Behind the scenes of a secret Service Design project

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Swiss Innovation Academy

Hi lovely human 👋

Here is the overview of all the new Service Design content I've worked on in the last few days:

2 Service Design Interviews:

Secret project: Andy Polaine reveals his new Service Design Project
Service Design Portrait: Meet Sharaya Naik a Service Designer working to build bridges in the healthcare journey of patients in India.

2 Service Design Principles:

Long term: Add decades to your performance metrics
Do good: Put 5% of your time to serve others

1 Service Design Q&A :

Remote conferences: Why do I like remote Service Design conferences?

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.

A photo of Andy with the title: Behind the scenes of a secret Service Design project

Andy Polaine is a Design Leadership and Service Design nerd. For the past year he has worked, with two other nerds called Lavrans Løvlie and Ben Reason, on a new Service Design related project which I got to chance to see in advance.

In this conversation he shares this project and how it came to be. He also shares his take on:

How Service Design as a field as matured in the last decade.
Where Service Design failed in the last decade.
Why Service Design is still needed in a world where Design Leaders are everywhere.

Thanks Andy for sharing some of the backstage of his new project and for this lovely conversation.

Discover the project

Service Design Principles Series

I'm writing the fifth book in the series Service Design Principles, where I explore simple tips, tricks and provocations that can help us make services a little bit less shitty for the people who use them and the planet that hosts them.

A screenshot from a dashboard that shows a monthly, yearly and decade view of important company data

Add decades to your performance metrics

Thinking long term is one of the thing that makes you take decisions that don’t suck for society and the world in general. But it’s kind of hard to remember to do it.

For that, Matt Mullenweg, the CEO of Automattic and one of the creators of Wordpress (1) has a tip: add decades in your dashboards and performance tools.

For example in one of the dashboards that the company uses, it shows what’s happening within the company in the last 24 hours, the last year and… the last decade!

As Matt said it “every time someone [looks] at one of these stats pages (…) they [are] reminded that we’re building for the long term”.

Action question

Where in your tools and HR processes could you add a long term view as a way to measure the impact and work done? What time-frame would be relevant for you: a decade, more?

Footnote

(1) You know, the tool that runs most of the websites on the internet.

Daniele's notes

This is the first shitty draft of this principle
This principle might one day make it in the fifth book in the "Service Design Principles" series that explores how to better serve humans and the planet.
If you're curious about service design principles, you can get the four previous books in the series, with proofread principles and less grammatical creativity.

Share feedback

Another principle I shared this week:

An illustration of a volunteer collecting trash in nature

Put 5% of your time to serve others

In short: Give time to your employees during work hours to serve causes that do good for others or the planet.

Read the full principle

Master Service Design Blog

Within the Master Service Design of the HSLU, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts we publish articles that show the behind the scenes of what it means to teach or study in such a program.

A portrait of Sharaya with the title: Sharaya builds bridges for better healthcare

A patient journey is often like an archipelago of disconnected islands. The designer's work is to create tools and systems that help reconnect those moments with care and a human touch.

This is one of the key insights shared in this interview by Sharaya Naik. In it she shares her personal Service Design journey and why she is building bridges in the healthcare system in India.

In this 15 minutes conversation Sharaya, a second year MA Service Design learner of the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, covers the following topics:

Personal Portrait: Get to meet a Service Designer and her personal journey.
Power of Visualisation: See how a strong visual metaphor can make a complex topic easy to understand.
Key skills: Discover what key skills and approaches can bring Service Design to the next level.
Master: Discover if you too have the mindset to do a Master in Service Design.

A big thank you to Sharaya for sharing parts of her personal journey with the wider community.

Watch the full 15 minutes portrait

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:

A video thumbnail showing the title: 8 reasons to join remote Service Design conferences

Why do I like remote Service Design conferences?

In short:

You Learn as Much: The content and learning opportunities are the same as onsite, so you don’t miss out on valuable insights.
Better for Introverts: Remote attendance is less overwhelming, making it easier for introverts to participate and network at their own pace.
Lower Carbon Footprint: Attending remotely saves travel resources and significantly reduces your environmental impact.
Easier with a Family: You can balance family responsibilities and still participate, watching sessions live or on your own schedule.
It’s Cheaper: Remote tickets cost less, and you avoid extra expenses like travel, accommodation, and meals.
A Nice Trial: It’s a great way to try out a conference before committing to attending in person in the future.
Join from Anywhere: You can participate in conferences around the world, even those you couldn’t travel to physically because your passeport wouldn't allow it.
Rewatch Sessions: Remote conferences often provide recordings, so you can revisit sessions whenever it suits you.

Watch the full 8 minutes video

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.

Ocean treaty “a landmark victory” for the high seas: "The Global Ocean Treaty gives governments a legal framework to protect waters that lie outside of any country’s national boundaries. If fully implemented, the treaty could establish the largest network of ocean sanctuaries in history, Greenpeace said." (Positive News)
Brazil announces billion-dollar fund to preserve tropical forests: "Brazil’s President Lula da Silva announced at a UN event in New York that Brazil will contribute one billion dollars to a global fund for the preservation of endangered forests. The Tropical Forests Protection Fund (TFFF) will provide financial support to countries with tropical forests to help conserve and protect them". (Reuters via Goodnews)
Millions more children now receiving free school meals: Nearly 80 million more children are now receiving school meals through government-led programmes than they were 2020 – a 20% increase in just five years. (Positive News)

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