General project

COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE:Designing services for new European countries

This document describes a social entrepreneurship initiative to research, design and develop the future of public services in Eastern Europe. The following sections will describe the number of components to this initiative.
WHY
Through a social entrepreneusrhip framework we want to apply design thinking to the development of a region’s local public services. The countries in mainly eastern europe that have recently joined the European Union are catching up with the western part of europe. We want to help set up their services using a contemporary approach by applying design thinking with a central interest for issues where ‘the people of the area or country’ are involved.
WHAT
The main component of this initiative is in the form of a series of workshops with design students and specialists on the specific subject. By working collaboratively with an existing source of energetic people that have knowledge of their country this workshop will reveal and harness their local collective intelligence in order to improve their region’s local services. These workshops will encourage awareness of their engagement and experience with their local services revealing opportunities to design and develop local service strategies.

Principles we want to introduce:
1: Their contribution to this research will directly impact the future of their local area, creating collective empowerment for themselves and their region.
2: LOCAL can start from considering how you fit in the system to then spiralling out to consider how your community, your street and your town fit into the system.
3:The holistic process is more important than the goal. It is best to consider the bigger picture and consider that at each step of the process there are new goals that will spin-off in different directions. If everyone concentrated on their idea of what is the best result then everyone’s vision will be blinkered.

HOW: part one
Firstly, we would approach institutions and governments in these countries offering a proof of possible improvements by committing a research through using existing design education. We will work with students on mapping and building a profile of the countries existing services. Finding out what is there to be able to show where and how things can be improved, changed or directed in a different way.

HOW: part two
Our second step will be to collect all the research to create a document that will create a map of the services we researched that will give insight in where the existing services are functioning well and where and how to improve these services. This extensive research will be presented to the people in charge of the services and we hope to open up a discussion in how to start working toward a service orientated society.
How: part three
We want to use the University/institution as a think-tank to harness the expertise of the people living in that particular region and promote thinking on a cross disciplinary level. For us the ideal situation would be to guide local experts and creatives to collaborate on social issues using each others skills. Working as a multidisciplinary team facilitates a far more in-depth method of generating and sharing of knowledge.
The areas we would like to research are all based around improving daily life. Looking at all stakeholders in the system, the service takers, givers and everyone else involved. Subjects that interest us lie mainly in the areas of healthcare, finance and education. This is an extremely broad area but together it will provide an overall insight on the service status of the country and its particular qualities, problems, needs and space for improvement.
WHERE
We see that the European Union is increasing in size by accepting more countries on the east side of Europe. Many of these ‘new’ EU countries have a great energy and aspiration to get to the same level of safety and quality of life as their western neighbors. We as designers specialized in designing services would like to provide our services to these countries.

WHO
Design students who are studying product design or architecture are ideal for this workshop. The collaborators will actively contribute to the development of their local area, thus these workshops will provide empowerment.
CASE STUDIES
active welfare at TORINO
livework,
thinkpublic,
uscreates,
RED
The discipline that is developing around designing services is quite a new concept to business and governments. Although again and again there is proof that this approach is beneficial. In countries like The Netherlands and the United Kingdom many things are happening around this discipline realizing that the designing of services is actually a old concept now put on the foreground. Using the perspective of the users of the system …

Phase 1: R & D
Step 1
Getting in touch with local universities to establish a good contact to start off the project and organize the workshop in collaborative way. (We already have a plan to present our idea, aim and value in the form of proper documentation. This will be about the relation to design and the need to work in interdisciplinary teams to get to the core of what this service should be about)
We first need to describe what a service is and the role design is starting to play in this with examples of campaigns and projects.
Step 2
Setting up the workshop.
Phase 2 Conducting Workshops
The interdisciplinary workshop with research into the existing system.
Phase 3 Analysis, synthesis and proposal
Putting together the research into a professional document. Presenting the research together with the involved universities. The discipline that is developing around designing services is quite a new concept to business and governments. Although again and again there is proof that this approach is beneficial. (sources) In countries like The Netherlands and the United Kingdom many things are happening around this discipline realizing that the designing of services is actually a old concept now put on the foreground. Using the perspective of the users of the system …

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