service designing education

My good friend Andy Polaine has created something very exciting. I would like to introduce you all to Coten : a collaborative online research activity exploring Service Design for higher education in 2010. Coten has a nice site with all the information you need. Basically, over a period of seven weeks participants of COTEN will explore two key questions through both conversation and practice:

How can we re-imagine the structure and experience of higher education using service design techniques?

Can service design methodologies be used in a purely online, collaborative environment?

Coten want all of us to part of this. They are looking for student, teachers, mentors and creative professionals to sign up ( and it's freeeeeeeee )

I have a good feeling about this - it is open and honest. In the FAQ a question asks 'How is it possible to do service design online – don’t you need to be there?" Their simple answer is 'we don’t know.'

This is an experiment to find out what methods work and what don’t and they are inviting you along for the ride.

It will run 10th May – 27th June 2010 and the deadline is 30th April.

Here's what one of Coten's special guests, John Thackara , had to say about it...

"Frustrated that an army of politicians, bureaucrats, auditors, managers and administrators has failed to offer an innovative vision for higher education, Andrew Polaine (founder of the esteemed new media agency AntiRom, and a professor at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts) has decided to take the initiative. He's launched a project called "Creative Waves COTEN - Service Designing Education" to explore two questions: How might we we re-imagine the structure and experience of higher education using service design techniques? and, can service design be used in a purely online, collaborative environment? Andrew is convinced that service design can make a difference due to its focus on the entire ecology of a service. Andrew invites you to apply your most innovative thinking to the problem. I've agreed to take part in order to learn more about this stuff for my own and Doors of Perception's work."

Snook have signed up and are raring to go...hope to see you there!