Even your work projects deserve a good name

Swiss Innovation Academy

Hi lovely human 👋

Here is the overview of all the new Service Design content I've worked on, or would love to support, in the last few days:

4 Q&A:

Sketching: How do I use drawing in my coaching sessions
Grading: How do I separate and combine the coach and jury role?
Naming: Why should you name internal projects?
Leadership: Do you have to be a dick to be a great design leader?

1 backstage blog article

Toxic internet: If you create free stuff for people, know people will insult you

As a bonus you'll also find at the end links to 3 positive news from elsewhere to end on a high note.

Greetings from Basel, Switzerland,

Daniele 🧔🏻‍♂️

p.s. As always, you'll find more details below 👇
for when you have the time to read this newsletter.

Service Design Q&A

I'm slowly building a library of answers to the most common questions about Service Design. Here are the new ones:

An illustration of a person next to a huge and sad face

Do you have to be a dick to be a great design leader?

In short: Absolutely not! Making important work doesn’t excuse agressivity and impolitness. I've had worked both with dicks and lovely leaders and great work happened despite people being dicks, not because of them being it.

Read the full Q&A

An illustration of a person next to a huge text box that is empty

Why should you name internal projects?

In short: a good name for an internal project can set the right expectations and the right culture.

Read the full Q&A

An illustration of a person drawing on a tablet

How do I use drawing in my coaching sessions?

In short: in my in-person coaching and mentoring sessions I like to use quick sketches to help me:

Translate: when I'm working with someone who's oral skills in the language we share aren't super strong, drawing helps a lot to "show" instead of "telling".
Explain: when there is a process to show, or a complex idea to share, sketching it out makes it clearer than just a bunch of words
Note taking: I like to have some visual notes of the session, and here some rough sketches also help to summarize the content of the session.

Read the full Q&A

An illustration showing how before student could have the feeling that the grading moment only happened one at the end, where now there are tiny grading moments through out the process that help students preview how the grading works.

How do I separate and combine the coach and jury role?

In short: I differentiate the moments where I’m in coach or mentor role versus the moments when I’m in jury or grader role. I also try to bring in more « try out » moments where learners can get a preview of how I see things from my grader role.

Read the full Q&A

Backstage Blog

I love to explain how I'm building educational content. I'm trying to be as transparent as possible so that it might motivate others to create such content too. These are the latest blog posts I've written:

If you create free stuff for people, know people will insult you

In this personal story and reflection I share how it feels to be insulted for creating free educational content, what I do about it, and why I think it's important that you know this happens.

Read post

Positive news from elsewhere

I’m an optimist and as there is so much bad news out there at the moment, I want at my scale to rebalance things by sharing also some positive news for service owners and creators.

Organic sales strong despite cost of living squeeze: A new report by the Soil Association showed that sales of organic produce increased in the UK by 7.3% in 2024, compared to 4.7% for non-organic produce. (Positive News)
France bans disposable e-cigarettes: To protect the environment and young people, France is banning disposable e-cigarettes. The EU is planning to implement a ban by 2026. (France 24 via Good News)
Politicians who deliberately lie could be forced from office in Wales: Proposals designed to restore trust in politics would also criminalise the making of false statements to win votes (The Guardian via Good News)

If you want more positive news make sure to checkout the website positive.news that offers more in depth articles.