I’m preparing the next “volumes” of the books “Service Design Principles”. I’ve already written and published the first 100 Service Design principles, and I’m now working on the principles 101 to 200 and on the third book with the principles 201 to 300. 

As I’m doing it I thought it might be interesting to share with you how I come up with content ideas for these books.

A new way 

The first book was based on about 3 years of writing. So, I just wrote content when I had an idea, and once I had a lot of content, I decided to turn it into a book. It took 3 years to have enough content for a book. This time, I promised my wife I would come up with a new book with 100 more principles every year. And she is making me keep that promise (yeah, I know it was a stupid promise).

So now I can’t just rely on the spot inspiration. I have to plan a bit more. That’s why for the next books in this series I’m now coming up with all titles, or content ideas, all at once. I try to separate the idea generation part and the content writing part. So, in the next weeks, when I’m writing I can just write. I will not have to think about what to write.

Okay, so I had to come up with about 200 new service design principles. How did I do that?

My three techniques to come up with new content ideas

To keep track of the ideas I use a Miro board where I write the title on a sticky note, and below that, if needed I add a sticky note with more explanation and a link to the source that inspired me.

1. Studies and statistics

Often, I read a statistic or a study, and I think: oh, that’s inspiring! From there, I came up with a title that summarises the learning I took out of the statistics. So, I did a lot of Google searches. I looked for statistics and studies about customer experience, customer service, and service design. And then, when I didn’t find any more stuff, I opened it up by looking at research and statistics about customers' frustrations, psychology, and even business and change management 🤓

This type of research is quite frustrating as most websites basically repeat the same exact studies that are really interesting. So it takes a shit load of time to find new interesting stuff. Also, many statistics are more about the importance of customer experience than on specific problems. But still, you have to go through all to find the little gems.

Then, once I’m too frustrated, I change technique to find new content ideas:

2. Dancing and looped music (seriously!)

I put on my headphones, pick a song, and put it on a loop. And it starts. I’m basically walking around our flat with the same stupid song in my head. I look at every object in the apartment and start to think about the memories attached to this object. From there, the mind goes away, and finally, at some point, I arrive at an interesting story. Sounds weird? Let me show you an example.

The “case” to carry a cat that is sitting in our flat and inspired an idea

So I’m looking at the “case” to carry the cat that is in our bedroom. Our cat died a few months ago, and we are looking for a new one. A few days ago a good friend of ours offered us a new kitty! The kitty will arrive in a few months. While we wait, the friend is sending us photos of the kitty to make us wait. Bam. Idea. What if businesses would do the same? What if when I go buy a car, instead of waiting for weeks without any news, I receive photos showing the building process? What if when I am buying a handmade chair at a carpenter, he sends me photos of how the furniture is taking shape as I wait?

And what about the dancing? I figured out that while I’m walking around my flat, it would just be more fun to dance around! So that’s what I do. 

Once I did that in my flat, and it doesn’t work anymore, I did basically the same thing but outside. I went out with the same stupid song in my head and walked around the city. Each time I saw something, I tried to bring back a new memory and see if there was something interesting behind it. 

Finally, this technic also started to bring fewer ideas with time. So then I switched again technic:

3. Review my digital brain

The last technique I used to find 200 new service design principles was to review what was in my digital brain. For that, I opened my photo library. By looking at past photos I’ve taken, it reminded me of great moments and little frustrations which I could turn into Principles. 

Then I also made a review of my notebook, where I stored links, references, and ideas about specific topics on Service Design. By going through that list of pages, I found studies and ideas I captured months ago that could be turned in again in Service Design Principles.

My notion notebook and a cat that isn’t mine but looks cute

How long did it take to come up with 200 content ideas?

I don’t have the exact time for 200 principles, but I tracked it for 138 🤓 Yep, I forgot to time track that properly. So, to come up with 138 new content ideas, it took me 6 hours and 32 minutes over 2 days. Of course, this was possible as I had already written one book like this, and I knew what I was looking for. It would be much harder if it were my first book.

It’s not difficult, it takes time

I often like to say that the types of books I like to write are “toilet books”. You know, the kind of books you can read while taking a shit. You open the book and read a few pages. Finish your little job. And leave the book there for another day. I love to write books which are composed of many smaller elements that can be read alone. I can’t write a book that is one coherent story which goes over pages and pages.

My books are collections of small articles put together in one format. This type of book is pretty simple to write. You just need to take the time to come up with enough ideas. And 6 hours and 32 minutes isn’t so long for having the content of one book.