Service Design Show

Recently, I turned 43... I don't really celebrate my birthdays anymore.

Don't worry; I have an amazing wife who makes sure there's always cake.

But I do always try to take a moment and reflect on my past year because “The only time you should ever look back, is to see how far you've come.”

Well, today, it's not just about my journey; it's about ours.

We've hit a massive Service Design Show milestone: 200 episodes!

That's a new interview every two weeks for over 8 years.

And by now, we've clocked in over 500.000 listens to our conversations. Truly mind-boggling.

Especially when you consider how niche our field is (still). It tells me what I do matters to people like you.

Honestly, if I had to, I'd still do this show just for my own learning... but knowing you're out there makes it so much better.

To celebrate, I'm flipping the script. For this episode, it's me answering YOUR questions. Some are about service design, some get a bit personal...

Here's a sneak peek:

• Is Journey Management the next big thing?
• Will service design disappear?
• How does the Show make money?
• How do I keep sane working solo?

You might be surprised by some of the answers.

Guess, there's only one way to find out...

This episode was a lot of fun and quite a challenge to produce. Let me know if you like this format – maybe we'll do a follow up...

Take care,

~ Marc

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00:00 Welcome to episode 200

01:50 Why Service Design

04:30 Lessons learned from 200+ conversations

10:15 The business model

16:15 How to stay healthy and sane

25:00 Communicating service design

31:00 Designing timeless services

36:00 Is Journey Management the next big thing

40:00 Where are things going

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Is design facing a crisis? You don't have to spend much time on LinkedIn to read about the recent layoffs, studio closures, and debates about our value. Whether or not you call it a crisis, it's hard to deny that things have been shaken up recently. But instead of focusing on surface level symptoms, let's dive deeper. In this episode, we sit down with Yvonne Tran, design director at the New York Times, to explore the underlying forces that shape design. Where are we coming from, and what could be its next destination. Why is design in its current state? Is this a backlash against the widespread understanding of "design thinking"? If everyone's a designer, what's the unique value a professional brings? Despite the challenges, Yvonne still sees a bright future for design. As our clients and colleagues evolve and mature, so must we. In our conversation, Yvonne outlined three key areas where design can continue to provide unique value. A thought-provoking episode for anyone interested in new ways to think about how to keep playing a meaningful role in the future. It's all too easy to get bogged down in the daily grind. What I enjoyed about this conversation with Yvonne is that we zoomed out and challenged our perspectives. Let's look beyond the horizon of this quarter and make decisions that are grounded in a long-term perspective. Inspired? Share this with someone who needs to hear it. Take care, ~ Marc

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00:00 Welcome to Episode 199

03:30 Who is Yvonne

04:30 How she stumbled to SD

06:00 Lightning Round

10:00 Design, Designers, & Innovation

14:00 The promise of design thinking

17:30 What's the impact

27:00 The new role of design community

37:00 Aligning people's expectations

39:30 How to accelerate demand

44:00 How to measure success

48:30 One takeaway

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This has to stop... I don't care what they say. Chatbots s*ck.

But we, as service design professionals, have the power to make things better. Sure, ChatGPT and Google Gemini are impressive tools, but a chatbot on a company's website? Probably one of the most frustrating experiences you can have these days. This trend toward replacing humans in service delivery is a growing concern. There's nothing wrong with trying to optimize processes. It becomes a problem when it's done in a mindless way to solely cut costs at the expense of the user experience. Our guest, ​Cameron Tonkinwise​, makes a compelling case for preserving the human element in service delivery. Because removing this vital component erodes something incredibly valuable that AI (or any other tech) can't and will never be able to replicate. As you can imagine, simply pointing out the problem isn't enough. So, in our conversation, we explore how to make a strong case for human-driven services... even to the most skeptical stakeholders. Spoiler: Waiting for our clients to change their minds isn't the answer. It requires a proactive approach on our part. If you work in a product or tech-driven environment, this episode will hopefully give you the energy and ideas to challenge the relentless push for short-term optimization. The chat with Cameron reminded me that we have a responsibility to design the future we want to see rather than just being of service to others. Enjoy the conversation and keep making a positive impact! Take care, ~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 This is Episode 198

04:00 Who is Cameron

05:00 How he stumbled to SD

12:30 the current perspective to SD

15:00 the ideal outcome

16:45 A vastly uneducated community

24:00 Why the model isn't adopted

26:00 How to support the current economy

29:30 Hockey puck story

33:30 Thoughts in AI

39:00 What you can be offering

41:30 Expressing the need

45:00 Importance of frontline observation

50:00 One practical takeaway

52:00 Connect with Cameron

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Imagine that you had the power to look into the future...

That you could escape from the short-term focus and envision a world years or even decades away. And on top of this, you'd be able to turn this vision into something real, a roadmap to guide your decisions today.

Wouldn't that change everything?

Now, this episode won't give you a crystal ball, but it might be the next best thing.

We all know that the challenges we face today require different ways of thinking in order to solve them. If we continue on the trajectory we're currently on, our future isn't looking very bright, to say the least.

In order to create a different, better future, we have to first imagine it.

But with our world changing so fast, how can we even predict tomorrow, let alone years from now? Aren't we just better off focussing on the here and now?

Not according to our guest, Ali Draudt. Ali teaches us that predicting the future is a hidden superpower of designers. Lucky for us, Ali is an expert – author of "What the Foresight," holding a degree in Design Strategy and Strategic Foresight, and is currently the Head of Innovation and Design Strategy at Nike.

In this episode, you'll hear how to:

• Explore worldviews that might be radically different from your own.
• Challenge your existing beliefs and biases to imagine the seemingly impossible.
• Use practical tools to make abstract futures tangible.

So, if you're to unleash your hidden superpower and make better decisions today you'll be in for a treat!

Talking with Ali reminded me that the dots only connect in hindsight. The only way to make those breakthrough, serendipitous connections is by continuing to explore things that seem irrelevant now.

Enjoy and keep making a positive impact.

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 197

04:00 Who is Ali

04:45 How Ali Stumbled into Service Design

06:30 Lightning Round

08:00 Moving beyond antromorphic design

10:30 What's truly human-centered

17:30 Adopting to this practice

21:00 Next big thing to go beyond

24:00 Changing levels of zoom

31:00 Coping mechanism on the speed

38:00 Using the Steep Model in Teams

40:00 4 archetypes to future potentials

45:30 What good work look like

49:30 Co-creation mode

50:45 What I hope you'd remember

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Here is something that makes many service design professionals cringe...

The question to quantify the impact design has on the company goals.

You'll see that finding the answer to this question is actually surprisingly easier (and more fun) than you might think.

Here's a business mantra you might have heard before: If it's not being measured, it's not important.

Numbers rule. That's that cold, hard reality of how companies operate.

Now, as a design community, we've always struggled to quantify the value we bring to tangible business outcomes.

Sure, there are valid reasons – we often work on systemic challenges where it's hard to make a water-tight correlation between our efforts and the specific impact they have on the goals.

There are just many factors at play that have an influence, and isolating our contribution is hard or, rather, impossible.

So, we often get hung up on this attribution question as we feel we can't "prove" how much we've contributed.

Even if we want to measure our contribution, we find that the right measuring processes aren't in place to do so. So, we'd rather focus our time and energy on solving the actual challenge at hand than implementing those processes from the ground up.

And let's be real, not many of us wake up excited about capturing things in a spreadsheet.

So yes, there are reasons why quantifying the impact of design is hard and often lacking.

But, as we've recently seen, we're paying a high price for this.

Just scroll through your LinkedIn feed to see many sad examples of that playing out. When budgets tighten, design often takes the hit as it can't show, in numbers, its contribution to the business.

Okay, I know this hasn't been a very uplifting message so far. But here's the good news.

There is a group of professionals out there who absolutely love design and thrive on these types of measurement challenges.

Of course, I'm referring to our friends from the DesignOps community.

When we collaborate closely together, we have the power to anchor design as an indispensable strategic discipline. At least that's the firm conviction of Patrizia Bertini, our guest in this episode.

Patrizia, shares her journey of implementing measurement frameworks that facilitate healthier conversations between design professionals and business stakeholders. In the conversation, we dive into the juicy stuff like value attribution, measuring systemic impact, and prototyping with numbers.

I can't guarantee this episode will turn you into a spreadsheet enthusiast, but it will definitely inspire you to be BFFs with someone who loves crunching numbers.

Let's face it; we might sometimes feel intimidated by numbers. We want to prove with scientific rigor that things are the way we say. But here's a secret: educated guesses are everything you need...

Enjoy the chat and keep making a positive impact!

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 196

03:30 Who is Patricia

04:15 Patricia's first Service Design encounter

05:00 Lightning Round

06:30 Thoughts about design identity

12:00 The decline of strategic design

16:30 Unpacking data triangulation

21:00 Identifying problem in onboarding

24:45 Design thinking for business problems

30:00 Going against the system's structure

32:30 Initiating organizational values

42:00 The impact of translating what the business is

46:00 How to bridge the gap

51:30 Who should be accountable?

56:00 What to avoid and what we should do

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