Plan bee to boost the economy

David - Few would disagree with your thoughts – indeed many might say you are stating the obvious. The people who innovate for people every waking day reside within small but highly experienced industrial and service design firms across the Country. I wonder how many directors of those firms the DC actually engages with on a serious basis. The large ‘demonstration’ projects the DC has facilitated in order to bring the power of design to the fore to improve public services may have resulted in a good few inches of media coverage – but does not appear to have enabled the design process or engagement to be better understood, more accessible or valued. Not through want of trying but perhaps through too much focus on the DC not the designers. Government intervention in the innovation process has by and large given rise to extraordinary levels of public money to launch one scheme after another in a top heavy anthill model where money cascades through one public sector body after another leaving the smallest percentage of funds reaching its intended target – the businesses. And by and large the most creative businesses are not a fundamental part of that process but rather viewed as suppliers whose business services are being under-sold to industry. The elephant in the room is the design and innovation businesses who are sitting on huge amounts of knowledge and uncommercialised IP who whilst seeking to bring new products to market through licensing deals with industry, are entirely unsupported in that task. Yet, their new product and service propositions are likely to be far closer to proof of concept stage than the myriads of other businesses and individuals who are receiving funds. The design and innovation businesses, not being manufacturers themselves, are treated as suppliers and excluded from business support services on that basis. Yet supporting them would surely generate manufacturing contracts? As such two businesses would like benefit along with the consumer. Whilst the DC does not purport to represent design and innovation firms, had it utilised their talents more effectively and directly and brokered risk-reduced deals with industry, one wonders if far greater and more obviously tangible results may have emerged and still have generated PR plaudits. It’s a shame you use the honey and worker bees analogy – it conjures up an image of the DC acting as the Queen Bee whilst the workers slave away to feed it. Maxine Horn, British Design Innovation, 17 July 2010

The opening premise is of interest. It is rather stating the obvious to propose that businesses ‘have’ to build their offer around customer ‘want’. I would propose that this is not a new idea. However, the notion that ‘public services’ need to build everything they do around what customers ‘want’ opens an interesting discussion. Should public services not be built around what customers ‘need’? After all, a prime role for government surely is to identify areas of need in public services and then make provision that is readily acceptable to the public and of course is affordable and maximises on the public purse. Whilst I would submit that designers could be and should be a vital component of the public or private sector proposition, to state that any offer ‘can’t happen without designers’ is unfortunately not true. It does happen without designers, or at least what may be commonly understood by the design sector as a ‘designer’. We all know that the customer/consumer should be at the very centre of what we create, not just for economic reasons, which derives from a marketing led strategy, but also social and environmental bottom lines which have been led by the environmental lobby, in part by the design agenda and of course with a fair share of marketing exploitation. Virgin and Apple are great examples of customer led product/service providers but they are by no means the only ones and they don’t always turn up trumps. They can of course ride out their mistakes due to the capital invested in the businesses and or the brand, as Toyota and BP have and are having to do. The issue is that these companies, which provide great demonstrable case studies for the likes of the Design Council, are not representative of the majority of companies that either don’t use design or who do use design but are not applauded for doing so. And I am not so sure that I wish to dismiss manufacturing and the creative industries so easily as not being able to provide the ‘bread and butter’ for the next 100 years. They may not provide the acres of PR coverage sought by the Design Council but they have provided the foundation for the economic success of the UK without necessarily fully being exploited for what they have to offer. This is of course where the Design Council could have played a greater role in fostering the integration of design into business so that shopping at Currys or Maplins may have become a different experience. The truth is that UK business has not adopted design to the degree it should have and questions therefore need to be asked of the body charged with promoting design to UK business since being handed that remit in 1944. Today’s economic environment arguably makes it more difficult to promote design spend to business but the promotion began 66 years ago. The success of the financial sector has provided enabling finance, the public sector spend of the past decade has provided an additional market, and we definitely have the enablers in the creative sector which is recognised worldwide, but what we have lacked is a body, by its own argument and statistics, that has successfully promoted the design sector to UK business. The Design Council may be ‘open for business’, but the design sector has been for years and still is! Frank Peters, Chartered Society of Designers, 20 July 2010

As Frank Peters points out, the premise that business should ‘build everything they do around what customers want’ raises some interesting questions. He suggests, quite rightly in my view, that customer ‘needs’ may be more important and that ‘needs’ and ‘wants’ do not always align. But I think it is more complex than that. In System Concepts, as ergonomics and human factors consultants, I explain to new staff that if we only address what the client says they want, we are not doing our best for them. However, if we respond to a query with ‘that’s not what you really need, we know better...’ the conversation is likely to be short and commercially unsatisfactory. So the key is to respond to both wants and needs – not necessarily that difficult once a relationship of trust exists. The conversation sometimes goes, ‘you asked us to do x, which we have done, but we noticed that y is also important?’ The other complexity which Frank’s comments raise is that it is easy to confuse what people should want (in our view) with what people actually seem to want. He comments on the different customer experience at an Apple store with Currys or Maplins. Now I am absolutely with him on the quality of customer experience which Apple provide. My wife has used their slightly overstated ‘Genius bar’s a few times to get help with her laptop which is well past its guarantee and been delighted with the experience. I contrast that with trying to get help for an expensive PDA (from another well known and iconic company) which had failed only a few months after warranty. The so-called ‘technical help’ person would not even speak to me until I paid a £10 consultation fee – not even to tell me whether it was a fault they were likely to be able to fix. The product was arguably as well designed as many Apple products but the total customer experience was very different. But I was slightly taken aback when he contrasted the Apple experience with Currys and Maplins (which is one of my favourite shops!). Of course, the interior of Maplins does not look ‘designed’ (although our local Currys does seem to have a significant makeover) but it certainly supplies many of my needs and wants). The staff may not be enthusiastic evangelists for Apple but they are often quite helpful and knowledgeable and, rather importantly, the prices are low and affordable. I am a bit of an ‘early adopter’ of technology, so naturally I have an iPhone and an iPad. When I bought my iPad, I paid top whack for a protective cover so my grandkids could play with it. I noticed exactly the same cover, far less attractively displayed, in Maplins for half the price. I guess the point I am making is that customer experience is extremely important but that, as we say in the Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors, it is essential to test out our assumptions about what makes a good experience with real users in a real environment. Tom Stewart, past President, Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors, 30 July 2010

'What will be our bread and butter for the next hundred years? And please don’t say manufacturing because the numbers just don’t stack up.' What an extraordinary statement of failure, and lack of understanding of the potential of manufacturing in this country. If this is the DC's official vision then UK plc has no hope. THE DC principle remit is to promote design in to industry to improve the economic performance of industry on the global stage. If it can't do that, then it should move aside and let others take up the challenge. Louis della Porta, designer, 27 July 2010

Tom hits this one right in terms of the complexity of the issues. I think David in his article was contrasting Maplins to Apple in terms of customer experience and not me. I am with Tom in terms of Maplins, it is a great place to get stuff despite the interior and whilst Apple is the product of choice for many – it is not the only choice. It then takes us nicely to the comment by Louis. How can the body charged with promoting design to UK business dismiss its future value so easily. Is this the ‘market failure’ the Chair of the DC refers to in his announcement of the DC review? Attempts to clarify the comments on the DC Linkedin site met with no response from DC and unfortunately the discussion is no longer available. UK manufacturing deserves our support and belief and we (or some of us) in the design sector believe it does have a role to play and could well provide a few slices of bread and butter yet. Frank Peters, Chartered Society of Designers, 3 August 2010

I find myself agreeing more with the commentators than I do with the article itself. As for giving customers what they want, I'm reminded than a once great industrialist said "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse". Now I'm not suggesting that all customers don't know what they want, but I am certain all customers know what they don't want. Also the same with choice is in my experience somewhat different. So many times too much choice confuses and delays decision. Mostly these pitfalls are circumvented by good design. Sadly most design is actually quite poor. Never fear however, because given time enough, the consumer let us know what designs are bad. Look how long to too for the public to proclaim the short comings of the illustrious Apple's iPhone4. To manufacturing. Well I’m quite staggered. Yes its true our manufacturing has declined from 25% to 9% of GDP, but those that remain are some of the very best in the world and compete well on price and much better on quality. What good is a product in a world that is sustainability aware, if the cheap import lasts but a year or the alternative at twice the money lasts five or more? Consumers are becoming increasingly aware not just of environmental sustainability, but more recently of economic sustainability. Her in the UK we are at the cutting edge of sustainable design. And finally; to echo the sentiments of Maxine Horn et.al. I am increasingly frustrated that my clients looking for some assistance find the bureaucratic and time consuming hoops they have to leap through, to finally get a refusal because they have asked for too little seems to me that the many events (media friendly parties) that are staged are more focused on protecting the organisations own funding stream than they are in helping others. One I know of has a £9m budget to help 50 businesses get funding. Yes, that’s right, they don’t actually give any funding, they only help companies get it from another source and thus far have been alarmingly ineffective at anything other than quaffing champagne. As a QANGO we could assume that the DC is vulnerable to cuts in funding, but then I suppose it depends on who writes the reports and who they in turn know as to how vulnerable the DC really is. Personally I see it much the same as others. An expensive toothless tiger more interested in media exposure to help retain its own place in the system. If I am wrong then the DC should put its money where its mouth is and; “That means taking some risks and backing key sectors rather than picking winners. Here one has to make a distinction between the sources of wealth and the enablers that we will depend on.” In other words tart putting funds into the bee hive and stop spending on the bee keeper. Lloyd Pennington, designer, 4 August 2010

The old ways are not working any more – but new ways are emerging. The businesses (and economies – and societies) that survive and thrive will be the ones that realise this and pay more than lip service to innovation. We need a creative, social revolution – and some major organisations are beginning to realise this and act on it. I noted that while in China, I met senior Government officials all of whom recognised the value and power of collaboration between policy strategists, ‘design- thinkers’ and business interests. Corporate Social Responsibility is yesterday’s news; we need to see a new generation of corporate social activism – both globally and locally – if the UK is to maintain (never mind build) it’s global and domestic economic position. We need to change from a loose collective of consumers, to a coherent body of entrepreneurs. ‘But we (UK) don’t manufacture anything!’ Comes the predictable lament (wrong – we just don’t manufacture those things that most people associate with ‘manufacturing’). This argument also misses the point. Robots can manufacture – but people are going to be at the heart of any success story. People ‘engineer’ – they engineer opportunity, relationships, communities, education etc. It’s time for the New Enlightenment: a renewed recognition that only vigorous debate, activism, collaboration and investment between Government, business, academia, the professions, the community and entrepreneurial individuals will propel us beyond the current malaise. Let’s be clear. ‘They’ are not going to sort it out. We are ‘they’. BAE and others say they need more engineers. Frankly the UK, and the world, needs more engineers. We’re all engineers now – this is the New Enlightenment. The Bee analogy is misplaced in one crucial respect – we don't know what's causing colony collapse amongst the British Honey Bee, but it is in our gift to solve this problem. Ian Allison, designer, 5 August 2010