Filed under: made me think, service design | Tags: service, the future, trends
“What’s Next is a trends report offering clear, concise and non-sensationalist commentary on trends in society, business, science & technology, government and the environment. Each issue covers trends across twelve sectors and speculates about future risks and opportunities.”
The current issue depicts the following trends for services:
- People will start to use services that do not require power.
- People will seek services that give a sense of security and reduce stress.
- We will see an increase in ‘Home Grown’ services.
- People will start to use services aimed at helping people to exercise their brain.
Download the report here. I am curious about the idea of ‘home grown’ services. What is the best example you can think of?
Filed under: design thinking, service design | Tags: customer live, Larry Hochman
Larry Hochman is a globally recognised expert on customer relationships. On Thursday 12 November 2009 ‘Customer Service Live’ is taking place at the London Business Forum. Larry will offer real-time lessons in the best and worst customer experiences in Britain.
- Experience and learn from live customer service calls
- Identify what your customers really need and deliver it
- Build customer trust and loyalty
“Your ability to retain customers will define whether you survive the current economic crisis. To do this you need to build customer trust and confidence at a time when both have collapsed. So, what are the secrets behind building this confidence and how do you get your staff fully engaged?”
Larry argues that urgency, clarity and total transparency are fundamental requirements of customer service today – this session will outline how you can instill these values. Bring your team for answers to the following questions:
- What are the repercussions of your customer service actions?
- What do your customers really need right now and how can you deliver it?
- Are your leaders specific about the role everyone has to play?
- How quickly will customers desert you if they experience anything but superb, meaningful, sincere, fast and compassionate service?
What was the last compassionate service you encountered? Last week a bus driver came out from behind the glass barrier to listen to me, he made me laugh and didn’t make me feel silly for being completely lost. I liked that.
Filed under: Red Jotter Work, design thinking, people I like, service design | Tags: conference, experience service design, finland
This September, I am embarking upon an adventure to Finland. The Kuopio Academy of Design at the Savonia University of Applied Sciences in Finland is hosting a service design conference on September 7-9, 2009.
“We are inviting the participants to innovate new service concepts and solutions by applying service design methods. Day one is about service design thinking, getting ready to innovate, listening and tuning the tools. Days two and three will be about learning, using the service design tools and developing new ones. We’ll invite 15 participants to each workshop to create new service solutions and concepts. Each workshop will receive a SERVICE CHALLENGE.”
The conference will be structured around keynote presentations on the 7th of September and will continue with three practical service design workshops facilitated by myself, Arne and Stefan . Keynotes will be delivered by service design professionals, including Professor Birgit Mager from KISD and Associate Professor Nicola Morelli from Aalbog University.
Attendance is free. Sign up by contacting minna.merivalo [at] savonia.fi and regular updates are posted here: www.experience-servicedesign.com
What does a service design challenge look like to you?
Filed under: design thinking, made me think, people I like | Tags: design thinking, library, unfinished
I discovered ‘Unfinished’ via Nick and Arne. It is a site that thinks about design thinking : an emerging literature – http://unfinished.torchiswicked.com
A fantastic resource!
Where do new ideas come from? This film is about design strategists and how they identify the right ideas. It was produced by the global innovation consultancy Continuum.
I am a little late in getting round to watching this…it has been a hit with service designers and design strategists.
“Trying to come up with something you can’t think of today but tomorrow it will be obvious.”
Filed under: design thinking, made me think, people I like, reading and writing, service design | Tags: alice rawsthorn, ReD Associates, service design, social design
This morning, Alice Rawsthorn highlights the social and service revolution for the third time this year.
Frederik Wiedemann is a partner of ReD Associates, a social design firm that was employed by the city of Copenhagen to improve the rate of sick leave in its offices.
“ReD Associates, one of a new breed of hybrid consulting groups that combine design with other disciplines, such as ethnography, psychology and anthropology, to tackle social problems as well as commercial ones.Rapidly though this area of design is expanding, it is still so new that it does not have a name, at least not one that has stuck. “Social design,” “service design” and “service innovation” are among the favorites, but a bunch of design graduate students in San Francisco nailed the problem by staging an exhibition in March entitled “What the *#&! is Social Design.” Nameless it may be, but there is an accepted methodology in this field and ReD’s approach is fairly typical.”
Filed under: people I like, service design | Tags: community, conversation, desgin thinkers, service design
Another inspirational tool from Arne.
Filed under: Red Jotter Work, made me think, people I like | Tags: travel, martin raymond, view point, the future laboratory, dream
I read this passage in Viewpoint magazine yesterday afternoon and it has been in my mind since…
“A destination is never a place, but a way of seeing things. And if the issue is about anything, it is about ways of seeing and traveling through the world as it is, and as it is set to become, virtually, emotionally, physically, intellectually and spiritually. It is also a world defined by changes – recession, climate change, globalisation, sustainability and change by definitions.
Tourists are now travelers; travelers, explorers; and the once powerful business and leisure set are now called the Bleisure generation.
All is in transition, this issue of Viewpoint places these transitions in context. And in a way that puts glamour and imagination into the lost but soon-to-be rediscovered art of travel.”
Martin Raymond, Editor of Viewpoint (Image: Bradford Gregory)
How often do you travel? Do you wish to travel more, or travel at all? Where do you dream of going?
Filed under: Red Jotter Work, service design | Tags: john seddon, masterclass, professor, public sector, systems thinking
Last week I attended a Master class with Professor John Seddon: Beyond Targets in the beautiful Oran Mor in Glasgow.
Having recently read John’s latest book “Systems thinking in the Public Sector” I was keen to learn more about the parallels and differences between a systems thinkers and a service designer. I attended on behalf of the team at Thinkpublic to learn more about the how the public sector and third sector can work together to move ideas forward.
The aim of Seddon’s work is to get people to change the way they think. An array of subjects were highlighted throughout the day ranging from adult social care, pot holes, housing benefits to retail banking. Not to forget the familiar example of why we have to stay in all day and wait for the fix it guy to mend our broken phone…but he never really fixes it does he?
A lady from the audience highlighted that the event may well have been called “Thinking in the Public Sector” and I agree. It seems that thinking with people in mind is quite rare in the public sector. Taroub Zahran from The Glasgow Housing Association revealed they now provide an ideal service as they have changed their availability from 9am till 4.30pm to offering 24 hour a day, 7 days a week help line. I was bewildered to hear them saying that putting people at the heart of their service was huge change in thinking for them.
“Millions of pounds of tax payers money is wasted because we design services badly”
I heard the phrase “It is a design problem” several times. Although, in conversations with John, council workers and social workers afterwards – they believe that system thinking is very different from service design. It seems to me they are very much the same thing. System thinker or service design you deal with problems before they happen, you understand problems and study systems to learn where change is needed.
People get too caught up in quick fixes and short term solutions. How do we move this thinking forward?Are we making the best use of our systems?How can the third and public sector work together?
Designing a system or a service is a journey of improvement and empowerment that is all about change. It is about an increase in pride – intangible satisfaction. Services need to match with the people, not the other way around. We need to work from the outside in – spend time understanding what we do – what we do right and what we do wrong.
I strongly recommend John’s book for those of you who are interested in services and systems. Freedom Command Control Better and Profit Beyond Measure were also mentioned for further reading.
I propose Systems Thinking is a shift in perspective rather than something completely new.
Filed under: Red Jotter Work, master of design | Tags: charles leadbeater, visualisation
A significant part of my Masters project is to adopt an intelligent, mindful, distant view of myself as a practitioner and a commentator. To help me with this I have made my world tangible by simply dividing it into parts that resemble boulders and pebbles. This method of visualising my landscape was inspired by an metaphor described by Charles Leadbeater in his paper “Coming Crisis of the Creative Class”.
This model is composed of boulders, pebbles and micro pebbles. These individually weighted and labeled parts have enabled me to ask meta level questions about the value that I add through my work and to view my everyday work holistically and see where the gaps are.
When I look at this landscape I am asking these questions:
- Who visits my beach?
- What boulders work with pebbles?
- What pebbles are growing to become boulders?
- How do the boulders make money?
- Are there any pebbles growing taller than the boulders?
- Who should I invite to visit?
- How is it being sustained?
- What can I see in the distance?
- How do I find the pebble I am looking for?
- How do visitors navigate their way around?
- Are there any dangers on the beach?
- Do I like working on the beach?
- What is missing?
- What is driving me to maintain and enhance this beach?
- What will the beach look like in five years time?
It has made me realise I need to be more conscious of how often I roll a new boulder onto the beach. This takes time, dedication and focus. I am only one person and I can only sustain a certain amount.
There is rising tide of pebbles on my beach. Every minute millions of people throw a pebble onto my beach: a blog post, a YouTube video, a picture of Flickr or an update of Twitter. A puzzling collection of pebbles in different sizes, shapes and colours , in no particular order, as people feel like it. How is this managed?
This very simplified version of my world into boulders and pebbles has focused my thinking on hybrids and collaborations. I hadn’t realised until now the vast amount of opportunities I have to create new collaborations and organise my pebbles to new heights.
But what does it mean when pebbles grow taller then the boulders? My network is rapidly become the tallest attraction on the beach. The nature of social networking allows me to connect with pebbles who are friends, and twitter allows me to create lots of really tiny little pebbles.
I am really keen to hear your thoughts and opinions on this model. It is up to you if you throw a pebble towards me in the form of a comment or a little micro pebble reflection in the form of tweet.
Filed under: service design | Tags: president obama, project health, service design, social design, social innovation, the first lady, the white house
Project Health has been described as a new vision for American Health Care aiming to break the link between poverty and poor health.
“Our model is simple and effective: in clinics where we provide services, physicians can “prescribe” food or housing for their patients and their families. Our undergraduate volunteers then connect those families to local resources to meet these needs, enabling them to achieve the stability and opportunity that lead to better health for their children.
Our vision is to mobilize the nation’s first corps of student volunteers to connect low-income patients with the resources they need to be healthy and, in doing so, create the next generation of leaders committed to tackling this country’s greatest health challenges.”
Project Health was featured in Michelle Obama’s remarks at the Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People gala last week. The First Lady also talks more broadly about the need help nurture a new generation of innovators and entrepreneurs who will direct their skills and energy toward solving their community’s most serious social problems. The White House proproses a Social Innovation Fund to encourage social innovation and entrepreneurship.
Filed under: made me think, service design | Tags: council, local gov, public services
Less than half of us are happy with council services.
According to Ipsos MORI managing director, Ben Page, the drop in satisfaction could be due to a lack of communication from councils, and increases in council tax. He said: ‘There are places that are very focused on the priorities of their residents, and they clearly out-perform the rest.’
Councils must get better at communicating. They need to prove they are good value for money, and focus on providing high-quality public services to make people happy.
Filed under: Red Jotter Work, service design | Tags: service design network, news scout
I have some very exciting news. I have been asked to be an ‘Offical Service Design Network News Scout’ for the Service Design Network, who have recently launched their new site.
Jeff Howard and I are responsible for providing the network with all the latest Service Design news from around the globe.
I will be exploring issues, links and events from around the world and everything that could be interesting for the users of the SDN site as well as the readers of Insider, the SDN Newsletter and Touchpoint, the Service Design Journal.
With news coming from San Francisco and Scotland I am confident Jeff and I will provide fresh and innovative input! If anyone has any links, stories, case studies, opinions or stories they would like to share with me pop them in an email.
I think it would be exciting to build up a bank of powerful images that represent what Service Design is all about. As Birgit and Oliver mention in Touchpoint:
“…find ways to make the intangible tangible. The fold in the tissue paper to demonstrate your hotel room has been attended to by housekeeping.”
What is the first image that springs to your mind?
Filed under: Red Jotter Work | Tags: digital, digital britain scottish unconference, glasgow, revolution
Since the Lord Charter’s Digital Britain report was released in January there has been lots of mixed opinions, recommendations and criticism flying around. Charles Leadbeater’s response “The Digital Revolution: the Coming Crisis of the Creative Class” is definitely worth reading.
On Friday night, 23 people met up in Glasgow to attend “Digital Britain Scottish Unconference”. I went along as I am very interested in how digital can transform the design and delivery of services in Scotland. The group, made up of mostly creatives, agreed early on in the evening that the report is narrowly focused and misses the point – clearly it is a government intervention that is uninformed.
What is practical and needed in Scotland? We cannot predict technology – the report tries to do this. The policy is being determined by people who don’t understand digital media.
We discussed the differences between the UK context and the Scottish context. There are two things that hamper the quality of life in Scotland – public communications and distance. Firstly, we need infrastructure – re-distribution of enterprises and creation of new industries and new employment. Secondly, we need better healthcare – education in remote areas. Why do young Scots feel they have to move to go to college? Why do I feel isolated from my network because I am not in London? What should we be encouraging?
I wonder if the civil servants involved in compiling the report use the internet in the way we do? Recently, Kate Andrews and I explored the power of online social networking, and demonstrated the tools students use to move ideas forward, form networks with practitioners around the world, and build a reputation before and after graduation : The Studio Unbound. This is interesting as the topic of graduates and skill sets cropped up in the discussion several times.
It is not about money it is about providing a service. We need to know exactly what people want from the internet! We do not need to re-invent the wheel, we need to develop existing services for a digital age. I liked the phrase Kate used whilst talking about the challenges we face – “digital is difficult to touch”.
Sarah and Andy have shared their views on the event. It was an interesting discussion and I met interesting people. At times, the conversation focused a little too much on creatives talking about social media but I am very excited to have met like minded individuals who are passionate about using digital to better Scotland.
Filed under: made me think, people I like | Tags: education, future lab, learning, people, young people
A video introducing Futurelab’s Learner’s Charter, in which students themselves describe what they want their education system to be like to help them reach their full potential.
This is fantastic yet so very simple. Definitely worth a watch for those who care about listening to people and our education system.
“I want teachers that treat us an individuals and has no sense of prejudice about them.”
