This conversation with Oleg and Liza inspired me 11 early Service Design Principles to better serve others in times of crisis.

• Trust and use your skills even in crisis: Knowing how to serve people comes handy in all life situations, from a birthday party, to mental health and even war times.

• Safety doesn’t mean closing shop: Safety is not a black or white thing, it’s a negotiation. If your service can’t be totally safe, closing it fully might mean that you make people even less safe. Find ways to stay open in times of crisis to continue to give access to essential services.

• Remember we get used to crisis mode: war, pandemics and crisis times that live for long times feel like a new normal that we get used too.

• Think about what happens when people get trapped in your service: Do you have some basic necessities for people to survive in your service if they are blocked in it because of natural disasters or war events?

• Inclusion is even more important in crisis: In war and crisis times, people with disabilities are the ones that suffer even more, how can you service serve them first?

• If you don’t have an impact, change context: Service skills can make a real difference, find a context where those skills are a necessity and not just a nice add-on. Change company, change industry or even country to serve others that deeply need you.

• Create and train your emergency kit: Have an emergency kit in your service or organization, train staff members and remind them on how to use it.

• Make your service escapable: Don’t design your service just for being easy to enter to but also easy for fleeing from in case of emergency.

• Serve to give hope in crisis: When emergencies and crisis happen, keep parts of your service open to give a sense of normality. Offer moments where people can also get served and don’t have to only survive and defend themselves.

• Protect the basics: in times of crisis, basic services like water, electricity, communication, etc. keep communities alive and healthy. Protecting these services ensures life continues with a sense of normalcy.

• Remember: Things are Better Done Than Perfect: Even more in times of crisis, getting things done matters more than doing them perfectly right.

Oleg Koss and Yelyzaveta (Liza) Pidopryhora are two Service Design enthusiasts who both work at Lanka.CX, a customer experience and Service Design agency in Ukraine.

Oleg founded the agency, and Liza works as a Service Designer & Lead for NGO, Public, and Military Projects

Interview chapters

• 0:00: Teaser

• 4:27: Challenges and Misconceptions

• 5:48: Service Design in Crisis

• 6:37: Adapting to War Conditions

• 11:33: Learning and Resilience

• 17:34: Practical Examples and Innovations

• 24:24: Safety and Service Design

• 26:50: Negotiating Safety in Business

• 28:16: Balancing Remote and In-Person Interactions

• 28:40: Inclusion and Safety for People with Disabilities

• 29:40: Medical Preparedness in Public Services

• 33:18: The Role of Service Design in Military Support

• 38:21: Human-Centered Design in Government Services

• 42:44: Closing Thoughts and Call to Action

Transcript of the interview

This transcript was automatically generated using Descript without any hand-made corrections. So it might be pretty creative at moments.

Daniele: How can we design services in times of deep crisis? That's what we chatted about with Oleg Koss and Liza Pidopryhora in an interview for my next book on how to create services that serve both humans and planet. Oleg and Liza are two Service Design enthusiasts who work both at Lanka, a customer experience and Service Design agency in Ukraine. Oleg founded the company and Liza works in it as a consultant and service designer.

Yes. These two lovely humans work on Service Design topics in Ukraine, A country going through a deep crisis because of war.

It has been really inspiring for me to see how life and work in Service Design has continued with an impressive resilience.

I truly think that what they are learning and experiencing every day can help us in other types of crisis too.

This conversation with Oleg and Liza inspired me. 11 Early Service Design principles to better serve others in times of crisis. Here are my five favorite ones.

Number one, serve to give hope in crisis: when emergencies and crisis happen, offer moments where people can also get served and don't have to only survive or defend themselves.

Number two, safety doesn't mean closing shop. Safety is not a black or white thing. It's a negotiation. If your service can't. If your service can't be totally safe, closing it fully might mean that you make people even less safe.

Number three, think about what happens when people get trapped in your service.

Do you have some basic necessities or an emergency kit for people to survive in your service if they are blocked in it because of natural disasters or war events?

Number four, inclusion is even more important in crisis. In war and crisis times, people with disabilities are the ones that suffer even more. How can your service serve them first?

Number five, if you don't have an impact, change context. Service skills, service skills can make a real difference. Find a context where those skills are a necessity and not just a nice add-on. Change company, change industry, or even country to serve others that deeply need you.

Thanks so much to Oleg and Liza for this lovely and humbling conversation.

Hello, Oleg. Hello, Liza. It's such a pleasure to see you here today.

Oleg Koss: Daniele.

Liza: Hi.

Explaining Service Design

Daniele: Before we get started with all the service designing nerdiness I'd like maybe just to start by asking you a very dumb question, which is how would you present yourself in a birthday party?

Oleg Koss: I would say, hi, I am, I'm od I'm a service designer, which usually may means nothing to people. Yeah. So I would probably go with saying we help businesses and organizations to be customer centric and probably mention couple of projects like we did recently. Improving the services of the food retail, or improving the recruiting process of the Ukrainian Military Corps or helping NGOs to fundraise more money, et cetera.

So giving some examples of the recent projects, which is a good conversation starter.

Daniele: Ah, wonderful. Thanks so much. And I see that you brought a lovely French to this imaginary birthday party. You with you. And so Liza, how would you present yourself to this imaginary birthday party?

Liza: First of all, I'm happy that I haven't been on birthday parties where all I was als always also because he would take my words that I will usually say too. No, but making it more simple for people, I would say. Hi, I am Liza. I'm a friend of someone whose birthday is ole, and I work as a service designer in the first Service Design agency in Ukraine.

And what it means I make services work better, and mostly I work with government services or military services or services around non. Nonprofit organizations. So that's what I do. And yeah, I think I would say like this,

Challenges and Misconceptions

Daniele: I love how we all struggle with the same stuff, which is. Come back to birthday parties and you're like, oh, fuck. Again, the question about my profession.

Liza: Yes.

Daniele: And then you're like yeah I'm doing stuff with design. And then people, oh, you do chairs? Oh, no, again. So I like that In all cultures we have the same issues.

Liza: Yeah, usually it would be confused about ux, UI designer. They would ask me like, so you design like apps? And I'm like, nah, not really, but so like that.

Daniele: Then the service designer are skills in us where we are very good at interviewing. Others are very handy because then we make the others speak.

Liza: Okay. But have you had a situation when you then become the middle of a tension because everyone is like, what is Service Design? And you start talking and everyone is like gathering around you and you're like, wow, I have never heard about this thing. And yeah, just whole party is about you and the birth the one who has a birthday is like left.

Oleg Koss: What happens almost every time. Liza joins some new people very short period of time, everybody's gathered about Liza and she's passionately explaining everybody what Service Design is and how beautiful it is.

Daniele: So we'll need one across course with you around how to bring all the people around us to create some some attention around Service Design. That's lovely.

Service Design in Crisis

Daniele: But I'm very interested in your take around Service Design because from what I've understood, obviously you are working in a Ukraine, which is. A country which is in a wartime, which is in a crisis time. And to me, it's quite interesting to have conversations about how we use Service Design in many different settings. For example, I find quite interesting how people sometimes use Service Design in everyday life, for, organizing a birthday party and maybe also managing mental health. But I find this is another example, which is quite unexpected of how. Service Design is also used during crisis time. Could you maybe share a few examples of how Service Design has helped you, maybe personally, but also as a business in this difficult times.

Adapting to War Conditions

Oleg Koss: I probably start just again, to give, to put into the context right now, there is an air alert in Kiev, the, guns are actually shooting at the targets as we record this meeting. So that's the reality. Just put you into the context and again, it's going for and a half years already. at the same time, Design I mean, that's strange to say is blossoming. Mo most service designers get ready and become service professional service designers. in 2022 when the full started, we wouldn't expect this to happen. I remember our first process. A project for the actually Czech operator who was preparing a special charity Ukrainian refugees coming to check here, and they asked us to. Help them to design this product, make it more convenient, not affordable because it was free, but more convenient for the refugee to be used. And we did that. And actually that time, speaking about the mental health, doing this project in 2022 was actually helping us to prepare, to get some sense of normality. That's that's what happened. And, Yeah. And since 2022, we do quite a many projects in the area of charity support and jobs. And basically since Liza joined the team, we started that, that's why she's part of this conversation. Yeah, and I maybe a few things, few more things and since. The part of 2022 we just realized that this is not a short war or race conflict, but something Ukrainian business will show the resilience.

We still need to run the economy to, to sustain the economy and sustain the people ukrainian businesses kept their customer-centric transformation. They kept innovating new products, they kept improving services, and actually was, again, surprising to me, and it's actually very promising to the service designers around the world. I know very few companies who actually fired service designers. So they, despite that companies had on scale had to, reorganize despite the fact that their strategies were like, we have a six week strategy. That, that was the reality of the business in 2022. And still they kept their Service Design teams and those Service Design teams should proved to be very reliable partner for the business. that's like maybe two takes I would give at the start, Liza. Oh, your first experience with design thinking was also in 2022.

Liza: Yeah I haven't worked in Service Design before the full scaled war in Ukraine. So for me, I started already when the. In this new circumstances of the full scaled war. So for me, I don't know. I have nothing to compare with. Yeah, maybe because of that my experience is quite different in this way.

However, I I think since we started working precisely in Ukraine on the topics. Observe, like when I started studying Service Design in in Madrid, in IE school, I knew already that I'm gonna. Work not around the business questions, but around charity organizations, nonprofit organizations. I haven't thought yet in that time that I would be able to use Service Design for the military projects.

Just that idea didn't come up in my mind. I didn't know that it is possible, but now as. As we already did some projects, I realized that it's not even just possible, but it's actually really useful and also read about some experiences in USA in Estonia about using Service Design in the war.

And that is like just coming as a more and more inspiration of how to use this tool. To make things that we think cannot be more human-centered, but actually more human-centered to make it, to serve better for people, basically. Yeah.

Daniele: Thanks so much. It's quite impressive to see both your takes about, about that situation. I'm quite impressed by the this notion of, in tough times. Resilience is really the key skill. And that key skill is also something that we see in professionals in many fields, including service designers professionals who have learned on how you manage cows.

You manage problems that arise at moments that you can't imagine that they could come. And I'd be quite curious to know from your take.

Learning and Resilience

Daniele: What's something that you learned in these past? Years that you say, wow, this this is really a different way of thinking. That what I was maybe taught for you Liza back in Madrid and maybe for you, Oleg before, when business was as usual and now what are maybe things that you learned that you say, oh, these are other ways of working, these are other ways of living That, that I have now integrated and that once. war ends. I will still use for everyday life and everyday business as usual.

Liza: Of course when you study how to do Service Design, when you listen to podcasts, listen to courses, there's some rules and like some principles of Service Design you have to apply and kind of expectation on how the project should go. And this is something I also got from my.

Education first and then from working in Atlan C six. But then when I started working with the military units, I realized that I have to be much more E even though Service Design is at first are quite flexible as our nature, we work with uncertainty. We have to be flexible, but there you have to be even more flexible and have to adapt to this fast tempo of war.

That like everything is for yesterday and this husband been already done a week ago. And you have to understand how to prioritize your task in a way that the. This project still makes sense for the people you are doing it for because, everything changes in work very fastly. And also other things about takes on co-creation processes because I wish I could live in the per perfect world where we could do a facilitation workshop.

With all the need stakeholders in one physical room in enough time we have and everything, but it's impossible when you work with questions around war and you invite people who work with very urgent task all every day. So it's impossible to get, gather them all together in one room.

Sometimes it's even impossible to gather them all around. In one call. So you have to be more creative on the co-creation styles that you make and be more adaptable to your client because you want them be involved, even like nevertheless. Because the Service Design is about this involving everyone around inside the project.

So I think this experience in general made me more. More strong, more resilient, and more flexible. Yeah, that, that will definitely help me to handle more harder projects on a higher scale later off.

Oleg Koss: I would probably start with the on the helicopter view design process works point. Regardless, all the extreme situation, all the. And all the challenges the method, tactics, how you use it differs, of course, like I maybe give some, like first in, in the normal life you are looking for the bright, shiny room.

So you, that you got everybody together and everybody's inspired with delight and with the view from the windows. And then the workshop brings you more creativity. Now we are looking for the underground premises so that we are not interrupting the workshop during the the alarm. So we don't we don't stop our work.

And the concept of, and inspiring pace change it, it still matters. The same goes for people you still are trying to get to, involved to them, but again stealing from these examples. If you need to interview the and you design the project for the other soldiers, you cannot expect they will do the. Not even face to face interview, but sometimes you cannot expect them to do the interview that is long enough. So you would basically do half of the interview in the messenger. Just asking the questions, getting it again, or when asking something. People not sharing information with you, not because it's personal, but because it's sensitive in terms of the security, say security, et cetera. And in terms of resilience? Resilience, yeah. It's just. This is strange. In theory, you would feel less empowered. I'm speaking about businesses, I'm speaking about military. During the war, like is uncertain. You don't have resources. everything is unpredictable. But actually in, when you are put in more extreme situations, you actually feel more things are possible because, you don't have a safety net. So you actually start thinking better than in the conflict situation. And I just want one thing Liza said, because know everybody in every organization thinks, every service designer thinks that you are not given. to design. You'd prefer to do a little bit more research, more prototyping, have some time to generate insights, and everybody is' unhappy with the pace. But trust me, the pace of the military organizations, not working eight hours, five days a week, not even 10 hours. They are literally 24 7 at work, and when you try to engage them in the design process, you consider their workload is nothing to be compar of civilian life. I.

Daniele: It's really impressive to see how, y in these situations which are crisis situations. It's not all despair. Live continues. I imagine that in your own profession as service designers, you have maybe uncovered Service Design principles of your own and how to. Work, live survive. Are there some that you would be willing to share with us around those ideas?

Practical Examples and Innovations

Oleg Koss: I'm not sure if this is Service Design principal, but this is definitely a learning. you get used to everything.

There were conditions you have, you get used to it, and then you, interesting you, so you get used to it and then you, if you are design minded person you immediately start looking for the ways to improve it. So I don't know. Blackouts, you don't have electricity for hours. That's awful. Then you learn how to do it and then you are for the ways, how to organize it better Ukrainian electricity in days, not even weeks. They designed a very. I still get electricity for a few hours. It's not like right now.

If it might happen in, in few weeks again because Russia need to be targeting u Ukrainian electricity grid again. But like you get at least the tool that makes the electricity presence and absence predictable. And then it some neighbors some people in the multi-story buildings start design the package for those who get stuck in the elevator and all of a sudden in every elevator and give you have a chair and a bottle of water which is essential.

And then also an empty bottle. Go into motels here and things like that. So again you first adopt and the sooner you adopt the better and. Work trains you to adapt the better, and then you immediately start finding the design solutions, how to make this awful situation a little bit better every day.

You also, and then you start appreciating basic services much more.

One of the love marks in Ukraine now is Ukrainian rail estate rail services railway.

Daniele: Yeah.

Oleg Koss: We not always the best in the peace times they are. literally the national love mark now because they are working in the, in the good schedule, despite all the difficulties and because the the closed and Ukraine is the biggest church, biggest country by the territory in Europe.

So we need travel and railways works. The same goes for the electricity providers. We do electricity much more. And the same goes for I know PE station, et cetera. So every business that point became essential. They supported they, they are now much more valued.

Daniele: Yeah, it's back to the basics in those moments where we appreciate really the fact that we can click on a button and we get some light we get some water and we can move around. Yeah, absolutely. Wonderful. Liza, I thought I saw that you have few

Liza: Yeah. Yeah. I was like writing them down because, I don't know if you have this thing, but when I listen to conversation, have so many points and thoughts and I have to write them down not to forget. So EG was mentioning blackouts and I realized that like I just have a practical example of this happening because I dunno if someone from.

Spain or Portugal is hearing us right now, but they remember how that happened in Europe, the Black house that happened there. I was not there. I was in Ukraine, but my friends who were from Ukraine who lived through Black House in Ukraine and they were in Spain and Portugal during the Black House, they were like, that's not a problem at all.

Like they were so already adapted to it because they adapted that to that in Ukraine. So it's just like a take on what Alleg just said, that when we are used more to worse. Work conditions, then it's so easy for us to adapt to anything. So just, yeah, stay close to ba to basics, don't over do it.

But my also, it's hard for me to say a Service Design principle because I didn't read your Service Design principles, all of them that you had said. So I might repeat something you already have said. So I'm sorry for that. It's not on purpose. But when I was doing with the team and the the project with military unit was military corps haria this year Alek told me several times this thing about Liza, it's better done than perfect.

And I was like, yeah, it's important that we do this and that in this way. Like this is how we make sure that we have a good insights and stuff. But actually, I think. Sometimes we actually have to remind ourselves that it's better done than perfect and sometimes even do some Service Design projects, even though we know that it would be better on a bigger scale, but still do it because it's better to at least touch a bit the client's needs and what is already have done and Prototype at least a bit, but nothing.

So I think that's important to remember. Yeah, and I think.

Oleg Koss: one more. This is, this might sound a little bit controversial, but again, Liza did a great project with the. team in the military academy and we were teaching them Service Design principle. They are already designers that, that's very important to understand that the majority, it's perceived like there are civilians and there are military personnel and it's military's personal to sacrifice their lives. But that's not like that because actually Ukrainian army consists. Civilians who had no choice but to start serving the country. So there is, they are military personnel, but they are also civilians. And for example, we worked with the team who was, who were designers before the war, and they joined as a team, the military and they innovative military innovation team within the military academy. And what's interesting is the design still need to be focused on the provider. In case of the military service provider is actually a soldier. So when you design some tool or you design some process, you still need to make sure that the service delivery is convenient for the service provider.

And that was like, okay that's how you, because usually you would imagine the vendor or the seller in the shop here it's actually the sold still want to make it usable, useful, efficient, et cetera.

Liza: Exactly just.

Oleg Koss: user, but also on the service provider, again, became quite noticeable.

Liza: Yeah, just be just say, continue. Then innovate. Just if we just have a new innovation, but it is not easy to be used. By people who are using it. So what's the point of it? So that's really important also because in in war, the efficiency is very important and making things more human centered is about making it more safe and more actually yeah, more useful, effective.

Safety and Service Design

Daniele: I'd be curious to hear from your side, do you see some things around safety where you say, oh, these are interesting practices interesting service elements that have been put into place?

Liza: This year we were able to organize together Atlanta six 11 Service gems at the same time.

So I think you're familiar with the Service Jams initiative and we love it a lot because it's a great tool to get. More people introduced to Service Design. But in Ukraine, for the first time ever, we had 11 in different cities in all around Ukraine at the same time, service jam jamming and bringing that to people.

And I rem this is when we were starting the whole thing, the most the first thing we said, like that all the spaces that you're gonna do, the gyms have to be in the shelters. Like we don't negotiate it. We don't say oh, we can be out in shelter, for some time, but if there is a danger, we go there.

No, we are in the shelters and like even the like parts of Ukraine, that seems to be more safe because they're more far from the Russia border, but still, this is like a first priority. So talking about us, our services as a. Service Design Agent Lanka, this is something we change in our perspective of giving out the service.

We always think the, this basic safety of the place first and then other tools. Yeah, so that's like kind of first thing.

Oleg Koss: I would say again, that what's important? It's and now going slightly contradict, again, GM is it's an event for days. You can consider the, like you, you can say that safety is not, is non negotiable. But if you are like in the business. You are working every day you then don't have this option to put all the stuff in the shelter, et cetera. So it's interesting how kind of consensus about the level of safety that is developed. Like for example. It's, again, it sounds scary, but that's what it our shop is closed. When there is a danger. You mean when there is an air raid alarm? No. When there is an air raid alarm, we are open. But if there are multiple rockets shut at our city, then we close. that's. That's less safety, but that's what I mean.

Negotiating Safety in Business

Oleg Koss: Safety is not absolute. You negotiate it. And what's important, you communicate it. Because like many international businesses, I can give an example of McDonald's. They close with the first sound of their alarm. keep working because there, there are two levels of safety. Okay? You want to provide pe make people safe within your promise, but at the same time you want to people. Have access to their services. Like what if you are in hospital? What's safe not to be able to practice with the doctor or be closed when there is a risk of of shelling? That's so you it's become more complicated and yeah, again, you need to see what's the perspective of the service provider. You need to see the perspective of the service user and then find the balance.

Liza: Yeah. Yeah just building on that, just just two things

Oleg Koss: Yeah.

Liza: wanted to say something more? No, you say

Oleg Koss: wanted to be one more illustration that just blew my mind. It's very recent in iv, which is very close to Russian border. It, is

Liza: you,

Oleg Koss: one you wanted to give?

Liza: yes. Great. Mind think or it's something else, but Yeah. You say it. I have another one.

Oleg Koss: They're building three story on the ground school in Hake. So you just build three story building, but you just dig it under the ground. And yeah, safety is still important and yeah. And what's what, I think that actually illustrates one more thing.

Balancing Remote and In-Person Interactions

Oleg Koss: There was this plenty of discussion between remote and face-to-face.

And in theory, remote should dominate Ukraine now because, it's. Seems to be safer, but no personal interactions matter after some time, most of projects in our agency, I actually have quite a significant part of offline workshops where we meet in person. It matters and it builds empathy.

Inclusion and Safety for People with Disabilities

Liza: Yeah, just last thing I would say, like about how services in Ukraine are developing in terms of. Understanding this really important concept of safety is also about kind of safety and inclusion of people with different disabilities. Because while Ukraine is actually, has a increasing number of people who has different disabilities because of the attacks and it is, are these are civilians or those are people from ex-military.

So it's. Kind of everyone. And it's interesting how we have to now think about public services in terms of public transportation, public health services, how we have to and it's already is happening, we changed not only the infrastructure of the place to make it more usable because not only for people just to use it, but for people also to be able to escape it in case of danger.

So it's you have to think about this in the always and also.

Medical Preparedness in Public Services

Liza: We put an extra attention on the prevention health prevention methods, like for example, that you have to, for example when I walk around the city, I always have a tourniquet with me. It's a, it's something that can help to stop a massive blood.

Explosion, right? I dunno how to say it right in English words, but if something happens, so I can do this and save someone's life, hopefully. So this, what I've seen now more and more is that in some places where. Where services are provided these basic medical things like, everyone is oh, you have to have a medical kit in your place.

Now it's not, you just have to have it. Your staff have to know how to do this basic pre, pre-med things to stop, like the blood, the explosion or something if something happens. Near your service like provider place. Like when you're a business, even if you are just a grocery store, like a beauty cell, and it doesn't matter.

Your staff has to know how to make, we can't call it service, but it's a thing to your client if something happens around you. So it's it's all about how business owners and like people who are organized services are conscious. About what is happening and how seriously they take it.

Yeah.

Daniele: Thank you so much. I'm very impressed by this level of practical of how practical these things are, and I'm a sucker for these ideas, which are not just philosophical things, but which are, really implemented and that make a difference. And and it's quite beautiful to hear. How safety has taken a different meaning. And still for me, when I hear you guys, I'm like, shit, there is so much to learn from that. There is so much that could be applied in all also other situations. So that's quite interesting.

So for example this shift from. means, we could say, oh in a in a time of crisis, a flawed, a war or something, we should close service. is that really safety, or is keeping the essential stuff open, and finding ways to find a negotiation around the safety so that we can continue to serve and that can, and life can continue is a very beautiful. More complex way of saying, see safety as black or white. It's all in the middle. And so that's a beautiful reminder also here to say that in crisis, it's not just about closing shop and escaping, but also how do you. Stay open. How, when what's the negotiation that you make also for the safety of your employees, but also for the

Liza: Yeah.

Daniele: who come and it's not that easy, but it's a negotiation that I find deeply interesting in in, in how you guys practice that.

Obviously there are many other tiny things that I'm stealing from this conversation, but I'd be quite curious to know from your perspective. When you first emailed me Oleg you told, you said, oh, I have a few ideas and stories that I could share. Is there something that you had in mind that you wanted to share that you couldn't share yet and that you'd like to share?

Now

Oleg Koss: It's interesting, you asked so many questions. We discussed so many things.

Liza: I'm sorry. I just, I needed to move outta my room because I hope my internet will still will be fine, because there was a huge explosion. Yeah. Honestly I think I have I don't know. It is connected to the topic we have been talking about, but this is a project I'm personally,

Daniele: I.

Liza: I think I'm the most proud of.

That's something I have done and that's will be. Forever may be my favorite one. And it is about working with military topics stuff.

The Role of Service Design in Military Support

Liza: Example, last year we worked with the biggest charity foundation of Ukraine. That helps military. It is called Come Back Alive. The most effective organization that has been working since the war started in 2014.

And they came to us with a really interesting challenge that some people would say that they didn't need a Service Design, they just needed researchers. But I'm really happy that they actually approached to us and that we start, they were open to try this new, instrument, even though they didn't know what is Service Design.

So basically what they want us to what they wanted to understand is that why people are starting, donate less, donate money for the military, support for the yeah, for military support because they have seen like a decrease in the donation levels. And that's by the way, it would be. It's topic that about talking about lots of charity organizations.

So yes, why a charity organization always want to know why they decreased. But we propose to investigate better why people actually donate. What makes this behavior actually more why people choose to donate? How do they do it when they do it? Will they donate to how they understand what sums of money they're gonna donate and stuff like that.

So we decided to do this whole Service Design project around this. And we involved the whole c, like C level, let's call it C level, like top level through the, to the work. And they were reading, like with us, working together doing with as the Service Design and what we had in the end. It was a combined expertise of us as a service.

And this is what we have sent from the interviews, but also the expertise from the people who have been working in this organization for ma many years. And when we came up at the end to the some archetypes of people donators to the, their behavioral scenarios we realize like that it actually is works and it actually recalls what these people have been noticing through these years. And this then influences the whole change of the marketing strategy for this organization. 'cause they realize finally who they are talking to usually and who they are trying to change behavior of. So

For me it was a good example on how.

Talking about quite hard topic, which donating to money to the Army? It just, this is, this might sound as like really nice topic to talk about, but it's not about donating money to Greenpeace, like it's just like a good person, it's about donating to support the military units in Ukraine.

So like talking about this type of thing still, even though it was emotionally hard sometimes, it still brought us to the insights that gave us a meaning. Motivation, behavioral change. Yes. But I'm sure Alexa has something to talk, tell about this.

Oleg Koss: Yeah. Then honestly, I thought we would, first of all just wanted to share some examples to give you some ideas. in the end of the day, I think the main messages. I think we, we managed to bring them through that first level continuous. And Ukraine is still under attack, unfortunately. And basic services for the civilians, they actually not only. they provide sense of normality. This is one more example, I wanted to share that. For the people who live very close to the front line presence of the logistic operator post service or the presence of the pet station, it brings huge sense of just the presence of the commercial services available to people.

The that's I don't know. I saw hundreds of posts from Ukrainian soldiers who were the petrol station of the specific brand orco because they were serving them with the coffee and hot dogs. Not even the petrol in the, literally in the few kilometers from the frontline and how they are, that finally the company had to close this petrol station because the frontline got to close. So again, this providing services is actually valuable. Sometimes we under appreciate what we do, providing the basic services you need to get to the extreme conditions to start appreciating it. that. Again, you get used to it and you keep developing the services and make sense. And there is room for Service Design and there is plenty of room for the Service Design for the extreme services like the Army. And it the method works. You need to change the tactics, but strategically it works in, it brings the value for the user, it brings the value for the service provider.

Liza: Exactly.

Oleg Koss: Yeah, actually essential profession for the humanities.

Liza: Yes. And we are sure about it.

Human-Centered Design in Government Services

Liza: And just like one more thing also about that, I didn't expect that human-centered design would be so popular also among like people who work with government services in the. Also territories that are close to the front line or like just in the small communities, inside villages or towns.

But we have been doing projects with, together with unicef, Ukraine, bringing human-centered design instruments to those people on hand. And they were try, they were eager to try human-centered design. They were, they actually did like more than 20, we did more than 22 projects. Like them using human centered design to develop their government services, public health services, social services.

And this is something impressive for me personally that I did. I would, if someone would ask me like that, back five years ago, like I. Would you imagine this happening? I don't know, maybe nobody will care about human centricity while we having a war. But no, this is not true because we all understand that while people like living through such a hard times, they really would appreciate if services work better.

Daniele: It's a, it's an impressive love letter to humans and services that you're sharing. Here, at least that's how I receive it on my side. This notion of. It's in tough times. We appreciate the presence of people who are here to serve us. Even if it's the guy doing some coffee, we appreciate in tough times someone being here, staying here to give the coffee

Liza: Absolutely.

Daniele: and saying thank you in the middle of two attacks because. That person is serving us in times where everything is attacking us. And I think that's quite a beautiful way of framing that services in a way are also so now I'm being very, maybe too poetic, but there are also an act of humanity and act of love and appreciation for others just by saying, this moment of very tough times, I'm taking some risk to be of service for you. And and that's a very beautiful way of turning what we sometimes feel as service designers, at least in times of peace where we feel, oh, are we just making things a little bit nicer? And there suddenly you realize how the. The basic aspect of services is really something that, that's, that, that connects humanity together. And that brings people together. That is an act of I'm human. You are a human, and I'm taking time, space, safety risks to be with you and to be there for you. So that's a beautiful act of of appreciation.

Oleg Koss: Absolutely.

Liza: Yes, I absolutely agree. And just if I could just build on the thing that you just said that actually I would even have some kind of a call for service designers all around the world that like if you actually feel that you are, everything that you do is just like making the service a bit better, then maybe you should actually change the place where you work.

Because a Service Design work is really important for many services around like business or government. And you have to feel like you're really making this real change because you have a whole power to make a real change for how people are receiving, are living their life. So that's like super important.

So I, I wish every service designer understand this great power.

Daniele: Absolutely. And this is something that, that, we you can do by moving from one company to another, from one industry to another, from one country to. Another also but it's something that, that I've personally felt in my own career experience where suddenly you come in another setting and you like, oh, the same skills that I've been using suddenly are of service for something bigger. And maybe you move less fast, you move you do less, but you do better or you do more important. And I. I, it's a very poetic call to action to say if you are a service owner, service creator, service designer who's not sure about the impact of what you're doing, maybe try another setting.

Try another context because the skills can be really used for good work.

Oleg Koss: Strive for impact.

Daniele: Yeah, absolutely.

Closing Thoughts and Call to Action

Daniele: Hey I'm deeply touched by this conversation. I have even like physical goosebumps at the moment. It's quite it's I'm very touched by the fact that you're giving time in In this moment to have this conversation, about things that at times I was like, oh my God.

We are having conversations about Service Design and and there is much more important things to attend to. But at the same time, I think with this conclusion that we came at the end, it's quite beautiful also to see that the act of serving others is always a lovely thing to do. And, and no matter the context, no matter the situation. So that's something that I deeply appreciate and I also deeply appreciate, how you help me. And I think others also contextualize how life is for you guys and and in, in a way that is very clear and and and very hopeful.

I'm impressed by the hope. And and, the hope and the sharing and the practical side of things.

Liza: I think Danielle, I would say here do you know this famous phrase? I don't know. This was a motto for my master degree that trust the process. I think. I think we are just here just trusting the process, that we do what we do what we love, but we did what we make, the better, what we can make.

And we believe in Service Design. We trust the process, so we just continue working in that.

Oleg Koss: Yeah,

You for inviting us, and

Liza: Yes.

Oleg Koss: you for helping

Daniele: knows?

Liza: For us it's important.

Daniele: And who knows, maybe in a few years. We'll be able to write a book together. All the three of us speak, around, Service Design, basic Service Design instead of advanced Service Design, but basic Service Design for the. Difficult times.

I think that will be a beautiful kind of twist to how, we always are looking for advanced ai, blah, blah, blah. And coming back to basic de basic Service Design for Tough Times will be a beautiful book or topic that we could explore together. I'm sure that you will have a lot of ideas and things to share. Maybe just a bit of a closing question. Where can people find you if they want to know more about your work and know more about you guys personally? What's the best way or is there a good way for people to reach out to you?

Oleg Koss: As an agency, we are Lanka, LAN. KA cx, is not very difficult to spell, otherwise Liza Lanka would probably work easier to find. And Lanka goes the same, so the second names may be more difficult to spell.

Liza: Yours is quite simple. Mine, I would even like, even, not even, you don't even try guys. But yeah, I'm sure when you are, like there will be links under this post that you, and please yes, reach out to us, to me, like first, I dunno if you've all I'll talk about myself, but reach out to me in case you have any ideas on how to.

Bring more service people around service than, and ideas of service than to use in Ukraine, in public services and military services. And I'm really curious about that. And really open to sharing and work on it. Let me know if you have any ideas. And yeah if you want to travel to Ukraine in just just if you felt this is the thing you wanna do and you wanna join, maybe Service Jam in Ukraine, or you wanna join, I don't know, just to teach something in Ukraine and Service Design or to to.

Yeah, let us know. We are here one of the representative Service Design Network of Ukraine, and we are open to host and share and yeah. Exchange knowledges. Yep.

Daniele: Wonderful. Hey, thank you so much. We are coming to a close, this conversation could last for many more hours and I imagine even days there is, many more things to learn from you guys but I'm also obviously aware of your time and deeply appreciate the fact that you gave me so much time and really appreciate also the way that you had of sharing all of that.

And the message of hope that is all in the all in between the lines. It's something that I deeply appreciate. So a big thank you to you, Liza. A big thank you to you, Oleg. And yeah. Stay safe. I think that's that, that's a good a good last last word but also really appreciate you serving others and continuing to do so.

Liza: this is something really funny. By the way. This is something that change in emailing in Ukraine. A few years ago, they would be like, have a nice day, have a great week, have a nice weekend. Now we write. Have a safe day. Be safe. Stay safe. So yeah, communication matters.

Daniele: So stay safe and thank you so much.

Oleg Koss: Daniele.

Liza: Thank you. Thank you. Same. Thank you Danielle. Thank you.

From this conversation with Lucy I stole 10 early Service Design Principles that can help you adapt your service to the climate crisis. Here are my five favorites:

1. Be clear that shit will hit the fan: Accept that every part of life has always changed and will continue to always change. Be it climate, social life, economic life. Learn to work with the change.

2. Learn from other sectors and countries: Look for inspiration outside of your industry, country or culture. Others have already figured out things you haven’t

3. Ask: Are we serving the most vulnerable? Every service can serve those who need it the most.

4. Don’t leave people behind: Make sure that even when you adapt your service to work in tough times that it doesn’t make it harder for people in vulnerable or marginalized groups to access your services.

5. Map inputs and outputs: Discover that your intangible service is in fact very by looking at all the things that you need to run it

6. Balance People and Planet: Being a dick to nature at the expense of humans or the other way around isn’t the way. Care for both.

7. Don’t just learn the tools, use the tools: Don’t get lost in exploring and finding the latest and best sustainability tools, choose one or two, use them, see if they work and adjust.

8. Find those who have been there already: Look for local communities, interest groups, associations where you can find other people who have already done the work.

9. Build hope by working with others: Don’t work on big changes alone or you’ll lose motivation. Build or join a community to stay motivated on the long term.

10. Make your space more welcoming for small creatures: Make your workspace friendly for things smaller than humans: bees, birds, and other creatures. And remember, kids are also small creatures.

Lucy Stewart is a design researcher for climate adaption, a community organiser and an urban food grower. She helps organizations to collaboratively identify, define, build and test ideas that confront the climate crisis and enable a just transition.

Lucy is also an educator at The School of Good Services where together with Ness Wright she leads the course “Designing Sustainable Services”.

Chapters

• 00:00 Teaser

• 03:24 Who is Lucy?

• 04:52 Personal Identity Beyond Job Titles

• 11:18 Discussing Climate Adaptation

• 21:33 Starting with Sustainable Practices

• 26:16 Community and Hope in Climate Action

• 30:16 Addressing Climate Adaptation in Various Professions

• 32:14 The Role of Community and Resilience

• 32:53 Challenges in Public Services and Climate Justice

• 34:47 Integrating Climate Action in Business Practices

• 39:00 The Importance of Local Initiatives

• 46:35 Resources and Tools for Sustainable Services

• 48:10 Call to Action and Final Thoughts

Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated using Descript without any hand-made corrections. So it might be pretty creative at moments.

Teaser

How can you do first steps towards climate adaptation? That's what we chatted about with Lucy Stewart in an interview for my next book on how to create services that serve both humans and planet.

Lucy is a design researcher for climate adaptation, a community organizer and an urban food grower. She helps organizations to collaboratively identify, define, build, and test ideas that confront the climate crisis, and enable a just transition.

Lucy is also an educator at the School of Good Services where together with Ness Wright, she leads the course Designing Sustainable Services.

From this conversation with Lucy, I stole 10 early Service Design principles that can help you adapt your service to the climate crisis. Here are my five favorite ones.

Number one: be clear. That shit will hit the fan. Accept that every part of life has always changed and will continue to always change. Learn to work with the change.

Number two: don't leave people behind. Make sure that even when you adapt your service to work in tough times, that it doesn't make it harder for people who are in vulnerable or marginalized groups to access your services.

Number three: map inputs and outputs. Discover that your intangible service is in fact very material by looking at all the things that you need to run it.

Number four: Don't just learn the tools, use the tools. Don't get lost in exploring and finding the latest and greatest sustainability tools. Choose one or two. Use them. See if they work and adjust.

And number five: make your workspace and surroundings friendly for things smaller than humans, bees, birds, and other creatures. And remember, kids are also small creatures. Thanks so much to Lucy for this lovely conversation.

hello, Lucy. It's such a pleasure to finally see you.

I think, like we've said, we've been following each other for a while, so it's nice to, we're not quite in person, but it's nice to you and see your face and Yeah, get, get to know you a little bit better. So thank you very much for inviting me.

And it's it's such a pleasure because I'm one of these people in the silent majority of people who follow your work, maybe without, shouting this is great and so on every time. But always there is always some interesting bits that I could steal from you in a very discreet way.

And and I hope that today I can give a bit more like to one of the people that I've stolen from for a bit of time.

at least my un my understanding of, of design and Service Design in the work that we do is that unless somebody's using it, what's the, what's the point? So that's like music to my ears. So yeah, and hopefully there will be, well, I hope to provide some more nuggets that others can steal speaking with no level of expertise, but just with exploration.

So it's always really lovely to be given these opportunities to chat about our work and what we're trying to do with it. 'cause sometimes it can feel abstract and so this is a very refreshing conversation.

Absolutely.

Who is Lucy?

And that brings me to, to this first question, which is, when you go to a birthday party, and you have to. Explain to strangers that don't know anything about your field what you are doing in life, what keeps you busy how do you present yourself in a birthday party?

I think, isn't it? Because I, I think what I was trying and do immediately and what, what I found is worked is, you know, when I say I'm a designer and people are like, oh, you know, what type of type of design is that? And I'm, you know, and I futz around a little bit and I'm like, oh, it's, but I say immediately like, how did you get here? Like, how did you get to this birthday party? And they would say, you know, maybe a bus or a train or a drove. And I say, you know, all of that is designed, whether that be where you hang your keys in order to pick it up, to get in the car or, it's conscious decisions around how all of that is orchestrated, how easy it is for you to pay your tap and go card and. I find at a party. I don't say what I do, but I try and introduce and get to know people through, I guess, kind of understanding, their lives within service context. And so I, I think my introductions are, they're, they're pretty putsy and they're pretty long-winded and sometimes eyes really light up and sometimes I totally glaze over.

But I think I try and not introduce myself by way of my work.

Personal Identity Beyond Job Titles

You know, I talk, I talk about myself as, as I would like to be understood beyond what I do for a living, which is, you know, somebody who. swimming and gardening and you know what, this is the last book I read. And, but by way of communicating that natural question that always comes up, which is what do you do? I try and put it back to the people and, and then I find as soon as people kind of can orientate themselves, like, okay, transport is a service, then I can go into what I actually do, which is work across all different digital, non-digital people have to navigate the world. But increasingly, I'm interested in climate change will do for how we have to adapt, how we navigate the world. And that includes how we do it individually and how we do it within the services that we have built around us in order to survive, rightly or wrongly. Right? So. It's hard to introduce myself at a party because I am multitudes I want to get that across to people. And our work is sometimes not, it's not, it'd be I've, my poor parents have said to my mom, just lie to people.

Tell them I'm a lawyer. Like, it's too, we all have stories related to related how we navigate the world, and if I can help people see that, then talking about the fact that currently I'm designing a service to help people understand and information about air quality to protect their health, it's something that they can kind of get around.

So my introductions at parties are a bit I'm not, you know, it takes a couple rounds for me to make friends, but then yeah, then it's a good party. So yeah.

Yeah. Lovely. I really appreciate this aspect, of showing to or acting in the way that we say. The job title doesn't define the person. It's it's one part of the day and for many people there is many more hours in the day. And I've been, and in that same situation where often people ask me what do I do?

And these days, the answer that I give is always, so mostly I'm a dad and because that's the thing that takes most of my hours. But maybe you wanted to ask, what do I do where I'm paid? And for the paid thing, that's the thing that I do to get paid to then have time with my son. And so that's like a strange thing then, especially these days where people are like freaking out oh, you're a man and you're taking care of your son.

That's weird. At least in, in conservative sometimes in conservative aspect. But I like this kind of positive provocation of not saying. Hello. I'm job title, but hello these are passions that are around me. That's like quite a beautiful way.

my, association with people in our world is that, you know, it's not a clear boundary between work and life either. And it's very, it's a, struggled with working in this area personally because it feels sometimes not very tangible and, you know, layered underneath systems that unless they're in them, they're hard to see.

So yeah, I, you know, I've, I've, I fell into this work by accident, and it's been a very interesting, windy path. And I think there's an element sometimes of being a little. Self-conscious isn't the right word, but like, you know, you want, you want, I think we all came into this profession wanting to do good in the world, right?

And feeling like through our practice we could support people in systems that they, they are required to do so because they have a disability or they're simply trying to get healthcare for their child. And sometimes, yeah, it's just so hard when you're in it to feel like you are doing that.

And I think for me it's this tiptoeing around this. 'cause once people get what you do, it's like, oh cool. And I'm like, yeah, it's cool. I'm really lucky I get to poke my nose in things that I never would've been able to do in another profession. you know, I get to be indulgent about, do I work in-house?

Do I freelance, do I work in a design studio? So it's know, I, I'm probably speaking a bit more candidly with you now 'cause I'm going through a period of being like. What am I doing and where am I? but I think that constant questioning is a part of what we do, but of course, that makes it quite difficult to then just succinctly introduce yourself when all of those lines are so blurred.

So, but yeah, I think if we, if we introduce our whole selves, then the, the, the work quickly makes sense in terms of that. Yeah.

Absolutely. And so what is that last book that you read that.

called not at all to do with Service Design or anything, but it's a piece of fiction by Barbara King Silver, who's an American author, very well known, has, and she wrote a beautiful book called Damon Copperhead, was her modern version of, the Charles Dickens book about children in poverty. And this was a book about a beautiful character who grew up very rough in Appalachia, so a very forest stretch of America. I'm was born and raised in America. This obviously has, and I think it was very good to read in the context of politics in America at the moment. And it was a, just a beautiful narrative around experience of this young boy, his his relationships and how he navigates growing up in poverty and dealing with drug addiction, which is, you know, really powerful in this part of America.

Like it's devastated communities. And, so I finished that book weeks ago and you know, it, I guess in some ways it is relevant to because it's about systems that fail people. But I loved it. It was took me a while to get into it, but once I did, I was like very attached to this character and I know it's a good book when I feel that way. So recommend.

Ah, that's lovely. So people are, have already an element to add in their wishlist for reading. That's that that's already one. That's very good. That's very good.

What is Climate Adaptation?

And, I'm curious with often from how, at least I perceive you, you have this expertise in this notion of climate adaptation.

Like how do we adapt to the new reality, to the new systems, to the to, to what is happening at the moment and how would you describe what that is? Because it sounds like one of those complex words. What is this climate adaptation thing and how is that also relevant to people? Who say, I am the owner of a little shop or I am a dentist, or I'm just someone, doing some coaching or therapy.

How does that big idea relate to, to that reality?

is that somebody who works very high up in climate worlds goes to all of the crops, which are the big global summits around climate change. And he said to me, Lucy, climate adaptation, as I talk about it, is everywhere. If maybe somebody grew up by a pond in, I don't know, Scotland say, and or Switzerland's, and. All of a sudden, you know, they, they have vivid childhood memories of, skating on this pondering winter. And but as they're growing older and they go back maybe to see their parents or something, the pond isn't freezing over in a way that they can experience it. Like they have memories of experiencing it. I read this paper about, really about narrative change around climate and the stories that we tell to get people to realize that the environment in which we are working, whether you be a dentist or a shop owner or a therapist, is And whether it's changing because of something you believe in, which is climate change or for other reasons, change is inevitable.

And this has been a really big theme in my work, is that change has always happen and we'll continue to do. So we navigate that is is the question. And so when I

Thanks.

climate change in the context of services or owning and operating a building, it's about acknowledging that whether it be a freak storm or less frost or heavy rainfall, that how we operate is going to be stressed more. already stressed more than it was 10 years ago, and it's going to be further stressed another 10 years from now. And I think unless we start thinking about that, whether we're designing a digital service or, or thinking about how our get from where they are to my dentist seat, then we, we, without starting to think about that, I think we risk business continuity. You maybe can't open your shop for a week. Like that's pretty devastating for a small shop owner, you know? Maybe you have a drop in patients because the road to your dentistry practice floods frequently and people can't get to you. maybe you have an increase of patients coming in as a therapist that are, have climate anxiety because we know this is happening, right?

And all of a sudden you're confronted in helping somebody navigate something that is totally unpredictable, over the long term and intangible. And that's why describing climate climate adaptation is difficult because it's so much about now. But what I also like about it is that it trains me, starts to think about the future. And I think so much of my early practice and Service Design was like delivered to this three month brief. Like that actually climate makes, forces me to think over the next. year, two, year, five, year 10. And so I think for when I talk about adaptation, I wish there was a better way to describe it, but it, it really, I think it's more, less on the climate and more on the adaptation, is like, we all need to find more ways to live.

'cause even if our consumption pattern weren't contributing to a warming world, they would be using resources. And those resources are finite. So whichever way you start to square the narrative is that like we have to kind of change the way that we do things. And I think change is scary for people. And I think a lot of the stuff that I am trying to, I, you know, I'm not, I'm not trained in a, again, climate adaptation is a huge academic discipline.

It's about. Modeling and finance and risk is a big one. And, you know, a lot of people spend lots and lots of times, but, and I, I, I, I don't have a degree in adaptation. I don't, it's something I've morphed into through the different work pieces of work that I've done. But the way I think about it is that any service or any business operation, first and foremost runs on stuff like what we call the inputs and creates stuff as a result of operating outputs. So adaptation, I think, is both about recognizing your role in change and what you're consuming and why, and what that means for a user's experience, but then also recognizing impacts of this change are already affecting your ability to deliver what you do. And that helps me think about what perspective I'm gonna come to a problem with. But really it's about, you know, I think in scientific circles we talk about mitigation, adaptation, and resilience. So mitigation is like reducing our outputs. Like we gotta get carbon off the table quickly. We also need to think a lot more about our water resources. Adaptation is change is inevitable.

We know that it's baked in. Even if we were to stop using petrol cars flying tomorrow, we are projected for climactic change of 1.5, probably two degrees now. So we have to, we're gonna have to adapt, like storms are gonna get worse. These events that we're seeing more and more on our screens are gonna become more frequent. then resilience is about how we equipped ourselves socially. Financially to deal with that change that we're seeing. And I think Service Design or op business operations, you can slot into those things. You know, there are companies that exist to deliver services that help to reduce carbon emissions or retrofit homes.

This is a big thing at the moment in the uk. But the adaptation and resilience stuff is, I'm seeing way more of that now. And arguably people have been studying this for 20, 30, 40 years. But in terms of services, I, I mean, it depends on where you look in, like the UK's NHS, they're doing some amazing work thinking about like the impact of these operations on hospitals and the ability to run.

And, but yeah, I think it, it, it is relevant to, to all of us and whether you're a service owner. government or in a charity or running a small business. I think it's a worthwhile practice. And I say practice because it's hard to think long term and it's hard to think in the abstract around weather. And it's also hard if you're just struggling to put food on the table for your family. Right. And this is where I think services design becomes interesting because of the co benefits. know, if you are more sustainable, sometimes there is a financial benefit, your costs are reduced or, I'm trying to explore these co benefits in my work as well, but it's all quite hard, especially like in places where I'm working at the moment because it's not necessarily what people are asking for. And yeah, there's a little bit of me that worries that we're, we're still a little bit, we need to meet our financial targets this year focused. While missing all of the stuff that's happening kind of in the background, that will mean those targets will become kind of redundant in the future. So that was a bit of a long-winded answer, but hopefully ties to those audiences that you introduced.

Like I really think goes back to my original point is that adaptation is everywhere and we all need to be doing it. and I can refine that too. We all need to become better versed in navigating change, and I think that has a very strong service and

Absolutely.

perspective to it.

It reminds me how in, in some countries, people, when they explain what Service Design is, they use the word risk management where they say basically it's about reducing the risk that if things go to shit that we still can. Do the important things that we want to do. And and from what I hear of what you're saying, things will go to shit.

That's, we are all clear on that. If you believe in it or in climate change or not, we all see that there will be issues. That's and there will be more. And I think it's quite an interesting way to, to, i, I like how you frame adaptation and not just as climate adaptation, but adaptation in general.

Saying if we build that muscle of thinking about the future of what could go to shit, then suddenly we are better at making the service also today it, things can go to shit just for people, but things can go to shit also just basically in the weather and so on. So that's quite a beautiful way.

And I'm curious how. So if someone says, oh, this adaptation thing, that's that's quite powerful. I need to build that muscle, that practice, as you said.

But where do I start?

Starting with Sustainable Practices

I think it's a question that I get a lot and I, so that's why we develop this sustainable Service Design training through the School of Good Services. And I, there are, I guess there's a couple train trains of thought. One is like, do I start? Okay, so you can start measuring things, right? You can in the wind like, okay, I run this business run this. need this and to see the benefit of running this business, to take this out of it. and I think when you start seeing a services more material than we're maybe accustomed to thinking about it. Again, it goes back to kind of those inputs and outputs and, and one train of thought of where to start is identify where in that process of mapping those inputs and outputs, you can measure something.

Because if you can measure something, you can understand it and you can work to reduce it. And when I said measure something, that could be the carbon emissions of whatever you need to use to get stuff to your shop. that be you fly it from elsewhere or you source it locally and it's delivered by bike and then, or it could be energy usage.

Right. And I think I really see the benefit in measurement because it gives you a baseline from which you can see, okay, well if I change that, oh, funnily enough, like my bills have gone down and I'm reducing a less, a less electricity. Like that's interesting. But measurement can be really hard and really abstract, and that's not necessarily always where I suggest people to start.

I think it, where I suggest people to start is that further upstream of what I mentioned of like, well, have you thought about your business as a, or your service as a, as, as a, as materials, like as something that you can grasp or and I think, you know, there's, there's, there's books to be read and there's, but I, I think one for me around to start is I think it becomes a little bit more personal. And this is where the individual in the service, in the system, that whole is, you know, what, what? If you wanna start thinking about adaptation, it's like, well, what is important to you? What do you care about? What do you want to see and I think it's gotta come from some emotional place because it's too hard to pursue otherwise, like it's very hard to convince senior stakeholders to invest in this or it's still, there's a lot of ESG, you know, environmental sustainability reporting and that.

But it bogged down, I think, in a lot of bureaucracy. It's very hard to do. It can be quite expensive. But, know, we, we talk a little bit about how to maintain personal resilience in the training at the, at the end. And I also think that's probably where you need to start is like, think making climate change relevant to your operation.

So understanding what it, what it is. And where it's come from, you know, extraction, colonization, like and then thinking, using that knowledge to empower yourself to think about, well, what, what is important to you and what is worth making changes for? So I, I, there's an element of humanizing the measurement and the science, and I think when people grasp what is at stake. Then applying that and starting that in your work becomes a little bit easier. of course then there are so many tools now to help with carbon measurement and there are lots of courses out there for people to kind of educate themselves around what this means to I wouldn't be surprised if every business is probably having to do some form of, if they're, if they're for a bid or some sort of climate.

You know, we're starting to see legal requirements, I think catch up with business operations. And all of that is an exercise of bringing something that is quite abstract to, and I think it would be in any service owners or business manager's best interest to see these patterns emerging and understand what it, what it means to you.

And I would reach out to people. I think where I normally start is like reaching out to people and saying like, I run this and I don't know. I don't, you know, I don't really know where to start with it. If I'm trying to do, if I'm trying to reduce my carbon emissions, there are business groups focused on this now.

Like it's not a case of people facing this alone anymore.

Community and Hope in Climate Action

And I, that would probably be long story, that was a long thread that would probably where it start is like, find your community that is also trying to figure out where to start because they exist everywhere in every sector. I think anyone would quickly find, you know, there's probably a small businesses for climate group in their region or, and then all of a sudden you're not alone and it doesn't feel so so that would be my, I found it.

That would be my where to start. And then I think it's just a case of figuring out what, what that means for your context and your financial position and the skills and capabilities you have to navigate that, you know.

I like this approach where you say there is already someone who has gone through the past. Just find them and ask them. What did you do in my context, which is specific in my country, my legal system and oh, these are the people to talk to. These are the resources that can help in that language that I can understand. unfortunately, I think we and that makes sound that.

If only it is that easy. I think unfortunately it is very context specific. Your laws in Switzerland are different from mine in England, which are different from mine in Scotland. Our goals around our targets around reduction are different.

So, but yeah, I think we have to take comfort in community at this juncture because, or else it just feels way too hard. And it's scary, you know, like it's not, you don't pick up a paper and, and read it around climate change and, and put it down feeling optimistic or like, so I, it goes back to what we were discussing before and there's a slide in my training, which is like, unfortunately we have to talk about risk at the moment because it's a way to wake people up.

It's like, boom, here's the bottom line. If you don't do this, but hope is what has to sustain us. Like we cannot address this on risk alone. We have to imagine that a world that we could create in addressing it now is gonna be more just and fair and we're not gonna leave people behind. Like this is a growing interest at the intersection of accessibility within Service Design and climate adaptation. What we don't wanna perpetuate is, you know, the rich being able to adapt at the expense of. disabled people who won't be able to escape if the building floods. And I'm really interested, I haven't managed to sink my teeth into that type of work yet, but I, think that's, you know, very interesting. Yeah, I think, I don't know where I was going with that thought, but it, it kind oh, the risk and the hope stuff.

And the hope also, you can sustain that a lot longer if you do it in community rather than on your own. and I think in any government department, well now in government, in central government, in the uk you know, there's a whole sustainability community. There's people working in digital services that are like, oh God, you know, this is my job and I like, wanna feel like I'm doing something within my job that helps this, it, it might be little, but there's communities there.

And then in local government they'll be different. So they are there, and if they're not there, then you can start one.

Absolutely there, there's this very beautiful thing that you said of adaptation shouldn't leave people behind. I think there is something quite strong for our generation, which has lived COVID and has seen how adaptation was quite fast for the digitally savvy, et cetera. It was very easy. And then you suddenly looked at other groups of people and you said, oh shit.

For them, it's like they completely lost relationships. They completely lost contact and so on. And and I'm wondering when it comes to. Making, thinking about adaptations that don't leave people behind.

Addressing Climate Adaptation in Various Professions

What are ways of thinking tips that you have to make sure that we don't leave people behind?

Because we might say, I'm a dentist. I think about the heat waves. Okay, we could do these and these things in our service that makes it possible to continue our service. But how can this dentist or this coach or whatever think about but if I adapt in that way, maybe I'm gonna leave these people behind.

shift. I mean, I, I, I think in any of those professions, regardless of climate change, people, I, I would hope that people would want to serve people that need it. If, if somebody can't afford to get their tooth fixed, like, I would like to imagine that most dentists would try and find ways to, think this is really important where we don't separate climate isn't. not, it doesn't need to be separate. And I think actually it goes back to the principles of co-design, participatory design, who is designing these adaptation pathways for us. Like, it cannot be me in a little design studio being commissioned for three months. Like, I think this demands a different way of how we involve people in decision making, whether you're running a dentistry or not.

You know, I, I think a dentist, a dentist practice could ask the question now of like, are we serving our most vulnerable, regardless of whether they're experiencing clinic I think that's a really important question that to interrogate, you know, digital design. In the UK we're pretty good at accessibility, of course.

And what I mean is people that need to navigate digital technology with you know with, assistive technologies or they're blind or and there's a lot of chat around this and like community organizing around having to print posters or whatever in multiple languages because that, that is who your community is. And this goes back to the point about resilience.

The Role of Community and Resilience

And I think this is kind of why I'm starting to land on resilience as an interesting space because it builds on community in the way that services, if they're like a, dentistry is part of a neighborhood, it's part of a wider community. And I think what this demands is like, well what, what is that role of this dentist?

And there's loads of interesting articles about emergency response and the big saviors are not coming for you. It's your neighbor. Like, so we need to get, it's, it's back to first principles. And this is I think why it feels quite hard in an environment of.

Challenges in Public Services and Climate Justice

Budget stripping, and I don't know if this is the case where you are, but there's very little money in the UK at the moment to run public services. They threaten to cut the personal independence payment, which is a quite a big disability payment of afforded to people who into work. And this, to me is like a climate, this is a climate justice issue. I think where a lot of climate stuff has failed isn't just being like and the bees, which don't get me wrong, is really important and needs a voice in the room as much as but it also comes at the, at the, at the expense of people.

And so going back to the dentist, I, I, don't think dentists are being asked, well, what's your role in the community? They'll be like. We're just here to fix teeth. But actually they're probably a bit of a community hub. You know, they have a, A means they have a distribution list. They have a means of what, they have a physical building where people could come and organize, you know, so they actually have a lot of strength potentially, if hits the fan, there's a huge climactic event, but none of us are prepared to see our dentist as that. And so I like, I think where the interesting work is going on in adaptation and resilience is in that community, neighborhood based work that climate adaptation, not as a replacement, but extension of the work that they already do. Unfortunately, I don't think this is what's funded, certainly not here in the uk and I think that's where we need to inject. know, there's huge, rifts between the left and the right here. You know, pro-immigration, like all of these wider societal issues are creating really big crevices I think in our ability to be able to be resilient.

## Integrating Climate Action in Business Practices

And part of me is like, maybe I just need to drop this whole climate thing in my, the way that I present myself and actually just go back and do youth work or like, you know, start at those principles, right?

And stop working on about services and 'cause it, again, I can only speak from a UK context, like services are being really stripped back here and I think we have to ask what public services I should say, you know? And that's not to say that private services are or any of that. I think it's just recognizing questions around access and around whether we are actually addressing user needs.

So. Yeah. You know, I think there's a lot of climate advocates that I follow that you know, are, and it's something that I'm thinking about increasingly. I don't wanna go to more climate events if it there isn't a justice angle. Because oftentimes, if I'm being very honest, is people like me, pretty white, middle class loves to garden, you know, and the room is full of people like me, eco Warriors.

I can afford my refill shop. Like, you know, I can, I can afford to choose not to have a car, really. But we're not gonna, we're not gonna win any of this, this. Huge parts of my community here in East Sussex are angry at immigrants because they think they're taking their houses. You know, like it's the narrative dissonance is, and I think we have to, I think we have to, there's a responsibility for those services to think about climate, but then I think there's a responsibility for people who think about climate to also back.

And I think it's a big reorganization, but it's really, and I think that's why the climate work is so hard in this era of austerity, you know, services in the uk. And I speak a lot about public services 'cause it's primarily where I work. and I think it's quite a big foundation of Service Design. And so it's very hard to come from a place of building community resilience when it's so broken. Anyway. But it goes back to our original question is that it's inevitable. So, what are we gonna do about it? So it's it's I'd like to empower everybody to feel like they have a responsibility for addressing climate adaptation. And I think, you know, I actually think a lot of people know the ground, the nurses that are having to show up, like the NHS has clauses now. If you cannot come to work because there's a flood or a climactic event, this is what, so there are already, you know, policies in place that help people navigate this.

But yeah, I'd love more, I'd love more money to flow into make connecting these dots. But it's not what's funded at the moment. What's still funded is digital transformations and, but I think, you know, climate activists and climate people and those of us, we have a lot to learn from disability activism and. You know, a lot to learn from people who have always lived on the margins. And I think that goes back to making sure that when we are designing any sort of intervention, we, we just make sure, like really adamantly, I know there's a lot of talk about co-design and participation, but really dig our heels into that.

'Cause I think that's all related.

Yeah, it's it's beautiful how, this idea of saying if we serve. One side, same planet. Let's not forget the other side. The human, if we, for, if we serve the human, let's not forget the other side that says you. Yeah, you said that in a quite poetic way with the it's nice to tend to the bees and the birds, but if there's someone on the floor who has an issue, has a broken leg or something,

Yeah,

we can attend to that person too.

So I really appreciate that the,

about the bees and the birds too, and without them like, forget everything,

yeah.

they really underpin that, yeah, that disconnect feels feels very very high.

The Importance of Local Initiatives

But, you know, going back to a dentist practice, they probably exist that their building in which they operate exists in a spot where maybe they could put a couple flowering plants up front, you know?

And I think this is doing what we can with what we have. that doesn't mean you need a agro diverse food forest in your back garden. If you're a dentist, it means like you can collect water. You can put water butts on your property and use that to feed the plants that you grow, that help pollinators at your entrance.

Like and there's a big movement in the UK at the moment, what, what people are calling like, more than human narratives involved in policy making. And I don't know whether you have this same trend in but it's very, very big to like, you know, in a decision making space, bring a representative from the local river into the, and it, I don't know the impact of what those initiatives have been.

But it's interesting to see a lot of resource going into that at the moment around PhDs. And someone for you maybe just to check out is the work that Phoebe Tickle is doing with Moral Imaginations. 'Cause she would argue that, you know, the reason why policy and decision making is so stuck is because we. We fail to imagine otherwise. And I think this imagination work is, it's not the work that I do, but I think it's very important. so I think, yeah, that the, the challenge is ours to incorporate the justice part with the birds and the bees. Like that's a lot to weigh our options for, but I think we have to, we just have to figure out how to do it.

'cause if we neglect one, we, we will neglect the other and then, yeah. What we can afford to do is just everybody who can afford it retracting into the background where these are dying and somebody else, you know? So, and that's why I think it is really important for all of us, especially if we work on our computers a lot and in our little cool studios in the setting out, we have got to get out and like some holes and touch some soil and do community water testing and build an affiliation to your. Natives. It doesn't need to demand that much, but I think we do need to, especially in the West, we need to, we curate our relationships to nature. I just sometimes wonder how much we have to do that individually in our own lives and how much that, comes into our work with these explicit like tools that we're designing. So yeah.

So if. You had a business owner in front of you who says, oh, that sounds interesting. This this idea of bringing the, let's go back to nature moments into my work, because I imagine, it, instead of doing a one of those team building events, that is a nonsensical, we could do something else which is both pur, purpose driven and at the same time, makes people go back from the screen.

What are initiatives where you say, oh, these are things that business owners could more easily say to their staff, Hey, this is part of work now that we, each week, each month we could set some time for such actions. What would your wishlist of actions be one will share with them?

of that is predicated on probably defining new business models where we give staff time to, to do this with intention. And I think I, I mean the intention part really earnestly. 'cause I think it's very easy to be like, oh yeah, we went on a team day and we, you know, helped a local, the group and then you never see them again. Like, what is that actually? And that's probably more of something that I would encourage is. You know, adopt a site or figure out a relationship locally and hold that over the longer term, because I think that both helps stretch our capacity for longer term relationship building and also keeps the benefits of what we're trying to do, where we operate and where we work, which is where I think the change needs to come from.

Governments are not, like, that's not gonna be the way that we, and so I think when I, if I'm faced with that business owner, you know, I would, would probably have conversations about the, like where they operate and do they operate in different places and who, who their staff are and, and what skills do they want to gain And, oh, there's that in sheds group over there that can teach your employees how to build that stuff that they said they, and I'm interested increasingly in like local economies and you know how services like so much wealth gets extracted because. Of the way that we commission and procure things. And this has been my kind of like thread of, you know, how we don't incorporate sustainability into new contracts very well. And therefore, and, and, and I think where I'm going with this is that if I were to, would first encourage any business to adapt to the place that they operate to be more, know, can you put a pond in to help wildlife?

Or can you invite people to your space that maybe wouldn't have access to it? And and, and then yeah, what, or, and out with that, like what is needed in your immediate local community. Like interesting. In that field over there, they're, they're wanting to fundraise to build a community orchard. So I, I think a lot, sometimes I feel like a lot of, especially from maybe a business perspective, depending on the size, there's a lot of looking outwards, right?

Like, and all of these initiatives are necessary fundraising to save coral in Australia. Like, you know, Amazon, like, please don't, don't get me wrong there. Like, we need to invest in that stuff. But I think especially in a country like the uk, I think we're the lowest ranking in terms of green space and tree cover in Europe. like, I think we've gotta do, and I think that's a double-edged sword of actually doing stuff locally, whether it be planting a tree, but make sure it's the right tree in the right place. Or adapting our spaces of operation to be more, to capture more water or and then using that to build stronger ties with our neighbors and our, so you're adapting and your building resilience all the while giving your stuff. A little bit more time to, I mean, that would be the dream. I know there's a lot of chat about day weeks, universal income, and I get it. Like, I think that, I think that is a huge systems lever if we could get that moving to help with some of this stuff. but, you know, I know most businesses who try to build governance structures that afford their staff to do this, it's not easy. So we need more examples of that and, and that working financially for a business. But man, it's hard to run a business at the moment. Certainly a small one. Which is why they're getting bigger and more and more dissociated with place. And I think that's our, that's our challenge. So again, depends on the business, depends on the, but yeah, I think if we can think about where we're. It goes back to where we're getting our inputs from, what we're doing with them while we're there, which affects what we spew at the other end. there's a narrative thread in all of this somehow.

Thanks so much. If you had to give, let's say it like that.

Resources and Tools for Sustainable Services

We've covered already a few a few things. And and I will do an I not shameless plug which is, there is a very good course that you are part of around the more sustainable services. It's from the School of Good Prince, how

of

Good Services is, how is the name again?

and Sarah Drummonds on. Yes. So Lou wrote the Good Services book Good Service Design. I remember what it's called. That's not a good plug, is it? SIS or yeah. Designing Good Services is the name of their book. And yeah, they developed this training screen of which they kindly asked me and a very dear friend of mine, a very, very, deeply knowledgeable person around adaptation and resilience ness, Wright who lives up in Glasgow.

Like, I wanna give out a shout out to Ness because she was pretty instrumental in helping design this course. Yeah, so Ness and I worked with Sarah at Sno. It's where I started my whole like, services climate stuff. And, and yeah, we run the designing sustainable services one day training through the school. Mm-hmm.

And so there are these resources which I'm sure many people will want to follow. And there is also a lot of good writing from back in the days when SN was not what it is today was a bit of a different company from what I could see. But there's still a lot of good medium articles that you guys wrote around that's, that I found particularly useful.

So that's also a very good resource.

Call to Action and Final Thoughts

But outside of those resources, is there something else that you say that would, you would like to put as a reminder, as a bit of a call to action for people who are either working in the service industry or who are service designers where you say. When you think about climate justice, climate adaptation, climate, everything think about that.

This is a last input that I'd like to give you guys.

hmm. I mean, two things pop into my head immediately. I don't know how they pertain particularly to services, but the first one is the, and it's UK specific, so maybe it's not the best example, but Cambo is the latest advocacy to stop an oil field being developed in the north of England. think just being aware of that is very useful because they very well articulate the narrative around, you know, what what extraction of oil means and why it's so detrimental. I think from a service perspective. So there's a couple things that I will point out that I am playing with at the moment, which is in, again, in the uk DEFRA has created greener service principles, which are their principles for greening Service Design. Maybe more candidly, probably not to, articulate in the book. I'm a little critical of them. Like I don't think they're the best principles, but they are there and they are guiding some decision making for how to bring in sustainability into government Service Design So needed. I'm not gonna fault it.

So that's that's another resource. I think, the design council in the UK is doing a lot of work around skills for planet where they are trying to identify where in design as a very big discipline are the levers for change to incorporate sustainability and planetary health into what we do.

They've got a new book, I think it's called Skills for Planet. It's like a PDF. It's very long. Some of this stuff I'm like, oh, we're really not helping ourselves here. But there are, there are a lot of resources out there. Obviously our training and my advice would be to pick up a tool and try and apply it in context. And very quickly you will be humbled because I've tried to apply some of the tools that we develop and offer those that come to our training in the context I'm working now and seems really hard to just fill out an input output map of a service. But you know, just getting the right people in the room can take months.

And I think that's what's really humbled me. I think we are very guilty, especially in Service Design of creating lots of tools. And frameworks and we are, I think we're drowning in them a little bit, but what we're not doing is saying we tried it and it didn't really work. And that's no criticism of the tool.

And I think this is what we're a little scared of. It's like tool doesn't work and mine legit but I, yeah, I would look for the case studies of being applied in principle. And for me, that's also meant going, stretching my ideas of beyond Service Design. So some of my best work lately was work that I did working in a big environment company. That was around using the tools of Service Design to think about community-based flooding infrastructure or develop new stewardship schemes for water management. And I would encourage service designers if they're working in healthcare, to look out with just the Service Design discipline the way other industries are trying to adjust to this change, I think can be really insightful.

So you can look at like the suds plus work that I worked on at when I was at a and, so yeah, I, you know, that's just me rattling off what comes to my head immediately. We, if, if I think of something, something else, I will definitely let you know, but I'm interested in seeking out the kind of attempts to try it. And yeah, and more ways to, to share our learnings. So I hope that's helpful. I'm not great at these call questions.

Absolutely no worries. Yeah and that's, it's to me it feels like you giving pointers to people and. Obviously everyone will have then to look for them, what makes sense in their context and so on. So that's obviously very different in every context, every language the resources are not the same, but it always helps to have a few pointers because then you can

for

then

And I'd

around and find what's useful.

I'm feeling very trapped in a UK mindset at the moment, and I know other countries are looking at this differently or, and I, yeah, I, you know, other countries are much further ahead in thinking about this than we are in the uk. So I think there's a lot I would look to gain from learning from other countries and their constraints and their so yeah, it'd be great to see how your resource list evolve.

Absolutely. And you gave a lot in this short conversation that we have. I think many people will come out of it with, oh wow, this person really helped me a lot. Like Lucy is really a gem. She shared so many things that I can use that can help me think differently. What can people do for you?

If they arrived at this moment in the conversation and they say, oh, I'd like to give back in some way or form to Lucy because she's been so nice with me, what can they what can listeners do for you?

looking for more work. I'm freelancing at the moment. My existing contract is open. And it'd be great, you know, I think the way to spend, I'd love to meet new people and have chats like this a little bit more openly and. Of course if that leads to amazing projects, working with great people, great.

But I think where I'm taking a lot of comfort at the moment and where the benefit of freelancing is, is these opportunities to meet new people and challenge, challenge that. So, you know, if you've asked me what people can do for me, I guess it's to get in touch. Like I'd love to. I, I, this is a learning journey.

I, it's a very, we're, I feel so lucky that my job is also, it's, it, it feeds me because it keeps me learning. And a way to learn from that is also to speak with others. And I guess that invitation is extended far beyond people who maybe do Service Design or I guess anyone who's ma found this conversation, know, like, I'd love to understand what it means in people's context.

So, yeah, I guess what people could do for me is just like, reach out and say hello, because honestly, everything that you've said in terms of. Following my work, and especially when you're freelancing, it can feel quite lonely. You know, I talk about all this like building community and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, but it feels harder to do that in the current working structure that I am.

So if anything comes from this where I a couple new people and then that would, that would be amazing.

It's been really a pleasure to finally get to hear the voice behind the good words. So a big thank you to you for taking the time.

I yeah, no, Thank you so much for

the opportunity. It's been a really lovely way to start the day I can't thank you enough, it's a real pleasure to be here.

thanks you and enjoy the rest of your summer.

Thank you very much. you too. I will, I will see

These are resources and people that were mentioned during the interview that can help you go further.

Courses and tools

• Course Designing Sustainable Services by Ness Wright and Lucy Stewart

• Greener Services Principles by DEFRA (UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs)

• Skills for Planet by Design Council

• Moral Imaginations founded by Phoebe Tickell

People to follow

• Phoebe Tickell: Founder of Moral Imaginations

• Ness Wright: Senior Climate Resilience Manager at Verture

• Sarah Drummond: Director at School of Good Services

• Lou Downe: Founder and Director at The School of Good Services

In this conversation, we uncovered 4 early drafts of Service Design Principles at three different scales

1. Personal: scale: Stop and accept that it’s a crisis

2. Organisation scale: Build the motivation for change

3. Industry scale: Use a certification like B Corps to guide you

4. And finally to link this all together don’t forget to be part of a community as it will help you move beyond the crisis, rebuild your motivation and learn from others who made progress before you.

Igor Jimenez is a Service Designer, Digital strategist, Systemic thinker with focus on regenerative projects.

Igor founded CoDeck, an innovation for regeneration consultancy in Mexico, which helps businesses use innovation skills to create life-centered projects.

Igor is also a community lover, who leads the local Interaction Design Foundation in Mexico.

This transcript was automatically generated using Descript without any hand-made corrections. So it might be pretty creative at moments.

Daniele: Making services sustainable is not that simple. But that's okay. That's what we chatted about with Igor Jimenez in an interview for my next book on how to create services that are lovely for humans and the planet that hosts them.

Igor is a service designer, digital strategist, system thinker with a focus on regenerative projects.

Igor founded CoDeck and innovation for a regeneration consultancy in Mexico, which helps businesses use innovation skills to create Life Centered Projects.

Igor is also a community lover who leads the local Interaction Design Foundation in Mexico.

With Igor, we uncovered four early Service Design Principles at three different scales.

At the personal scale, stop and accept that it's a crisis.

At the organizational scale, build the motivation for change.

At the industry scale, use a certification like B Corp to guide you.

To link all this together, be part of the community, as it will help you move beyond the crisis, rebuild your motivation, and learn from others who made progress before you.

Thanks so much to Igor for this lovely

Wave Link MicrophoneFX: conversation.

## Introduction

Daniele: Hey Igor, I'm so excited to finally meet you. We had a few conversations over LinkedIn about sustainability and service design. And as the conversation went longer over LinkedIn, we were like, Oh, we should go deeper in those subjects.

And that's why we are here today. And I'm so grateful and thankful that you accepted that we continue the conversation today. Yeah, it's my

Igor: pleasure, Daniele. Thank you very much. Of course, it's a, it's my subject, my preferred subject, so I'm so happy to share with you and to recognize your effort to, to spread the word about service design, which I think it's pretty, pretty necessary for all of us.

Daniele: Thanks so much. And I really recognize that we try to do the same things here.

## About the series

Daniele: And for people who maybe don't know the series, the idea here is to explore ideas about how can we make services nicer for the humans that use them and the planet that hosts these services. So that's basically what we are exploring in this conversation.

But before we go into the nerdy stuff. I have a tiny question for you.

## Who is Igor

Daniele: If you have to, or when you have to present yourself in a birthday party, how do you present yourself?

Igor: It is a question that I am waiting all the time and trying to avoid, but finally after some years of do different punchlines, it's, I prefer to say that I do Innovation for Sustainability, which is like a one short sentence that I I hope everybody understands.

Of course, after that, people always ask, what kind of innovation? So then I start to put all the concepts about, uh, yeah, about human centered design, about service design and sustainability, so that is my my, my way of. of sale is uncomfortable question. ,

Daniele: that's a very good punchline.

I like how you use the word innovation, which has like a a positive connotation for many people who are not in the field. It's oh, but everybody would like to innovate, that sounds nice. And and sustainability. Oh, that's that. Who wouldn't like to do that?

So you are, you're framing it in, in, in a very positive and and welcoming way. If I was one of those guys in the birthday party who says, that was lovely, but what do you do every day? How do you make this

Igor: happen? I have to say that we always try to understand users, understand people and users.

And in our case, we try to understand socio ecological context. This is where the solutions are developed or deployed. Yeah. Which is material for next questions though, but yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Daniele: And I'm curious because when I saw your kind of because we don't know each other yet that much.

So the only thing that I know about you is our conversations within LinkedIn comments and like your LinkedIn profile, which is very rich, and my question to you is. Where in that journey that you have, where came sustainability as something that really drives your work today?

That's a good question.

Igor: I guess that we all, as human beings, we all have a need of connection with nature and, everybody has that, I'm sure about it.

## From disaster to personal change

Igor: But if you ask me for a critical point where I decide it, it was the earthquake happening here in Mexico City in 2017 I was like in zero, I'm living in the zero zone, you know what I said, so it was really shocking and that was like a first big call where I would like to do it.

But pandemic was like the like the last call, after pandemics, I said for me, there is no sense to work in a different thing, that something that helps to sustainability,

Daniele: yeah. It's crazy how those crazy moments, there's very harsh, difficult moments.

In fact, so that's. As a parenthesis, my wife complains about that because I always, see too much optimism always, and I, and one thing that I see here is that even in those harsh realities, they serve also as a wake up call. And that's very inspiring to see how, in the worst moments of our life, it changes us and makes us move to, Oh, but there's more important things to do than innovate on.

How do you open a yogurt? Maybe you can do something more interesting and important than creating another yogurt opener or whatever

Igor: else. Yeah, definitely. I wrote an article about the earthquake. It's in Spanish, but nowadays you can put it on a translator. Because, yeah, the shock situation brings a lot of positive things.

which is something paradoxic. It's paradox, no? Maybe you don't want to take it like that, but yeah. And I can say that I was a witness of an extreme collaboration as I've never been part of before and after that. It was amazing. Yeah, that moves everything. Yeah.

Daniele: That's and so I'm curious today. So you went, so the earthquake happened the emergency happened COVID happened.

Igor's projects

Daniele: So how do you work today? What are the kind of projects that you do or what are the clients that you help with your innovation for sustainability? Yeah. Yeah.

Igor: That's a good question. We, after pandemics, we make a focus trying to work only with companies that already understand sustainability or have it in their agenda, et cetera, as a mission, vision, whatever they make the statement.

For example we help the whole customer experience. for a water filter brand, which is a compromise. They are a B Corp. I don't know if you're familiar with this certification for everybody, it's a systemic I guess we're going to run to that concept later on, but it has systemic, it is a systemic certification.

So when you see this letter B with a circle. And that means that company has a it's compromised with with nature and society. So we work with, we try to work with companies with this certification, for example, this one, the water filters. We do different things like the UX experience in their e commerce.

We did their cx, their customer experience, unboxing experience adding values of sustainability, adding education and motivating to to spread work because of course here and Switzerland as well. But and maybe all around the planet we have this pet dependence. No we all.

Used to drink water from pet bottles, which is a terrible problem for, especially for the oceans and for our health as well. So we picked this client, for example, or we had a match with this client because that we worked with an organic food company, the oldest one here in Mexico. Creating their digital experience, we create, we, they are programming it right now.

It's a super interesting business case because we are, we create a tool to improve the health of the clients. It passed through a really deep process of user research. Where we find out that finally their clients buy their products because their health, not because the planet, which was a shock for the brand because the brand was claiming on the ecological side.

So we turning to the health users health side. And we created gamification and behavioral change or behavioral nudging techniques to do that, and to bring another example, we work with a foundation that it is the most important investment on water here in Mexico.

For 40 years, they've been the biggest economical investment in water quality here in Mexico. And we are creating all their, trying to find a standard for the different course of water. Because it's a really technical problem, and on the other side, creating a digital experience for that.

More or less, we can say that we found we used to find a client that is already working on sustainability, and we add value of methodologies on the backstage, and overall on the front stage with the digital things, in a way. I hope

Daniele: it's clear. That's awesome. I always have this feeling. So we're also coming from a, an agency background.

The beauty. The beauty of working in a consultancy is that you touch so many different worlds and that you get to learn so fast, from one project, you suddenly are directing the next one, you're directing the next one and the next one. So the iteration bit is working not only within one project, but between multiple projects at the same time.

That must be a very exciting place to also try out new things for sustainability.

Igor: Yeah, for sure. It's super exciting, to be honest. Yeah. Since sustainability is super complex and you cannot be an expert on everything, it's impossible.

Daniele: And that creates a wonderful transition to the conversation I'd love to have with you.

## Challenges in Sustainability Efforts

Daniele: Because this conversation started already on a LinkedIn comment section, where maybe there is This is a situation that I feel and see, which is that there are people who I see going towards questions of sustainability, who are very excited about it. And then once they get into it, you feel that there is a moment where then they get blocked.

They get blocked by. By the complexity of it, they get blocked by all the sheer amount of things that they should know. They get blocked by the fact that maybe the impact is limited in what they can do themselves. And and one thing that I've seen and that I always suggest is, Because this reminds me of my own coaching sessions, with students and companies where, they all also get stuck in this analysis paralysis thing, even if it's not related to sustainability, there is a similar thing happening where suddenly it feels like that's too much. So we're just gonna. Stop or continue researching until that will happen. And one thing that I always suggest is, hey, just start somewhere. Just start maybe somewhere local with something that you have, maybe get there somewhere.

And we started a bit of a conversation with with this question of, or this lovely provocation of maybe it's good to, to get stuck. Maybe it's good that it's. blocking us. And I'd like to hear your take on that. Thank you.

Igor: Of course, for me, it's the answer is like, of course, it's good to get stuck.

Of course, it's good to to stop in a way, a certain moment and ask yourself and ask everybody or ask the organization, are you doing what we are doing that? Otherwise, you are running through the same line, and of course you're going to get the same results all the time. Of course, sustainability is something super complex.

And there is a book from, precisely from Swiss authors and French. They are called Les Catastrophistes. The cata how do you say in English, like the catastrophes. And they made a great compelling of work, and they, their main question is how we can manage the, our behavior and our feelings through this crisis.

No, because finally we have to accept that we are in. It's such a historical moment, certain authors compare it to the beginning of agriculture in terms of the change that we have to do right now. So we're in a moment of change, definitely. And sustainability is, for me right now, it is not even enough. I am pushing more for something that is called generation.

No. So narrative culture, businesses and A, B, C. But these outdoors like the catastrophes they talk about how to navigate the catastrophic because finally it's gonna happen. It's happening. We, everybody, we see flutes dry. Change of Climate Agency. So they said you cannot be, you cannot be like stress, like with eco anxiety, which is something that it's already detect, or like eco anxiety, which is something that overall young people it's like suffering right now, because what would happen?

And, on the other side, I said, you cannot be so cynical to say there's nothing to do and let's keep doing the same thing. So how do you find a middle point on all these, no? And I think that is what we need to be prepared for to have, to take action. Thank you.

To take these questions as a serious thing at a personal level, at a fa familiar level in the, as a companies overall, and of course as a society, nations, and humanity. And what I right now described by going from personal to to, to nations is to describe the different scales. that, that are involved and there are nests as a networks within this complexity of the problem that we're facing right now.

No. So what I'm trying to say in the linking exchange was that it is important to to save these. This energy that young people have saying, I want to change the whole thing, okay, because of course they want to, and everybody, if you are young and you don't want to change everything, you're dead, man, you're not young, you're not being young enough.

So it's a sign of health of the, of young people saying we want to change everything. So going from that point. And maybe they have to learn the complexity of the challenge that they are facing. And there is when Catastrophist comes to the scene to say, okay, there's a lot of information.

Definitely we are in Let's say bad trajectory, the forecasts are not so optimistic, but you cannot get freezed because of that. And you cannot fall in this eco anxiety or analyze the paralysis that you mentioned. And you have to do something, okay? What is something, okay? That depends on you and how much.

You want to, how much time and effort and energy you want to invest on this needed change. I used to call it like we have a needed change as a civilization. I don't know if I answered the question. Yeah, absolutely. It makes a lot

Daniele: of sense. To continue in that direction. We just had, a few months ago, one of the worst floods in Switzerland in the south of Switzerland.

And let's play this scenario. Let's imagine one a cafe owner from that region. There are plenty of cafes there. Wine is, it's a wine region, so people love to drink and have a fun time together. And let's imagine that a cafe owner comes to you and says, we just had that plot and it changes my perspective.

We need to do something. He says, but I'm a cafe owner, what can I do? Either I could be paralyzed and anxious and I don't want that because that doesn't feel right. And I just don't want to continue as before. Because I don't see the sense in that. What would you suggest as a way of thinking, a question to help this person start reflecting to, to get out of these kind of two polar zones of either paralysis or just continuing like usual?

What's there in the middle? What can you suggest to, to our cafe owner of the South of Switzerland? Okay.

Igor: The problem was the flues, you mean like water flues?

Daniele: No, the flood is more the moments that created the, oh shit. We have to do something like you with the with the earthquake.

With the earthquake and and Corona, which was a wake up call.

Igor: For

Daniele: example. Yeah.

Igor: Yeah. For me, for example, all these. This kind of services has a change, a supply change, and it looks like it doesn't matter. I have to go for the cheaper options because I have to increase my role because everybody told you that from, I don't know, 30 years ago.

Everybody talks about cost efficiency and blah, blah, blah. That is the first parting that we have to change. And maybe I would ask to this owner, how do you feel with all this, with all this news that we have about this needed change or whatever you want to call it, how do you feel, how do you feel about your daughter or your sons?

Do you think it's fair enough to be pushing to have more return of investment instead of sacrificing a little bit of that and going for a local supply change, no? There is another, which is a huge change for all these kind of services, which is the use of water, no? Because we are pooing over fresh water and we throw away all that is contained in that, and there's a lot of minerals that are need to crop in the countryside.

Of course, you need treatment for that. It's not something direct, no. But, whoa, that is a super change for restaurants and coffee shops. And that is something where you need to interact with your audience, the coffee audience, in order they to understand and to pledge to this movement where you stop to use clean water, to, to lift away your Disposals, no way to sell, no?

The use of pets, I guess it's another one. Do you want to steal? Putting the pet on these expensive bags that you have in Switzerland that you have to pay a tax to throw away the pet and now the Swiss government doesn't know what to do with all this quantity of pets because I'm sorry to say, but in Switzerland you use a lot of pets.

It's amazing, I'm amazed about it oh my god. And everybody goes to the, since people is paying, it's I'm paying, it's not my problem. Of course it's your problem, even if you are paying. For the coffee shop owner, do you want to be part of, the change of pets or the use of water?

Or the supply chains. There is a lot levels of compromise that you can be involved of, or you can just give some money to local, uh, organic food production, no? Yeah. So that's my way of putting like different stages, no? But I think the most important thing is when people.

Ask questions, for example, sustainability, it's a word that I would like to challenge now, because what is this, what do we want to sustain? Do we want to sustain this way of living that put us at this point? Is it for real? Are you feeling good saying that to your son? Oh, listen, no? We have we've been, like, polluting the planet, but it doesn't matter.

We're going to keep doing that, the same. So we're going to do sustainability. I don't, it doesn't make sense. So questions are, like, the main matter of regenerative

Daniele: from what I'm feeling, you say, someone who would say, Oh, I'd like to make my service more sustainable. One of the first questions you might ask is something like,

Would you like it to be, to continue like that?

So that's the idea is that we want to, what part do you want to sustain? And what part would you like to continue to be like that? Where you feel this is a good part. We are happy about it. For example, the fact that we greet people in a very lovely manner. That's something that we can sustain and that it's lovely and makes sense.

And what are the parts that you. I think that's something that we wouldn't like to sustain because my grandkids will shout at me in two generations when they will see that this is something that I decided to sustain. It's like making the choice between there are things That already makes sense today in the way that you work, that are perfectly, make sense to be sustainable in that way.

And there are parts that need to be reworked and therefore go rather on a regenerative side. Is that kind of like the way you see that?

Igor: Yes I'm now, nowadays I'm trying to avoid the jargon in general. Human Centered Design, design jargon, which is, I didn't make it at the beginning of the interview.

But I try to avoid jargon, and I try to do a kind of radical empathy with the client in this case, and just understand what is, where is his understanding or her understanding of the problem, and maybe you can challenge that and point to bigger changes just in order for him to understand that it's more complex than the actions that he could take.

Definitely you have to kick off from their understanding and their capacity.

Another example is waste. What about trying to be zero waste? That's a hard one.

Daniele: So from what I'm hearing, there is a thing where you say in these questions of trying to make services lovelier for the planet. without using that much language. There is then the notion of, okay, you, people start somewhere with kind of a, this is something that we could do. And a lovely provocation that you're bringing is, and what if we went bigger?

What if we went with a bigger change? What if we moved to a, to another scale of the thing? For example, you want to reduce waste. What if. We want zero waste. What if you produced something that made the world better instead of adding waste to it? Does it go in that direction?

Igor: I don't think that provocation for a bigger scale or a bigger problem would be will be a priority for us.

I guess it's more about the Trying them to understand the interconnected, the interconnectedness of the problems and the concept of intervene. Our rational minds our rational training always look for fireworks and for achievements and all that, and goals and KPIs and all that stuff.

We, we love in business, but when you said, for example, just trying to be zero, trying to be zero waste, there is a chain of changes that the user or the owner of the business have to face, that it he will explode in questions, why am I doing this? All this, no? And I, and we bet that the change lives there.

In that question, in that moment when she or he said, Do I really want to do this? No? Because of course you're going to find a huge list of excuses to avoid the changes, no? But how do you bring arguments to do that, that is the hard part, and those, so those arguments are more our goal, in a way, to set provocation.

It is just when the conversation goes to this rational way of thinking, then you can use B Corp certification or you can bring, all well in a not in a coffee shop example, but in other examples that we have, we are getting into, gr green finances. It's coal. We to said no.

The financial world is changing completely. They're focused to, to sustainability and and regeneration. You can use this tools for, to provoke them when rational mind it's aware and as, but as soon as you feel that this rational guard comes down, you can , you have to do the inception about intervening in life as a network life as a network of nested networks and all the complex complexity and how a little change in a little scale if you, if it will connect with the next scale.

It's going to, it's going to provoke change beyond the personal scale or level, no? So I guess it's more about that, like trying to do the inception.

Daniele: And there are three things that I hear in what you suggest here. One is this notion of when people are in crisis Because they realize this is gonna be way more complicated than what I expected.

. Instead of coming with maybe more knowledge what we need is to rebuild the motivation. And rebuild why people are trying to, why did they select the route that they're taking now? And that's something that we hear a lot from, there is a whole field about that, which is called motivational interviewing, which is a field in psychology where they basically say people don't have a problem of knowledge.

Daniele: People that need to stop drinking, they know basically what they should do. Problem is that The motivation, my friends are people who drink. If I stop drinking, I will not be able to see those friends. And I'm an introvert. When I drink, I'm less, I'm a bit more easy to to communicate with. It makes me easier.

It makes it easier for me to network. And then it's okay, but what's the early motivation that you have? Why would you change? What, is there a reason to go in that change? And one thing that they do in motivational interview, which is quite, quite a smart thing. Sometimes they do a thing where they say, Oh, but obviously, no.

I think you absolutely can continue to trick, and, sometimes you hit your wife. That happens. And then the guy says, no, how can you say that? It's terrible. I love my wife and that's why I want to change. That's why I want to stop. And I can make new friends, and then suddenly, confronted with, you By taking what they are saying without saying it, and you put it there clearly by saying it's an option, you could choose to continue to drink and to continue to hit your wife.

That's, at the end of the day, it's your choice. Then suddenly people realize, oh, but they have a motivation. What is it? And by talking about it, suddenly they rebuild the motivation. So I feel that there is something like that, that you're doing. Is that correct?

Igor: Yes maybe that, that, that's a good reminder that you made me right now to revisit this techniques.

We are, we used to be more focused now on, on behavioral change. It's called behavioral nudging as well. And so we tried to put some techniques coming from there. Which are really simple, which are really like bridges between yeah, between hard words that people face sometimes, and so we create a message, a WhatsApp message to to push that change.

And on the other side, we used to use gamification techniques as well, no? Because coming back to the. Coffee shop owner, of course, he's not alone, and he has to convince all the collaborators. We used to try to make a little game about it, a little leaderboard, little poems on there, little games.

Something that makes it fun at the same at the same time, but, yeah, maybe this, the motivational interview that you are saying, it's something that we should revisit and add it, add to our toolbox, in a way. Thank you for that reminder.

Daniele: Because The part that, that I'm intrigued is when you say, when people are in the crisis mode, so I'm less speaking now about, the user of the service, but rather the owner of the service who wants to make a change and who realizes, oh, if we want to go zero waste, All the things that we're going to have to do if we want to go B Corp.

That's all the things that we're going to have to do. And I'm quite interested as like consultants, the owner, who is faced with those conversations, owner to owner, and the owner would tell you, yeah, that was our early motivation, but now we're stuck. It feels impossible. How do you manage that conversation?

Thank you.

Igor: When they already tried and it, and the enthusiasm falls down. Yeah.

Daniele: How do you manage that that drop that's or doesn't happen?

Igor: Yeah. Yeah. First of all, as something natural, because all the efforts for change has a psychic, a cycle of descendants and. And Ascendance, no?

In, in, in a way to set. First of all like that, and after that I used to go. For the motive, yeah, for the motivational points of the stakeholders and of the collaborators, I'm trying to create something fun from considering those elements, something fun for the stakeholders, something fun for the collaborator, and even for the end user if it's the case, but something that, that, that could give us a room to interact. with the people to have certain feedback about why is that is not working and Then doing the change with them, which is another huge one for us That's why we call codec because it's co creation or collaboration. No, so We always try to create these solutions with the people in the room Yeah, more or less I will do that

Daniele: That's super interesting.

The Role of Certifications

Daniele: And now if I come back a little bit before you, you mentioned the use of standards like vCorps and this kind of stuff. Is it something, what's the value in those things? Do you feel that it helps businesses having a standard or how do you present that? Is this something that people it, is it something that is helping them?

Is it something that you feel is useful? How do you, it's a good question. Yeah.

Igor: I have to say that I I was a hater of certifications at my beginnings of sustainability, but after starting it I feel that there are, that they are doing two jobs which are super important. One is the standardization of the efforts for the change, which is super important because otherwise every, everybody's doing their own efforts by their own terms and it's impossible to measure and to compare and to.

to share good practices. I think the work that they do in creating a framework and a common language is super important. And that is one. The other one, it's, for example, with B Corp, it's that people that are aware of Sustainability issues in a way to set have a more than more than 60 percent of recognition of the certification.

So it gives you an endorsement on, on, on that field. But nowadays it's becoming, and it will be an essential because finance, finances are looking for that. Now if you want to, it's a super complex thing and nothing to, to put it right now here, but the, there are a lot of financial instruments, brand new that, that are emerging right now and almost everyone ask for a third that certifies that your.

Sustainability efforts are real and are measured. So in that way, certification is going to play a huge role in the next years. And that's going to change the whole game, I feel.

Daniele: For someone who might say, oh, that sounds interesting, these certification things, and sounds like a there are very clear benefits, like I can compare to how we are doing compared to others. It gives me learning points because it tells me where I can improve and so on.

And it helps me maybe Think about stuff that I didn't think about. B Corp, I feel, is like a good example because it's like systemic and it's helping you to just not think just about making things nice for nature and just forgetting about humans. It's like a very complete thing.

And so if someone is interested in that. What are certifications that you feel as an ex hater? That you feel, oh, this is actually useful, this is actually something that can help people towards goals of making their services nicer, both for humans and the planet that hosts them.

Igor: I think it depends a lot of on the goals and again, the motivations or goals of the company.

No. If the company just want to be recognized in their industrial environment their, there, there are set of certifications that that, that do that, . But if people, or if. If the company or organization wants to have awareness and recognition, B Corp for example is for me the best example.

But if the goal or the motivation is about financing, then another set of more technical certification comes to the scene, no way to say it, no? For example. We now, we have a project in Costa Rica. It's about skincare products and they are interest interested in, in, in B Corp.

They're running their process to do that, but suddenly they find they, they found a huge opportunity in a bigger market. , but they don't have the money to invest on that. So they, they need a loan. And the banks in Costa Rica already have the KPI to put certain amount of money on on, on green businesses in a way to set, oh my God.

So then the huge conversation, now it's. The question is on negotiation is which is the best certification for the bank, because the bank only recognize American standards, like from United States, so they have to apply for that. So the bank have to pay for that or not. It begins this technical problem, no?

But it depends on the goals of the company, I would like to say.

Daniele: And for the curious ones that would like to have a name to Google, of one of those finance related, very technical certifications, do you have one in mind that you have either heard of a few times or that you have worked with a few times that you feel that's something that people can look into?

You mean certifications? Yes, so you spoke that there is interesting stuff that you said, which is very specific, obviously. And you said there's this general stuff with B Corp. And then you said there is a kind of a space in finance with with with more technical ones. Yeah.

Igor: it depends it's related to carbon credits, for example. There is a set of laboratories and certifications that place that. If it's water, there is another.

it is specified by business, vertical or impact vertical.

there are a lot for real estate.

which are Minergy, which is a Swiss one, super old one, and a good one, Edge, it's another one, LEED, it's another one, and the most robust for me, which is Lifebuilding Challenge. These four certifications for a real estate project, which involves sustainability, and bonds, and all complex financial instruments, will help you to get there.

To get the money to do such a project. But, yeah, interconnectedness and and interbeing are clue, are, yeah, are main part of the three scales, no? Because the standard of certifications creates a connection with the other scales, you know what I'm saying?

Daniele: Thank you so much. We already explored a lot in this conversation. So I'd like to give you back a bit of a summary of a few key takeaways that maybe you can add your own that you feel like I missed in the summary.

For me, there was one aspect, which is this, the first one is that there is a middle situation here. That we don't have to get either anxious and paralyzed or say, we can't do anything, so we're just going to continue. And there is a kind of a middle way, which is a way of the curiosity of asking questions and and getting started some way.

So that's like the first element. Second element that I got from you is that. There will be a moment where people will get in a crisis mode, in a project, in a new project, or at the start of a project, where they will feel, why are we doing this? This is so complicated. And there Kind of your approach is to rebuild that motivation in some way or another, it can be by making it more fun, it can be by re going back to the original idea and saying, why did you want to do that?

It can be by asking questions like, about the future impact, by saying, hey, but for your children, what would you like to do for your children? And so to bring the thing back to what's the motivation? And then finally, there is a third element, which I heard from you, which is that certification sometimes can be a good element, again, a good helpful element.

And from what I heard from you is obviously when it comes to finance aspects, they're very specific one based on the vertical. So people have to be able to explore their own vertical for that. There are also industry specific one. There are, in each country, region, there might be different ones that people can look into.

And if people are interested in in general, there is B Corp, which is a bit, a good all rounder which is a recommendation that we can give here where people are not making a mistake if they try to explore that one. So that's like the three levels. One is recognizing that we don't have to, If you please, we can continue, but that needs curiosity and asking questions.

The second one is we need to rebuild the motivation, and there are several ways to do that. And the other one is having a standard is something that is helpful, which gives like a bit of a recipe and even if sometimes we hate the recipes, sometimes they also be helpful.

Igor: Hearing you, if you realize the first one falls in the personal sphere, which is like the minimum scale. And yeah, you have to understand how to navigate the catastrophe. And the second one, It's more about how, about organization, which is more or less a little bit the next scale. You have to understand how you, how do you connect those scales, because in dynamics of complex systems, it is super studied that you need to connect both, no?

In the second one. I think which is important is to be part of a community. No, I remember I took a course with Fritjof Capra, which is a physician a scientific about systemic thinking. And at the end of the super complex course, he told, he tells, you have to be part of a community. Thank you.

If you want to make a change by yourself, you will not get nothing, you have to be part of a community. So in both scales, I guess it's important to be part of a community as a person, to be part of a community as a business, no? And it connects with the third level, which is certifications.

Daniele: I love how you, if I'm getting you right, how you say the community part is what links all of it together, where we basically say it's to help you get out of freezing.

It's nice to have a community. You rebuild the motivation. It's nice to have a community. To learn what certification and how to use the thing, it's nice to have a community. And basically that's where you connect all of these different aspects together. The me and personal, my organization and the world I live in can be put together through a community of practice.

That's the, that pushes you forward.

Yeah,

Igor: definitely. We have to. change the paradigm from competition to collaboration.

A last tip

Daniele: Is there an important thing, obviously there are at least a million, but is there one important thing that you'd like to add that you feel this will be a last tip or suggestion or reading recommendation that you would like to share with the community?

Igor: Yes,

Daniele: of course.

Igor: For us, it's about life centered design. It's not more about human. Human is a part of life centered design. And within that, of course, communities should be on the center of the design. Maybe those

## Call to action

Daniele: Thank you so much. So you shared a lot with the community today. So is there something that the community can do back for you?

Is there a place that people should connect with you? Is there something that people can do to help you out?

Igor: I guess being in contact for LinkedIn is the most active social network that I use. And, yeah, and follow us. We are Codec in LinkedIn. And that's it. I hope I'll be around Switzerland in the next month.

Let's see. Maybe we can create something together with the Swiss community there.

Closing words

Daniele: Wonderful. Again, a big thank you to you. It was a very interesting conversation. It started well on LinkedIn and it ended up even better in here live. And I'm excited and sure that we will continue to have some similar conversations in other places.

But once again, a big thank you to you and enjoy your time on the other side of the world. . Thank you, Daniella.

Igor: Thank you very much. I am I really appreciate this time too for sharing these kind of ideas and hope that it's it's gonna be help helpful for every everyone else. Thank you so much.