assist social and cultural change.

Educated in Scotland, Lauren Currie holds an Honours Degree in Innovative Product Design, and recently been awarded a  Masters Degree in Design, with Distinction, from the University of Dundee, where she focused on exploring and defining Service Design.

Lauren’s evolving honours project Douceurs is an example of her work, a service solution enabling people to send letters to their future. This poetic service solution captured the personal touch of traditional communication methods and, in December 2008, was entered into the RSA Design Directions 2008/09 brief After the Post Office, for which Lauren established an online overview of the project process and solution.

As a developing design writer, Lauren’s review of the 2007 Intersections Conference was published in Networks Magazine and her 2008 undergraduate dissertation, “An Exploration into the Evolving Field of Service Design”, is currently being reviewed by key thinkers in the field. This investigative study included interviews with; John Thackara, Bill Hollins, Stefan Moritz, Kevin Gavaghan, Gill Wildman, Nick Durrant, Nico MacDonald and Nina Belk.

After graduating, in August 2008 Lauren worked as a freelance Service Designer for Arne van Oosterom, in Holland’s Designthinkers organisation. Mentoring and teaching undergraduate students on service design enabled Lauren to spend 2008 running a variety of workshops and lectures on Service Design, Ethnography and Critical Thinking. In November 2008, Lauren co–led a Design for Social Change workshop at Glasgow School of Art, for thinkpublic’s graduate initiative The Real Work Experience. And, later in November, Lauren attended the first European Service Design Conference in Amsterdam.

Currently, Lauren is representing Scotland for mental health movement MindApples and having established Redjotter, also writes for Design Cultures and emotional intelligence blog Thriving too. During 2009, Lauren worked in Berlin with Deutsche Telekom Laboratories (T-Labs), on a three-month project investigating information communications for older users. In Easter 2009, Lauren worked with award winning social innovation and public service design agency thinkpublic.

During her Masters year Lauren has been scrutinizing the role of a service design graduate. She has written “A Call for Service!” that explores the opportunities for service design within the NHS and is currently aiming to get this paper published. The outcome of her Masters is ‘Making Service Sense’ ; a service that communicates to creative graduates what people think and talk about when it comes to Service Design.

Last month, Lauren ran a workshop at the Interactive conference for Experience design, Well-being and Service Design in Savonia University of Applied Sciences, Kuopio Academy of Design in Finland.

Lauren is the co-founder of Studio Unbound, an initiative aiming to introduce students, graduates and educators to the creative power of social media. Alongside Sarah Drummond, she is also co-director of Mypolice, a web-based service that fosters constructive, collaborative communication between communities and the police forces which serve them. MyPolice originated at (and won!) Social Innovation Camp in June 2009.

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Contact: myredjotter (at) gmail (dot) com

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What’s Happening?

Attending The Police and Democracy event at The House of Commons, London on 4th Feb 2010

Interview by Suze Ingram for Service Design Hub in Australia on 8th December

Presenting MyPolice at ‘Feedback surveys for performance measurement and quality improvement: experiences from policing and health care‘ on November 27th in Edinburgh

Featured in BBC news article: Social Media could transform ‘public services’ on November 27th

Presenting MyPolice at ‘MyPublic Service Conference’ : A national conference about citizen engagement with public services online, on November 26th in London

Interview by David Wilcox for Social Reporter in London on November 26th

Interview by Noel Hatch for Every Day Social Democracy in London on November 26th

Facilitating  ALISS workshop; helping people with long term conditions to find local services and support on 25th November

Interview by Vicky Murray, West.fm 96.7 journalist on 21st November

Featured in BBC news article: Police Open up to Social Media on 20th November

Presenting ‘Professional Practice Online’ at Glasgow School of Art on November 18th in Glasgow

Running ‘Studio Unbound lll’ for the Jewellery Department at The University of Dundee on November 16th in Dundee

Become a Future Gov associate on November 12th

Presenting ‘Making Service Sense’ and running a ‘Rip and Mix’ workshop at the Service Design Cafe on November 12th in Glasgow

Running a session on ‘Ethnography‘ for Design Study students, Level 1, at The University of Dundee on November 6th in Dundee

Running ‘Studio Unbound ll’ for the Product Design Department at Glasgow School of Art on October 7th in Glasgow

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References:

“Lauren is a most impressive individual who has already made a name for herself within the field of service design, although she is still a postgraduate student. She takes initiative, acts to the highest professional standards and has a wide and thorough understanding of her field. A prodigious blogger and networker, Lauren is great at making connections – human, intellectual and creative. We selected Lauren as one of four postgrad students to work on a project for a major European telecoms company. We expected the very highest standards – and she delivered!”

Professor Mike Press, Professor of Design Policy and Head of School

“Lauren Currie worked as a service designer at DesignThinkers and she made a lasting impression. She is one of the most energetic and talented people I have ever met and she keeps inspiring us with her insights and her fresh take on things.”

Arne van Oosterom, Owner and Service Design Consultant at DesignThinkers, lecturer and chairman of the Service Design Network Netherlands (Service Design Netwerk Nederland).

“Lauren Currie is a creative, motivated and organised designer who is currently working on making herself a voice to be heard within Service Design. Lauren seizes opportunities to broaden her knowledge and skills base – she has undertaken a number of placements/live projects in the past year including research for Deutsche Telekom’s t-labs in Berlin as part of a design team from the University of Dundee. Lauren is a great networker and presenter and has frequently been called on to mentor undergraduate students, present to staff and outside agencies alike. Lauren has a very bright future ahead of her.”

Hazel White, Program Director at University of Dundee

“…because of all that richness, the thing I value about Red Jotter is the range of things she covers, of the sense I have of her being a guide in a slightly unfamiliar landscape, pointing to the things we all see everyday and helping her readers see them the way she does.  So it’s not that there is a single post or posts that I immediately want to point to, it’s that following what she writes as a whole makes the landscape more familiar.”

Stefan, Public Strategist

“Lauren is a furnace of energy and ideas who is always at pains to share insight with others and invariably a pleasure to converse with. If you have ever the opportunity to work with her, seize it.”

Adam StJohn Lawrence, Experience Designer

“… it would be so beneficial for the design world if there were more people like you who took a step back from what they were doing and realised the potential that comes with helping graduates. You’re quite an inspiration!”

Dave Cuvelot, Graphic Design Graduate

“I really admire everything that Redjotter has done this past year for the field of service design! For me personally, reading about her classes and endeavors on the MDes course at the University of Dundee via her blog, was an inspiration to travel across the Atlantic and also study at the University of Dundee! Effecting one life in that way is HUGE, now think about effecting dozens++ of lives in that way! In this changing design landscape we need super-connectors and info hubs like Redjotter to show us the way. Keep helping us make service sense!”

Cora, a Master of Design Student at Dundee University

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