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.

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!

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.

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.

We went to an innovation conference today. It was fun. It was held at The Danish Technological Institute and was aimed at just about anyone interested in innovation.

We were one of the businesses the institute asked to come along and present ourselves and all that we do to the attendees. So we did! Our little stand gathered a lot of attention, and it was great to meet so many interested in Designit. From people asking what they could do to work at Designit, to people who had heard about our super innovation calendar and wanted one, to people who wanted to hear more about how we work – we covered all the bases.

Here is our desk looking very smart;

Our wall – or fortress – of calendars, built by Ida Marie;

I was convinced that someone (me) would knock it over but no-one (I) I didn’t, amazingly.

We were lucky to be nestled in a corner, which meant that we were pretty eye-catching with all our yellow and black! Super stuff.

“How does it work?”

Our calendars got everywhere! Look;

And our invitations to our tablet event got in bags;

And we got busy.

Woohoo! A great afternoon.

Yes yes! Our second book, ‘The Irresistible at First Glance Book’ is in the house. Full of examples of products we have worked on, products that demand attention, catch your eye, and just ooze instant appeal…

To whet your appetite, here are some pictures. Enjoy!

No, you can’t see anymore. If you want more, you’ll have to ask for one (either comment here, tweet @SocialDesignit, or email lara.mulady@designit.com – remember your address!).

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.

Not everything goes fast in China, but some things move incredibly fast. One of them is the MagLev train in Shanghai, which I took this week. It takes you 30 kilometres in less than 8 minutes. Leaning into curves at a speed of approx 430 km/h is quite amazing.

The paradox is that the end station, however, is in the middle of nowhere. We had to transfer to a taxi. And with a speed of 430 km/hr, couldn’t you have built a bit more track?

Nevermind, many Danish commuters daily spend between 3-4 hours in an old-fashioned train travelling between Copenhagen and the country’s second-biggest city, Aarhus. MagLev would do the same lap in about 45 minutes. Add a bridge across the Kattegat and it’s 20! Almost faster than taking the phone:)

Wake up, DK! China’s coming!

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!