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Bit of a niche bunch of posts here on #innovation #ServiceDesign public services & #Frozen. Bear with me if you can. I recently watched the Disney+ doc on the making of Frozen 2. It’s really good (definitely watch it) but there’s a bit in particular that really stood out. (1/15)
About a year out from the premier of Frozen 2, while the whole movie was still very much in development, the writer, director and producers held a screening of the raw film concept for other respected film directors from across Disney and Hollywood. (2/15)
It looked like a pretty brutal experience. Sharing a half-formed labour of love style creative endeavour & offering it up for dissection & critique from your peers, colleagues & (crucially) commercial competitors. It was hard to watch, must have been worse to sit through. (3/15)
Seemingly this is common practice in Hollywood & with Disney. The idea being that respected peers who’ve been through what you’re going through offer critical feedback at an early stage of your product development. Everyone has a collective desire to make good movies. (4/15)
It struck me that in that group of peers, there must be active competitors developing movies that would compete with Frozen 2. There would likely also be people who maybe didn’t get a job on the movie itself and lost funding as a result. (5/15)
But they were still willing to come in and offer critique, insight and feedback to help make the product (in this case Frozen 2)as good as it possibly could be. I have no idea if they were paid or not for this - maybe they were (and that’s notable in itself). (6/15)
Before watching the documentary, I knew about test screenings and audience feedback and all that, but I wasn’t aware of how crucial this formal peer/competitor review process (particularly at such an early stage in development) was. And it’s got me thinking. (7/15)
When we commission services on vital social issues like tackling poverty, homelessness, children’s services or care etc why do we not include this kind of step in the development process? Similarly when we are looking at innovation in government systems or public services? (8/15)
I know we do focus more now on service design, coproduction and engagement etc, but it feels like this peer and competitor review element is missing from much of our our culture and approach to designing effective services & support in 
. (9/15)
. (9/15)
I understand some of the obvious reasons why we don’t: commissioning & tendering are structured as competitive & while we all talk about partnership working & collaborations, too often we see this turn into micro-commissioning and sector politics/power dynamics etc. (10/15)
Timing is another big thing. The Frozen sequel had a development process spanning many years. We often expect impactful or innovative new public services or engagement initiatives to launch yesterday with minimal development time and expect immediate results. (11/15)
I might be wrong (I often am), but I find it hard to imagine in Scotland a service provider bringing in the Director or CEO of organisations that lost out to them in the tendering process to critique the development of their organisations service/product. But why not? (12/15)
I also know we’re not comparing apples and apples here. Disney’s process for commissioning a successful commercial follow up to Frozen had a lot of money/reputation riding on it. But so do our vital public services and support services. Why is the culture so different? (13/15)
I also get that the Disney+ show is designed to show the whole thing in a favourable light & all that. But nonetheless it struck a chord with me and is some food for thought about how we can seek to make our systems and services as effective and impactful as possible. 
(14/15)
(14/15)
Oh, and everyone should obviously watch the documentary and Frozen 2 in general. They are mega 
(15/15 - here endeth my random Saturday morning brain dump of thoughts, phew! Imagine having to live with this. Sorry @marlouslp )
(15/15 - here endeth my random Saturday morning brain dump of thoughts, phew! Imagine having to live with this. Sorry @marlouslp )
