52 - Hazel White

Hazel runs service design agency Open Change along with Mike Press and has spent a significant part of her career in education but according to her that might have been a little too long.

She started out at Edinburgh University with her first degree but after 5 years working she realised that art school was calling. Hazel found herself in jewellery and metal work apparently attracted by the materials and the naked flames! I find it really strange that the smallest things can highly influence our career paths. Logically we should be looking to gain transferrable skills that will be needed in the future in order to make a living. Maybe high school teachers aren’t best placed to be advising or maybe we should be doing more education around career paths.

A real trend of Hazel’s early career is proving people wrong when they say she can’t do something. An amazing attitude to have and there’s a real drive that you can see throughout everything she does.

We first met at DJCAD when she began teaching design studies, what I didn’t realise at the time was how she’d just sort of picked it up! It also seems to be how she got into the world of service design, learning alongside Lauren Currie and seeing the real value in the profession. I know there is a bit of post-it note/whiteboard stigma around it sometimes but I don’t think you can fault the principles of the profession. There’s potential to have real impact within big organisations affecting how they operate and look to the future.

Another interesting suggestion was a mandatory gap year. I could really get on board with this, not in the sense of going to Asia and trotting around with a backpack. More like a year to appreciate what working life is like to really appreciate the experience of university.

We also touch on death, which I think is a fascinating subject we hardly ever talk about. Maybe it should form part of a roundtable discussion in the future. I just feel there are too many prerequisites that we just take for granted we should question everything more.

Never Settle Podcast - https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/never-settle-podcast/id1308995651?mt=2

The Beans Podcast - https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-beans/id1214714407?mt=2

Open Change - http://www.openchange.co.uk/

Open Change Twitter - https://twitter.com/openchangeuk

Hazel’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/HazeloneWhite

Colin Burns Transformation Design - https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/asset/document/red-paper-transformation-design.pdf

Death Cafes - http://deathcafe.com/

Final Fling - http://www.finalfling.com/

Why We Sleep - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-We-Sleep-Science-Dreams/dp/0141983760/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1516731254&sr=8-2&keywords=why+we+sleep+book

Mistakes Were Made (But not by me) - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mistakes-Were-Made-But-Not/dp/0544574788