Yup! Briefing number four is in the house! It’s shiny, it’s new, it’s smooth, it’s beautiful, and most of all – it’s packed with great stories, ideas, truths, and ways through which your company, business or brand can really differentiate from competitors.

Check out some lovely photos here, and if you’d like a copy, just drop us a line at socialmedia@designit.com, on our Facebook page, or tweet us at @SocialDesignit. You can have the PDF or a hard copy, and it won’t cost you a dime. Go on – what have you got to lose?

See? Lovely. Get in touch now and grab a copy while it’s hot!

It’s Tuesday morning and we’re all back in our offices. Or getting there. 4 days of non-stop Spanish goodness has left us weary eyed, full of fantastic food, oiled up by outrageously large drinks, inspired by wonderful new colleagues, and buzzing all over. Madrid is a city packed full of inspiration. From looming, deco buildings to dark, twisting back alleys, Madrid is alive with sights, sounds, smells and people.

We were overwhelmed by the friendliness and hospitality of our new colleagues. Showing us the new office (they have a cinema. We think this should become standard at Designit offices), laying out tapas and drinks, taking us out for more drinks and various Madrid nightlife experiences, and being there for us whenever we needed them. Thank you :)

Friday night was spent at the new Designit office, meeting colleagues from near and far, and having guided tours around the office (their building has crests. Any suggestions for a Designit crest?). Later on, we headed out in to Madrid, sampling food and drinks until the wee small hours.

Saturday morning was about exploring Madrid, then in the afternoon we all met for a 4 hour workshop inside the magnificent train station. It was a great afternoon, with laughs, more tapas, creativity in every corner (some slightly more Star Wars inspired but still creative!) and altogether extremely inspiring. Saturday evening was a night at the Danish Ambassador’s home with more tapas (no Ferrero Rocher, for those of you wondering), more talking and getting to know everyone, and then a night out at a swing dance club – a truly inspired choice!

Sunday morning (or early afternoon) was met with puffy eyes and big smiles as we talked about the night before and set off to get lost in Madrid. The beautiful Retiro Park provided warm grass, dappled shade and wonderful sights for a late breakfast, and the rest of the city provided the playground we needed for the remainder of the day. Coming together in larger groups in the evening, we went out for our last supper. Despite being a bit sad about leaving, we managed to make the most of the evening (some more than others!), and can safely say we made the most of our time (note the piglet head in this photo from the oldest restaurant in the world!).

We’re so happy to have been to Madrid. Not just because it meant we got to meet our new Spanish friends, but also because it’s a city that needs exploring and investigating. It gave us a wonderful (warm!) break, the chance to experience the new, and not least, it gave us a wealth of inspiration.

Check out more photos on Flickr or Facebook!

On Monday just gone we went to a conference as part of Copenhagen Design Week entitled What Keeps You up at Night?

This was the question posed to a handful of leading international companies, and it was there answers to this question that would form the 4-hour conference at The Danish Design Center. It sounded pretty interesting, and it didn’t disappoint.
We were treated to talks from Alice Rawsthorn, Design Critic from the International Herald Tribune; Clive Van Heerden, Senior Director at Philips Design – Design Probes; Francois Lenfant, Manger of Global Product Design, Developed Markets, GE Healthcare; and David Kester, Chief Executive, Design Council UK.

Although each had their own particular spin there was a very evident dominant theme – and we don’t just mean design.

Designing for people, for humanity, is what these companies see as the future of design. As Francois put it, GE Healthcare’s designers’ ultimate goal is human benefit – what better goal can there be?

It was clear to see how designers are being involved in societal aspects today – they’re being recognised as beneficial for governments – even the UK Cabinet has a behavioural insights team. Designers are no longer just called in to make a leaflet look pretty and fold the right way, they are used, as David Kessler said, to nudge social behaviour and encourage changes within society, changes which focus on the fundamental ways we work, play, and live. By focusing on user-centric solutions the hope is that problems we witness in society today can be totally avoided in the future – even before they even begin.

The sobering fact presented to us by Clive was that 70% of populations will live in cities by 2050, highlighting the immense urban sprawl we’ll soon be facing. The way today’s comparatively small cities function, from power plants to water treatments, just won’t work in the future. Bu it’s not just industrial processes and solutions that will have to be redesigned – it’s just as much how society will function and cope with such a huge amount of people being crammed into urban spaces – not to mention the millions of youths that feel neglected by governments and the rest of society. This is where designers can make a difference. They can be involved in entire projects, from start to finish, projects that involve, empower and enrich, projects that range from a closed loop toilet water treatment process to youth projects.

Examples during the conference were;

Studio H

Studio H is a high school design/build curriculum for rural community benefit. Based in Bertie County in North Carolina (the poorest county with one in three children living in poverty and only 27% of 3rd-8th grade students passing the state standard for both English and maths), the one-year programme is offered to Junior-year students and provides college credit, a summer job, and a hands-on opportunity to build real-world projects for the community.

Loops by Participate

Loops is a project involving young people who are typically regarded as trouble by society and the media. They are locked in to their communities and never have a chance to break free from the downward spiral they are so often caught up in. Loops is a social enterprise that aims to expand young people’s purpose and possibility. Piloting in 2009, and now going live in 2 locations, Croydon and Brighton, it is now preparing to roll out nationally.

FARM: shop

As part of a council supported project to help regenerate parts of Dalston, FARM: shop is a groundbreaking urban agriculture centre which will include a community café, an events venue, and workspace, and will offer fresh produce directly traceable to a farm or grown in the shop itself.

It was fascinating and incredibly encouraging to realise these themes were running through every talk regardless what sector or country they were from. Design and society is a theme we’ve touched upon here in this blog in regards to Denmark and there are many, many other initiatives going on around the world – not least in the UK.

They say design can’t save the world, that it can only help, but if these projects and this passion were anything to go by, we’d say design can come pretty damn close.

“Change before you have to.” Jack Welch, ex-CEO GE

You might have seen this video recently:

It’s a great little collection of ways by which you can keep the juices flowing, and to stop your mind getting stuck in the quicksand of lethargy and monotony.

Creativity and innovation are hot topics right now. As a creative and innovative company, we have quite a lot of good stuff floating about the place, from room to room, and from inside to hanging outside with a cup of coffee. It’s not something you can keep inside, certainly not when it comes to the kind of people creative and innovative companies tend to hire.

In Frog Design’s article ‘Finding Creative People is Easy (and Here’s How)‘, Kate Canales talks about how creative people are not as hard to come by as we might think. She defines a creative person as one who “has the ability to identify and deeply understand a problem, and then solve that problem by breaking the conventions of the status quo.” She goes on to discuss how creativity can be encouraged in employees, and how you can bring out the creative in many different kinds of people. While this is something I believe it – we all have imaginations, and we should all use them – I think I’d like to add that creative people and places should not be afraid to fail. We (and many others) believe failure is a big part of creativity, and it certainly shouldn’t be frowned upon. Perhaps this is what defines a different type of people?

Failure is always an option. If you don’t succeed, try, try and try again – it’s something we’re told from our earliest days, but as the years go by, we are taught to be cautious, and to think before we act. We like to think that risk goes a long way. If it doesn’t work – start again. No failure is wasted.

So how do we keep these devil-may-care creative people under control in our zoo? As David Kelley so rightly states, “Leadership is […] building empathy for the people that you’re entrusted to help.” You want things done? Find out what will make those people happy, and let them do it. Between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, intrinsic will come out trumps almost every time.

Our hiring process at Designit is, as we like to say, chemistry, chemistry, and then competences. Sure it matters that you have skills, or came top in your class, but we’d much rather hire someone we like, and someone who will add to the team, and definitely like us.

Once we’ve found that certain someone, we like to let them do their things, their way. Some people like late mornings, others early, and our hours reflect that. Work when you want. If you’re tired during the day, much rather you take a nap and work with a fresh mind than produce sloppy work. Needless to say, clients come first, and we’ll always be there if they call or need us. We’re not that lazy.

Our sofa-bed downstairs (please note the Post-its for those great ideas you get first thing in the morning!)

You could think of it as a bit like Google’s 80/20 rule, in that as long as you put in the hours and get the job done, how you do it is really up to you. Everyone works in different ways, whether you like a straight-up 9 to 5, or whether you like to doodle and stare out the window from 7 to 3, it’s up to you. We want our zoo to be happy, to work hard, and to be proud.

Over the weekend, Designit celebrated. A lot. Not only did we celebrate our birthdays (all 180+!) but we also celebrated Designit’s 20th anniversary! But it wasn’t all partying. We spent all Saturday in a massive workshop which centered around the Danish Red Cross (Danish link).

We’ve recently become partners with the Danish Red Cross, a partnership we’re proud of, and we’re sure will produce some great work. We’ve donated a total of 5000 working hours to be used over the next 3 years on projects.

We’ve already held one workshop with them which took place around Christmas 2009 and as a result of that, we found our first project goal; to double last year’s result of money collected. Challenges have been identified, and ideas brainstormed, and the project is now taking shape.

This type of cooperation is new to us at Designit, and it’s proving to be an exciting opportunity to use our entire creative palette and crisscross all of our different competencies, in new and inspiring combinations. By increasing the focus on companies’ social awareness and responsibility we hope the initiative will spread.

There’s a lot of talk at the moment in the design community about whether or not design can change the world. We think it can. Sure, it might not do it directly, but it can certainly help. From simple tools to healthcare, from instructional guides to education, design can play a part in making life better for people around the world.

Below you can see some photos from our workshop. With a seriously good chunk of Designit working away all day on it, you can be sure we came up with some great ideas and proposals on how we can help the Red Cross achieve their target.

This was going to be a tweet, but let’s face it – 140 characters is never enough. Well, quite often, but not in this case anyway.

Over the 1st and 2nd of June, ExpoManagement 2011 is being held in Madrid. It’s the ninth of such meetings, and is designed especially for leaders who anticipate change. It’s a collective meeting of minds, where experts debate ideas and trends, and where those leaders who dare to act, and who are capable of generating new opportunities for driving change, meet to push these changes that can have profound effect on the future. You can check out the programme to the ExpoManagement 2011, although it’s only available in Spanish.

Designit is excited to have two guys heading to Madrid in June, Mikal Hallstrup, and Humberto Matas. The conference is divided into themes, and both our guys will be speaking on June 1st, under Marketing and Innovation. While Mikal focuses on inspiration for businesses, and design experiences, Humberto will concentrate on innovation and people, innovative educational experiences.

Ultimately, both are focusing on the importance of the user; user-centric design for services and experiences that can improve life, and society. Design is not just about a great product, or smart catalogue. More and more we’re seeing design popping up in everyday situations, examining how design can help us make the world a better place.

If you’re in Madrid, and like design, you should definitely check it out!

Yeah, there was no way that was going to be a tweet!

On Tuesday (10/05/11) we went along to Community Conference 2011 here in Copenhagen. Arranged by Seismonaut and Update, the day focused on the business value of social media and communities for both established brands and organisations, as well as emerging companies. We were lucky enough to hear from (deep breath); David Armano from Edelman, Bill Johnston from Dell, Astrid Haug from Berlingske, Max Schorr, from GOOD Magazine; Lars Damgaard Nielsen, from DR; Christian H. Kamhaug from SAS,Oliver Majumdar from Lufthansa, Benjamin Elberthfrom The Social Democrats (Socialdemokraterne), Susanna Rankenberg from DR, Mette Lykke from Endomondo, Rolf Ask Clausenfrom Ingeniøren, and Filip Rasmussen from Gyldendals. Every talk was inspiring and involving, and with an audience keen to be involved, the core conversations were highly interactive.

Mogens Dahl Concert Hall was the location, well-chosen for it’s wonderful acoustics. It also boasts a large courtyard, perfect for the glorious weather we were lucky enough to have. The mix of location, weather, audience and speakers meant that the day was a total success – we really hope they hold another conference in 2012.

The highlights for me were the keynote speakers, David Armano, Bill Johnston, and Max Schorr. They were passionate and clearly dedicated, and you couldn’t help but get caught up in their wake. They hammered home the point of community, and just how important it is in the digital age – which, in case you hadn’t realised – is now.

I won’t go into detail about the keynotes, as their presentations are available (below), suffice to say the importance of online communities has been realised (in the US), and the shift is moving from ‘should we have a community?’ to ‘how can we make this community even better?’ Reputation and trust are becoming measurable and are therefore becoming major factors that influence consumer decision making processes; companies must become more human, and therefore more social. Bring your customers in, take care of them, and they can make your company, your products and your brands better.

Check out David Armano’s presentation, Bill Johnston’s, and Max Schorr’s. You can also do a search on Twitter using #ccdk – hundreds of great tweets in both English and Danish.

Try to make the next one – it is most definitely worth it!

By Jim Dawton, of Designit London

They tell me that this year has been a good year for wasps; I found that of little consolation sitting in a London A&E on the night of the World Cup Final, having been attacked by a swarm of them after inadvertently chopping the top off a nest. Despite the game being shown on a rather tired-looking TV in the waiting area, I found myself more engrossed in the production line that I was being processed along. And being processed was certainly how it felt. The mark of lean production was stamped all over it, all in the name of service innovation.

Innovation is a well used word these days, and rightly so, if we go with the old Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) definition as being “the successful commercialisation of a novel idea.” We need new ideas and we need to get them to “market” (a term I use in the very broadest sense) – perhaps more so now than ever. And whilst a huge amount of energy and money has been spent in this arena in recent years, my instinct is that we have been looking in the wrong place. I say this partly as a result of working in the health innovation space in recent years as a design consultant, and partly because when the DTI was reshaped in 2007, it became the Departments of Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) and Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR). You see, I can’t help thinking that Innovation should have gone in with Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. Universities, amongst many other sources, have the ideas, but it is business that commercialises them within the boundaries of regulations. Spinning out technology start-ups invariably leads to a well-trodden path of technology push rather that needs pull. Successful commercialisation (again, a term used in its broadest sense) really only comes about when it meets a demand. Some say it has to meet a need or solve a problem, but I’m not convinced. I didn’t need an iPhone, life wasn’t a problem without one. Once it appeared, however, and I understood what it could do for me, I wanted one.

In healthcare, we have rather neglected to consider what people might want – not just the patient, but also the people who work within the system. In recent years the Design Council tried to address this with projects such as Design Bugs Out and Patient Dignity – although the former was a rather grand title for what was really a design-better-bedside-furniture challenge. And, on reflection, that is a shame as it detracts from the fact that having better functioning, better performing and better looking hospital furniture must have a positive impact on staff moral and patient recovery. It’s about delivering things that actually work, in every dimension – in this case wiping it, working it and wanting it. Therefore, when asked, as I frequently am, what design is, I use two words – usability and desirability. In a recent article in the Financial Times, entitled ‘An experiment in design’, Andrew Jack explored how pharmaceutical groups are using consumer industry techniques to better understand their patients’ needs. He cited the example of Unilever’s development of Clearblue, the now de facto standard home pregnancy test. It was the designers, more than the scientists, who really understood the customer and made the difference.

Perhaps one area of healthcare where the patient should really be at the heart of the matter, but where they are rarely even mentioned, is telehealth. I’ve known about telehealth for as long as I can remember. It was one of those classic Tomorrow’s World case studies – in the future we will be able to do this! Of course it is here now, and people will tell you that it saves money, it means the clinician can be in several places at once, it’s completely technically feasible, it can generate income through bandwidth, it benefits the local authority or the community nurse… But what about George, wouldn’t he much prefer it if someone popped around more often now that he is on his own? What about Sue? She actually quite enjoys chatting with the practice nurse, and really benefits from getting out despite it taking a bit of effort. Whose health is it anyway?

Our health services have largely evolved around the people who work in them, with the clinician at the top of the tree. My recent experience in A&E made that very evident. I didn’t enjoy the fact that I had to interact with five different people and a self-service vending machine for the tablets I had to take away with me. I didn’t enjoy the fact that I had to sit back in the waiting area once I had a canuala in my arm, just in case I needed drugs administered intravenously at a later date, as it would save time. Of course one doesn’t go to hospital to have fun, but it would certainly help if the experience was more enjoyable – everyone would benefit.

The Coalition Government has thrown down the gauntlet to the health service to save money, but at the same time as being more accessible and more accountable. We will have to come up with new ways of doing things, and get them adopted and diffused around the system quickly – perhaps like never before. We will have to innovate. We will have to successfully “commercialise” novel ideas. We will have to both create and satisfy demand. We will have to put the patient, the “consumer” first. We will have to create a “consumer” health service.

It’s the abbreviation post. Actually, it’s a post about two events. The first, held yesterday, was a joint event between Aarhus School of Business (ASB) and The Danish Design Center (DDC), and was titled ‘How to Use Social Media to Boost User-Drive Innovation.’ We hosted the event at the Copenhagen office, and also participated in it.

The speakers were Yun Mi Antorini, Assistant Professor at Aarhus School of Business and Social Sciences, Malene Sihm Vejlsgaard, Founder of boblr.com, and Troels Nørlem, Senior Communication Strategist at Designit. Each gave motivating, detailed cases on how social media can play a pivotal role in user-driven innovation. Through examples such as LEGO Mindstorms, Quirky,  #18DaysInEgypt, Boblr, and more, Yun Mi, Malene and Troels argued the case for involving the users in innovation.

Malene highlighted four points she learnt on her journey founding Boblr. Don’t try to map it out – creativity and innovation are chaotic. There’s no point in trying to make a definite plan as the chances are things won’t go as you expected – take a leap of faith. No one is permanent – there is no definite structure or hierarchy. Neither is it strictly local – if you have a global user base – use it! Finally; just do it – you have to leap in, head first, and see where the flow takes you. Each presentation reflected these points. Companies, brands and organisations must tear down their walls and open up to users. As Malene so rightly said; if your service or product doesn’t fulfill users’ needs, they’ll find a way around this. You might as well learn from them.

It was a super afternoon that ended with some networking, wine, and sandwiches in the sun. Thanks to all that made it.

————–

Today we headed off to Open App 2011, an two-day event held by The IT University of Copenhagen. The first day focused on developing apps, the second on the market value of having an app. Unfortunately we could only attend for a short while on the second day, but we made it! Martin Delfer, partner and Director of Brand and Communication, gave a 30 minute talk on Designit’s role in the app world.

Covering the transition from print to web and from web to app, Martin demonstrated the benefits and value of creating an app through cases Designit has worked on. Martin can’t talk for more than 10 minutes without making a joke, so needless to say, on more than one occasion he had the audience in laughter, and his fellow Designits shaking their heads.

It was a great morning, and if you didn’t catch us this time, hopefully you will in the near future! Don’t forget to follow us on LinkedIn to stay up-to-date with events, and check out Designit.com too.

Yesterday we went to The Danish Design Centre’s (The DDC) opening of their new exhibition ‘Challenge Society.’ The exhibition looks at how design can help solve many of the current and future problems of society. As their website says, “The world is transforming, creating complex societal challenges. The future sees fewer hands to care for the increasing number of elderly. The school systems fail, hospitals are down with billions in deficit and the welfare model in general is under pressure. Just to mention some of the future challenges. The situation needs immediate action and new, creative solutions.”

We had a couple of projects on display there, one showcasing our digital communication work as a part of new midwife practices, and a conceptual case for Odense Hospital, reimagining it as a patient hotel concept. While it was great to have Designit represented at the event, it was also the perfect opportunity to hear where others believed design was heading. And boy were we inspired, and happy.

Strategic design has been making headlines all over the place recently, from the ‘creativity crisis’ in American schools to the Danish national design strategy, and as yesterday proved, it’s a bit of a worldwide movement.

We were lucky enough to hear from Chris Luebkeman (Director for Global Foresight and Innovation, Arup), Christian Bason (Director of Innovation, Mindlab), Chris Hacker (Chief Design Officer, Johnson & Johnson), Mikkel B. Rasmussen (European Director at ReD), and Josephine Green (speaker and consultant). Each and every one of them gave inspiring and insightful presentations on how society is changing irrevocably, and how as a result, design and creative processes must be incorporated into just about everything, from packaging to organisational mindsets.

Design thinking has been around for sometime but in the last few years we’ve seen it become a bit of a trend. No wonder really. We are moving out of the economic, mechanistic worldview we’ve had since the industrial revolution and beginning to recognise this flat, social, communal, socio-ecological world we now find ourselves in. Design, a creative, chaotic process, clearly stands as an innovative way through which organisations and businesses can grab a little creativity. The problem here is that through the implementation of design thinking, or any creative processes, through all the management and administration that must be crossed, much of the failures, chaos and mess that creativity thrives on is lost. It’s removed, or minimised to ensure efficiency so that the creative process or design thinking you are left with isn’t anything similar to that you started with.

Today, design thinking – as a term – is on the way out. While we still need this overall mindset (of that there is no doubt!) what we do need to do is to leave behind our hierarchies, our traditional organisational structures, our linear processes that stifle creativity and innovation. We need to focus on the bottom of the pyramid – there shouldn’t even be a pyramid. As Josephine Green put it, we should all be pancakes.

In the socio-ecological world we find ourselves in, the focus is now on the social and the community, and solutions to problems in this world can be found in the social and the community. The focus today is on community needs and social solutions. Solutions which can be found through open collaboration, multiple stakeholders, multidisciplinary innovation, and co-creation.

Co-creation is what Designit does. It has always, from day one, formed the basis of what we do. We believe in user-led innovation – meeting and interacting with those people who have the problem or need on their turf, and including them in the whole process. We don’t have the answer. Our clients don’t have the answer. The consumers don’t have the answer. It’s only by coming together and collaborating that we can find solutions.

Designit believes in collective creativity and we will always believe in collective creativity.