The full transcript of my conversation with Ben
This transcript was generated using Descript. So it might contain some creative mistakes.
Introduction
Daniele Catalanotto: Hello, Ben, it's a pleasure to meet you today. Yeah,
Ben Reason: wonderful to join you. Thank you, Daniele.
Daniele Catalanotto: And it's a pleasure for me to meet you because in some way you are one of the, this is bad, but I will say is, one of the grandfathers of service design, modern service design, if we can call it like that.
Have you ever been
Ben Reason: called that already? I have not. No, that is yeah, I think Godfather maybe would be, feel a little bit less aging.
Daniele Catalanotto: Godfather. Yeah. That might be the word. So excuse my, yes. My French way of expressing that, but yeah it's a big pleasure to meet you today. I have a few questions to get to know you a bit more because we don't know each other yet which is something quite nice.
Meet Ben Reason
Daniele Catalanotto: My first question is how do you present yourself usually when you are in a birthday party? How do you present yourself to other people?
What do you say about your work and what you do?
Ben Reason: Interesting. Good question. I actually met so my little. My five year old has started a new school, so I'm meeting all the new parents, and, I was chatting to one of the dads yesterday and he's what do you do? And I said design, and there's a bit of me that just doesn't want to have to do the whole explain service design to someone.
But it always gets me in a kind of pickle, because then they're like, what kind of design? And you say service. Then you have to dig out some examples. I was actually at a party once and had this situation said Service Design, and the other woman just said, what the fuck is that? It's just, so it's that kind of, it's been 20 years of what the fuck is that?
Daniele Catalanotto: I love how we all have this kind of same conversation, where we try to not say too much about the work we do, because it's like, It's gonna be a long conversation. I'm just here for the drink. It's okay. Exactly. Just tell me you're a pediatrician and I will just... Yeah, if
Ben Reason: you ever do that, just say, yeah, I'm a butcher,
Daniele Catalanotto: I found that the way that saying oh, I'm an educator or a teacher, usually makes the conversation go faster. Okay. And, so this is the thing that you will tell in a birthday party and obviously Daniele would come and say, ah, but you don't know, my mate is one of the guys who created a company, called Livework and and then I would just go out and he would say, and the guy would say, yeah, what's that Livework thing?
And who's that crazy guy?
Ben Reason: Okay. So now I have to describe.
About Livework
Ben Reason: So Livework, we are we're the first. We were the first company to be a pure service design company. We didn't set out to be that, but I think we were. There were other people doing service design, but no one really commercially. So we're pioneers.
We've been around for a long time. We've been all over the world. All over the world and all over the shop in terms of sectors. My colleague Liz sometimes introduces us as working in hoof care and health care, because we did work with one of the world's largest manufacturers of horseshoes once. A long living design consultancy with quite a crazy portfolio.
The evolution of Livework
Daniele Catalanotto: And I'm quite curious, this, you started something maybe not knowing yet that it would be like a historic moment for some of us but how do you keep going, over all these years? Because the market changes relationship changes, client changes how did you continue doing this still today?
Yeah
Ben Reason: but so There are, there's through multiple phases and versions of the thing has the same name, but it's not the same thing, your body sheds all of, replaces all of its cells in a seven year cycle. So it's a bit like that. Yeah, LiveWork has different versions.
I think we're in number five.
Daniele Catalanotto: Okay. And how does number five look different from? From number
Ben Reason: one. Ah, that's that's a big question. So number one was, some 20 somethings who didn't really know what they were doing, but had a lot of intuitive insight and energy. And number five has, is like the opposite.
It's the grandfather of service design. It's like it's got a lot of experience and know how in the bank. And we're trying to figure out how to make better use of that. Feel like there's gold in the... In the Google Drive somehow, but need to get it out into the world.
Daniele Catalanotto: I I feel when I'm looking at least on what the, the public facing part of your company, it's quite interesting to me to see how you're more and more speaking of complexity, system thinking, sustainability also from what I've seen in the last months or so you've gone through a rebrand also from what I've been observing and is there is this something that you really see as a difference from in, in your history that, okay, now you're shifting a bit more towards that, or is it just that it was already, but now you're using that language that is more known and people now have had an understanding for it.
Ben Reason: It's the latter. I think a lot of those things have been. I've been there. The sustainability hope from the very beginning, but that agenda becomes more and more urgent and less possible to put to one side, which I think we, we did for a while. And I've been pushed by the team, who have a need to be doing something.
So yeah, I think the big, say, I think the big change over our existence has been getting more and more cognizant of the organizations or the systems that we are proposing new services for. I think, once we were fairly naive about what it meant to design a service for the people who had to actually make the changes on the inside.
When we set out, so we've worked hard to learn about that and work better with those organizations and teams and individuals and systems. So that's been a kind of deepening journey, but yeah, some of those themes I think it's more like the world feels more ready or it's...
Daniele Catalanotto: And suddenly there is a name for it, it's it's on a much simpler level. It's, like where back in the days we had beards because we were lazy and now we're fashionable. Suddenly it's I didn't try to be fashionable, it's just that I'm still lazy. It feels a bit like that's that you have, you had this thing already going on.
And that's suddenly the language. is there, and obviously the urgency that makes it also more important to communicate around it, even if it was something that you did.
Service Design in different cultures
Daniele Catalanotto: And so I'm quite interested also in you're doing this in multiple countries and I'm coming from a place where we have multiple languages in Switzerland.
And culture is a big is a big driver, is a big, I think that can also slow things and I'm quite interested in. I'm hearing from you. Do you see a difference on, on how culture, service design, these approaches that we have, how they are used differently? I assume, I would imagine that work done in the UK looks very different than work done in South America.
Do you have there? Or do you say, oh no, it's just a common language, it's like the language of love is the language of love. And you still kiss if you are on the North or the South. How do you see that? Yeah.
Ben Reason: That's interesting. I feel like the language is the same, but like you say, the culture that's, that is.
What you're working in is different and they, often the things that you might expect of that culture come through. So we were working for a period, primarily in London and in Norway, and Those two countries have a very different collective idea about what the state is there for and what public services are and how they relate to the world and their politics are very different.
The most of the design within government in the UK is quite transactional in a way. So it's about efficiency and Cost savings, and it's very related to a digital transformation, we can save money by putting driving license applications online to be facetious, but whereas in Norway, the kind of service design almost permeates into the, again, it's much more accepted by the organization.
For example, the Norwegian Department for Health has required service design in any large scale transformation. So rather than, big. Systemic kind of changes rather than efficiency kind of changes. So there's, it feels more accepted at a accepted in a different way or understood in a different way in those two places.
And in the Netherlands, it's a bit more like Norway, but not quite as not quite as much and they have their own, yeah, characteristics. I can't really speak for Brazil. It always feels a bit more it's America, even if it's Latin America, it's more commercially minded over there.
Yeah, I think that, like the tools and the most methods are pretty similar. It's been amazing with Brazil how aligned we are as two teams that have, don't get to collaborate that often. That's very rewarding.
Daniele Catalanotto: It sounds like the. The tools, the ways of working are the same, but the start of the relationship is maybe not the same.
Like dating is different in many cultures, where in America you might go to, to when you say you invite someone, it's, you say it's a date, so it's already very clear, where in Switzerland, it's just, you're going to get the coffee, we don't know if it's a coffee or if it's more than a coffee and the whole thing is about discovering.
So
Ben Reason: the relationship is different and the kind of assumptions around how you. How you migrate. It's as much in the UK, it's harder to put in that long term commercial relationship. Whereas in some, European countries, it's more of a normal thing. It makes more, it's yeah, that's how we work because we, yeah.
Daniele Catalanotto: Super interesting. Thanks so much for this insight. It's always interesting, to hear from other cultures and and and how the relationship to a field also is different, just. Nice question. Just because geography is in another place, and it changes everything, definitely.
Yeah, and and obviously you read the book and I'm quite honored that you take, took the time to read it, and I'd like to, to just transition directly into it.
The good stuff
Daniele Catalanotto: Was there something in that chapter that you read where you said, oh, this is something that resonates with me?
Ben Reason: Yeah, absolutely. I, so it just, in terms of the chapter we're talking about.
What a strange service design rules.
Provocations rather than rules
Ben Reason: And I just want to say to you, because I've read other things you've written and I like the way you bring a kind of a lightness of touch to the service design world and kind of some fun and playfulness. And so I took it in that spirit.
They don't really feel like rules. They feel like hey, think about this or like little tips or, provocations in a way. So yeah, I think. I'm just thinking what some of the chapters reminded me of work that we've done,
The customer is king but you can choose your king
Ben Reason: the customer is king, but you can choose your king, I think it's a really interesting one.
I've definitely seen occasions where that's happened. I can think of a project where. One of the insights was some of the customers were really, losing the company money. So the outcome was, how do we either get, how do we get rid of these customers? In fact so in a commercial context, I think that's a really It's a really nice provocation.
I guess it also, it then brings up those contexts where, organizations have customers which, they're obliged to serve who might be there really hard to help or very expensive to help. So there's a, there's an interesting comparison with between a kind of commercial context and a public service.
Daniele Catalanotto: And how do you see this difference on, so basically how do you fire a customer? So basically you've been there or fire a bunch of people, where you say, Oh, these are people that have invested in the relationship with the service. But you notice these are not our kings, these are not the people we really want to serve or we are not the best to serve, which is a good realization to make, but then how do you make that happen in a way that feels, saying goodbye to someone in a relationship is always Is it you saying, it's me, not you, but we loved you?
Or is it like, no, seriously, you cost us too much. You took, you take too much of my time, honey. And I have surfing to do. How did you go with that kind of breakup?
Ben Reason: Yeah, I can't take credit for it because we I think we had the insight, but then the commercial director of the client.
The organization implemented the change, but no, they called these customers and said we need to renegotiate terms because, you're using more than you're paying for. So they had the option to pay for what they were doing or to resign the contract. So it was quite an open, upfront discussion that they had.
Daniele Catalanotto: So basically if we bring it back to a very normal life, it's like your mom really is taking too much of our weekends. Yeah. Either we change it and I'm happy to see your mom sometimes, but if we can change it, great. We can stay together, but I'm dating you, not your mom. It's that
Ben Reason: conversation.
Something like that. Yeah. Okay.
Steal from many sources
Ben Reason: To pick up on, on another one of your rules. And to my point about how you approach it. But I like, this steal from many sources. I've been also reading or rereading Service Dominant Logic, which is the other end of the spectrum from your book in terms of kind of very theoretical, quite hard to access and quite hard to apply.
It's one of the touchstone. Books about service orientation or service thinking. And I think they talk about services being combination, service providers are resource combiners, or as I can't remember the exact phrase, there's this sort of technical thing that none of these things are original or they're, everything is putting together other services from multiple places and putting together something that works for that customer.
So you're saying the same thing in a kind of different way here so it stands up in theory, is what I'm saying in a way here, it's a good. Good way to think about service. It's been coming from lots of different sources.
Daniele Catalanotto: This idea that basically saying a service is a bit of a Lego house where there are already parts within a company that exists and building the service is basically saying, okay, this is the door.
This is the window and we're going to try to put them together and it's okay that the door is red and maybe the window is yellow sometimes it's funky and it's okay and sometimes we just have to repaint it and that's it's that's another conversation that then people need to have
Ben Reason: too.
Building services with parts that already exist
Ben Reason: I was talking to my old friend Paul who's working on a sexual health service. In Ghana and he is very happy with himself 'cause he said I, he's managed to create the service which basically runs through WhatsApp. It helps people order test kits for H I V and get them delivered and return the test and get their results and connect to the doctor if they need to.
All through WhatsApp. And he's really happy 'cause he's, he said, I've made this service. Without any software developers, it's all put together things that already exist, like WhatsApp and like a, off the shelf database and an existing courier service in the city to make something new.
Daniele Catalanotto: Which is a very important thing, I think for the generation of service designers coming, this idea that, yeah, it's today is not only a time where, you can prototype easily, but you can also build a service quite easily. with off the shelf parts and make something happen and really see if it's working in a quite easy way compared to maybe a few years ago when everything we just had to, okay, we just had to build the technology, we had to build the interfaces, the things, and now a lot of that already exists, and we can just build on it.
Yeah.
Ben Reason: It's so different. So when we started out, most things you can imagine exist out there, and you might just need to put them together. In a different way,
Daniele Catalanotto: Which is a very good provocation. I know it's a provocation that usually when people come to me and say, ah, we need absolutely a software that does this and this and this and this, the classical answer that I give, which I think many people give today is if you thought of it, there is another nerd somewhere who thought of it.
So let's just. Let's take some time to see if something similar, maybe not exactly what you have in your head, but something similar exists and how we can build up on it, or maybe just or maybe just use that or, just send people to that and problem solved because maybe this is a
Ben Reason: kind of challenges. I think services are challenges. More established ideas about who, what a designer is a kind of author and you're almost saying here that, we're all just compiling stuff, stealing things from different places Maybe not really stealing, but I get the the provocation and, less ego in the mix
Daniele Catalanotto: Yeah, which is quite interesting.
And and this less ego in the mix, I think you,
Rules or provocations
Daniele Catalanotto: you said something that, that, that is very important to me when you said that at the start these rules are, you understand them as more provocation or Tips or ways of starting a conversation today. Maybe some people would call it even prompts, where it's just to start for something.
And then what happens is later. And I think this is a very good reminder in general, this kind of thing is a. They aren't rules, but if we use them like rules, sometimes we get a relationship, which is quite interesting, like as kids, I have a two year old, and when I tell him it's a rule, then he loves to break it.
It's a kind of sometimes I think of it like that, saying, oh, it's a rule that people will. Just say, this is so bullshit because that that, and then you're like, good, now we're getting to think, that's pretty cool. Yeah. It's like what I said to my two year old. Don't pot the pyjama.
It's definitely not the blue one. It's oh, I want the blue one, and then he gets into it and and gets excited about it because there is a thing where he can, express his own identity in a way, in some way, and then also then say, yeah I love the pyjama and I'm going to choose another one in the same time.
And then the conversation goes on. And with these kinds of books, this is, I think, a very good reminder, this, At the end of the day, they are just provocations or ideas from one place, and what's good for you is good for you as long as it gets you thinking. Yeah.
Ben Reason: I, so I'm, but I'm also interested, with the saying that they...
Gonzo Service Design
Ben Reason: In a way you're saying rules, they're there to be broken in a, in that kind of playful way. I don't know if you saw I got to, I was talking to a member of the team a few years ago and she was finding service design. It was a bit like I, I don't know if I'm doing it properly.
I'm new to this. It's a sort of, I did a career change and there are all these people they've been doing for ages. And it felt like she was almost inhibited by there being a kind of a set way of doing it, a proper way of doing service design, which seems a bit sad to me. So I then actually, I wrote a post when I, about Gonzo Service Design, which was, I don't know if you saw it, but it was stealing the idea from From Gonzo Journalism, from the Americans who kicked against traditional journalism in the 60s, Hunter S.
Thompson and people like that. So to just say you can just you don't have to wing it in a way, you don't have to do it painting by numbers kind of service design. So I don't know if Daniele, if you feel that sort of similar, if you have a similar rebellious streak that wants to shake it up
Daniele Catalanotto: a bit.
I think you're preaching to a believer. The one question that I usually like is when people say, what's the process of service design? Like thinking there is one way of doing it. It's a good question, because it's again, it shows something and then usually my answer is to say, Oh, the process is all of these, and answering not by saying, okay, let's be honest there is not just one, there are many, blah, blah, blah.
But just hey, by, by demonstration say, yes, there is a process. There are these 200 and it's but I ask for one. Ah, that one I don't have , but these are the ones that I found, which is quite interesting. Yeah. And how do you react to that? Because I would say today my experience of service design, is.
It's the one where it's like anything, it's, they are always different camps, and I see there is one one tribe, if we can call it like that, there is one tribe, which is very in the need, let's say it in a very positive way, in the need of rules and regulation and standards.
And there is a tribe of people who would be more the Gonzo style saying I can play with rules when rules are needed, but I can also play without rules when it's better to without it. Do you feel also that there is this these different tribes or how is your reading of that?
Ben Reason: Yeah, I wonder if the tribes or, I've definitely come across more of that standards and things. And I, I did say in the article, I think this is great. It does up quality, there are there are some really great resources out there that kind of say, this is how you do it.
And I think that's really vital. I just think, it's like all of these things that gets dangerous If you don't challenge things and you're not agile in a given situation because I you know I think I if you were to go full gonzo all the time that would be Problematic and you'd probably run out of employment.
So yeah, it's I think maybe there aren't, maybe there aren't tribes. I haven't been looking out for them.
Daniele Catalanotto: So basically I will translate that as, it's basically like faith, I come from a religious background okay. Sometimes I have to say, yeah, my wife is a pastor.
My parents were pastors. I've seen the good parts of face and the bad parts and and it's like that. It's like where face is good as long as you remember why you have it.
Ben Reason: You just, I just, I met a friend the other day and he said, I was talking to my church group and we were having a discussion about post church.
And I was like, is that a thing? Like post, post church? What's, it was what you were describing. It's we have a faith, but we're, we have our skepticism.
Daniele Catalanotto: And you can recognize that sometimes your face is blocking what was the mission of having a face, spreading love being well together, and then it's saying, Oh, maybe now it's not helping.
Maybe we have to think, did we really do what we wanted to do?
Ben Reason: Yeah. Have we created the the Roman Catholic Church? Started to run an inquisition across Southern Europe.
Daniele Catalanotto: And and it's a good reminder, I think, sometimes thinking did we go, I think this is very near to thinking about systems, where you are in the system and having the moment where you can take, go out and say, Oh, did we just create something that's now going to fuck us?
Okay, so now we have to change what we've designed because now we see the bad parts of it and it's okay.
Ben Reason: Yeah, I think there's quite a bit of that going on at the moment. There's a sort of reflective moment in the service design world. I joined a group that's kind of Service Design Next, where there's a nice discussion going on.
Yeah, maybe that's a good thing. I think it's happening in design generally, isn't it? There's a sort of challenging some of the assumptions that we grew up with that, design is a good thing because users, without questioning the kind of economic system or the power structures that you're working in.
Daniele Catalanotto: Oh, we realizing that we are part of what fucked the world, okay, but believing that we were believing saving it, which is something, which is a realization that is quite fun sometimes to have.
Think about the death of your service
Ben Reason: Hey, I also wanted to, I I don't know if you make the connection between your not rule about, think about the death of your service.
And and Joe Macleod work around endings and if you're aware of. Yeah. Yeah. Because he came to an event we had once and he gave this whole talk about how terrible we are at facing death in the West, it's most cultures have a positive, a kind of confront death face on, whereas it's quite avoided.
But yeah, so he, he's obviously developed a whole a number of books and a whole practice around just looking at the end of life of products and services. It's very important to think about how things end.
Daniele Catalanotto: And he asked a very good question, which is, what happens if we put the same energy in endings as in starting?
Which is a very smart question. Yeah. I remember
Ben Reason: early, early days for me in service design, having this idea that, you know, if you think about all of the energy that It goes into retail, into marketing and shopping, the whole experience of shopping and how curated that is and how designed that is.
Imagine if the same experience for your unwanted clothing or, the same level of experience for throwing things away or recycling them. It's hard to even imagine what that would be like, but imagine if you had a kind of a whole IKEA sized. It's a destination for the stuff you didn't want and it was like a day out with meatballs would be weird.
Daniele Catalanotto: Yeah, and imagine it's a place where, as IKEA today, where you say, Oh, I don't know what to do with my kids. I'm going to go there because there is a free free childcare moment and it's cool. And we're going to have a good moment at the, and I don't even have to think about lunch. It's imagine this where it's like leftover lunch playing with it's something that So that, it creates very interesting images.
Yeah, the
Ben Reason: novelist Douglas Coupland he imagined this future where landfill sites would become kind of destinations where you could dig through layers of cultural history. You go back and Oh, look, I found this sneaker from the eighties. Do you remember the people would go for a nostalgic day out?
Daniele Catalanotto: I think Joe brings very good questions in that and and he's definitely a guy to know for people who aren't interested in the comics.
Ben Reason: He's the only design stand up comic that I'm aware of. When he talks, he's always... Hilarious.
Daniele Catalanotto: It's a fantastic indeed. Plus one, plus a very lovely mate.
It's a it's one of these people where you have a drink after and you're like, oh. He's he's, it's it's the same person, where sometimes you have people being in front of the stage, they have a front stage and the backstage, and then here is just front stage, it's it's always the same.
Which, which is something which is quite Quite lovely. And I'm interested in the bad stuff, so we're speaking about endings. And I'm going to use that as a transition to the bad stuff.
The bad stuff
Daniele Catalanotto: What's stuff in that chapter where you say, Oh, that stuff is not exactly what I would say. And this is how I will reframe it.
This is what I will add to it to make it smarter.
Do what you don't want to do
Ben Reason: I was going to ask you about this. You have one rule, do what you don't want to do, which and I guess you, you talk about it being in relation to, to keeping yourself healthy, do the things you don't want to do, go to bed on time and eat, and I just, I didn't really see how I have to make a jump to see what that might mean for within a. Kind of design practice in a way it seemed a bit like a kind of, rather brief self help tip, without me being quite able to say how, what do you mean beyond, if I don't like doing workshops, I should try harder,
Daniele Catalanotto: so basically, you're saying, I'll say it like a bar, like a friend in a bar, which is. Hey, super lovely tip, mate. It's great. It's one, you could put it on a TikTok, but how does that help me in my work, in my business? And and that's basically a bit your question and reaction. Did I get that right?
Ben Reason: Yeah. It's a kind of like easy for you to say it might be what your friend in the bar says, it's yeah okay.
Daniele Catalanotto: And so let me ask you what So I will do the, the usual thing that that workshop facilitators do. It's like not answering the question right now, but giving it back to you.
Do you have ideas on how you would put that in place? I have a view obviously, but I'm quite interested. How you would react to such a provocation?
Ben Reason: If I apply it to service designing or service designers, I think Being generalistic. There are certain things that those people with the design training don't feel comfortable doing.
They might be setting some firm commercial rules in place for the work you're doing. And they might be, engaging with some kind of I don't know, this might just be my experience, but, being bold in a conflict of situations or even to my, to the initial story about being a little bit shy about explaining what you do, that's a bit weird to not just boldly go in and say.
Yeah I'm, I am the pioneer of this new design discipline, why do we why do you go to a design conference and see a kind of breakout group for introverts. So there's, I guess there's a certain Natural, there's certain characteristics that fit well into design, but it gives, it means you might have some weak spots or blind spots, maybe not weak spots, but discomfort points.
That would be how I would build on that. I, I find that, there's cliches that you learn more in, in the moments of adversary or discomfort than you do doing what you're happy doing.
Daniele Catalanotto: Yeah. And I think that's definitely one avenue that I think is this personal avenue, where we say in the work.
of a service design practitioner, they are generally different types of people, obviously but there are things that many people don't like, for example, the political side of it, the knowing that it's not gonna happen in the workshop, it's not going to happen on the blueprint, it's not going to happen, the thing of just you Calling a few guys having to stay a bit later to have a beer, to loosen up the relationship.
For introverts like me, this is a thing where I'm always like, I just don't want to do that. But I know that the... It's something that is extremely important. The political side, in a good way, politics is what makes us go forward also and makes us help to take decisions, so we can see it in that positive light, and say, hey this is a part where we have to slowly also get comfortable.
It's it's like brushing our teeth, it's no fun, but once you've done it, And you have this bright smile you're quite happy with it, but it sucks to do it. The only difference is that it's not three minutes, it's three hours and and the taste might be a bit more gin and beer like which maybe is a little bit.
Definitely. I think there, there is one aspect. And then on the business side, there is a lot of. Of ethical questions, that we don't like to ask ourselves, I think which brings us back to the first part of our conversation, when yeah it's just so easier to not think about the end, it's so easier to not think about how's that going to impact other people who we are not thinking about yet and how easier it is just to start, and not say, and Let's take some reflection time to see if really this is something that we should invest in energy on.
Because we don't like to delay, we don't like to wait, we don't like to add complexity to it. And sometimes asking this question of,
do I don't... Is it, do I have a good reason to not want to do it or is it just that it scares me or it's just too uncomfortable? And the question, the answer might be very different from time to time, but it's a good question to ask what is making us uncomfortable?
Should we do the easy thing?
Ben Reason: It's interesting, your two rules, these first two rules you have about, what if it was easy or do what you don't want to do, they contradict each other or they clash in a way.
But on the easy. The easy front. I think there's something deeper in there about, it's actually really hard to make something simple. I don't know if I'm equating easy and simple but on the other hand I've been feeling, and again, blogging about, to challenge the assumption that everything should be easy and smooth and, does that actually work?
Thank you. improve our experience at a more kind of meaningful life level. And I mentioned a story about buying a train ticket in Florence in Italy and the guy behind the counter being almost, couldn't really be bothered to serve me and he could have said incredibly rude, but I enjoyed it because it was You know, a story to tell and, it didn't really matter.
A typical Italian way. Yeah, I got the typical Italian experience. I didn't, it felt authentic rather than, manufactured. So I'm, it's not so much, yeah, I guess it's not like whether it's easier or, yeah, I just wanted to challenge that kind of, I don't know if you've come across this word, seamless and, in the design world all the time.
Daniele Catalanotto: Yeah, the perfect end to end, neutral, happy feeling always, which feels like someone under drugs, it's okay, let's give them a lot of drugs to be always happy. It's gonna be awesome, and then the moment you have kids, it's then, it's probably a realization of...
Oh, if I want to make his life happy, I'm going to make his life as shitty as possible. And it's sadly my job to be sometimes the dick who says, no, and to be that wall of, no, that won't happen. And it's sad because I'm like someone who loves to be into the, let's find a solution, et cetera.
But sometimes, yeah, it's part of the, it's. Realizing that maybe it's better not to make something smooth sometimes. And and with that it shows, as you said, is both can be true, that on one side we can ask the question, what if I, what if it was easy and then ask the other question right after, which is, and what are the difficult parts that we should keep difficult?
Yeah. What are the difficult parts that we should.
Ben Reason: I saw a great example of that, actually, which was not our work. Another team had worked on student loans, so applying for a student loan in, in the UK, and they realized that this was the first time most of the kids had borrowed that, it's a significant amount of money to borrow, and they probably hadn't borrowed money before, and that if they made it too easy and too, they would basically take out a loan without even knowing that they'd taken out a loan or what it meant.
So they, they deliberately put these kind of roadblocks in the process where you had to... You had to prove that you've understood something. I can't remember if they put in a quiz, but you definitely had to think about it. And I then later learned from from Anna in our Rotterdam studio that the kind of the behavioral economics term for that is a rational override.
Yeah. You need people to engage their slow thinking and say, Okay, I'm doing this and that's the right thing to do. And I've considered it properly. So that's a nice she's written a few things about that. It was actually her graduation project to look at how do you design a rational override.
Daniele Catalanotto: Which is an extremely good complement to the idea of nudging, to like having this opposite thing where it's yeah, it uses the aspect of nudging, but in the other way, which is very interesting to say, okay, now we have two elements in our toolbox. And When do I use which? Exactly.
Ben Reason: Because the logic fits into that world of almost like stuff happens without you knowing it. And which is not always a good thing. It can be a dark pattern.
Daniele Catalanotto: And I'm going to use your mention of the Rational Override to transition to the next question.
Resources to go further
Daniele Catalanotto: Is there any resources books blog articles that you would recommend to people when they read a book on service design and you say, hey, this is something that will be very good if you're interested in that topic to go a step further.
Ben Reason: Some things pop to mind, which is not, it's not a direct service design thing.
But in relation to our earlier conversation about it touches on a few things. I'm a big fan of a, of an author called Timothy Morton. And they write about ecology, but in a very... Playful kind of philosophical, so it's quite deep but it's also quite playful, they reference popular culture as much as, Nietzsche or Kant or something.
And there's a book called Being Ecological which has been really useful to, to challenge some of the ideas about what it, what that means, do I, is it just really hard and I have to be, I just have to give stuff up and and they ask the question, what if it was, what if it's really easy to be ecological, but what if it's as easy as loving your dog or your cat or, so I I would recommend everyone read that book.
That would be my gift to the audience.
Closing words
Daniele Catalanotto: Awesome. Thank you so much. And as we're coming to an end, And is there something that you'd like to offer to people watching this where you say, Hey either it's something on LiveWorx side or on your personal side where you say if people want to get in touch, or is there something, a call to action that you have that you can share for,
Ben Reason: As you mentioned, we have spruced up our website recently.
That's I think, tightened up the story in terms of why service design tried to do what we were discussing earlier about being a little bit more bold in terms of what it's yeah, go and have a look at the new website and tell me what you think would be useful.
Daniele Catalanotto: Awesome. So you heard the call to action, go check the website and send some love back to the team who has worked a lot on it.
I think that's especially something that is. It's it's like having a baby, but nobody sees it, like when you have a baby, usually people come to you and say, Oh, he's beautiful. He has such great eyes and his nose is, looks like yours, and it's all compliments that you don't really care about usually, but let's do the same, but with
Ben Reason: good compliments.
That is very empathic of you. So I would specifically give Chelsea in our Rotterdam studio a call out on that because she has been midwifing that baby and she had to. to stay up all night during the labor.
Daniele Catalanotto: So let's do it like that. I will then ask you to have her LinkedIn profile so that we can obviously then send some love or maybe a post where people can just say all the things that they like because I think this is something that hard work has gone into that and it's invisible work as long as people notice it and then it's a moment of celebration that people can share which is Very cool.
And don't forget to say that the website has her eyes. I think
Ben Reason: this is... Oh yeah, it definitely has Chelsea's eyes.
Daniele Catalanotto: Awesome. Hey Ben, thank you so much for this conversation. It was a pleasure to discover you. It's been a lot of fun. Thank you so much. Great.