A workshop will being held at Cambridge University in September to:
to bring together researchers and practitioners to better inform both research and practice into Service Design
to explore in more depth the relationships between HCI (and its manifestations such as Interaction Design, User experience) and Service Design
to bring together people in different disciplines to discuss and address HCI issues in relation to Service Design; and Service Design issues in relation to HCI;
to explore the wider implications of Service Design.
to start to build a community of people with interests in the areas.
Nice quote:
"Don't sell things, help customers buy them."
Clear point:
"While it may be difficult to agree on overall priorities and strategies, it's much easier to agree on the best way to treat customers"
On Training:
"Don't under-spend on training. You can't just change some business rules and processes and hope that customers will be treated better. Just about any change to customer experience requires some employees to change what they do and how they do it. So don't skimp on the training effort."
The power of 3:
"Don’t hide behind a 4th priority. While it’s possible to come up with a long list of priorities, there’s no way that many will get a great deal of attention. A good rule of thumb: Anything below your 3rd priority is not a priority at all. So make customer experience one of your top 3 priorities."
Why marketing is broken in todays transparent world:
"Advertise to reinforce, not create positioning. Since customers ultimately know how you treat them, the best you can do with marketing is to reinforce the truth. If you want to change how you are perceived, then start by treating customers better; and then use advertising to reinforce the new way that they’re being treated."
July 22nd, 2008/0 Comments/Trackback
"In the same way that monolithic, singularly-focused brand models are losing relevance, so too are homogeneous brand targeting models. I think that we desperately need some new thinking around targeting that doesn't try to separate people out into discrete groups who all think, act, behave and buy alike."
Link to articleJuly 22nd, 2008/0 Comments/Trackback
Frog have made their Design Mind newsletter into a multi channel comms feast! I want one of the printed magazines.
July 21st, 2008/0 Comments/Trackback
Service design is the new buzz phrase. Get service design right and much follows in a service-orientated economy like Ireland. The nature of service design, what it is and how to go about it, though, is little understood. There wasn't a book he could pick up, a guru he could quote in committee. Service designers in public sector organisations face different pressures from those in the commercial sector. If you work for a company, then you know poor service or poor processes eventually lead to a fall in sales and profits, and have an immediate knock-on effect throughout a company. Improve quality and sales and profits go up. Everybody is happy. Theoretically.
"The European Academy of Design and Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland, invite you to the Eighth International Design Conference. The conference offers a forum for design academics, researchers, practitioners and industry representatives to meet, exchange ideas and share new knowledge and insights across the field of design. "
Including...
"Service Design: Service design is concerned with both the tangible and intangible. It may be concerned with human interactions within systems, environments, communication and social interactions between people and organizations. It requires designers to question existing assumptions, undertake close observation of environments, provide diagnostic assessments and envisage new solutions. It has been applied in areas such as information services, health and education. This theme invites papers that provide insights into the application of service design that offer new solutions to tangible problems."
Submit your paper hereJuly 16th, 2008/0 Comments/Trackback
I know it's obvious that engaging our customers in a conversation is amazingly powerful for a business. And indeed, we have been listening and talking with customers for a long time. But, in the past few years Nokia has been turning down the activity of its 'mass' communications and is turning up the activities of its 'conversational' communications. Ranging for product co-creation to sites like Nokia Conversations, Nokia is participating in the conversation.
Excellent, thoughtful piece from Mark Ury on the role of time in the design of systems and services: "... an industry of “innovators” have stepped up to insulate (and incubate) the process [of system innovation]. Ethnographers look for “unmet needs.” Boardrooms are riddled with pathway analyses to demonstrate inflection points. Prototypes are built and iterated. The goal: jumpstart the process and out-innovate the innovators. But, like asking a friend for feedback on an unfinished manuscript, the interactions simply create more opinions. (“I think the character would do this.”) Occasionally, as IDEO did with Palm, a new product emerges from “design thinking.” It toddles along for a bit until someone like [Steve] Jobs—waiting a long, long time in the shadows—crushes it."Link to articleJuly 6th, 2008/0 Comments/Trackback
"Our key finding is that we should not simply be asking: ‘How can we do more co-design’. Instead, we are faced with more complex issues. What kind of co-design works, and in what contexts? What kind of organisational cultures support greater, more successful co-design?"
LinkJuly 3rd, 2008/1 Comment/Trackback
Link to Royal Society Website
"The Royal Society has opened a study on the role of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) in services sector innovation. Organisations and individuals are invited to contribute to the study by responding to our call for evidence.
Innovation plays an important role in these sectors yet it is widely accepted that traditional innovation models and policies tend to focus on a narrow conception of innovation mainly the support of R&D in manufacturing industries. Other approaches may be required to support innovation in services.
Although there is growing recognition of the importance of innovation in services, understanding of the role of STEM in services sector innovation remains poor.
To support the development of an evidence-based approach to UK innovation policy, the Royal Society now seeks evidence on the role of STEM in services sector innovation processes. We are interested in these disciplines and any others used alongside or in support of STEM (e.g. social sciences including economics) in innovation processes."
July 1st, 2008/0 Comments/ Tags: serviceinnovation/Trackback
ThinkPublic has launched The Social Lab, a 'space where people can develop projects to address social change.' It seems to be a repository for their various initiatives, but an interesting development nonetheless...
June 21st, 2008/0 Comments/Trackback
Martin Bontoft has a project blog around an ambitious piece of design thinking/health service design he's running in the Midlands. Check it out. Martin talks about the project below:
Arne van Oosterom: @Marc, I've attended the service design seminar (by David
Griffiths) last year and its a great initiative. But there is a long way to go. I'm sure you will agree.
Marc Fonteijn: @Arne maybe not in Amsterdam but surely in Utrecht :)
By the way Service Design is slowly getting more traction, there's even a Service Design Seminar coming up in Amsterdam!
Honest Brokers: brokering innovation in public services
ThinkPublic has launched The Social Lab, a 'space where people can develop projects to address social change.' It seems to be a repository for their various initiatives, but an interesting development nonetheless...
June 21st, 2008
/ 0 Comments / Trackback
Service Innovation: Issues, Tools and Practices in Regional Support Policies Link to report
June 16th, 2008
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