27. November 2009 by Aidan.

Here is a visual tool that I have put together to assist in outlining the key steps in the Service Design process.

The LADDER moves from assessing the LAndscape->Discovery->Design->Evaluation->Roll-out and it captures some of the key tools and thought processes involved along the way.

Here is a PDF version: SD LADDER PDF

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5. November 2009 by Aidan.

I attended the “Designed in Ireland” event in Waterford last night, as part of 2009 Design Week. The event was very well organised by Marcus Notley and his team and was held in the City Library. In addition to poster presentations of the work of many designers in the South East, there were two talks from Sean McNulty of Innovator and Siobhan O’Dwyer of Threesixty.

Sean, MD of Innovator, spoke about the different business landscape in Ireland at the moment and the need for everyone to take their destiny into their own hands and re-evaluate their business model in order to survive and prosper. He argued for the application of Design Thinking to all of our businesses and introduced many of the tools that can be used to implement this. This would be very much in line with what I have been saying for some time also (see Service Design & Innovation Ireland Linkedin Group) and I would be in complete agreement with Sean.

Siobhan, Brand Director of Threesixty, spoke about the future of design and consumer patterns. We have been forced out of our rampant consumption culture by the need to cut back on spending, but even if the money does start to return to our pockets, will we return to the consumption patterns of before. Siobhan believes that we will be much more discerning about our purchases and that we will tend towards purchasing fewer, better designed products. I tend to agree that our buying patterns will be altered significantly. She also spoke about the future of eco and green products and services. Siobhan wrapped up by introducing us to the term “nonsumers” as the future consumers, her term for people who have turned their back on mass disposable consumption. It was a great talk with a lot to think about.

During the evening I also had a long chat with the wonderful Denise Ryan of Fineline Interiors. Denise has worked on some major commercial design projects and in a lesson to all service providers has now expanded her offerings by teaming up with Tony Clayton-Lea to provide bespoke music designed to complement the design and ambiance of your premises. Great example of extending your service offerings.

Overall it was a very enjoyable evening and a great success.  

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4. November 2009 by Aidan.

I attended a breakfast briefing this morning at the Smurfit Business School at UCD, Dublin. The briefing was to introduce a new Executive Education Programme that the school will offer from the end of this month.

The class is titled “Innovate in the Services Sector - Strategy & Skills” and covers the following areas :

• An understanding of what Service Innovation looks like and how methods have been developed to treat it differently than product innovation, along with frameworks to explore opportunities and make your vision a reality.
• An overview of best practice, an understanding of methods and models that work, so you can confidently set an innovation course. If you’re ready we can take the first steps together.
• An innovation-teaming experience where you’ll design or improve a service or “servitise” a product company. This will give you the intuitive grasp of what your teams need, how they’ll function as innovators themselves.

This mornings briefing gave a broad overview of the class and was presented by Keith Finglas and Chris Kurjan from Innovation Delivery. There was a broad mix of people at the briefing and I was surprised by the number from the financial services sector. There was some active discussion and it was good to see the level of interest in this emerging area.  

Here is a link to the details of the class: Innovate in the Services Sector

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