thoughts

01-01-2008

The question why is at the same time the most destructive and most amazing question there is.

31-04-2008

Questioning the question and looking for answers by designing the

research. The people involved are the experts on what they do and why or what they actually would want, it is our job to get this

information out and build the service around that.

24-01-2008

a blogpost for 31Volts

Education and service design
How, what and why

This blogpost is about a big dilemma, problem, issue, idea, that needs some thinking, feel free to comment, add, adjust to work toward an realistic approach to tackle the issue.

What is going on
To start this blogpost off I am asking myself a basic question; Why do we need service design?
The answer on this question is not that difficult to find. In the development of services that are expanding and expanding, not anymore succeeding to full fill our needs with doing what they where used to do. We are asking for more and more detailed services in a far more complex society. Over the last decades the service industry in the UK and in most industrialized economies has grown and grown and is remaining to grow, it already is the biggest bit of the UK’s GDP.

What we need to do now is look at our developed services and enhance them. Re-think our approach and position in these services, expand them and let them meet our current day, or better, future needs.

How do we do that
The next question will be; Is it just designers that will have to save the day by designing and enhancing our services?

I don’t think so. Creativity is not something can you only learn in Art College, it is something many people have. It is a manager who deals with his department in such a way that there is a spirit among his employees. It is someone that comes up with a new system to dry the dishes or a child who builds dens at the bottom of the garden. Creativity is everywhere. It is about making connections, relations and associations that are new, not yet thought of, and having the courage to speak these ideas out loud. It is about not being afraid to make mistakes, but to learn from them and realize that something important may lie in each seemingly crazy idea. To be applied in every discipline to create a self critic society that is inventive and open for change.

To make full advantage of this creativity in you and me, but mostly the younger people, we have to teach how to use this, that this crazy idea can grow into something real. The problem is that in education today is not yet doing this. “We are educating people out of their creativity,” (Sir Ken Robinson, TED). By teaching people to follow a set rules and methods without questioning them we create a society that is static and afraid.

How can we make education about building on our personal inherent creativity? And be aware, it is not about creating artists and designers, but about how we can use our creativity to work on day to day problems. It is a tool to use the rest of your life in everything you think and do. Being aware of and interpreting your environment, situation, other people and the system you find yourself in.

Ideally we should create a society that is familiar with interdisciplinary collaborations between design, business, human sciences and technology and uses this to tackle it’s problems.

Back at the beginning
What does this has to do with service design?
Imagine this place where service design as a business is not relevant anymore because there is a general understanding of solving issues in a creative way. With looking at people, their habits, how they live and what they need.

The education of the young is where a future society is build on. Service design has a position where it can actually make a difference. But we must be aware that we shouldn’t forget the long term developments. You can call it idealism, or utopianism, one thing is for sure, we better start working on it. How of course is the question.

I myself am providing workshop programs for schools and colleges about creative thinking and social engagement in design. Slowly working on raising awareness and creating visibility of the issue, not focussing on the problems but looking at the possibilities. Do you think that this and e.g. how children learn at ‘Summerhill schools’ is a step in the right direction?

How would you do this, and in what way would you like to change education?
Let me know what you think!

Sources
- Service economy: http://diec.onene2dev.raki.enigmainteractive.net/page/service_economy.cfm
- Sir Ken Robinson at TED lecture: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/66
- Summerhill schools: http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/
- What are schools for

29-04-2007

You can say that design has lost its value when the function of things disappears. From a different perspective you could also say that contemporary design is not talking about function, but takes this for granted. It is the approach; mental and emotional function that counts and if this means physical functions will disappear this is not a loss but a change. A change in the function of design, offering a service to design services.

E.g. you can make a chair, but what do you want? I guess it’s made to sit on it, so what is the design? In this case the design is purely based on a visual approach. If you would make a chair to communicate a story, opinion, statement, the visual of the chair gains a function that can be more interesting than an other object to sit on although the relation to a recognisable object like a chair is valuable.

Is it functional to make a functional object instead of an object without physical function but an approach to communicate?

25-11-2005

Even today you see the returning images of sex, dirt, provocation, exposure … in the arts. Design in that matter does not show and hasn’t shown this basic animal side of human kind. Is it to confronting to people? This is what it is about humans are animals in denial. The fact they developed their selves out of the regular animal environment and created their own doesn’t say their behaviour is changed. A large part of human existence is still based on the old jungle rules. But now in an other jungle.

Man – woman, strongest, dominance, all of this animal behaviour has adjusted to our society, but it’s not that different from the animal world. And then design. Design holds on the structuralised human side of our culture. How do we infiltrate the animal in design??? This is a big but inevitable question. Human simply can’t live without the animal coming up once in a time. Does it has to appear in design or is ‘the fine arts the opposite of design (Design: representing the structure and culture), the animal of the arts? For my opinion design can use an animal. Rough and wild but with feeling and emotion.

How can the animal be brought back into the jungle of structure and so called civilised existence of the human being. Through design?

Design is one of the most powerful way of changing thoughts and ways in believe. The commercial world trust upon design to create attractive products that will bring in the money. As a designer you are in the position to influence the people who chose what people like. And as the construction of selling goods for a huge part is based on offer creates question, this is the way the designer is more powerful with spreading his opinion than most of them realize.

Hunting and gathering together with dominating are the main human activity for as long as we exist and still are.

19-10-2005

It’s quiet on the street. Everyone’s inside their homes defending it from everything that tries to interrupt there controlled existence. Inside it’s nice and comfortable. Nothing un expecting, the news and the commercials on television telling you how scared you must be for

almost everything.

The next day you wake up. “Is it safe to go outside? It ma be to could or to windy for my sensitive skin. O no, what if there are terrorists at the train”.

But anyway, you have to may your way to our job so you step out of your bed and start to think “what next. Should I first wash or brush my teeth after breakfast”.

Finally you made it in to your car not realising the many dangers you’re confronted with during the trip to work. The only thin you can think of is getting there in time despite of the traffic jams.

Eleven o’clock. After a morning of work you start to stare out of the window. And once in a thousand, maybe a million days, you start to wonder why you chose this job. Was it really because you like the work or was it about the money?

Finally it’s lunchtime. “Only 4 ours to go before a can go home!”.

You boring, lousy, obeying, f...

12-04-2006

Design is all about the communication. You can do whatever you want, in the end the only important thing is if the product of your process tells the story. If it communicates; the thought, feeling, use, quality, etc which you had in mind. What it is or if it is functional or how you got to this point is all off lesser value and may not even be important let stand visible by the time you reached the end of it.

-Experiencing consuming or consuming experiences?
-Touch, feel and people
-Why do most serice deisgn corganisations presentthem selves so clinical? I niticed that almost all service design organisations I know have a clean and official looking website, why is this? I thought that the core business of service design is to be human about humans.
-Can we come up with an other word for ‘Service desing’
-What are the specialism’s within service design
-The word is in the air ‘Desing activism’ but who knows what it means?

24-04-2008

You can read it everywhere, business should use design thinking, but what do they mean by this. What is design thinking and how is it used?

Creativity

It all starts with Creativity. This is not something you can only learn in Art College, it is something people have. It is a manager who deals with his department in such a way that there is a spirit among his employees. It is someone that comes up with a new system to dry the dishes or a child who builds dens at the bottom of the garden. Creativity is about making connections, relations and associations that are new, not yet thought of, and having the courage to speak these ideas out loud. It is about not being afraid to make mistakes, but to learn from them and realize that something important may lie in each seemingly crazy idea.

Design thinking is the applying of this creativity in the set frame of your business and its market. It helps you to become aware that the product or service you are offering is part of a system and that you can decide on where, how and when to take part in this. It is the system around your product or service is what needs to be designed. How do others look at your company, what do they find important, and many more questions need being asked to become aware of who you are and what you sell. You will design not the product but the experience around your product.

This leads to the question; What do you sell?

The scenario of a design thinking case is set in a situation where the experience of buying and using takes a central position in the questions to who, how, where, and why you sell your product or service. The product becomes part of a system that supports the product and represent your company.

How to start working on this is simply by asking yourself questions. What is really being bought is it the object or service or is it the experience, and what is this experience, what experience do people, interested in your product or service, want and why do they want this? The client takes a central position in

Creating value

Our world is more and more ruled by corporations and therefor the responsibility and power to make change formerly of governments is shifting to business. Governments are providing the framework and guidelines but it is the business that has to innovate. Taking responsibility over the effects of their action, local and global. Increasingly, consumers are becoming aware of what they buy, especially today where you have to be carbon conscience and have faire triad bio lunches. The aspect of the social and environmental responsibility of companies is a growing part of the buying experience or your clients.

The questions remains; What do you sell?

15-05-2007

‘The world is square, borders are square, land is square, street blocks and houses are square, gardens are square, doors and windows are square, trees are square, furniture is square, cars are square, my computer is square, tiles are square, the table is square, my locker is square, my glasses are square, systems are square, THINKING IS SQUARE.’