Design Practice for Social Innovation

I recently ran a workshop at the SOCANZ Auckland Innovation Conference titled Design Practice for Innovation:. The focusing question for the workshop was: How can we use creative design approaches to co-create value?

With workshops at the conference lasting only 90 minutes the aim was to provide participants with:

• A hands on introduction to some core principles, practices and process of design
• An exploration of the potential benefits in the context of social innovation and how participants might apply (or be applying) aspects of this in their own contexts
• Pointers for where to go to learn more

Max Adler of Imminent Service Design helped facilitate the session (thanks Max!) and we with worked with 30 fabulous participants from a range of community and social sector organisations from across New Zealand.

Design is an action-based practice and best explored through experiential rather than theoretical means. In this vein the workshop was hands-on and included two ‘Design Doing’ activities (User Journey Mapping & Prototyping). These activities enabled participants to reflect on some of the core principles and practices of design – as well as how they might be applied in their own context – on the basis of (a little!) hands-on experience.

Continue reading…

SOCANZ 13 Innovation Auckland Conference

Natalie Nicholles of NEF and social entrepreneur Nic Frances closing the SOCANZ conference

I’ve been lucky enough to spend the last two days enjoying the energy,  intelligence and commitment of the amazing attendees and speakers at the SOCANZ conference. (Tweets from the conference on storify though not many of us tweeting!)

SOCANZ is about building and celebrating social innovation and social entrepreneurship in NZ. Over two days 25-26th March we heard from an amazing and diverse group of people about their journey’s, ambitions & achievements delivering social outcomes through innovative models. Continue reading…

Service Design Jam

[Missed the event? Re-live it with us through the tweets]

The Global Service Design Jam is nearly here and for the first time there will be a jam in Auckland, NZ. (Hamilton has played host to NZ’s only Service Design Jam for the last two years thanks to the team at Divergent.

The #GSJ is all about collaboration, experimentation and prototyping…in 48 hours we work together to conceive, prototype and communicate a service concept from the ground up. It’s a great opportunity to learn more about service design but the most valuable part of the jam is an opportunity to experiment with working in a rapid collaborative environment and jamming with people you’ve never met before.  We don’t know who’ll be there or how it will play out until we are in it – a dynamic, challenging and rewarding weekend. There will be around 100 different jams happening at the same time, from all of the continents across the globe. You don’t need to be a service designer, just being interested in getting involved and being open to new approaches is enough.

Join us at the Auckland event:

Register for the event (Free)

And check out our prep on Facebook and  Linked in

Check the official site for more info on the concept behind the Global Service Jam as well as outputs from previous years.