Bringing Strategic Design to Public Sector

We’ve been back in Helsinki for a while, connecting with new partners, initiating projects and hooking up with Finnish and European leading-edge thinkers and doers – and there sure are plenty of amazing things cooking in Helsinki at the moment! The whole city is preparing and buzzing with bold plans for the big WDC 2012 year, creating an interesting hub for pushing strategic design thinking forward in every sector of the society.

While Finland is, or at least has been, one of the leading countries in global wellbeing and happiness barometers and has relatively effective public sector services and support networks, there’s always something to improve. Actually, it seems, there might be quite a lot to innovate when you realize the old systems are becoming increasingly crippled in the coming years, considering the uncertainty of the global economy, growing social inequality, huge demographic shifts and other major developments.

The lovely thing with Finland is that the need for change has already been broadly identified in the public and private sector, and many societal actors are ready for a healthy shake-up and to collaborate to tackle these “wicked” challenges. This means a busy season for socially minded design thinkers and doers, who are joining forces with the public sector and social enterprises to rethink the current models and services to create more people-centered feasible and viable solutions for the 21st Century wellbeing society.

One exciting related project, where we had the pleasure to bring strategic future-oriented and people-centered design thinking to public planning processes, is the Pop-Up Exhibition that aims to introduce strategic design thinking and service design methods to public sector decision makers, service developers, project leaders and World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 key actors, held on 12th of May in Helsinki.

The social innovation scene in Finland is getting sizzling hot and we will make sure to keep you in the loop for future developments!