I’m not an expert in design management so it was looking forward to expanding my horizons while attending the resent DME (Design Management in Europe) Awards in Cardiff recently, I was drawn there through some research we are planning on design policy and its relationship to on the ground design practice. Around the award event, there were a series of associated talks and presentations including very stimulating presentations. These included Virgin Airways (bullish after a hard pre-ression slimming program and now looking to capture more market share), the Danish kitchenware manufacturer Eva (who consciously ‘apply’ design to already functional objects to challenge clients – odd but it works for them) and KTM, a motorbike company resurrected by solid product design values in the Seymour Powel tradition. KTM also had on of their X-Bow cars on display and in the flesh the styling and presence of the car is awesome.

The presentations for the DME were held in the excellent Millennium Centre Cardiff (above, with an exterior shot below). It is very hard to get an awards ceremony to run smoothly but this was faultless with a good use of video clips to bring the posters to life without interminable speeches. The organisers of the Cardiff event should be highly congratulated.

I am a convert to design management, its great to see design thinking (a subject close to my heart) becoming part of a board range of company’s cultures, not just the gloss on a rotten apple. The trick now is to get more designers and creative to take engaging with ‘boring’ business more seriously, the DM awards are a good step in making design management cool.

I was talking to Ian Grey, the head of the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) yesterday about design thinking. For those not in the know, the TSB in its current form was set up around 12 months ago to promote innovation in science, technology and the wider economy. It has has a sufficiently large budget to fund around £1 million research every day. Ian was very supporting of the IDEAS at Daresbury collaboration I am part of but crucially is “a passionate believer in getting design thinking embedded in the while innovation process”. This is especially interesting as the remit of the TSB includes the creative industries even though institutionally they are more used to dealing with nanotechnology than design practice. We spent some time talking about the swatch of design thinking technique we have developed in ImaginationLancaster.

This interesting because (finally) the idea that a set of conceptual tools developed by creatives and designers can be used by all sorts of people to release and facilitate their own creative potential. This has interesting implications for the design profession, with a ‘step back’ but not a disengagement from hands on creation a common result. I think this is vital if we are to make the most of the untapped creative potential in the general population without throwing ourselves open to valueless mush of poor, unprofessional design.