Design synthesis bugs and mix of people

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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:

3 Service Design Q&A :

People mix: What's a good mix of expertise to have in a project?
Synthesis bugs: What's are common problems with stakeholder mapping?
Teaching repetition: What are the pieces of information I repeat in each class?

1 Backstage Blog articles:

Remarkable templates: How do I create and manage templates in a simple way on my Remarkable tablet?

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 showing an overview of different expertises that can be helpful for a Service Design project

What's a good mix of expertise to have in a project?

In short: Benjamin Nanchen in his work mixes 4 lenses : usage, professional, academic and political. I go with three: people who live it, decision makers, experts (for all three I mix internal and external people).

Read the full Q&A

An illustration showing the necessary switch from stakeholder map to stakeholder plan

What's are common problems with stakeholder mapping?

In short:

False accomplishment: Feeling the work is done because the mapping is done. When you buy a map it's to go for a hike. Not to just look at it.
Helplessness: Feeling that there's just too many people in the systems to work with, so feeling demotivated and not bothering to contact people, because: it's just too much.
Built on assumption: Mapping what you have in your head, instead of researching and asking what it's in your blind spot.

But how do you avoid that?

Map on evidence: find what's in your blind spot
Prioritize what it means: what are the top 3 things you need to do
Get out: do the hike, reach the people.

Read the full Q&A

An illustration showing the three things I repeat in most of my classes - human start - review of the plan - synthesis and feedback

What are the pieces of information I repeat in each class?

In short: in a course that I teach over multiple weeks I repeat each time :

At the start:

Emotional weather report
Course overview and dates
Plan for the day and why this content matters

At the end of the day

Visual synthesis hand sketched of what matters the most
Course overview and dates
Assignment for next time
Stars and wishes feedback for the future

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:

An illustration showing overview of my remarkable templating systems with multiple layers, peak at the edge of the document, and different colors for labels and structure

How do I create and manage templates in a simple way on my Remarkable tablet?

In this tiny article I share how the layer feature helps to create good custom templates on templates on the Remarkable tablet and which of the official templates I find useful.

Read full 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.

Ireland’s basic income for artists became permanent: "Offering participants a weekly stipend of €325 (£283), the €25m (£21m) pilot helped more than 2,000 artists, although many more applied. According to an independent study, the scheme generated €100m (£87m) in “social and economic benefits” to Ireland’s economy." (Positive News)
Netherlands steps up: Climate protection for Bonaire: "Following a lawsuit by Greenpeace, a court has ruled that the Netherlands must better protect its Caribbean island of Bonaire from the impacts of climate change. Concrete measures to address rising sea levels and environmental degradation must be implemented by 2030." (The Guardian via Good News)
Colombia’s deforestation rate fell. Again: "Progress halting deforestation continues in Colombia, according to new government data, which points to a 25% year-on-year reduction in tree loss." (Positive News)

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