Ben Holliday

Speaking in 2017

Cross-government design meeting 18

Image – YanaYabbers

I’ve just been updating my speaking page. I’m looking forward to being part of a number of events this year.

My first talk of the year was for the cross-government design meeting 18. This is a regular event for all the designers working in UK government.

The theme of the event was building a design culture. I choose to speak more specifically about building a user centred design community (slides). This is something close to my heart and very much the focus of my work at DWP Digital over the last 3 years.

As a topic, it turned out really well incorporating some new ideas and plenty of lessons learned, many of which I’ve spoken and written about over the last year. If time allows this year I intend to write more about some of the examples.

Next, I’ll be heading out to Australia in around a months time to speak at the Web Directions conference Transform 2017. It’s a government focussed conference where I’ll be talking more about collective, small, actions – expanding on some of the themes from last years’ Service Design in Government (UK) conference and the recent cross-government design meeting talk.

I’ve never been to Australia before so I’m really looking forward to the trip. It will be a great chance to meet people working in digital government (but on the other side of the world). I’m sure the challenges will be similar and I’m expecting to have some great conversations while I’m over there.

Thinking further ahead and back in UK, I’ll be leading a workshop with the excellent Kate Tarling at UX London 2017 in May. We’ll be speaking and walking people through a practical workshop titled “Leading Service Design”. We both work for large government departments so have plenty to share about how we’ve established user centred design as part of a focus on services in government.

This won’t be the end of the events I’m planning to speak at this year: I’m still confirming events at different ends of the country where I’ll be speaking in May, June and (possibly) July.

Elsewhere, more of our product and design teams are involved in events this year. Service Design in Government 2017 is especially worth looking out for.

I’ll probably take a break during the summer but if you would like me, or one of our team, to speak at your event in 2017, please get in touch.

This is my blog where I’ve been writing for 18 years. You can follow all of my posts by subscribing to this RSS feed. You can also find me on Bluesky, less frequently now on X (formally Twitter), and on LinkedIn.