Service Design Show

Often there is a big gap between what clients want and what they truly need to solve their challenge or achieve their goal. As a service designer you'll need to use all your diplomatic skills to open clients up for a fresh perspective. This is a crucial step if you want to make impact. We know about Service Design Thinking, Service Design Doing and in this episode Greg Lakloufi talks about Service...

While law might not be the most sexy thing for designers to think about they are an essential part for delivering great services. You might not realize it but almost every aspect in our daily live has a some legal aspect to it. And the legal side of things is now primarily handled by people graduating for law school rather than by designers. But there's no rule in the law stating that rules and re...

What is the secret to designing and delivering great public services? In this episode Chelsea Mauldin shares her experience from running one of the leading service design agencies in the United States that focuses on the public sector: Public Policy Lab. We talk about the challenges associated with scaling and implementation of services in a public context. And why you should never engage in a pro...

What happens when stories are used just to gain a financial profit? According to best selling author Annette Simmons the impact is profound on our society. In this episode we talk about the role stories play in passing on morals and building emotional connections in our society. Further Annette elaborates om the two ways of knowing what is true. The object and the subjective kind. And especially t...

In this special episode we look back on some of the highlights of 2018 and talk the plans for this year. Last year we had some of the smartest and inspiring minds on the Show. This wouldn't have been possible without your support. So thank you for that! One of the things that we started last year and definitely will continue this year is sharing shorter episode in which I try to answer some of the...

Do you take the time to really reflect on your work and consciously think if the things you're doing are impactful? I guess we all recognise this to a certain degree: When you're caught up with the day to day operational stuff you rarely of (or rather take) the time to think critically about what you're doing. And we all know where that sometimes leads to... So in this episode Fumiko Ichikawa talk...

In this episode Selene Castilla give us an update on the current state of Service Design in Latin America. And we also discuss what's needed to take it to really the next level. The second topic we address is a big one: measuring the impact of Service Design. Selene has a really interesting perspective on how to approach this. It's not so much about trying to measure everything but rather measurin...

DesignOps. This is a big topic these days. It basically boils down to the question how can you support design teams to be more impactful? What types of structures and processes can we put in place for that? In this episode Bernardo Torres shares his findings around this topic. The topic of DesignOps strongly ties in to the topic of leadership. In order to build and scale highly impactful design te...

What is service design? A question that is keeping the community busy up till today. And probably the foreseeable future. In this episode Søren Bechmann talks about his journey how he tried solve this question for once and for all. Søren has formulated a new definition for service design. A definition that might surprise you! Next to that we talk about how the ever growing focus digital solutions...

The more you try to please your customers the lower the valuable perception of your service will be. Yutaka Yamauchi has studied the service of sushi restaurants and found the most valuable services are the ones that are a struggle for customer. These are services that are somewhat intimidating. The challenge for the designer is to find the perfect balance between human centered design and human d...

How can we use Service Design to drive business innovation? And how is that different from using service design to drive social innovation for instance? In this episode professor Yong-Se Kim shares his perspective on this topic. You'll also learn how we can use computer aided tools to enrich and support the service design process. This is not just about digitalising post-it notes. It's about thing...

What's a key ingredient in order to be able design great services? It's that you need to deeply understand the social context and cultural norms that exist. In this episode Diego Mazo clearly exemplifies why this is so important in service design by looking at the differences between Spain and Colombia. We also dig deeper into the current state of service design in Latin America and Colombia in pa...

Think about it... already back in the 60s companies were designing and delivering great service. That was way before service design or design thinking caught on with the masses. So how did they do it back then? What was their strategy for success? And what can we learn from that today. In this episode Victor Lidoy shares his experience as a design director at LATAM Airline which has been in the ga...

Airports are a stresful enviroment. A lot of things happen and people are always in a rush. How can you impact the actual passenger experience as a service designer in these conditions. In this episode Stine shares her most important lessons she's learned being the Service Excellence Director at the Copenhagen Airport. We also talk about how to use customer feedback to drive change and innovation...

What's the value of creativity in a world that is filled with ideas? How do you know which ideas are valuable and which ones are just noise? Roberto Verganti talks about the lost art of critical thinking and why we need design critique today more than ever. If you had to delete all the apps on your phone and were allowed to just keep one? Which one would you choose? Your goal as a designer should...

There is a design revolution going on in the US government. More and more government agencies are adopting design to create and deliver more human centered services. In this episode Jeneanne Rae talks about what is driving this quick adoption of design and what's needed to accelerate it even further. We discuss the value design brings to government and how to clearly communicate that value to stak...

What does it mean to design healthier societies? And what's actually needed in order to do that... just one of the things Jorge Arango talks about in this episode. Have you ever considered how contexts influence our behaviour? We've known this for quite some time in architecture and have become quite well at delivering physical contexts that are fit for purpose. But it seems that we still have a w...

What happens after everyone has gone through a service design or design thinking training? What's next?! Gerry Scullion hosts the This is Human Centred Design podcast (go check it out!) and knows a thing or two about doing Service Design. In this episode we talk about how we can democratise service design and make it even more inclusive. Inviting even more people from outside the field to particip...

Here are 3 ways that can help to kickstart your career as a service designer. Although the number of job listings for service designers is growing by the day it doesn't mean that it's easy to actually land a job. It can feel especially challenging when you don't have the formal educational background or a rich portfolio filled with hands on experience. In this episode I share 3 ways that should he...

There is so much talk about design thinking these days. And it tends to confuse a lot of people when they also encounter service design. I think is a lot of overlap between these two terms but there are absolutely also some meaningful distinctions. In this episode I'll explain which term I use (not that hard to guess) and what my perspective is on the differences. This episode is the first one tha...

By now we all know that storytelling is one of the most powerful tools in the service design toolbox. But can we also use storytelling to actually improve our own practice? Steve Portigal thinks so and he explains why in this episode. And how well aware are you of your own biases, beliefs and assumptions when you go into a project? Learning to better listen to ourselves might be a key to get more...

There are different types of service design. Did you know? Deborah Szebeko explains the balance between service innovation, service improvement and service design. Because if you're doing a service improvement project with a service innovation mindset it's bound to fail. And we don't want that right :) We also talk about designing #BusinessModels. Whenever you're designing a new service you're qui...

What are the trends within service design that you should be paying attention to? That's exactly what you'll learn in this 5th edition of the service design show trend report. I've gone through episodes 41 to 50 and narrowed all this great content down to 3 key trends which I've this time all formulated as a question: 1. Is technology a treat or an opportunity for service designers? 2. What is our...

In this episode Joe Pine explains why it's so important that we understand the distinctions between services and experiences. There are no markets. There are just customers! So we need to stop marketing and start customering. What's customering you ask? Joe explains it in detail. Finally we discuss the different roles of the Chief Experience Officer (CXO) and why this is a vital role in companies...

One of the biggest mistakes service designers make is to design for an ideal end state. In this episode Idris Mootee explains why we should stop doing that and what the alternative is. We also talk about economics of running a service oriented business. And how services can become a core element for differentiation. In this episode we're also announcing a contest in which you can win a SIGNED copy...