Design Politics 2020

Dr. Kate Dawson in a post-doctoral researcher on the Active Consent campaign at The School of Psychology, NUI Galway.

It’s hard: The challenges of designing Porn Literacy interventions.
I don’t know about you, but my Sex Ed was terrible. We were shown worst-case-scenario pictures of infected genitalia. How we teach Sex Ed has changed dramatically (it’s not perfect, but it’s not infected-genitals-bad). However, important aspects of sexuality, like sexual pleasure, masturbation, sexual behaviour and exploration are still largely omitted from school-based RSE (Relationships and Sexuality Education). In this absence, teenagers look to porn to answer their questions about sex – This is an uncomfortable reality. My work aims to tackle this problem and involves developing educational interventions for teenagers to challenge the messages they may receive about sex from watching porn. As you may have guessed, talking about porn with teenagers comes with its challenges and criticisms. In my talk I will discuss RSE politics and how we can overcome the resistance to RSE reform in Ireland.

Marc is Co-founder and CEO of ‘More than Metrics’, a growing company creating software for service design, such as ‘Smaply’ and ‘ExperienceFellow’.

Journey Map Ops: using journey maps as a customer-centric management tool for agile organizations
Nowadays, organizations run dozens, even hundreds, of agile projects that all impact user, customer, employee, or citizen experiences. Only a few of these projects are innovation or design projects – many of these are changes in SOPs, IT updates, implementing GDPR, and many more. These projects impact experiences but are hardly coordinated. Organizations struggle with managing multiple agile teams and understanding the impact of all their projects on their customer and employee experience. In his talk, Marc outlines how to use Journey Maps beyond workshops and projects: as a visual management tool. This allows organizations to zoom through different level of customer experience details, view a summary customer and employee pain points, research data, KPIs as well as projects from different parts of the organisation and where these impact customer experience. A system of up-to-date linked journey maps becomes a customer-centric dashboard for your organisation. An underlying governance system allows you to identify overlaps or contradictions between projects, coordinate and prioritise projects according to real customer and employee needs and iteratively bridge organisational silos by establishing a shared tool and perspective.

Lou Downe is Director of Housing and Land transformation for the UK Government, based at Homes England and author of Good Services - a book about how to design services that work.

Good Services: building user-centred organisations at scale
Most of the services we use every day aren’t designed to meet our needs. In fact, most of the services we use every day weren’t designed at all. Design is an increasingly mainstream activity inside even our most traditional organisations, yet the services we use today are still more likely to be the product of technological constraints, political whim or personal taste than they are the conscious decisions of an individual or organisation. Why are businesses still failing to deliver services that work for users? The answer lies in our ability to see services as things to be designed in the first place and with it out role and realisability as a service provider. Lou will talk about the experience of building the UK’s largest in house design teams in the UK government, and what it takes to build a truly user-centred organisation at scale.

Vimla is a design thinker, international speaker and advocate for changing the way businesses think: using technology, design and culture to align profit and purpose.

Use your power to change the world
The fabric of culture is shifting, now more than ever. We've been pushed to work in new ways, with new mental strain and we're learning as we go. Let's take a breather and figure out how we want this to happen, to own the process and to believe we can change the status quo to design a future we want to live in. Vimla will be talking about her Culture Design theory of change and what it means to reflect on who we are as individuals, how we work in teams and what that means for the organisations we run or find ourselves in.

Gerry McGovern has spent 25 years working in digital design for organizations such as Cisco, WHO, Toyota, IBM, Microsoft, European Union, and hundreds of others. He has published eight books, his latest being World Wide Waste, about how digital is killing the planet and what to do about it.

Top Tasks and the pandemic
It has never been more important to get back to the basics, to get absolute clarity on what truly matters, and what is getting in the way. A pandemic is no time for panic and chaos, and yet that is how many governments and organizations initially reacted to COVID-19. Poor planning, panic publishing, things can quickly become a confusing mess. Using the Top Tasks design framework, Gerry is working with WHO and other governments to establish what really matters when it comes to COVID-19. To design an information architecture that helps both the public and professionals quickly and easily find what is most important to them. The approach is highly collaborative, with thousands of people involved from over 100 countries. It is an evidence-based, testing-driven approach. Hear how clear and comprehensive information architecture and design approach emerges that is focused on what truly matters.

As one of the pioneers of business anthropology John specialises in making organisations highly productive and people centric in order to achieve growth.

The Client/Agency relationship: a cultural space that requires decoding
The client/agency relationship needs to be understood as a cultural and political space; a space where there are many subtle performances and tensions that can either propel or hamper how agencies deliver their work and value. I will make the claim that agencies need to adopt an 'anthropological mindset’ and reflective approach when entering and developing their relationships with clients. I will explore how agencies can reframe key areas of the project journey in order to plan and manage projects that take into account the subtle and often unconscious cultural barriers that can work as blockages to delivering value. The value for agencies will be that their insights and solutions land with their clients while at the same time nurturing their relationship.

Bulelani is part of MASI - Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland where he is campaigning for the right to work for all asylum seekers and to end Direct Provision.

Surviving on the margins of Irish society
I'll focus on how political decisions trap ethnic minorities such as asylum seekers and other migrants in poverty. And what this means for the future of Ireland. Most of the issues cut across borders and are relatable to the experiences of asylum seekers in my country and other parts of the world. I'll describe the Irish reception system for asylum seekers relative to others; why it is the way it is, and MASI's work in advocating for change. Themes covered include but are not limited to human rights racism, poverty, gender, sexuality, trauma, and welfare.