On the 9th November 2009, the SEE project launched its first Policy Booklet on Integrating Design into Regional Innovation Policy (PDF) at the SEE network summit in Copenhagen. SEE is a network of eleven European partners working to lobby our national and regional governments to assimilate design and creativity into public policy. The project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the INTERREG IVC programme.

The SEE Policy Booklet presents an overview of innovation policy priorities in the SEE partner regions. These priorities were identified from national and regional policy documents and contrasted with the strategic priorities for innovation identified by the European Commission. From this comparative analysis six key issues emerged as common across the policy agendas:

• Innovation in Services
• Public Procurement
• Collaborative Clusters & Networks
• Lead Markets & Eco-innovation
• Intellectual Property Rights
• Broadening the Scope of Innovation

For each of these priorities, the SEE Policy Booklet outlines the drivers and obstacles for enhancing the performance of regional innovation policy, explores how design can be used to address the issue, provides illustrative case studies and puts forward policy proposals.

This is the first of four SEE Policy Booklets to be published between 2009 and 2011. If you would like to receive future SEE Policy Booklets please email info@seeproject.org.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

SEE

Sharing Experience Europe – Policy, Innovation & Design

SEE is a network of eleven European partners sharing knowledge and experience on how design can be integrated into regional and national policies to boost innovation, entrepreneurship, sustainability and social and economic development. The aim is to pool knowledge, share experiences, stimulate debate, develop new thinking and build rapport and credibility in order to influence policy. The project’s activities include: opening and closing conferences; thematic workshops involving partners and policy-makers; a study visit; a library of case studies; policy proposal booklets; an internal contacts database and the biannual SEE bulletin.

SEE is operating from September 2008 to June 2011, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the INTERREG IVC programme. Design Wales is the project’s lead partner. The Centre for Design Innovation at IT Sligo is one of five Policy Recommendation Research Partners on the project.

Whether you call it user-centred, people-centred, or human-centred design, those organisations that are closest to their customers are the ones that succeed in creating successful products and services. Come learn practical tools to apply design thinking in your own business at two upcoming mini-workshops organised by Meet for Real and delivered by Justin Knecht of the Centre for Design Innovation.

Register for the 10th of October in Cork, or the 17th of October in Galway.

What: Building Technology Hubs in Regional Locations
Who: Enterprise Ireland’s Applied Research Centres (AREs)
Venue: National Maritime College of Ireland (NMCI), Ringaskiddy, Cork
When: Wednesday 30th September 2009 at 10am
Enterprise Ireland would like to invite you to attend Innovating for Regional Industry, a showcase for the Regional ARE Centres in the Institutes of Technology outlining their research and support for Irish industry. The ARE Centres have established an excellent track record in increasing their capacity to engage in R&D and have enabled over 100 companies to develop new products and processes to gain a competitive edge, increase sales and achieve export growth.

Download the agenda

‘We are in an economic downturn but an innovation upturn.’

And from here it gives seven ways of focusing on the opportunity for innovation than on the downturn and the dangers it poses. One of the best advices Paul Sloane gives is to become a change agent.

Make suggestions. Introduce ideas and recommendations. Look for ways in which your department could bring in new products, business processes or partnerships. Ask yourself – is there a better way to meet the needs of our customers? Anticipate trends and suggest ways of changing the department to exploit new opportunities and new technologies.

The other six advices are as follows:

1. Adopt a positive attitude.
2. Listen to customers.
3. Watch the competition.
4. Be sensitive to office politics.
5. Don’t insist on the glory.
6. Be prepared for rejection.

If you are interested to find out more about these steps you can take towards ‘maximising your chances in the change maelstrom’ you can read the rest of the article here: ‘Survive the Recession’. What are your thoughts on this? What are your steps to survive the recession?

Picture by Jacques Strappe

The other day I received an email from a website I registered with, asking me for feedback. The website provides training in different technologies and a lot of times they have special offers and even free courses that I am more than happy to take.

I consider asking for feedback as being a good example of service design. It shows that the company is looking to improve and they are open to suggestions. They want to learn what their customers want in order to implement the changes and perfect their services to fit the customers’ needs.

Most of the times this goes well. People like to be asked about their opinion: this gives them confidence and the feel that their opinion matters. In my case, I know if I was the one asking for feedback I would like people to respond and this is why I usually reply to the feedback questioners.

There are a few things that make me ignore feedback requests and this email had one of them: spelling and grammar mistakes.

After some introductory phrases which were more or less grammatically correct I was asked to answer the following question:

Would you mind answering a simple question for me?

If you could recieving training the you wanted it, what would it look like?

And this is an example of service design that went wrong. At first I felt good for being asked for feedback and I genuinely wanted to reply. I even ignored the spelling and grammar mistakes in the introduction but when I arrived to the first and only question in the survey I gave up.

I know that there are dyslexic people and even foreign people which have a difficulty with spelling and grammar (and I am one of them) but when it comes to the image and credibility of a company they should be aware that most of the email services provide a spell check and if not, Microsoft Word has an integrated spelling and grammar check.

What is your opinion on this? Do you usually give feedback when being asked? What makes you ignore the feedback questioners?

The online marketing company vStream have set up The Digital Marketing School to be a free online video resource for anyone who has an interest in the world of digital marketing, from a beginners level, right up to seasoned professionals. It’s the first time in Ireland that SME’s, and in particular start-ups, will have an online consultancy resource, that’s absolutely free of charge.

The lessons are short and to the point. Today I have learned about the basics of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), Display Advertising and VSEO (Video Search Engine Optimisation) from Andrew Jenkinson and about Viral Video from Niall O’Driscoll and all of this in only 2 – 3 min lessons. It definitely beats standing in a classroom for an hour.

I love the idea of people sharing their knowledge and I strongly believe that people like Niall O’Driscoll and Andrew Jenkinson who are experts in their domain and passionate about their work are the best to teach about Digital Marketing.

I would like you to take a moment now and think back in time and remember your college experience when you really loved maths or biology or any other subject. Now try to remember the lecturer: his way of teaching and the way he spoke about the subject. How many of you remember the subjects and the lecturers because of their passion for what they were teaching?

In today’s schools we have lecturers teaching entrepreneurship without ever being an entrepreneur, marketing without ever working as a marketer, programming without ever working as a programmer and the list can go on.

I really believe that we should learn from people like Andrew and Niall and people like them should be invited to teach the students in today’s secondary schools and universities.

What are your thoughts on this? How could we get more career people to offer their time and teach about their passion?

I have always loved minimalist design. It has a beauty about its simple forms and clear lines that appeal to me. I came across this bin design by Grace Youngeun Lee and I liked it so much I began to visualize where I would put her design in my own home. That’s when I began to run into trouble. I live in your average apartment with the standard features, two bedroom, kitchen / living room combo, bathroom. Even though I thought the design was beautiful, I could not think of one place I could put such a distinctive item. It hadn’t really occurred to me before, that all the minimalistic items I love so much would struggle to work in your average home. The qualities that make the design striking cause it to sit uneasily in a mainstream context. Its clean aesthetics clash with your standard mass-produced product.

Does this mean a minimalist design can only work when surrounded by other minimalist products? Or the opposite, a lack of other products and just shear, clean space that allows it to be appreciated for its aesthetic beauty? If this is the case, where is the line drawn for its range of influence? Is the only true home of a minimal piece a modern residence, where clean lines and crisp aesthetics were at the front of the architects mind?

Perhaps the piece is intended to sit in contrast with the relative chaos of mass production? That this contrast serves to highlight its simple beauty.

I guess until I can figure out where to put my beloved Grace Youngeun Lee bin, I’ll just have to stick with my mass produced swing top. Function over form anyway, right?

However, the words of Jonathan Ive, from a recent and rare public appearance beg repeating to organisations of any size:

Ive also had bad news for anyone looking to foster a design or innovation-driven culture within an enterprise that doesn’t at heart “get” it. Unless the disciplines are acknowledged and embraced as core values by every employee, they won’t gain traction. “We don’t have identity manuals reminding us of points of philosophy for why our company exists … I’m sure those things are very well meaning, but if you have to institutionalize stuff, you end up chasing your tail.” In other words, unless the commitment to innovation or design is authentic and heartfelt, rather than this month’s short-term strategy to cater to a hot trend, it will be nigh on impossible to build a true, innovation-led culture.

I’d rather focus resources on the organisations that are committed; and work together to make a tangible impact, than fill a hundred auditoriums to put on a good show about what design can do.

Read the BusinessWeek article.

At the end of April I was part of the team AmazEd that participated in the Irish finals of the Imagine Cup competition. The Imagine Cup this year was hosted by the Science Gallery in Trinity college. In order for us to get internet access on the day we had to register on the Science Gallery website.

There are very few places in Ireland that provide free Internet access and I believe it was smart of them to ask for some details in exchange for this service. A few weeks ago I found out that the details I provided are worth more. This is when I received a Membership Card that would not only give me free WiFi in the Science Gallery building but also reduced ticket prices for selected events, special invitations to hush-hush happenings and advance notice of all that is up and coming. And all of this with a welcoming note that put a smile on my face.

At first I only wanted to have access to the Internet during a competition and in the end I got a lot more. I really believe this is a great example of marketing and service design that every business should follow.

Let me know what you think. What are your thoughts and ideas on this?

Hohm is about ‘Bringing people together to save energy and money’. They are trying to give us a better understanding about our home energy usage and about what we can do to conserve energy and save money.

Besides real time monitoring of the energy consumption through smart meters, Hohm will also provide users with data about their energy consumption even if their utilities are not online yet. In order to obtain this data the user will have to answer a set of basic questions and Hohm will estimate their energy consumption. Through this Microsoft wants to make Hohm available to all users straight away.

From what I’ve seen so far they are really committed to this idea and even though the website is not yet up and running, you can find them on facebook. You can follow and interact with them on twitter or you can take their advice on how to save energy from their videos on youtube.

As I already mentioned, Google already released an energy monitoring system called PowerMeter, which is for now available only to a limited group of customers, but they plan to expand later this year. According to their announcement on the Google Blog: ‘Our software relies on “smart meters” (or other metering devices) as a data source. Over the past several months we’ve been looking to partner with utilities that are installing (or have already installed) this equipment in their customers’ homes.’ They truly believe that in order to create a path to Smarter Power it will take a lot of different groups working together.

In my opinion caring about the energy and our planet should be one of our priorities at the moment. The more big companies are concerned and are trying to find solutions to this problem the better. I don’t know if they are doing it for Marketing or because they really care but at least they are giving an example and are giving us a chance to become more aware about our impact on the planet: our home.

Let me know your thoughts and ideas about this and for the next few days lets take our first step into saving energy by turning off the lights every time we exit a room.