November 2007
41 posts
Cory on Facebook
“Like other “social” apps (cough eVite cough), Facebook has all the social graces of a nose-picking, hyperactive six-year-old, standing at the threshold of your attention and chanting, “I know something, I know something, I know something, won’t tell you what it is!”“
Great stuff. The article is actually a facebook hate-a-thon, but that is one of the best...
It can be done outside the capital! →
“Here’s a quick glimpse of what I got from the conference. I attended one...”
– Quite comprehensive notes on the emergence 2007 conference: link
Transformation Design
“When designers and politicians put their heads together, are we seeing the dawn of a brave new world or just the re-birth of big brother? The pace of change is often overstated, but a few years ago something genuinely new began to happen to design. Invitations from political think tanks started to drop into designers’ in-boxes and policy wonks began to hang out with creatives. A clear...
Designing the 'Care' into Health Care →
Lots of intersting points of view on what... →
I’m always looking for inspiration on what makes great strategy - these guys have some remarkably scholarly points of view for such a ruthlessly corporate firm!
Service Design in Finland
Tekes has an interesting report of service differentiation strategy:
“Manufacturer of welding equipment has launched service business solutions activities
Global competition in business services and solutions for industrial companies is intensifying. A Finnish manufacturer of welding equipment, Kemppi, is an example of a traditional industrial company to have taken on the improvement of...
Accenture quantifies innovation's value
They call it a ‘future-value premium’:
“Companies are beginning to look beyond traditional metrics like price-earnings ratio to assess their effectiveness at generating growth through innovation. Determining a company’s future-value premium provides a simple but effective way for management to diagnose and understand the complexities of market expectations, as well as the...
WatchConcise Slideshow on customer segmentation. The best bit is the use of a quote from Adam Smith:
“Man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of...
“I think this is a really important question. Do you mind if I attend to it?...”
– Chris Downs attends to the important question: What is good service design. This is a challenge - I’ve noticed over the past 18 months that we’ve all stopped asking what is service design, and are now all much more focussed on this more sensible (and interesting) question.
New know-how...
Every site loads fast in an ASCII browser →
Chris Heathcote on Services vs Tools vs...
“Experience design dogma tends to teach designing for one person – if it’s good, it will draw in others. This might apply for niche services and products, but for the mass-market, I have changed my mind: it’s bullshit.”
Chris Heathcote: anti-mega: service design notes: tools, not services
Using marketing to do things for people: Marketing...
Unintentional service design blog from comms agency Zeusjones. Some good stuff.
Making meaning
“What types of meaningful experiences do people value? In the course of helping companies develop products and services that suit their markets, every year we interview over 100,000 individuals from countries and cultures around the world. In these interviews, we’ve found commonalities among the meanings people feel strongly about, whether we’re studying the adoption of new software in...
Economist flys the flag for user led innovation!
The Economist has a special report on technology in China and India this week. A great read (as all Economist content almost always is) but of particular interest are the frequent references to user led innovation as the untapped source of competitive advantage in countries with literally, billions of users. They say:
Venturesome and resourceful customers provide a great spur to innovators,...
Defining 'Design Thinking' →
dott vs dux →
More service design's come to life...
Ok, well these projects are already alive, but now I’ve written the case studies and we’ve published them on our site. I’ve been closely involved in both, and its great to be able to talk about them for the first time.
Managing Mobile Innovation
Business Support for the Service Economy
Huge Experience Design Overview
Link to article
Thanks Jeff (Whom I seem to be constantly reblogging.)
The Empathy Engine - Report
“Common sense tells us customer service is important to a company’s success. The majority of corporate executives embrace it, and almost all customers demand (or at least prefer) it. But achieving a high level of customer service - and sustaining it over the long haul - is a goal that has eluded all but a relatively small number of companies.”
Report available here
Sedes Service Design Research
“Sedes Research, the centre for Service Design Research at the Cologne International School of Design, is creating an institutional and organizational frame in different areas of Service Design”
sedes research
Coming to life
It’s great to see your projects finally coming to life:
“In the coming year we’ll be making big improvements at Heathrow to give connecting passengers a better airport experience. Finding your way from landing gate to departure lounge will be made much simpler. You’ll find key parts of the airport have been refurbished, and faster, better procedures have been introduced...
Jeff Howard on Service Design Ethics
Should you design services for the army?
Ethics in Service Design
Adam Richardson busts some myths
Adam Richardson has some interesting thoughts after the (ridiculously named) world design congress:
“…talks by Tim Brown of IDEO and Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Business, each touched on three “myths” about how designers think, and how designers can play a role in innovation and business.
Myth One: Designers think systemically. The notion here is that designers...
“there are two ways of looking at a problem; the inside view and the outside...”
– Thinking About Thinking “A Master Class” By Danny Kahneman
Relative Service Quality Models
Two resources on two models for measuring relative service quality. I’ve used both these in my work, but mainly as inspiration for qualitative and creative work: SERVQUAL and RATER.
Sophia Parker on Co-design of public services
Sophia Parker, who wrote a book with Joe, makes the case for user centred service design. From the article:
“‘Co-production’ may be an ugly word, but it could be the key to transforming our conception of the public realm and how we can each shape the decisions that affect our lives and those of others around us.”