Dr Andrea Siodmok

Chief Designer

Cornwall Council

7th Nov 2012

House of Lords

Embedding design in local government

Helsinki World Design Capital

Design can act big and small. It can change the course of

history. The US ‘Butterfly Ballot’ forms in 2000 confused

some voters with the election being won by 537 votes.

Design has become commoditised. Most notably in the

1980s, which has had an impact on the industry. The term

‘innovation’ is facing the same misuse and dilution.

Design is critical to Europe and to sustainable growth.

The recent European Design Leadership board has made

recommendations to ensure design is key to recovery.

With Europe’s support Cornwall has invested over £250m

in innovation infrastructure in the last three years making

it one of the most connected places in the world.

Pool Innovation Centre £12m

Tremough Innovation Centre £13m

Health and Wellbeing Innovation centre (HWIC) £13m

Academy of Innovation

& Research £9m

Social

design is

collaborative

Professional

realm

Public realm

Public realm

Professional

realm

User

Innovation:

New grass

roots solutions

developed

by people

co-design and

co-delivery of

new solutions

with people

Centralised

Innovation:

professionals

designing new

solutions for

people

Collaborative

Innovation

Public realm

Professional

realm

User

Innovation

Professional

Innovation

fiscal

capital

social

capital

Collaborative

Innovation

User

Innovation:

New grass

roots solutions

developed

by people

co-design and

co-delivery of

new solutions

with people

Centralised

Innovation:

professionals

designing new

solutions for

people

No-design

Pro-design

Co-design

The

imperative

Designers are naturally optimistic and constantly

dissatisfied. The many challenges we face in the next

decade call for creativity, fresh thinking and pragmatism.

Hopes & Dreams

St Austell

St Ives from Tate

World leaders in Davos 2012 cited growing inequality as

the most important issue after the economy that needs

addressing.

Looe

The economic crisis has caused a big rethink. The wicked

problems we face are hard to define, persistent and

contradictory and can require us to ask new questions.

Penzance

Can less be more? How can the public sector cut costs by

50% and still meet growing public expectations for choice

and quality? The solutions inevitably become more radical

Penzance

Lands End

Do we reconfigure existing services? Or create, reinvent,

enable new peer-peer services like 21st century hitch

hiking using digital technologies and social capital.

Change is

inevitable

Shaped by Us...

Making good ideas happen

@shapecornwall

Shaped by Us project

Sketching to think. Visualising new ideas can be a

powerful force for change, helping people co-design and

co-create ideas for the future together.

Shaped by Us project

A picture paints a thousand words. Designer’s ability to

draw out an abstract idea can make it more concrete so it

can be shared, challenged and improved.

Co-discovery is democratic. To start our challenge we

built a post-it note wall so elected members could identify

one thing they would redesign to make Cornwall better.

The post-its cost a few pounds and we have used the wall

over and over again. It remained outside the council

chamber for a week for all staff and members to see.

County Hall

Each post-it note had the name of the Council member and

the area they represent – 123 ideas from ‘Stop seagulls

attacking rubbish’ to ‘Have a strategy for Cornwall’.

County Hall

Royal Cornwall Showground

Design is positive. At our leadership conference 200 staff

posted their ‘best public service experience’ on the wall

before starting an Open Space Technology (OST) session.

We work on the ground with local people, listening in new

ways and developing a ‘common sense’ of current needs

and perceptions.

We show up in unusual places confounding expectations

and in that moment engaging people in new ways.

Making it fun, easy and satisfying to get involved.

We use the web to share ideas with thousands of people

to build momentum and focus through digital tools, spoof

films and social media.

Our radical approach ignites peoples’ passion to make a

difference. We ask unthinkable questions and allow

audacious ideas to be considered.

And by getting everyone involved in contributing ideas,

experience and knowledge through co-design techniques

we turn self interest into shared interests.

Five Challenges

Mentors worked with communities to shape ideas and

build realistic business plans, encouraging

entrepreneurialism

Our Community Innovation Awards at the Eden Project

gave a platform to local people. We created an Angel’s

Den of experts who invested in the best proposals.

/ Discovering Challenges

Transport &

Mobility

Town &

Country

Energy &

Environment

Learning &

Skills Healthcare &

Wellbeing

Infrastructure

& Technology

Homes &

Community

Agriculture

& Food Politics &

Democracy Work &

Economy

http://shapedbyus.sea-communications.co.uk/index.html

What can design do?

— Unearth where the real problem lies — Understand motives and latent needs in

order to create the right incentives for behaviour change

— Prototype, test, iterate and de-risk policy ideas

— Create space to ‘think differently’ 80% of impact is determined in the design phase

— Reduce cost of services by designing-in solutions

Social design: Is brave

For example, we built a hotel in a day from 10,000 disused

tent poles with 1,000s of volunteer hours for disaster relief

charity ShelterBox raising £1,000s for a good cause.

In one project we used apples as cultural probes.

Social design: Is humble

We are building our knowledge of co-design techniques to

break down barriers and challenge false perceptions so that

local people can be actively involved creating new ideas.

Our change starts small and without expense, such as

local children co-designing a new community centre using

cake to build the walls and furniture.

Peer to peer community reporters have brought new

insights into different people’s lives. We would have had

different responses wearing suits and carrying clip boards.

Social design: Is subtle

Trust is the currency of community. Building trust with

local people has taken many different forms, including

creating a Christmas tree of wishes.

Social design: Is naive

In our evaluation a quote showed the importance of

ethnographic insights ‘what do designers know about

fishing and fishermen’

Social design: Is skillful and fun

#8 Eco-design challenge Students calculated their school’s carbon footprint with online tools and

developed a range of ideas to tackle waste and reduce CO2. Dick Strawbridge and judges from Nesta,

Design Council and Cornwall Council awarded £15k to three schools to implement their ideas.

Image: Carbon calculator and winning school

In the Eco-design Challenge schoolchildren showed how

good ideas can be implemented through peer power.

Our innovation

challenge is

across the

board

Thinking Room was created in April 2011 to develop next

generation public services following from Designs of the

Time programme in Cornwall (www.dottcornwall.com)

It is based at Cornwall Council but operates across the

private, public and third sector to develop radical new

thinking and approaches to Cornwall’s future.

We use creative techniques and tools to work

collaboratively with citizens, professionals, designers and

policy makers to develop new ideas.

Because in our vision, people lead change and use their

local knowledge, networks, ingenuity and compassion to

deeply understand how to create meaningful change.

Our youngest innovators are learning to speak, our oldest

have been retired for decades, often the best ideas come

through bringing together new and old perspectives.

Mirrored Dinner by Something from Us

We like unconventional wisdom, and find asking the same

questions in new places creates magical results. Our

dinner in a boatyard kick-started new thinking.

We try and tackle the burning issues of our times, working

across areas of employment, health, energy, transport,

housing to name a few.

Finally we spend as much effort changing the system so

that radical becomes the normal way of working so rather

than finding a quick fix we build a permanent fixture.

1. Inspire Change by sharing good ideas and practices

Thinking Room: Nov 2011

A workshop for project managers with ‘props’ tackling a

range of challenges, identifying and understanding how to

remove inefficiencies and improve innovation.

Thinking Room

Capacity building

Thinking Room is not a lab or a space, it is an approach

that we have been sharing throughout the council. It has

practical methods and tools. @thinking_room

Our approach is simple and our work often turns

convention on its head by creating space and time to

discover real needs.

Some sketches from our co-design session which

informed the heath and wellbeing strategy.

Design of new service

Strategic change

Insight level

Services level

Policy level

System level

Transformational design

Thanks to… Nesta / LGA Creative Councils programme

Dott Cornwall partners: Design Council, Cornwall Council, Technology

Strategy Board, University College Falmouth

Images from Flickr

Social and Service Design teams:

Sea Communications

Think Public

Something from Us

Leap Design for Change

Cognitive Media

Two

Boex

Cornwall Design

* Views in this presentation my own based on experience in Dott Cornwall and Cornwall

Council developing Thinking Room & Shaped by Us @shapecornwall @thinking_room