The Millennials

A video from the Alcatel Lucent Corporation

Service Design Network Netherlands

I am proud to announce that Eden Design & Communication, 31Volts, Creative Cities Amsterdam Area, STBY and DesignThinkers have launched the Service Design Network Netherlands.

Since June 2008, in monthly informal meetings, Service Design professionals in the Netherlands exchange knowledge and experiences arising from their work in this emerging field.

Several initiatives to widen this network and mutually promote service design in The Netherlands have already emerged. The network has been officially launched during PICNIC'08 in Amsterdam.

Service Design Workshop

Last friday Service Design Network Netherlands gave a hands-on service design workshop at PICNIC08.

We had a great time working on a real healthcare case-study with real end-users and service providers from the city.

Here are some pictures.

Service in Action

Service Design Clinic with Eric Kansa [Executive Director, Information & Services Design Clinic, UC Berkeley]

Shape 50+

Prototyping Table Talk

Nice prototyping

Don't miss it! The first international Service Design Conference in Europe

From 24th - 26th November Amsterdam will host the first Europe based, international Service Design Conference.

Now you must now that Amsterdam is our hometown, so we are extra extra happy. It's a great change to meet everyone and create more awareness with clients in the Netherlands.

Besides being extra extra happy DesignThinkers will be hosting an action packed workshop on mobility at the 26th. I hope to see you there!

You can register for the conference....

DesignThinkers at PICNIC 2008

A hands-on service design lab at the international PICNIC conference in Amsterdam will bring the service design approach to a wider audience in the Netherlands for the first time on 26 September.

The event will be an activity that allows participants to experience the key ideas and processes of service design. Organised by STBY, 31Volts and DesignThinkers.

Want to join us in Amsterdam? Get more information here...

Summer School on Service Design Finland

Last week I gave a lecture in Finland at the Akatemia Kuopio. I had a great time and Satu Miettinen has been a great host.

Besides having lots of fun attending workshops I really enjoyed the discussions I had with Greg Richards and Marc Stickdorn about the difference between experience marketing and service design. "Does service design actually exist? Or is it just another name for something we have been doing for years"... I miss these discussions in the Netherlands. They keep me on my toes.

Greg Richards had a great presentation on creative tourism.

Satu Miettinen talked about social design.

In one of the workshops we visited a spa. Here's Mikko Koivisto from Ego Beta doing some fieldwork.

The spa has a public and healthcare service.

One of the workshop with students and Katja Sorvali.

The obligatory sticky-notes.

The obligatory (it's a must in Finland) fire.

Lauren Currie at DesignThinkers

Last week Lauren Currie came over from Scotland to work with us on a couple of projects. Just for a few weeks. And although Lauren has only been with DesignThinkers for one week already she has been a great help and inspiration to us.

Read about her ethnographic field work, experiences in Amsterdam and see some great pictures on her weblog.

Service Design Conference Amsterdam

The Service Design Network is organising a Service Design Conference in Amsterdam at the 24th-26th of November.

Keep an eye on www.service-design-network.org/conference for more information.

Service Center for Cyclists

Great service from bike manufacturer Trek:
the Trek Stop Cycling Convenience Center.



Via Spingwise

Summer School on Service Design

August 27-28 the Kuopio Academy in Finland is organising a summer school on 'service design and well-being'. 

The academy asked me to come over and speak about service design and some of the projects we do at DesignThinkers. I'm really looking forward to meet all the people from the academy and other service design colleagues in Finland.

Here's some more information on the summer school... 

Good design is good for the UK

The Design Counsel (UK) has published the Good Design Plan. "Design can drive a competitive economy, create a more sustainable society and make our everyday lives better. But only if it’s used well."

Download The Good Design Plan



Via Kate Andrews

Case Study: Improving Patient Care

Recently I participated in a case study held by the Irish Times. This is the case...

And here you can read what Ben Reason (live|work), Keith Finglas (Innovation Delivery Limited) and I had to say about improving patient care. The experts' advise...

Service Stories part 6

Service delivery solutions

Grant Lenahan (Telcordia) about how advertisement becomes information.

Thinking like a designer

I just read an interesting article in Harvard Business Review by IDEO’s Tim Brown on Design Thinking.

"I believe that design thinking has much to offer a business world in which most management ideas and best practices are freely available to be copied and exploited. Leaders now look to innovation as a principal source of differentiation and competitive advantage; they would do well to incorporate design thinking into all phases of the process."
Read it here...

Via Buena Vista

The first sdn Insider

And there it is the first issue of 'sdn Insider'. The newsletter published by the Service Design Network.

Read it here...

Service Stories #5

Service Stories #4

Service Stories #3

Bank of America Customer Service

Demos published their new discussion paper Making The Most Of Collaboration: an international survey of co-design, produced in association with PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Public Sector Research Centre.

"In 2006 we published Journey to the Interface - an impassioned advocation of the value of collaborative design principles in public services. In the intervening years, co-design has caught hold as an ideal for transforming services - promising to make them more responsive, fit-for-purpose, and efficient. More broadly, co-design provides an avenue for building social capital, and addressing a disengagement from politics and democracy."

Download...

Via Choosenick

Ezio Manzini on Service Design

Mikkel Rasmussen on Service Design Part 2

Mikkel Rasmussen on Service Design Part 1

Lavrans Løvlie on Service Design

Innovative Solutions For Street Prostitution

The Köln International School of Design (KISD) and especially professor Birgit Mager was invited by the Design Academy of Eindhoven to analyse the problem of street prostitution by addicted women and to find solutions through the method of ‘service design’. The KISD has positive experience in using this approach for developing services for homeless people in Köln.

Take a look (on the left) at part two of the presentation...

Now That's Service

It must be a great service experience using this touchpoint...

Social Media in Plain English

Via Vue Royale

Service Stories #2

This clip about bad customer service by Speedo Australia shows (ones again) companies should wake up to a changing world, an increasingly transparent world.

Service Stories #1

Service Prototyping?

I think we can call this service prototyping...

Designing Services For The Elderly

Increasingly companies start talking service design/ innovation. Lets hope it's not just talking. But in this short commercial IBM is focussing on yet another reason why service design is going to be very important in the near future.

Bill Moggridge Keynote on Service Design

Bill Moggridge at the Service Design Symposium in Copenhagen: "At the same time they only let us design the train..."

A FEW PROJECTS

It's been some time since I posted my last update. It's a thing that happens to me from time to time. It's a good thing though. It means I've been very busy.

Here's a small sample of what I've been up to:

We are researching why people do not go to the ports (air and water) of Amsterdam to find a job. The ports need people to grow. But they can't find employees. Can service design provide a solution? We think it can.

We are developing new ways for a Waterschap to build relationships with it's costumers and making their services visible to the general public. This needs to be done, because no one know what a Waterschap does, but they keep sending us the bill.

DesignThinkers is opening a center for training, workshops, presentations, eating, drinking etc called 'The End Of The World'. It is located in a magnificent building at the old shipyard of Den Helder (Cape Holland) which they restored beautifully.

We started a new agency called SLOEP. This agency will focus on maritime projects. Our first project: Round Texel, the world's largest catamaran race. SLOEP will be based at 'The End Of The World".

There is more. But for now these are my favorites.

The Rising Of Service Innovation

Some great podcasts on service design from Emergence (I enjoyed Oliver King):

Do Listen...

And one from IBM's chief service researcher on Businessweek:

Take a moment...


via Choosenick

There Is No Easy Way Out

Delivering real service doesn't com natural to the Dutch. Companies and governments in the Netherlands are mainly focused on trade. That is what the Dutch are good at. And service-products are treaded the same as commodities.

And I guess, dropping a service-product from high above on an unsuspected target group creates a save distance from that most difficult of creatures, the consumer, the civilian, the persons. Having a target group seems to solve a lot of problems and Dutch marketeers love to talk at length about them.

I just don't like the term "target group". It's just an easy way out and has nothing to do with reality. Of course traditional marketing and advertising can't be successful without focusing on a specific target group. Focusing on individuals is way to expensive and far to complicated. But this approach is a one-way street and therefor a cul-de-sac for service organizations. Thinking in target groups fuels the generalization of personal wants and needs and reduces it to meaningless tag-lines.

People need to be understood. And people are so much more than age, gender, profession or hobby. There is no easy way out. People are complex and full of contradictions. But only while focusing on the reality and complexity of everyday life service organizations are able to ad true value to their services. This approach leads to meaningful and relevant solutions and true service innovation.

But like I said, providing real service doesn't com natural to the Dutch. Maybe the Dutch are afraid it will disturb the process of doing business, making money. Actually having a real two way conversation with costumers never even occurred to most managers and marketeers. Simply because it is time-consuming and expensive. And time and money are a rare luxury. They are usually spend on buildings, hardware, paying employees, discussing internal company issues, producing spreadsheets and having lots and lots of meetings.

It is going to take a whole new breed (or generation) of managers, political decision-makers and maybe even companies to get the Dutch competitive on a international level in the service industries of the future.

World's Largest Innovation Box

Felloforce's Challenge Board & Innovation Box is growing. Currently they have 75+ brands connected, like Shell, Nokia, Starbucks, Unilever, Apple, Virgin, Yahoo, Pfizer etc.

Take a look...