Design gets real 2007

”It’s really interesting to talk to people who aren’t designers and to realise that people do value design thinking”
Dave Gillam, Graduate

“It’s confirmed there’s so much potential in connecting design students with the public sector, to work together to solve challenges that are faced by the public sector”
Deborah Szebeko, Director of thinkpublic

New design graduates learnt about launching a career in the public sector, while potential employers found out about the benefits of taking on trained designers.

Enterprise Week was a successful launch pad for Real Work Experience, an initiative which aims to get graduates thinking about working in the public sector.

The organisers, public sector design agency thinkpublic, used the launch event to begin a conversation about how designers can work better with the public sector and vice versa. Attendees included the NHS, Timebank, Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts (RSA), universities and design organisations as well as design graduates and students from across the country.

One of the ideas which emerged during the event was to provide a space to connect conversations between designers and public sector professionals, to build a shared understanding and language of how each sector works. In response this is now running at www.therealworkexperience.com.

The initiative is going from strength to strength with thinkpublic taking eight of their Design Direction entrants through a week-long hands-on placement at their London office in July. The Design Direction will include talks from industry experts, practical visits to public sector organisations and social networking events, to help bring the design and public sector communities together.