Why to write in the open?

Writing or sharing your Service Design Principles in the open has a few clear benefits:

1. Others benefit from your learnings

2. You get valuable feedback from others to improve your ideas

3. You set yourself as an expert

4. You get reactions that motivate you to keep on writing

In the blog post "How I'm building my next free course in the open" I've mentionned 6 reasons why it makes sense to build a course in the open. These can also apply to a Service Design Principles Library:

1. Get attention: people can discover that there is a course in preparation and if they are interested, can leave their email to get notified of the course launch

2. Help the curious ones: some extremely curious people don't need the course in its final course to already benefit from it. For these people, they can join the shitty draft version and get already the references and notes that will help them learn further

3. Get feedback: members of the service design community often share feedback about what they would add or further resources to go further. This allows me to make the course either better or bigger.

4. Get motivation: when you see that people find what you are building attractive, it's really motivating, and it gives you the energy to continue writing and exploring.

5. Meet new people: because I shared the work I've built in the open, lovely people from the community offered their help! So I'm working in a less lonely way on this course.

How to do it?

1. Keep a timeline of all the changes and ideas shared by others

2. Use website builders (like Podia, Squarespace, Wix, Wordpress) or tools that allow you to share your notes publicly (Notion, Obsidian Airtable, Trello). More details here. Or use a mix of tools

3. Onboard early reviewers

4. Share updates in a newsletter