Saturday 5 April 2008

gills thoughts on business

Set up costs

  • People (staffing and management)
  • Materials ( to do the service)
  • Resources (services, spaces, support)
  • Communication (design and production of promotional material, awareness building)
  • Servers and tech backup costs (IT to run the thing, handle databases, traffic and code Development)
  • Other general business overheads including insurance, accountancy fees etc.

You can do this on the cheap by yourself, or you may like to borrow money from some form of investor for a good idea, but you have to convince them it. These costs are often described as sunk costs - that is they can't be taken out of the business and used again, they're the basic investment to get it running.

  • Running costs
  • People
  • Resources needed
  • additional services
  • IT infrastructure costs
  • Delivery/distribution costs
  • Other general business overheads including insurance, accountancy fees etc.

  • Expansion costs
  • Additional services to provide new aspects of the service
  • Additional training and development
  • People
  • Raw Materials
  • Other general business overheads including insurance, accountancy fees etc.


But, and this is a big but, it's not all about the money, is it?

You may also consider the costs of the materials used in delivering your solution - now this is normally the domain of green consultants, but I think it should be as mainstream as Word is to computing. Basically there are not only costs about the production and performance of your services, but there are also hidden 'costs' of what you are trying to do. In product design land things appear to be fairly clear - it's about sustainable materials - that they are reusable, or renewed from other sources for example, or that they involve low power use. But there are costs that are hidden from sight, through the production processes - for example how much energy it takes to make something, or how much water is involved in the process of extraction, processing or shaping the raw materials.

ISDN3 conference

Having spent the last couple of days in Newcastle attending the ISDN3 conference on Service Design I have lots of photos, notes and thinkings to get down on paper...

The introduction by Bob Young:
constructing engagement not products.
epistemology of design practice : epistemology - the theory of knowledge especially with regards to its methods, validity and scope. epistemology is the the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.

"edge services" : a phrase I had never heard before, initial reaction is this phrase is yet another terminology being used rather frivolously.

engagement the design process has on lives and attitudes.

sophisticated multi dimensional model.

"sense of listening manifested through the act of story telling."

hugentobler and jones: the role of design in society, appropriate of descriptions of service design. allowing designers to sufficiently navigate and contend.

"adequate way of listening to people and to the world."

People as a subject are objects of research.

Methods - visual, verbal and conceptual to help us articulate a complex system.

how can services be prototyped?

'language of engagement'

centric approaches. artefact centered. human centered.

This conference was an important opportunity - follow up different perspectives.

"The rigour of good service design methods and process has not yet been identified."
jonathan ive

Author centerdness? limits to the applications of service design methods?

real people in a real world context.

Anna Meroni. "approaches to and reflection on sustainable social innovation and service design."

look beyond mainstream behaviour and opinions and know-how to foster new ideas...

describes the UK as the "the mythic land of service design"

Society emits signals, signals are detected, promising signals are re-inforced, society is stimulated.

Innovation driven by ordinary people.

Sense making.

Service design still has no identity and no langauge.

It is all about the study of behaviours.

Social innovation: changes in the way groups of people act to obtain results ( to solve a problem or to generate new opportunities).

Pinpoint the demand for the product, the service and the solution.

Service design explores interaction, relationships, experiences and the exchange of benefits.

Importance of relationships. how can I design a new attitude? atttitudes can be found all over the world. Styles of implementation.

Restore meaning and value to everyday life.
Make people happy :) to be truly creative you much turn upside down current ways of thinking.

Ordinary people involved must have a vision of how things should go, be sufficiently motivated to follow it and feel able to do so.

I want to be an expert in imagining future scenarios.

Subjective well being is related to a belief in interpersonal relationships.

Designer as a facilitator - creates situations and conditions.

an 'open product' can only be completed by contribution of user.

People and object are enhanced by service.

The search for meaning and authenticity - material comfort is not enough.

Service Design should not be about solving problems or preventing something i.e - relieving services. they should also build competence and confidence. address the need for engagement - help people to feel and to be engaged.

Take inspiration from people - listen and imagine.

"connected to the present, the past and intentions for the future."

The meaning of product and artefact is related to the quality of a subjective experience.
It must contain meaning and information, make sense for people and make a positive experience.

Create platforms of tool and knowledge to enable and power.

Question : link between insights gained from ethnographical studies.

Creating service scenarios are a powerful projection tool..they provoke discussion..

Must observe the solution over time.

How do you perceive the role of a designers? they must detect, learn to listen, communicate well and visibly and feasible imagine how the future could be. be able to create visions and tell the story.

benedict singleton.

edge services are service which operate between and around the boundaries of private and public. the practice and art of negotiating boundaries. tools for conviviality. ARK design solutions for post crash civilisation.

lauren tan. "insights into design and its contribution to the public sector."

"
what we seek is not the meaning of life, but the experience of being alive."
joseph campbell 1997.

We must challenge old models and ways of doing things.

Understanding the context - gather, understand and then disseminate the information design helps people explore who we are, who we want to be and enable us to form new connections and create new ideas of old problems.

"the innovation is in the proces, not the outcome" dott o7

Conversation as a form of research.

Habits. vision. commitment. knowledge.

Dott is embedded with legacies as it was about working WITH people, not FOR them.

Look beyond technology ,product, branding and business and look at the experience of humans.

Dialogue with designers.

"if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get, what you've always got"

deborah szebeko. "the barriers and enables for designers working with public sector organisations."

working every day with real people and real challenges.

Support ordinary people with amazing ideas. Tap into people in the community.

the real work experience 23.2% of design graduates get work in the public sector.

The word 'design' is a problem in itself. how can we tell people what it is? this is the challnge. we must invite them into the process.

the main challenge is the language barrier - we must learn to re-communicate with others.

Our role as designers is to make really challenging notions accessible to ordinary people.

Tuesday 1 April 2008

thoughts on process

"Process is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there."

Wednesday 12 March 2008

finger print technology....

hertizan tales

as new technical development alter the object and make it ' intelligent', they also set the object on a plane with no prior cultural references...although the physical aspects of these objects are still within the world of materials, their operation and their very state of being is well beyond the manipulation of matter and has more to do with information exchange than with form.

e.manzini...the material of invention.

Thursday 6 March 2008

viewpoint

In a world where everything can be bought, the search will be for the unique and the intimate, the marginal and the magical.

Philosophy- always be curious

Anticipation - those who learn to wait will receive the best.

Technology will make all engagements personal and all products bespoke and intimate.

Wednesday 5 March 2008

informing our intuition. jane fulton suri.

i believe passionately that research can help us reach a better understanding of people - thier needs, desires, habits and perceptions - and that this will lead to better design decisions about how things get designed and put into the world.

how can you find out what is going to matter to people if it doesn't exist yet? how do you discover what kind of people might use it?

effective research is not just about analysis of objective evidence - there isn't any directly applicable data anyway; it's also about the synthesis of evidence, recognition of emergent patterns, empathic connection to people's motivations and behaviours, exploration of analogies and extreme cases, and intuive interpretation of information and impressions from multiple sources.

design research both inspires and informs intuition through a variety of methods with related intents; to expose patterns underlying the rich reality of people's behaviours and experiences, to explore reactions to probes and prototypes, and to shed light on the unknown through iterative hypothesis and experiment.

motivated. curious to explore.

getting out of the studio, being where customers are, becoming aware of and sensitive to social trends and the broad ecology of stakeholders.

generative: gaining insights and opportunities - research that provides human- centered insight, revealing new ways of framing opportunities and inspiring new ideas. possible new offerings are informed and inspired by in -depth understanding of people's aspirations, attitudes, behaviours, emotions, perceptions, processes, and motivations within their prevailing and evolving social, cultural, and technology context.

evaluative or formative: learning and refining - research that provides continual learning throughout the process to determine the what, how and to whom of the offering.

predictive: estimating potential - research that helps to estimate the scale and potential of an opportunity even when most variables are unknown.

Tuesday 4 March 2008

plans for this week.technology.

Biometrics: identify people by measuring some aspect of individual anatomy or physiology - hand print or fingerprint, a deeply ingrained skill, behavioural characteristic, handwritten signature.

the fingerprint is a weak biometric mechanism that works quite well in practice. Friction ridges that cover the fingertips and classify patterns of minutae, such as branches and end points of the ridges - loops, whorls etc.

Carbon dating - using radio activity to determine the age of objects. Material which was living in the last few 10, 000 years. which got carbon from the air.

very tangible --------------------------------------------------blue sky.

Talk to experts.
Look at inks that fade over time.
How is the indication of time passing represented in other contexts.
Sealing. making it tamper proof- not re- resealable.
Create packaging prototypes.
The technology must INFORM the aesthetics and the form.
High tech papers.
How they make money - eg. Australia.
Product must withstand time conditions.
Futuristic - how will passing of time be measured in future.
What would happen if the Queen put a letter into her will? Where would it be kept? What would it look like?
How are exam papers delivered?
Government documents.
Birth.death.marriage certificates.
Medicines that are tamper proof.
How are wages delivered?
Are their duplicates stored?
Where is the letter picked up?
Is it 'delivered' , is it tracked
Create a time line.

Form musn't appear to be 'crafty' it must be refined and look perhaps slightly 'futuristic'.
THIS IS MY DESIGN CHALLENGE.

Look into computer software- labels, packaging, bar codes.

It is a project about the FUTURE. create scenarios etc.

Monday 3 March 2008

is this the future?





Hypothetical scenarios - three photographic scenarios. explore the ethical, cultural and social impact.

final phase

Tom Inns next week - costing.
Following week - business.
It is now about consolidating. not the process. create something that looks good and works. be able to use it with no instructions. the object must encapsulate everything.
polishing design skills.

designed outcome - object.
video.
website.

How the whole package fits together - coherence. very important.

Reference other designers work. articulate design decisions. level of resolution - ability to communicate idea.

for presentation - design in its most complete form. website - front page and a few working buttons

Thursday 28 February 2008

developement feedback

technology has to be applied not theoretical.
the technology has to provide trust.
authenticity.
how will the receiver know who it is from? where it came from?
seal with a kiss?...an applied version of tony dunne projects - create three scenarios..what will technology be in the future? when over one hundred years have passed?
transfer dna? what happens to dna over time
think about carbondating.

Tuesday 19 February 2008

Monday 18 February 2008

letter to royal mail team


letter to archivist


letter to evening telegraph


quick draft of blueprint


my brand model


sealant wax





stamp


hello from douceurs.

prototyping visuals





we hate mobile phones



this article was published in the Herald on the 15th Feb.

"the soundtrack of modern life is a cacophony of pings, rings and buzzes"
"Oftel Residents Survey in 2007 showed that there are more than 65 million mobile subscriptions in the UK. 4% of adults aged between 25 and 44 don't have a mobile phone."

One of these people is William Morrison, 35, an english teacher based in Aberdeen. He is adamant he will never succumb to a mobile. "I regard them as the single most annoying things ever invented in the complete history of the human race," he says. He is aware of the problems this creates in getting hold of him, but wears his elusiveness with pride: "I must confess, I enjoy the fact that even arranging this article has been made harder by the fact I refuse to play the mobile game."

"Why must everything in the world be instantaneous and automatic?Mobiles phones pander to the worst traits in our own personalities and in our society. They celebrate crass, selfish behaviour.

Mobiles are favoured by the needy and the clingy, people who are totally unable to function with out engaging in the most mind numbingly trite exchanges. We're breeding a generation who are unable to cope unless they have one of these tiny glowing comforters in their hands.

Barry Shelby, 47, a freelance writer who works from home in Glasgow. mobile phones are an invasion of privacy and prevent people from becoming fully absorbed in what they are doing. given the choice email is his preferred choice of communication. "Again, I think it's control. i can see the emails that come in. I can read them, and then I can decide when want to respond.

When it comes to personal calls, he prefers to meet up for long chats as opposed to speaking for any length of time on the phone

Sunday 17 February 2008

Friday 15 February 2008

the beginnings



today i received the first two letters to Douceurs...







touch points I must think about - the stamp, the quality of the ink..


potential touchpoint:






delve into methods of opening letters, perhaps an exclusive letter opener could be part of the douceurs pack? what kind of people tear letters open, no care for the paper? who meticulously uses a letter opener. who keeps old envelopes?


desk


Wednesday 13 February 2008

jons thoughts.

I need to think about time proofing and future proofing.
how will I find out if ink fades over time?
how are precious documents currently stored?
how are documents stored in vaults?
think about testing papers.
how do you simulate testing papers?
where will the user collect it from? what would their journey consist of?how will people trust that it will work?think about the feeling of loss involved if it never arrived safely.
talk to archivists.
reference future now and justify why mines is better.
if the envelope becomes an object it stops being an envelope and therefore defeats the purpose of the service....

Monday 11 February 2008

notes from branding lecture


branding begins

the branding:

behaviours.connections.inventiveness.quirkiness.consisteny.compelling
implementation.identity.longterm.insight.needs.emotional.vision
aspirations.values.personality.framework.stuff.things. words.articulate.