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Frequently Asked Questions What does Stakeholder Design do? Stakeholder Design is an international innovation agency focused on the renewal of public services and the transition into the global knowledge economy. We help organisations to develop new products and services in response to the needs of their customers and help them to understand how the challenges posed by the 21st century can help or hinder them in their work. Our clients include governments, councils, think tanks, schools and large manufacturers, all of whom are intent on using change as a means to meet the needs of their consumer. You can see some of our current clients by clicking here. Why stakeholders? We believe that stakeholders, as end users of products and services, have an innate knowledge of what could be done to make them better. We believe that the future of product and service development is vested in a principle called co-design, in which suppliers and end-users work together to define new operational landscapes. In this regard, our work has anticipated the following comment by former Prime Minister Tony Blair, made at the 2006 Labour Party conference: “People won’t accept a service handed down from on high. They want to shape it to their needs and the reality of their lives” We help service users to become partners in the development of new ways of doing things. This accords closely with the vision set out by Prime Minister Gordon Brown: “In the new century people and communities should now take power from the state… I want a radical shift of power from the centre.”
Why design? We define design as a decision-making process that enables people to give life to ideas that hitherto have only existed in their head. It complements other form of decision-making and is particularly good in situations where rapid and significant innovation is called for. It’s a little known fact that companies that use design well have out-performed the FTSE 100 index by 200% over the last ten years. We believe that the same benefits should be available to public servants and others as they grapple to create our 21st century society. Who do you work with? We work with a variety of clients, ranging from Governments to national bodies, think tanks, LEAs, manufacturers and individuals. In the recent past, we have done work for the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families, Futurelab, Lancashire Local Authority, Stage Systems Ltd, Polycom (New Zealand) and the Centre for Policy and Systemic Change (Ireland). Occasionally, we work in partnership with architects and other designers on very large scale projects. For instance, we are part of a consortia recently appointed by the DCSF to design exemplar science classrooms (Project Faraday). At all times, our aim is to work with stakeholders rather than for stakeholders in order to uncover opportunties to do things better. Click here to find out more about the work we’re doing right now. How do I set up a meeting? Just send an email outlining the problem and we’ll get back to you. Alternatively, why not introduce yourself at one of the events that Sean will be speaking at in the near future? You can view a list here. How were you established? Stakeholder Design was founded by Sean McDougall, an internationally respected educational thinker and designer with over 10 years experience in educational and social transformation. Prior to setting up Stakeholder Design, Sean led a Government funded project at the UK Design Council, showing how good design could be used to improve educational outcomes. When the campaign came to an end, he set up Stakeholder Design and now works with a mix of education and public service clients. You can read his biography by clicking here. What are your values?
To this, we add a series of values based on the attributes of good design. They are:
You can read our terms and conditions by clicking here. We will shortly be adding plain English versions. What does “Site content protected by Copyscape mean?” The 21st century economy is based on knowledge - or, more accurately, the skillful assembly of ideas using techniques that previously gave us cars, bank accounts and iPods. The law makes it relatively easy to protect a design for a car, or a song, but it is much harder to protect a design for a new way of doing something. Recognising rampant levels of plagiarism on the net, Google has licenced its search facilities to Copyscape, which now provides a free alert service to content generators when their ideas, text or images are reproduced on other people’s websites without permission. The idea is not to stand in the way of sharing information - just to stop people from passing it off as their own. You can protect your own website in exactly the same way by visiting Copyscape. Does that mean I can’t quote your work? All information on this site is copyright © Stakeholder Design. However, we welcome distribution of our articles (in full, not in part) so long as the recipient is made aware of our authorship and the article is not used for commercial gain. Distribution is usually subject to the terms of our free creative commons licence, which you can read by clicking here. Where other conditions apply, this is made clear under the link to the relevant article. Where we are constrained by the terms of publishing or external licence agreements, we encourage visitors to make a link direct to the article in question.
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