Cooler Solutions, Inc. is seeking a software developer to work in our Innovation group on a nine-month contract. As a Cooler software developer, you will work with a multi-disciplinary team of creative professionals to develop mobile and web-based software applications. You will work primarily with our clients in the health care industry, using your programming expertise to help us deliver on patient-centred innovation.
Read MoreOur healthcare costs are rising. Our system is strained. We acknowledge that the rate of spending is unsustainable. But what are we, yes we, ordinary citizens, doing?
Every writer, speaker, healthcare professional, economist, and regular Ontarian that discusses the current realities that plague our healthcare system is aware that healthcare is the biggest item on the government’s budget and, short of necessary sustainable reforms, the system will remain inefficient and will not produce the best value per dollar spent. There are many reasons that attribute to rising costs and inefficiencies. These include, inflation, population growth, aging, costly technology/innovation/pharmaceuticals, increased utilization of services, and expanded service offering (i.e. increased resources per patient). On top of that add a disjointed system and payment structure that often does not encourage desirable behaviors. At times it seems like the only way to help is to add more money by increasing taxes, increasing privatization, or squeezing other public services and reallocating funds – these are clearly undesirable, and short-lived solutions. So what are we to do?
Read MoreTackling a large-scale biomedical installation filled with innovative and interactive scientific games and modules requires great creativity and innovative thinking. Our first post-research and planning venture was a trip to the Ontario Science Centre where we explored six levels of inspiring hands-on exhibits. Our mission: to find inspiration that we can transform into innovative new exhibit ideas, and to “Think Cooler”!
If you grew up in the Toronto area, you most certainly visited the Ontario Science Centre at some point in your grade school career. And, if there is one thing you might remember about the Science Centre, it’s the engaging exhibits that make learning fun! Through the years, many of the Ontario Science Centre’s exhibits have been updated. New technology (such as an interactive floor projection) has been interspersed with the “classics” (such as the giant contraption showing conservation and transformation of kinetic energy).
The floor projection technology immediately captured our attention upon entering the room, where groups of kids were walking, running, and skipping across the coloured square tiles. Stepping on the tiles would trigger an animation effect and cause shifting and flipping of the tile. Although the exhibit was seemingly ambiguous, this display inspired us to use interactivity in our own work, due to its incredible abilities to capture and sustain the attention of an audience. One other notable unique exhibit involved the science behind blood, blood types, products of blood, and blood vessels. The PVC blood bags were a visual representation of the physical quantity of blood required for patients in various situations (e.g. a car accident victim) which inspired ideas for visualizing data and information.
Having fun with the interactive tile floor projection. Fellow communicators are suckers for eye-catching displays!
This may be a more traditional exhibit, but it certainly got our ideas ‘rolling.’
Blood and guts… part of the reason we love what we do.
This visit was a lot of fun. But it’s also a crucial part of Cooler’s process. It’s very difficult to be creative and innovative while working within your everyday environment. Removing yourself to a new locale helps you see the world differently and generate lots of new ideas. Further, seeing analogues — finished products that are similar-but-different to your design target — is a great way to expand your thinking. After all, innovation is not usually about something completely novel (Recall Henry Ford’s adage, “I invented nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work”). Rather, it’s about combining things that already exist in new and exciting ways. We can hardly wait to start building on all the inspiration that struck us while we were experiencing the analogues at the Ontario Science Centre.
Design Researchers at Cooler are constantly digging around in published research literatures across disciplines like geography, anthropology, nursing, psychology, medicine, and sociology. Every once and awhile we stumble onto an unfamiliar concept or research finding that strikes us as particularly interesting and useful, and worthy of sharing.
Recently we came across the concept of “heartsink” while researching the work experiences of psychiatrists for one of our ongoing innovation projects.
As it turns out, the concept is widely used in published literatures, and applied to many different kinds of physicians, not just psychiatrists.
Reading about this concept got us thinking that we would probably find a physician’s day-to-day work dissatisfying. Many doctors are stressed. They’re also overworked. And depending on the type of medicine they practice, they may also have to deal from time to time with verbal and physical assaults from patients. These are difficult work conditions, for sure, and patients are reportedly key contributors to the suboptimal elements of a physician’s life on the job. Indeed, so-called “difficult patients” are a group of people whom physicians evidently experience as genuine drains on their sense of job satisfaction.
Medical researchers use the term “heartsink” as a label for the experiences physicians have when confronted by difficult patients. The concept is applied to situationsin which physicians feel “uncomfortable, frustrated, and sometimes useless” when interacting with patients. How often do doctors experience heartsink? 
One estimate is that 15% of clinical consultations happen with patients who doctors deem difficult for one reason or another. From this view, 1 out of every 6 clinical consultations elicits “negative feelings, stress, and emotional strain” in a physician.
What does it mean that a doctor may encounter 6 or 7 difficult patients everyday? What are the psychological and emotional effects on physicians who have, say, 30 heartsink episodes each week? It seems safe to say that heartsink is likely to have ripple effects on a physician’s clinical consultations with non-difficult patients and in other domains of the physician’s life as well. Another way of putting is that we’d hypothesize that heartsink moments contribute over time to the development of chronic heartache in at least some physicians. And indeed, difficult patients are often cited as an important contributor to burnout in the medical community. (Of course, heartsink is but one kind of suboptimal experience that doctors have on the job everyday.)
Who is responsible for attempting to remedy this problem? What recommendations do experts make for how to deal with these kinds of circumstances and experiences? One view in the medical literature is that responsibility for managing difficult patients falls squarely on the shoulders of physicians themselves. For instance, an author of a recent review article suggests that doctors should acquire and employ “broad knowledge in sincerity, emotional detection, and have the capacity to express genuine interest in patient complaints.” The author goes further: “Whenever needed, physicians should seek appropriate counseling or collaboration with psychiatrists. Physicians who have difficulty in managing difficult patients should seek help from other professionals, colleagues of the same specialty, or psychotherapy support groups.”
We sympathize with this author’s solution-seeking spirit, but we also believe that calls for time-starved, stressed-out doctors to become more empathic, more tolerant, and less judgmental are likely to fall flat over time. Why? In our view, this kind of strategy puts too much emphasis on individuals to solve problems generated by 
social systems in which they work.
Rather than pitching solutions at the individual level, as solution designers, we would argue that the best remedies will come from approaches based in understandings of heartsink as the effect of the way the medical system – and perhaps society – is organized. To lift the sinking of hearts of physicians, that is, we would need to strategically intervene in the social circumstances that give rise to heartsink in the first place. This is not an easy thing to do, of course, but a good starting point might be reimagining and then redesigning interventions that focus on the system level as opposed to putting the onus exclusively on individual physicians. When we take the step from asking individuals to solve problems like heartsink to focusing on systems-level interventions and remedies, we move away from temptations to ‘blame the victim’ and more squarely into the realm of service design.
Setting aside the question of how to remedy it, we like heartsink as a notion because it gets us asking questions and thinking about the experiences and perspectives of physicians as humans — people struggling in daily life with work-related troubles. In other words, the concept is a good, practical tool for human-centered thinking and for imagining how we might design effective solutions for a problem that, no doubt, impacts us all in one way or another.
Read MoreWe are currently seeking applicants for Cooler Solutions Summer 2012 Designership program.
Cooler’s Designership Program centers on the application of Human-Centred Design principles to real-world issues. Positions are open to those wishing to apply their skills within a multi-disciplinary team in the role of Design Researcher, Design Strategist, or Designer (interaction, graphic, service, and industrial). All positions are paid.
Cooler’s program consists of a two-week immersive training and a focused summer project. The goal is to understand people’s needs and design and develop a new product or service. As a participant in Cooler’s Designership Program you will join a growing alumni network of past participants who have gone on to roles in Design, Consumer Insights, Brand Strategy and Marketing Innovation within some of Canada’s top firms such as TD Bank and IBM.
To apply, please email designership@coolersolutionsinc.com with:
A message of 50 words or less indicating why you are interested in learning how to apply human-centered design in your career.
Please submit a CV, portfolio, or cases you have worked on.
Successful applicants will be contacted directly for interviews to be held in April.
Application deadline is 8AM, April 16, 2012
Money. For some people it represents power, prestige, love, freedom. We earn it, we save it, we spend it, but for most of us, we’d sooner talk about anything else at the dinner table.
My mother can remember watching grandma clean and press the family’s vacation savings. Grandma would lightly steam and flatten each bill – with a clothes iron – and then carefully roll it and place it away in an old coffee tin. Every summer, this money would pay the way for a family road trip up to Northern Ontario. The family was in no way poor (my grandfather was a chemist, my grandmother a teacher), but as a young family money management was important. As time went on, my grandparents became more and more sophisticated in the way they saved and planned (creating accounts and investments.) However, in the early years, saving was made real and tangible and most importantly, it was talked about.
Some might argue that the art of saving has been lost. Credit allows us to satisfy our needs and wants instantly, allowing us to pay for it later. But today, it has never been easier for people to spend their way into serious financial trouble. High credit card interest rates can seriously impact a monthly balance, and satisfying those needs and wants can become much more expensive than the purchased sticker price. Likewise, with mortgage rates at a record low, home buyers can now afford larger mortgages, but what will happen as rates creep up? Navigating the sea of personal finance is tough at best – and learning through the school of hard knocks can seriously cripple one’s financial future.
Enter ING Direct. I’m smitten.
As a service designer, I truly admire the approach that ING takes with its customers. Virtually all products, messaging, and experiences have been thoughtfully designed to support their key mission of “helping people take care of the wealth that they make for themselves in ways that fit these new times.” The brand is fresh and modern, open and friendly, and maybe a little bit quirky. This is not a traditional banking institution. ING asks us to consider what a bank could be. They encourage people to save and to realize freedom through financial literacy. I could rant on about all the fantastic ways in which they serve their customers, but below, I have captured a few favorites.
“Great Rates, No Fees, No Minimums.”
ING Direct’s collection of core products is relatively small, and with only a few brick-and-mortar “branches” to speak of, they rely heavily on the web (and phone) to deliver banking solutions to customers. Easy-to-use interfaces empower customers to take charge of their own money, but integrates live customer service support. This streamlined approach allows ING to pass along the savings to their customers while still serving their needs. The strategy allows ING to create wealth for themselves, but in a way that also offers the customer value.
“We will Listen. We Will Invent. We will Simplify.”
Where many banks focus on promoting their image, ING emphasizes its products and core value. Product benefits are described up-front and center while the language used is simple, friendly and conversational.
ING App for iPhone
ING Direct relies on the internet, phone and few carefully placed ABMs to deliver services to clients. The ING Canada App is therefore an invaluable tool that, among other functions, helps users to locate no-fee ATMs. It’s a simple idea, but helping people to save money on ATM fees can have a sizeable impact over time!
ING Cafe
Instead of traditional branches, a few ING Direct cafes have been opened in major cities. These “cafes” serve actual food and coffee at a reasonable price while providing customers a place to connect with and learn about their money. Internet workstations allow customers to do their online banking and cafe “barristas” are all versed in topics of personal finances. Local events and seminars are often hosted by the cafes, making them a useful community resource. In fact, staff are encouraged to get out in the community and engage in public service or charitable activities. The cafe environment itself is fresh and modern, representing a definite departure from traditional banking.
ING’s mission to convert “spenders” into “savers” is both practical and relevant today. Customers value their approach which makes money matters fun and accessible. They make it cool to talk about money. Saving is easy, and ING provides the support and necessary tools to connect people with their money and to plan for a financially sustainable future. High interest savings accounts and no fees banking might just be the coffee tin for today’s money-savvy savers.
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Helsinki, Finland hosted the international Service Design Conference from February 8-10, 2012. Representatives from Cooler Solutions attended the ServDes. Conference and conducted several interviews with industry leaders to gain insight into the leading service design programs that are underway throughout Finland. The following posts provide a brief overview of several insights attained from Finland.
SITRA Finnish Innovation Fund and Helsinki Design Lab Projects
The SITRA Finnish Innovation Fund is a privately operated, politically independent organization financed through private endowment funds. Imbedded within SITRA, The Helsinki Design Lab (HDL) is a strategic design group lead by 5 designers. HDL focuses on projects that have tangible financial, social, and ecological returns on multiple stakeholders.
HDL/SITRA in Finland
SITRA’s 2012 mission is to adopt a project-based organizational model that focuses on three core themes throughout Finland: sustainable lifestyles and smart use of natural resources, renewable leadership and well-being services, and identification of bottlenecks of economic growth and new opportunities. These three themes will be implemented through tangible projects of two or three years in duration. The new strategy and operational model will produce even more added value for Finnish society.
An introduction to HDL/SITRA
In an interview with Bryan Boyer, strategic design lead at HDL/SITRA, we at Cooler Solutions were able to take an in-depth look at the organization and its on-going projects. At SITRA, HDL is committed to connecting innovative design projects to a holistic systemic approach, thinking on multiple levels and from the perspective of multiple stakeholders. In order to identify key projects of interest, designers at SITRA engage with community members and look 10-30 years ahead to identify how they can impact changes that will lead to long-term social benefits. By continuously conversing with stakeholders such as governments, citizens and entrepreneurs, HDL’s team develops an in-depth understanding of real pain points and points of leverage within the Finnish society; thereby identifying projects that have greatest impact and leverage.
HDL’s focus areas: balancing freedom with most relevant opportunities
St. Etienne, France was the Design Capital of the World in 2011. In 2012, The St. Etienne “Design Creative City for All” exhibition was brought to Helsinki by The Studio of Design St. Etienne, The School of Art of Design, and in collaboration with The French Institute. The purpose of the exhibit was to showcase innovative design projects produced by students from St. Etienne and The School of Art and Design. Projects on display ranged from tabletops and software applications, to elementary school and retail shop innovative interior design.
The curator of the exhibit, designer Guillaume Granjon, provided a tour highlighting emerging design trends from St. Etienne. In one showcased project, “I Participated in Design Innovation for my School”, design students from St. Etienne engaged with elementary school children and collaborated on generating new design concepts for elementary schools. Together, the teams designed unique lamps, coat hangers, and wallpaper for the school.
Another project on display, “Commerce Design: Designing for Shops”, illustrated an innovative approach to designing shops in St. Etienne. Yearly, the government offers financial grants to aid shops in need of renovation. In collaboration with design students, storeowners participate in redesigning their stores to offer an improved shopping environment for customers.
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As part of World Design Capital Helsinki 2012, Aalto University launched 365 Wellbeing. 365 Wellbeing consists of twelve distinct projects that focus on different dimensions of wellbeing services or processes such as improved health and green design. In particular, the projects focus on municipal wellbeing services and patient-centered health care solutions, and highlight methods in design and opportunities for municipal decision makers, citizens, and students. We at Cooler Solutions sat down with Professor Turkka Keinonen to get the inside scoop on the projects run by graduate students from the department of Design at Aalto University.
365 Wellbeing team
CF: How are projects run and how do students determine which projects to focus on?
TK: The 365 Wellbeing program currently runs 12 projects. Each project runs for the duration of a teaching period (8 weeks) and is managed by a group of masters and doctoral-level design students. Students engage with community members and municipalities, express their interest in diverse well-being services and together identify concrete projects in a specific wellbeing services sector. Students are increasingly attracted to projects that lead to social responsibility such as green design and that have a user-centered design theme. Notably, the 365 Wellbeing program continuously seeks to improve the way that diverse stakeholders ranging from designers, healthcare organizers, and social care employees collaborate to identify issues throughout the city and develop innovative solutions. We look for projects that will lead to mutual benefits for the cities and citizens.
Socially responsible design at 365 Wellbeing
CF: What are the unique challenges that you face with health-care related projects?
TK: Two major complications exist in healthcare related projects; first, they are capital intensive and secondly, the information derived is confidential. The main challenge in healthcare related projects is that in order to make projects successful, it is necessary to make processes and results available to a public audience. However, healthcare-related information needs to remain confidential. A delicate balance has to be formed between making public processes and results from real-life cases and show how one can solve problems while at the same time protecting sensitive information. We have experienced some resistance from stakeholders that are concerned with confidentiality of information and it is essential to set clear guidelines and expectations at the start of projects.
Unique challenges that health care projects face
Addressing the gaps in the health care system
CF: There is often resistance by a few stakeholders when groups try to implement new ideas/approaches. Do you face resistance and reluctance for stakeholders in Finland?
TK: A ‘design-for-all mindset’ is the constant and central tenet underlying all projects. To avoid reluctance from bureaucratic organizations, the projects are designed to resemble a ‘sandbox’, where collaboration between students, healthcare/social sector professionals, and government bodies is encouraged. The projects are not governed by a top-down approach. Instead, every stakeholder is given a voice and encouraged to participate at each stage of the various projects. The projects have been well received by community members and have proven to be an effective teaching tool for students interested in socially responsible service design.
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“I failed my way to success” – Thomas Edison
To fail is to fall short of success. Failing is the exact opposite to success and, in this perspective, it is something innately undesirable among organizations – we tend to avoid it at all costs. I will be the first to admit that I fail a lot. As early as last week as I started writing this post on failure, I felt excited about the idea and eager to check it off my “to-do” list. I was eager to succeed. But as the week crept on I only became more and more frustrated staring fruitlessly and somewhat aimlessly at all the drafts I had written, re-written and discarded. Needless to say, the irony of my failing experience is not lost and admittedly, I learned that failure is tough because it reveals weaknesses that would otherwise remain hidden. And regardless of whether we fail ourselves or if we fail a team, none of us wants to be the one to fall short of an intended goal. Yet, clearly, when it comes to innovation and creativity, organizations able to admit these failures are better able to foster cultures of innovation. They allow themselves the chance to respond to failure, in order to improve faster and, counter intuitively, it is by making and embracing these mistakes that they learn how to succeed – and succeed more often.
For organizations, embracing failure is one of the hardest lessons to effectively adopt because of its inherent catch 22. That is, most organizations want risk-free innovation. Leave it to the entrepreneurs and inventors to make the big mistakes – it is part of their job descriptions. There has never been an emphasis on failing and making mistakes for organizations because the thought of failing is in direct contrast to what the organization was put in place to do: succeed. In many ways failing is counter to its very nature. Like well-oiled machines, once built they were to be set on cruise control, never to stop or fail – go, go, go. They were not built to reflect and any break in the system would be seen as a threat. This industrial solution (perhaps a remnant of the industrial revolution) never accounted for any feedback loop and much of our present day industry is still predicated on this type of “no stop no failure” system. However, as alluded to before, learning to stop is critical and reflecting is crucial to organizational growth. It is the only way that we can learn from our mistakes. If we do not learn from our mistakes, we are destined to repeat them. The introverts of the world understand this well and would tell us that taking time to reflect and internalize problems results in rational decisions that improve processes, thereby enhancing deliverables.
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