In this article I'll share with you what I've learned from the first conference I've co-organized and how I'm adapting the next conference based on these learnings.

A bit of context

Manu, Julianna and me, the three people that created the first Swiss Service Design Day conference

In June 2024 I co-organized the first Swiss Service Design Day conference for the Swiss Service Design Network. It was a hybrid conference of one day.

I've committed myself to do this Service Design Day thing at least 5 times (so for 5 years). The idea for me is that in five years we can:

• Test different formats and see which one works well

• Get the community slowly excited about it

• Recruit slowly but surely a team

What I've learned

Hybrid sucks

Hybrid looks great on paper, but it's a mess technically when you want to do everything without needing professional help or budget. I talk in details about the technical part in this article.

Hybrid also sucks for the people on-site. Because they are watching someone speaking to a camera. And that feels kind of weird. And if you optimize for on-site, than it feels weird for the people joining remotely.

So for next year we're totally splitting the remote and on-site experiences.

People love family reunion style events

Because of necessity, we had to make the on-site experience very much more like a family-reunion than a proper conference with catering, fancy lighting, gift bags, etc. We knew we couldn't manage to do do such a "proper conference" so we really embraced the "family reunion" style. And people seem to have loved it.

When speaking with the participants they told me:

• The fact that they should bring their own lunch felt natural and even prompted them to ask themselves: how else can I help?

• Students who went to various conferences during that year said, that this event was one of the few ones were they came out with more energy than with what they entered.

• The cosy location in Sierre with greenery and human sized location made it lovely.

So this family reunion style will even more in the future not be a bug but a key feature.

Getting people way in advance rocks

Two of the guest speakers we had for the afternoon conference were booked already one year in advance. And as an organizer it felt so great to have that part covered early on. There are so many tiny things to think about that having the speakers part handled relieves a lot of the stress. So for next year I'm gonna do the same, but for all speakers.

What I'm doing for 2025: meet the Swiss Service Design Week

My text message to my mate Manu who co-organizes the conference.

In 2025 we'll move to another format, instead of being just one day of conference we're gonna do a Service Design Week with:

• From Monday to Saturday a short 30 minute lighting talk done remotely each day at the same time (17:00 Swiss time).

• On Sunday (on the official Service Design Day) we'll have a full day of workshops and activities on-site in Sierre in the middle of the alps which will be very much continue to be family-reunion-style.

• We are adding a Community Service activity (like removing trash in nature) on the Sunday to be connected with the general theme of the Service Design Day: "Do Good, Give Back".

What's already done

Speakers booked

A teaser showing one of the speakers of the Swiss Service Design Week, the co-founder and president of the International Service Design Network

I've already recruited all the speakers for the short remote lighting talks. I'm just waiting for a last "go" from one of the speakers to announce the full list.

Website built

The intro screen of the website for the Swiss Service Design Week 2025

The intro screen for the registration page for the Swiss Service Design Day

I've already built the website for the event, with registration pages for each of the talks. It's now all built with Podia, which is awesome because we get much more flexibility in terms of design and I can quickly re-use elements.

Base marketing material done

I've already written, shot and edited two introduction videos. One for the whole week, and one for the day on-site.

I've also created with Canva a teaser for each remote lightning talk.

Additionally for each speaker I wrote or found a bio that I could integrate on the registration page for their event.

What made it easier to organize all of this one year in advance

Selling the people not the talk

After making dozens of webinars I've learned that speakers have a hard time writing their own bio and writing a description of what they want to talk about, especially when it's one year in advance. Apparently not everyone plans their life on year in advance :P

So I've written for each a bio myself that the speaker can easily adjust and validate. And instead of selling the content of the talk to the participants, I'm putting more emphasis on who the person who will come is and what is her area of expertise. This allows me to have placeholder titles for the talks, that we can swap once we get nearer to the event. And the new titles will basically be a precise version of the previous title.

I've made turned the marketing material I've created for this event in templates that you can re-use.

Having a formula

A screenshot showing the formula for the talks

For the remote events I've come up with a simple formula. Each event should have: 3 learnings, answer 3 questions from the community and last only 30 minutes.

Having such a formula:

• Helps to sell the idea more easily to the speakers, as they know what they are getting into.

• Helps me because I don't have to think for each speaker how I'm gonna sell the idea to them

• Helps to produce marketing material because each mini talk will basically use a lot of the same description content that I can re-use.

Asking one year in advance

When you ask someone: "On June 1st at 17:30 Swiss Time, one year from now, I'd love to invite you for a 30 minute remote event" it's easy to get people to say yes.

Obviously because it's remote, so even if they don't know yet where they'll be in one year, there is a big chance they'll still have an internet connexion.

But more importantly, most people don't plan their life one year in advance. So they all answer: sure one that day I have nothing.

That's where having one exact date with exact hour that is one year in advance is so magic. You are not speaking about a possibility where we have to find the right day and time. No we're setting up a meeting.

This is something that I've learned the hard way this year. I've booked in advance a great speaker one year in advance but I didn't have yet the format and the precise hour. So when my life got busy and I came back to late to the person with those details, the date was then booked by someone else for that speaker (and this was all my mistake).

What I'm still thinking about

Obviously one year in advance we haven't figured and planned everything yet. Here are a few ideas that I'm still exploring:

Babysitting

We want the on-site experience to be a family-reunion-style event. So why not give the opportunity to parents to bring their children and have a baby-sitting and children activity service. This could mean parents could come one day earlier and spend some quality time as a family on Saturday. Then the Service Design nerd parent can come to the conference on Sunday while the rest of the family is taken care of at the beautiful lake that is 500 meters from the conference venue.

More family-style activites

What if we included during the on-site day more family-style activites like doing sport together, or board games? (both things I personnally hate, but that many people love)

Proper volunteer team

For now this was all prepared by two people with one additional volunteer on the day. What if we had a proper team that really creates a special experience on the day.

How you can help

If you made it until here it means that you are really a Service Design nerd! So you might be interested to already get your ticket for the on-site experience on June 1st 2025.