Design Manchester – Co-op Digital Blog

Steve Foreshew-Cain: service jams at Design Manchester and sponsoring Hack Manchester

October 27, 2017Co-op

(Transcript) Steve Foreshew-Cain: Hello, happy Friday and welcome to this week’s Co-op Digital update.

You may remember a few weeks ago I told you that The Federation had been nominated for an Inspired Places Award 2017. Voting is now open so we’ll share the link on our blog and Twitter accounts – so please vote, and remember if you’d like a tour, just get it touch with Victoria Howlett who can organise that.

For the last 2 Saturdays, as part of Design Manchester, the team ran a ‘service jam’, which is where a group of individuals come together to create a service in a short space of time. A lot of work went into organising these events. Thank you to everyone who joined us and got involved, and a particular thank you to Kathryn Grace, Katherine Wastell and the rest of the design team for organising such incredible days. You can view how the days unfolded on Storify.

On Wednesday, our user research team held their first monthly show and tell in Angel Square. Thanks to everyone who took the time to join them and well done to James and the team for sharing what they’ve learnt over the last few months with colleagues from all over the Co-op.

This week, we’re proud to be sponsoring Hack Manchester and Hack Manchester Junior. The junior event saw some amazing teams coming up with really creative solutions to the challenge we set. Well done particularly to Table 9 and Hackerboy who were our joint winners. I’ll let you know next week all about the main 24 hour hack which takes place this weekend at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry. Good luck to all the teams entering that.

Talking of teams working through the night, I wanted to thank our engineering team working on Co-op Membership. They worked through the night on Tuesday to ensure the successful transition to a new technology platform. So a big shout out to the whole team. Thank you to all and well done.

Christine and the team working on our Going Google trial have been working really hard to make sure that it’s easy for our Digital colleagues to collaborate and work seamlessly with the rest of our Co-op colleagues. This week, major milestone, they delivered the integration that means regardless of if a colleague is using Google or Microsoft – they can easily see one another’s calendars.

This week we welcome Jon Ayre from FLS as our Interim Director of Digital Services and Amber Garland who has joined as an Apprentice Software Engineer to the Digital team.

And sadly we say goodbye to Mel Jones, Lawrence Kitson, Roberto Hortal and Sophie Newton – thank you all for your contributions to our Digital team. In particular, safe travels to Sophie on her move to New Zealand.

That’s it for this week. You’ll find our latest vacancies our blog. Don’t forget to subscribe for all our updates and follow us on Twitter.

And don’t forget to vote. See you next week.

Steve Foreshew-Cain
Digital Chief Operating Officer

Steve Foreshew-Cain: the Funeralcare service exits beta and Design Manchester has begun

October 13, 2017Co-op

(Transcript) Steve Foreshew-Cain: Hello and welcome to this week’s Co-op Digital update.

Well since I last spoke, our Membership app trial with our colleagues has begun and over a thousand people have already signed up to join the trial. They’ve been giving us loads of feedback already and we’re learning quite a lot from it so we’ll be sharing what we learn on our blog.

Some other great news, the service that we’ve been working on with our colleagues in Funeralcare has exited its beta phase. There’s been a lot of hard work since we did the initial inception back in April 2016, but as a team were really proud of the product that it has been built and the amazing job frontline colleagues have done to help us design a service that we have proven works and will give colleagues time back to care more. So big thank yous to all of those involved.

Now you may remember a few weeks ago I told you that The Federation had been nominated for an Inspired Places Award 2017. Voting opens today and we’ll share the link on our blog and our Twitter account so please, please vote and remember if you’d like a tour of The Federation, get in touch with Victoria Howlett who can arrange that.

This week also saw the start of Design Manchester, Manchester’s annual design festival. It runs until the 22nd of October and there’ll be talks exhibitions workshops films and loads more across the city celebrating design in all its various forms. We’ll be running and speaking at several events this year too so we’ll be talking a lot about service design, something that’s really relevant to what we do here in the team. Everyone’s welcome so please once again, the links to register will be on our blog. Please take advantage.

Now, yesterday it was our pleasure to host the first Northern Data Governance Forum. It was great to welcome lots of organisations to share their thoughts and experience on data governance. Thank you to Catherine Brien and Ian Thomas from the team who were amongst the speakers there.

And finally this week Kate Towsey has joined us as a user researcher and she’ll also be helping us build our very own user research lab in The Federation, so welcome Kate, it’s great to have you onboard.

That’s it for this week you’ll find our latest vacancies on our blog and don’t forget to subscribe for all of our updates and follow us on Twitter.

We’ll see you next week.

Steve Foreshew-Cain
Group Digital Director

Co-op Digital talks service design at Design Manchester

October 11, 2017October 13, 2017Co-op1 Comment

Today’s the first day of Design Manchester 2017, Manchester’s annual design festival. From today until 22 October, there’ll be talks, exhibitions, workshops, films, fairs and parties across the city celebrating design in its various forms.

The Co-op is sponsoring the festival, and Co-op Digital is running and speaking at several events this year too. We’ll be talking a lot about ‘service design’ – something that’s really relevant to what we do here at Co-op Digital.

What do we mean by ‘service design’?

A ‘service’ is something that helps someone do something. Co-op services help our customers and members to save money; give to local causes; find out where their local Co-op store is and when they’re open; make a will or organise a funeral. These are just a few.

Co-op Digital has helped our Funeralcare team to give time back to funeral colleagues, so that they can spend more time with families when dealing with bereavement by putting parts of these services online which has made things simpler for users.

For businesses, service design is an holistic, end-to-end design approach that takes into consideration business, customer and colleague needs and creates shared value.

Service design is about collaboration and this is reflected in the events we’re involved in at Design Manchester.

Here’s a round-up.

Service design jam days

Service designer and user researcher Kathryn Grace from Co-op Digital is leading a two-part, co-created event on consecutive Saturdays. The first ‘jam’ day will be an introduction to the importance of service design in a city. Different companies and organisations from Manchester will be sharing skills and their approaches to service design.

The second jam day will be an opportunity to put into practice some of the things we learnt from the first day. The aim of the second day will be to develop a service within 24 hours.

We have a great design community in Manchester and we’re privileged to help showcase those in service design.

Panel discussion: Service design and Manchester

Technology Engagement Lead Emer Coleman and Co-op’s Group Design Director Ben Terrett will be part of the panel to discuss how cities grow and evolve. The panel will specifically be talking about how Manchester can attract people and businesses that can develop and maintain vital services that make a city work and make it an enjoyable and easy place to live in.

Design city reframed

Co-op Digital’s Lawrence Kitson will be speaking about service design as a team sport. He’ll explore how we can make a difference and affect change by co-operatively designing great end-to-end services that solve user needs and provide shared value.

Everyone’s welcome (not just designers!)

Yep, this is Design Manchester so we’re expecting to see a lot of designers over the fortnight. But our events are open to all. If you have an interest in how Manchester’s future is being shaped and how cities ‘work’, these events will be of interest to you. We’re mostly aiming to open up discussion and get people talking about, and sharing ideas about, the design of services across Manchester.

Kathryn Grace
Service design and user research

Gail Mellows
Designer

Design Manchester 2016

October 13, 2016Co-op

Today sees the start of Design Manchester. I’m delighted that we’re partnering with them as the headline sponsor. It was great to see so many people here at Co-op for the partner launch event the other night.

Picture of Malcolm Garrett — Malcolm Garrett, Co-curator Design Manchester

Manchester is a known leader in the creative and media sector, with a vibrant eco-system of design and technology companies. The Co-op has always had communities at it’s heart and it’s vital the Co-op plays an active part the design and technology community.

Sir Richard Leese, Leader, Manchester City Council

I’m really excited about all the events this year and especially the things we’re helping to host or organise. The Women in Print exhibition here in our atrium from the 13th October, the Ladies that UX event on 18th October, the two day Generational workshops on the 17th & 18th October or the work we’re doing with our Co-op Academies. More about those events in due course. You can find the full schedule of events for DM16 here.

A picture of the Women in print exhibition — The Women in Print Exhibition at the Co-op – 1 Angel Square

We’re looking to build a world class design capability here in Manchester. So we’re hiring. If you’re a designer – print or digital and you’re interested in working with us get in touch.

Ben Terrett
Group Design Director

Design Manchester Partnership

June 8, 2016August 9, 2016Co-op2 Comments

This year we’re partnering with Design Manchester and are proud to be the headline sponsor of DM16. This will be the fourth annual design festival in our city, celebrating design in all its forms and like the Co-op has collaboration and inclusivity at its heart. That’s why we’ve both agreed to sign up to Owen Barder’s pledge to make clear our shared commitment not to organise any panel discussions of two or more people at the festival without having at least one woman contributor.

This partnership couldn’t come at a more exciting time for us as we return to our pioneering roots and look to build a world class design capability here in Manchester. It’s important that we work with the flourishing design community here on our doorstep. The design festival takes place in venues across our city and we’re looking forward to working alongside the fantastic team at Design Manchester, hosting a a range of digital, design and public outreach events here at Co-op from 12th to 22nd October.

“We are particularly excited to announce the Co-op as our partner for the DM16 festival, coinciding as it does with the rejuvenation of this iconic Manchester brand. There is a wonderful synergy between the aims and objectives of the Co-op, bringing a design- and customer-driven focus to the fore, and the aspirations of DM16 as an open platform that celebrates design in all its forms and for the good of all people, with Manchester as its home”.
Malcolm Garrett RDI, Co-Director of Design Manchester

“Manchester is a known leader in the creative and media sector, with a vibrant eco-system of design and technology companies. It’s vital the Co-op plays an active part in that community. Our partnership with Design Manchester signals our intention to create a world class design capability inside the Co-op, building on the talent we already have. This comes at a pivotal moment for us as we work to re-create Co-op for a digital era, and demonstrate a different way of doing business for an increasingly connected community, making all our products and services user focused”
Ben Terrett, Group Design Director, Co-op

We’ll be sure to blog with more details as they are confirmed, but you can also follow Design Manchester on Twitter or visit them on Facebook.

Gemma Kidd
Senior Brand Manager