What: A system built around acute care, where patients passively receive treatments, is slowly adapting and realizing the importance of the user experience. This means going beyond the âexpert perspectiveâ and into the trenches of real world contexts. Without engaging real people in a design process, without learning about them and their everyday lives, it is unlikely the process, service or product created will be successful.
Date: October 1, 2014
Time: 6p-8p
Place:Â YMCA of Greater Toronto, Central YMCA, Grosvenor Room 20 Grosvenor Street Toronto
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Yesterday evening, I attended the latest instalment of DesignMeets - a speaker series sponsored and run by Pivot Design. The venue - Ryerson's Digital Media Zone (DMZ) - was an interesting space with a great view of the free NXNE concert taking place in Dundas Square. DesignMeets is a speaker-series / mixer that differs from others in its balance of short, energizing talks with a tightly-defined subject matter. That mix gives the night a cohesive feeling that can lead to constructive discussions without hugely in-depth, dragging presentations.
They know that some meet-up events can be insular, and the need to avoid this, so their focus is on interdisciplinary intersections with design practice. I've attended DesignMeets in the past, in both Ottawa and Toronto, and each has had a wide variety of presenters and attendees, usually tilted in favour of the intersecting "non-design" disciplines. The Voices of Healthcare topic provided yet another opportunity to hear from people that are drawing from design practice to solve complex problems in a variety of fields.
The presenters each spoke to the need for including the perspective of parties that may traditionally be considered outsiders or "subjects" of the healthcare system. The design ethos of human-centricity was very apparent throughout the presentations, in which each speaker was calling for more collaborative processes in both the design and implementation of various healthcare programs.
I was particularly interested in the talks given by Laura Mitchell, Frank Wang, and Francie Kendal, who each focused on a specific group of patients with unique needs, and their inclusion in some compelling projects. These included a Family Mentor Program at the Apotex Jewish Home for the Aged, a resource centre at Princess Maragret for the unique needs of cancer patients under 39 years old, and play-based alternatives to anaesthesia for children at SickKids Hospital.
All of these programs entailed the thorough involvement of a wide-range of stakeholders, and placed the voice of the patient at the centre of the process. It is always interesting to see designers recognize shades of their own human-centred methodology in other fields and - from this side of things - even more interesting to see other disciplines recognize that design methods can provide a framework for these complex problems, which might otherwise seem like uncharted territory. Of course, the mutual recognition between the two sides is what leads to the best results, both in the projects presented and in the DesignMeets event itself.
What: A system built around acute care, where patients passively receive treatments, is slowly adapting and realizing the importance of the user experience. Join us to discuss varying perspectives on how and why the patient perspective can be useful to healthcare solutions. Each speaker will have about 5 minutes to present 5 ideas using just 5 images.
Date: June 19, 2014
Time: 6pm - 8pm
Place:Â Digital Media Zone (DMZ), Ryerson University 10 Dundas Street E. Suite 600 Toronto,
Design and government is akin to oil and water. Everyone knows that and the worlds couldnât be further apart. Government will never understand the value or importance of design, and design is forced to squeak out an existence in spite of the governmentâs best bumbling efforts to keep it down. Right?
On November 11th - a rainy Monday night in the Nationâs capital - we packed a pub with designers and public servants to let the fists and barbs fly â except they didnât. Instead, we challenged that notion and were witness to a lively discussion that was a first of its kind on a large scale in Ottawa on the intersection of design, policy, and government.
With mounting examples springing up around the world of progressive governments embedding human-centred design principles into the core of their service offering, citizen engagement and policy forming, DesignMeetsâŚPublic Policy shed light on the Canadian state of affairs.
With a strong cast of speakers, the night was moderated by HUB Ottawaâs Executive Director â Vinod Rajasekaran â and quickly became an accurate representation of the passion, frustration, and optimism surrounding this space in the Canadian context. Participants and attendees came from a massive breadth of backgrounds, and found graphic designers rubbing shoulders with policy analysts.
Getting things kicked off was none other than the Web Usability Lead for the Government of Canada. As part of a growing movement of user-centred design practitioners in government, Laura had essentially been working in secrecy on creating the open-source web experience toolkit in order to improve information and services delivered to the public. She shared the process that went into creating it, solicited feedback for crowd ideas on what government could become, and future thoughts on creating a stronger design presence within government.Â
Dom Saul
Dom of Akendi took off the kid gloves and brought a fresh and honest spin to the evening supported by a backdrop of kitten after kitten. Key takeaways are that design is not a democratic process. Design by committee and design by consensus donât work.
Mary Herbert-Copley
Mary pulled on over 25 years experience within the government to deliver a talk that did a great job of providing evidence for where weâve been, and where weâre going in the space. Her current work with the Canadian Council on Social Development as well as her notion of forming âcollaboratoriesâ - as an evolution from labs â to solve complex social problems proved inspirational by seeing a veteran of the public service still striving to innovate and reimagine engagement.Â
Erin Gee
Erin represented the energetic and inspired new face of public service. Sheâs tired of the status quo and is taking it into her own hands to identify pain points and ultimately make change. In her upcoming design jam with public servants she is imploring the government to become more comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Blaise Hebert
Policy Horizons Canada is tasked with generating foresight and knowledge in the public service and Blaise shared the fundamentals of foresight and the potential future implications of a policy direction. His ability to simplify âlooking into the futureâ while turning foresight into something you can use represented the significant scope of this conversation on design and policy.
Jess McMullin
Jessâ wealth of experience in the design and policy sphere with The Centre for Citizen Experience was evident with many enlightening comments including the fundamental realization that policy making itself is a design process and decision DNA. While design is playing a larger role in social change, when you want to make change in organizations, youâre going to have to go deep enough to run into policy.
The main takeaways from the night as we prepare for the Toronto edition of DesignMeetsâŚPublic Policy was that it seems weâve reached a critical mass of awareness and enthusiasm to form a working group comprised of individuals both within and outside of government to further user-centred design for public good. Whether itâs mandated by the government or not, design shouldnât be subject to the constraints government can impose that for a host of reasons frequently donât have the citizenâs best interests in mind. While design must understand the context within which it hopes to make change, there is a simmering movement of like-minded people ready to elevate this conversation to the next chapter.
 On  November 26th, Pivot Design Group and their friends are organizing the Toronto edition of DesignMeets Public Policy. Can't wait to head down there and keep the convo going.
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DesignMeets recap video from the Designtrepreneur event in Ottawa. Featuring Dom Coballe (N-Product), Matt Wallace (NaCoille Studio), Grace Poon (HUB Ottawa), Daniel Weinang (Shopify), and Graham Rapsey (A Crafted Story). Big thanks to Shopify and Creative Niche for helping put on the event!
After attending a couple of these events, both in Toronto and Ottawa, I decided to extend a hand to Ian, Iffat, and Pivit Design Group in TO to help organize the Ottawa events.
DesignMeets is an awesome initiative that began in Toronto, and is aimed at creating national design dialogue through a series of fantastic events, which have an increasingly interdisciplinary focus. With events in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver (and more cities on the horizon, this is the only consistent design event that I'm aware of that creates this Canadian national design dialogue so sorely needed.
After speaking at the event in March, I wanted to leverage some local networks and build a wicked event for September about design's increasing role in entrepreneurship.
The theme for the event was the Designtrepeneur...
"As the design industry evolves and traditional employment avenues change, designers have never been as empowered to develop and launch their own brands, products, and services. With the emergence of wildly successful funding platforms, and new channels for online sales and distribution, entrepreneurship has become a much more viable and appealing option for many designers and creatives.
With all this potential at designersâ fingertips, how do you navigate the opportunities and risks? What resources exist to enable entrepreneurship within design? What designers are even suited for entrepreneurship?
This DesignMeets will discuss the changing world of entrepreneurship within design through a series of inspirational, and educational discussions seeking to stimulate conversation and thought surrounding the emergence of the designtrepreneur."
All in all, it was a fantastic evening featuring five terrific speakers and friends, each with their own unique and inspiring stories. Check the quick recap video here, blog post here. and photos here. (Big thanks to Zara Ansar and Mark Adam for the photos/video!)
Again, huge thanks to the brains behind Studio Neat (Dan Provost and Tom Gerhardt) who donated copies of their e-book "It Will be Exhilerating". Wicked read for any designer who needs that lust push to just GO DO IT.
This past March, I had the chance to present my research area at a local DesignMeets Event. A recap of the event can be found here. This is the excerpt about my presentation.
"Mike Grigorievâs strong visuals highlighted the need for collective problem solving if we are to attack many growing urban challenges worldwide. Â A key point in his presentation was the need for do-gooders and well meaning designers to truly embrace local collaboration and to immerse themselves in local culture to find effective solutions that will have lasting impact."
Congrats to all the speakers and guests on a great event, and look forward to playing a larger role in upcoming design events!
