An ever growing NUDGE team

The teams here!

As one of the first members of the new Nudge team I've had some lonely days in the office! However, that’s all changed and with an ever-growing team, we’re about to burst out of our first office!

So who’s here?

Our team has been created in a multidisciplinary manner, to utilise a wide range of skills and expertise. It's becoming more accepted that teams of multi-skilled people working together will generate more ideas than individuals working alone, and with my back-ground being in product design, I’ve worked in this manner for many years and have seen the benefits.

Here’s a great video that explains the benefits of working in a team to help create good ideas...

On the team so far we have…

Kathryn Eccles, Digital social researcher.

Elizabeth Woodcock , our sustainability officer

Shem, (moi), UX Designer

Latest new additions…

Paul Carter, Psychologist

Philip Nelson, Psychologist
Andrew Thomas, Electrical engineer and sustainability

…and due to start next week Andrew Thomas, a software engineer.

That’s not to forget Dr John Parkinson, Dr Carl Hughes and David Menichino our Directors/Academics and management team.  
As well as working in a multidisciplinary team, we'll be running projects using theory's from design principle. Some people call this 'Design Thinking', Put simply, I like to think of it as looking at a problem from 'outside of the box' to design a solution of greater value.

Dr Andy Goodman of Bangor University is also working along side the team, and his 'MUD' base structure has been used to help construct the team

The same structure has been used to form the 'Enterprise by Design' project within Bangor University. 

Rather than ramble on, here's another video that explains Design & Thinking...

                                            

Projects and partners are stacking up thick and fast, and the range of projects are as diverse as the team itself. More to come on these very soon!

Nudges and Design hit the news!

Lots of news in the UK press this week regarding issues connected with the Wales Centre for behaviour Change. That being Nudges and Design!

First off to hit the papers was the partial privatisation of the Governments Behavioural insights team, or as they are known the ‘Nudge Team’. If you don’t know who or what these are, they’re a unit that applies insights from academic research in behavioural economics and psychology to public policy and services.   One of their  responsibility’s is to encouraging people to make better life style choices, and It could be the first of many elements of Whitehall to be spun out under the Cabinet Office’s strategy to ‘shake up’ the civil service.
Some of their methods have been criticised, Namely a survey involving Job Seekers allowance but they’ve had positive results in promoting health and well-being, especially in the areas of smoking, diet and weight and physical activity.

A partner for the Nudge team will be chosen in the very near future, probably through the use of a competition. Click here for more info on the Nudge Team or here for the Wales Centre for Behaviour Change 

On the Design front, a first step is being made to help designers maintain ownership of their designs and I.P. It will soon become a criminal offence to copy another person’s design. How that will work across the board remains to be seen, and there will without a doubt be grey areas. 

One area of change within the Government’s decision to make it an offence to purposely copy another person’s design is in the ownership of a commissioned design. Once the law is in place the designer and not the commissioner will own the design! I personally agree with this in many areas, but how would such a law work in the cases of multidisciplinary design teams, (Such as us here at the WCBC). Another example would be University’s owning any designs produced by its students and staff. It will be really interesting to see how this ‘pans’ out, especially if any cases come to court in the near future. 

You can read more about the reform of the UK design legal framework here...

If you've followed the link to our website above, you'll see its not quite there yet, but it will be going live in the next week, so watch this space. There will also be some project updates very soon as well. 

Its a gorgeous sunny day here in Bangor and were only a day away from May Bank holiday weekend. Thanks for taking a read and have a great weekend where ever you are...

...Shem :-D