Service Design Show

There's a problem with the current design process that often goes unnoticed...

A problem that can lead to less-than-ideal outcomes or, even worse, harm certain communities.

To understand this, we must acknowledge our huge responsibility as design professionals. We're often the only ones advocating for our users' needs, the voice of those who aren't in the room.

It's a privilege we shouldn't take lightly.

We make decisions, and judgment calls for the people we're designing for. Of course, we do our best with the best intentions, but we always will fall short.

Why? Because we aren't the users. We don't live their lives or experience their struggles.

Sure, let there be no doubt: having someone advocate for users is a good start, but it's not enough.

We can do better; we must do better.

Our guest, ​Sloan Leo Cowan​, helps us see what "better" looks like.

The key is to move away from "designing for" or even "designing with" users and move towards "designing by" them. It means giving up control and power. Sound impossible?

Sloan Leo shares practical examples of how they've achieved this in their work.

This episode will show you a way forward if you care about creating more inclusive and equitable work.

Stop designing WITH your users! There is a better way.

As you'll hear, Sloan Leo's perspective on design challenges the status quo. We really need this to push the boundaries of design and ensure it stays relevant.

Keep making a positive impact!

Take care,

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 217

04:00 Sloan's social sector journey

08:15 Defining Community?

10:15 Service design "habits" (issues)

12:45 Neutrality in Interpretation

15:15 Facilitator vs. Interpreter Roles

18:45 Facilitating towards beliefs

19:30 Power Dynamics in Facilitation

21:15 Binary thinking in service design

26:45 Issue: Persona Development & Gender

31:45 Origins of Community Design Issues

36:00 How to approach the large scale

38:15 Open source approach

40:30 The challenges for service designers

41:45 Benefits for Communities and Designers

43:45 Advice for Aspiring Designers

47:15 Recommended Resources

51:45 Proudest Achievements

54:15 Keys to Success

56:45 Additional Resources

57:30 Questions for Reflection

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

Pronouns they/he

There is no service design...

Without high-quality research.

Sure, we all know that.

But doing good research is hard.

Kate Towsey, often called the inventor of the ResearchOps field, can certainly attest to this.

If you're a dedicated listener of the show, you might remember Kate from our conversation about a year ago where she shared that she was writing a book.

Well, that book, titled "Research that Scales", has officially been published!

And with a 4.9/5 rating on Amazon, it seems to have struck a chord with readers.

Of course, we had to get Kate back on the show to discuss it.

In this conversation we delve into topics like:

• Do we need to scale research, and if so why?
• What does "scale" actually mean in the context of research?
• When should you start thinking about scaling?
• What are the key steps to scaling research?
• What role can AI play in all of this? Will it take over our jobs?
• Why did it take Kate 3.5 years to publish the book?

And as always, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

It's hard to imagine a service design professional who wouldn't be interested in the topics we cover in this episode.

Good research isn't just a nice-to-have; it's a must.

Without giving away too many spoilers, I found it fascinating that it's not actually research that you need to (or can) scale, but something else. Something that we as a community are pretty good at.

Can you guess what it is?

Enjoy and keep making a positive impact!

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 216

03:00 Quick overview about scaling research

04:00 Why she wrote the book

09:30 Pandemic's impact on the book

13:00 Research rabbit hole

15:00 Unscalable Research: What to Avoid

18:30 What is enough research?

22:00 The problem she saw

25:00 The main bottlenecks

27:45 Libriarian's role in making the change

31:00 How the process work

33:00 Knowledge as a network vs tree

35:30 Maximizing efficient use of library

39:00 Designing the system

41:00 Knowledge vs. Learning: Value Proposition

43:00 Cost center vs value center

47:00 AI and Research: A Synergistic Future

49:00 Cost of scaling: A Trade-off

51:00 Strategic approach to scaling

53:00 How to know when to scale

54:30 Her readers insights

56:00 Upcoming masterclasses

58:00 Resources

58:30 Food for thought

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

What is strategy... A plan for how you intend to achieve your goals? That's how a lot of people define strategy. But there's a problem with this rigid approach...

As Mike Tyson wisely said once: "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face." Most strategies are too prescriptive about how the goal needs to be achieved.

But we live in a VUCA world where it's getting harder and harder to predict what will happen, even just weeks ahead. The sphere of what an organization can control is shrinking (and control is an illusion anyway).

What seemed like a wise action last week might be irrelevant today, thanks to new technology, a sudden global crisis, or a certain election outcome...

Following your strategy in this scenario might mean you're executing what you agreed to, but it could very well lead you away from your intended goal.

So, when there is so little we can control and predict, does that mean we shouldn't do any strategizing at all? Certainly not. We just need to adopt a more emergent approach.

We still need a plan to align everyone, but one that allows for more flexibility and deciding in the moment what the right next step is.

What does this type of strategy look like, and how do we get there? That's something ​Peter Compo​ has written ​a great book​ about, and I've invited him on the Show to share his learnings with us.

We talk about:

• Why research is becoming an increasingly important capability for any organization.
• How we can know we'll achieve our goals if we don't know at the start which actions to take.
• And how to help an organization used to control and prediction embrace uncertainty and flexibility.

I know this episode will resonate with many service design professionals. It ties strongly to our mantra of "doing the right things" and not just focusing on "doing things right."

Strategy can be a very abstract term without much substance. But what I appreciated in our conversation is that Peter makes things super practical. It's time to roll up your sleeves and get to work on your strategy.

Enjoy and keep making a positive impact.

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 215

03:30 Music and emergence

06:00 How he got into writing the book

10:30 Pete's perspective in strategy

16:00 The theory of emergence

20:00 constraints & trust

26:30 Bridging the gap of uncertainty

30:30 Letting Go of Control

36:30 Examples of good metrics

41:00 False learning organization

46:30 Trusting your team

50:30 Aspiration-bottleneck triad

57:00 another recommendation

59:00 Strategy matrix

01:04:00 Personal Impact on writing

01:09:00 Resources

1:11:00 Question to ponder

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

An exciting new conference is just around the corner, ​Advancing Service Design 2024​. We ​recently had a chat​ with Lou Rosenfeld, the conference organizer, about key ideas behind the conference.

Now, we're doing a deep dive into the two-day conference program with ​Sylvie Abookire​, who's part of the curation team. In this episode, you'll hear about the main themes, the inspiring (and somewhat surprising) speakers, and of course how it all ties together to advance our field.

Sure, you can also get some of this info on the conference website, but I promise this conversation is much more fun 🙂

I'll be presenting at the conference about the latest insights from the Salary Report and lessons learned from building the Circle community. Want to join one of my sessions? Send me an email or reach out on LinkedIn, and I'll let you know how you can attend even without a conference ticket.

~ ~ ~

🎟️ Want to attend Advancing Service Design? Well, you're in luck!

💰 Answer the simple question over here at ⁠https://www.servicedesignshow.com/asdc2024-survey⁠ to get a 10% discount on your ticket. But that's not all!

🏆 When you sign up using this code, you'll automatically enter a contest where you can win sweet prizes.

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 A Special Episode with Sylvie

02:45 Sylvie's role in the conference

04:30 Conference schedule & format

06:00 Biggest conference challenge

07:30 The final 8 speakers

10:00 What the conference means to Sylvie

12:00 Day 1: Designing in the system

14:30 Day 1: format

16:00 Day 1: The panel

17:00 Audience interaction

19:00 Day 2: Designing with the system

22:30 How we hope the conference impacts

24:00 Sylvie's workshops after the conference

27:00 The most fun part of the conference

28:00 Key Takeaways

28:00 Visibility & Impact

32:00 Conference Details & Tickets

32:30 Giveaway

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

I remember being subscribed to this email newsletter from a guy named Josh, all about email marketing (kind of meta)...

Every single day, a new email from Josh would pop up in my inbox, and I'd open it right away.

These emails were different, a bit weird even, but in the best way possible. Each one would start with something that felt totally random, a story about something Josh experienced. No mention of email marketing whatsoever.

But every time I was hooked. I just had to know how the story ended.

And then, bam, right at the end, with just two or three lines he'd tie it all back to email marketing in a way that just clicked.

Those emails weren't just informative; they were actually enjoyable, to the point that I looked forward to them.

Now being able to hold someone's attention like that always seemed like a magic superpower to me... but I learned that it's not.

In this episode, Gabrielle Dolan, who's been teaching the craft of storytelling for over 20 years, reveals how you can grow your storytelling skills and use them to communicate your message in a way that stick and, most of all inspires action.

And as service design professionals, we know that getting people to take action is critical for change but also very challenging.

So whether you consider yourself a natural storyteller or not, this episode is packed with practical wisdom you won't want to miss.

Josh, by the way, stopped sending his daily emails a while ago, but as you've noticed his lessons have stuck with me.

Enjoy the episode and keep making a positive impact!

Take care,

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 214

03:30 Power of stories

06:00 Why stories make communication better

08:00 Dealing with skepticism

13:00 Why Organizations seek facts over stories

14:30 Story-Resistant Culture

18:00 Practical tips in becoming better storytellers

23:00 Finding your stories

24:00 Using spreadsheets

28:00 How to be comfortable using them

31:30 How to see if it's working (Tracking progress

34:00 Indicators of Success

37:00 Potential of backfiring

39:00 Gauging level of emotion

42:00 Advise from Ral

44:00 How Ral's storytelling evolved

45:30 How to use AI in storytelling

48:30 Storytelling vs acting

49:30 What's next in her storytelling journey

51:30 What kept her going

52:30 Resources

55:30 Question to ponder

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---