More friendly faces have joined our ever increasing ranks recently. In Copenhagen, we’ve welcomed Christina Hauge Lauritsen, as a Brand Design Intern. Christina is studying a BA in Brand Design at The Copenhagen School of Design & Technology.
Previous to this, she studied E-Design with a focus on graphic design and business approach. She’s a creative soul, who values her family and when it all gets too much, she can be found out pounding the tarmac. That’s running, not with her fists.

Also in Copenhagen, we’re finally getting our own IT guy! He’s a gift from above, as poor Morten in Aarhus can finally stop running back and forth between the two cities, and rest in peace, knowing that we won’t be calling him at all hours asking what are probably pretty silly questions. Instead, we can call Daniel!

Daniel Michalik, our new IT Support dude, studied English Linguistics at Aalborg University, and took a 6 month business school course. Although starting out as a shipping trainee, his natural ability for IT skills began to shine through, and he was soon offered a full-time job in the IT Department. When he’s not working his magic with computers, he can be found out kitesurfing or speed skating.

No doubt more will follow :)

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!

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.

The strength of good strategic design is at last being recognised. Currently, the hunt for a national design strategy aimed at innovation and growth in Denmark is well underway.

“Design has evolved from being able to create beautiful and functional products to be a process that can drive the evolution of services, products, business models, organizations and ways of thinking. Therefore, design is an important part of Denmark’s future.”said Eskild Hansen, head of European Design Centre at Cisco, one of the participants at a summit held by the Social Liberals.

Denmark has a strong history of design that has evolved from design and aesthetics to a strong strategic power through which companies are able to innovate and grow. It’s this strategic design power that has recently sparked a debate in the political world and within the design industry.

The Danish Design Association (The DDA) have, as a result, invited all parties concerned to a meeting on April 26^th 2011 in the hope of coming to an agreement, and to make a start on the road to a stimulating and bold design strategy that will fully benefit all of Denmark, on national and international levels.

The concern is that by effectively working against each other, the potential power and strength of a national design policy could be hampered. The DDA believe that by working together, and including the knowledge, experience and strategic thinking of professionals both from within the industry, and outside the industry, a true visionary design strategy can be created.

Two political parties (the Social Liberals (Radikale Venstre)) and the current government of the Liberals and Conservatives (Venstre and Conservative) are working on their own national design strategies.

The Liberals recently unveiled their ‘Design the Future’ (Design Fremtiden) which focuses on four areas; design education, internationalisation of Danish design, public Design challenges, and growth in the creative industries.

The government have formed a ‘Vision Committee Design 2020’ comprising of six members, selected based on their personal qualities, professional activities and knowledge of the design area. The committee will recommend strategies and to strengthen conditions for design until 2020.

Denmark was the first country in the world with a design policy in 1996, and the time has come to reformulate this in order to keep Denmark as a leading design nation. It’s an exciting time for Danish design, and needless to say, we’ll be keeping a close eye on the matter.

Yesterday morning, while doing the routine surf, I came across this article from Fast Company; User-Led Innovation Can’t Create Breakthroughs; Just Ask Apple and Ikea (written by two Danes, no less!). A good little article, but one that I can’t quite let go. Why? Because Designit firmly believes in user-centred design. It’s a belief we’ve based our work on from the day we began work, and it’s a belief that has so far, given us nothing but success.

We know that the consumer is not king, that’s a 90’s mantra, but neither is the brand king. The playing field is levelled, and with that, brand and user meet each other on common ground. We work together as one unit.

We all know the story about Henry Ford, cars, and faster horses, which is in effect what this article claims Apple and IKEA adhere to, and of course, there is some truth in that. Just look at crowdsourcing; not exactly the death of advertising it was once touted by some to be. However, I don’t think any brand believes exclusively in the ‘user as leader’. User-centeredness doesn’t mean ‘what the user says goes’ as this article implies. It means involving the user from the outset, taking the views and opinions of the end-user and then incorporating the skills and talents of designers and creatives to help evolve, enhance, and refine the ideas.

The whole process is easily explained through our approach; we, (Designit) and you (the client) both create the solutions you need. We constantly throw ideas back and forth, never losing sight of the market or your customers, meaning that the end result fits perfectly with your expectations, your customers, and your ideals.

No brand relies solely on their users, and no brand completely ignores their users (even Apple!). Winning innovation and winning design are born from collaboration. It’s worked extremely well for us over the past 11 years, and it’s only getting better.

Our beautiful and shiny new book – The Branding in Motion Book – hit our desks this week.

It’s lovely.

It demonstrates primarily through images how we execute business strategies for various clients. We weave every aspect of a brand into a united strategy covering all media and platforms, with the client’s unique business context at the centre of everything we do. Every time.

Just as exciting is our ‘The Irresistible at First Glance Book’ (which covers our product design), which we haven’t even got yet! We’ve only seen the PDF, and think it’s safe to say that the printed version is going to be just as smooth and tactile as the branding book.

Feel free to tweet me (@SocialDesignit) or comment here if you’d like a copy. We’ll have them to dish out on Tuesday (22/02). Check out some lush pictures below….

As some of you may have noticed, our blog has been somewhat quiet recently. Not because we have nothing to say; on the contrary, we’ve been so busy that we’ve quite literally run out of people and time. That is, until now. We’ve had (and are still having!) a mad hiring burst, which has resulted in us hiring me. That sounds a little odd. Suffice to say that we now have a dedicated Online Communicator. Me. I will keep our site updated, the content flowing, the social media active, and the lines of online communication open. I hope you’ll follow, share, tweet, comment and upload until I am so overwhelmed I need an assistant.

After 15 years of design research as a growing and now dominating force within the business of developing products and services of real value for the consumer, the question about what’s next is beginning to rise.

As the power and methods of design research is becoming known by everybody who wants be sure to make money in a world of ‘more products faster’, it is obvious that we all need to find the next tool or weapon in the battle to develop the next big thing, before the competition.

Here’s my bet, and I’ll be blogging a bit about that for a while, because I think it is explosive… Corporate Collective Creativity. With design research as a standard process we need to look for a new creative potential to release. We believe that potential could easily be the vast research and innovation resources that exists within every company – but that usually stays largely untapped due to a variety of organisational, psychological and even physical reasons.

Most senior designers have years of experience with being two things: design developers – and facilitators of processes that synthesizes the right framework for the innovation work. Almost always painfully ignorant to the specific project designers gather information from the market and from inside the client’s organisation … where they often find many of the answers already – inside the organisation, right under the client’s nose, usually, though, well hidden or just not actively seeking to become of value. Simply because the organization does not recognize the value or is able to facilitate it.

If the corporate world can learn to activate and cultivate the vast research and innovation resources inside their organisation, the speed and precision of development can be seriously increased. We believe they can learn that from us and our colleagues in the design business.

Consumer behaviour is changing as a result of the economic downturn– but how? I’ve observed how it’s affecting the eyewear sector.

Before the downturn hit, this is what eyewear consumers were doing:

1. Flashing money
Eager to flash the cash, consumers bought frames that looked expensive.

2. Standing out
Consumers bought flashy, expressive frames.

3. Changing styles
Consumers bought expressive and expensive frames because they could afford to buy new frames if they grew tired of a certain look.

And this is what eyewear consumers are doing now:

1. Choose sides
Brands that are neither cheap nor expensive are suffering as the middle ground disappears. So choose sides.

2. Stand out – intelligently
Consumers don’t want bling – but intelligent details and technical solutions that add value to their choice of frame.

3. Think longevity
Your consumers want design that lasts longer. Prepare for a return to rounder, friendlier shapes and less expressive colours.

As always – in recession either classic products or true innovation will prosper. Nobody wants more of the same.

The Minister of Trade and Industry in Norway, Sylvia Brustad, recently announced design as one of her focus areas and grants the Norwegian Design Council 10 million NOK to initiate a design driven innovation program.

Even though it is not much, it is a very important sign in Norwegian politics. The politicians might finally have realized something our Nordic neighbours realized years ago. Design is about creating value and not just about styling…

Later this fall, the government will publish a white paper on innovation. In the government’s plan for innovation made in 2003 – design was hardly mentioned. And this was the same year as the Korean government launched their very own five year design strategy to increase the country’s GDP – with great success!

So here we are almost six years later with multinational companies around the world using design as a strategy in sharpening their competitive edge… Have Norwegian politicians finally gotten the point? And will they succeed in forwarding this message to business and industry? When Sylvia Brustad says she believes in design as an innovation driver – does she really mean it?

In an interview, Sylvia Brustad mentions products like the Tripp Trapp chair and Cherrox boot as good examples of design innovations in Norway. These are almost 40 year old products that represent the “old way” of thinking design. Sylvia Brustad needs new examples of design innovations! She needs examples that show the potential in design TODAY – e.g. service innovations that examplify design being used in developing immaterial values – in creating user experiences.

And as she needs new examples – Norwegian designers need the support in creating them. Use the 10 million for this! The Norwegian Design Council should initiate service design projects in our growing service sector just like the Danish government has done. This can improve our services and our design industry – they both need support in evolving….

I believe that the big potential for innovations are not in the Norwegian industry – it’s in the services!

Put that in the white paper on innovation!