Empathetic Biker-Centered Design in Denmark

by Damian Kernahan

I really thought this was perfect sense and showed a good understanding of human behaviour or in this case challenges. Simple, elegant and effective - all things that good Service Design should be.

Check the railings that the man is holding onto and resting his foot on. It's located on a little Copenhagen traffic island where cyclists often wait, reports Copenhagenize.com.

The City of Copenhagen has implemented this double railing simply as a convenience for the cyclists who stop here. A high railing to grasp with your hand and a foot railing for putting your foot up, if that's what you fancy doing. Either way you can also use the railing to push off when the light changes.

The foot rest reads: "Hi, cyclist! Rest your foot here... and thank you for cycling in the city."

It certainly is a fine example of the City understanding human behaviour and basic anthropology.



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Damian Kernahan is the managing partner of corporate growth consultants, Proto Partners, www.protopartners.com.au.

Old Dogs Can Learn New Tricks

by Kevin Roberts

Newspapers are up against it in the Participation Economy, the Internet-powered revolution of joining in, taking part, sharing and joy. For the modern consumer, the idea of reading newspapers full of day-old news hand-picked by faceless editors seems, well, very early 90's.

These days we get to be our own editor-in-chief, selecting the bits of news, opinion and analysis that best suit our tastes, politics or predilections. The news business still hasn't worked out a way to make this work financially, but I suspect that will change soon. Free is not sustainable. Walter Isaacson, former editor of Time, proposed one possible approach to the issue of payment here.

There may be some spark in the old format yet. On the first day of the climate talks in Copenhagen, 56 newspapers in 20 languages pulled off a dramatic and high-impact stunt. They simultaneously published a front-page editorial calling for action on climate change. Papers included The Guardian (which got the ball rolling), the Toronto Star, the Jakarta Globe, Le Monde, The Brunei Times, la Repubblica and The Cambodia Daily.

This degree of collaboration across geographical and political boundaries carries a high degree of difficulty. Whatever you think about the editorial itself, the scale and audacity of the maneuver is impressive. The old-school newspaper editorial is long past its heyday, but - on this occasion at least - some creative thinking and collaboration breathed some life back into the art-form.


Image Source: http://babycreativeblog.com/copenhagen/

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Kevin Roberts is the CEO worldwide of The Lovemarks Company, Saatchi & Saatchi. For more information on Kevin, please go to www.saatchikevin.com. To see this blog at its original source, please go to www.krconnect.blogspot.com.