The Associate Parliamentary Design and Innovation Group (APDIG) in association with DBA have just released Design and the Public Good: Creativity vs. The Procurement Process. Among other things the report touches on the UK governments inability to select and properly compensate creative professionals who have the ability and skill-set to design services and products that make the lives of the public easier and instead get mired in micro managing the creative process and continue the misunderstanding of creativity and design thinking (creative quotient).
And for business, the ability to innovate is the key to surviving and flourishing in an increasingly competitive world. In the public sector it has an equally important but different significance: it is the only way to ever-growing public expectations can be met in a financially constrained environment. – George Cox
This report touches on some similar problems that were brought up at the AIGA Reno/Tahoe member feedback round table a few months ago in which participants expressed the need for AIGA to do a better job conveying to the public and business leaders the essential role creative thinking and design play in business. This sentiment is paralelled in this report but instead of the business community on a local/regional level, the report focuses on government and their rigorous procurement process and lack of understanding design and creativity. You can read the entire write up on Dexinger here.
I particularly thought that the foreward by George Cox and the recomendations under Skills were insightful and right on the money in regards to public outreach and education of design and creativity.
In recent years the private secor has increasingly understood the nature and importance of good design: recognizing that it is more than a matter of aesthetics…The public sector – with a few worthy exceptions – has been slower to recognize either the relevance or the potential of good design.
The situation is aggravated by the extreme variations in understanding of design. At worst, this means a poor grasp amongst public sector commissioners and the procurers of what ‘design’ means, little awareness of the value design thinking can add, and a suspicion of the perceived costs and uncertainty of dealing with ‘designers’.
