Choosenick!

Lego Serious Play - Business consulting through lego building!

Nick Marsh — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:54:06 -0700

Lego Serious Play - Business consulting through lego building!

This looks like a seriously brilliant B2B service design idea: "LEGO SERIOUS PLAY is an innovative, experiential process designed to enhance innovation and business performance. Based on research that shows that this kind of hands-on, minds-on learning produces a deeper, more meaningful understanding of the world and its possibilities, LEGO SERIOUS PLAY deepens the reflection process and supports an effective dialogue - for everyone in the organization." Check it out!

"An open collection of communication tools used in design processes...

Nick Marsh — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:56:28 -0700

"An open collection of communication tools used in design processes that deal with complex systems." www.servicedesigntools.org This is #awesome. Great stuff from Roberta Tassi.

Two nice pieces of non design-led service design

Nick Marsh — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:27:25 -0700

Spotted these two nice pieces of service design yesterday. Both are good examples of how simple service innovations can make a big difference and both come from very different sources of inspiration - the first directly from service users, and the second via a 'related worlds' piece of thinking.

The first is a Scottish NHS scheme to encourage people to stop smoking by, literally, paying them to quit. Participants get £12.50 a week to spend on groceries if they pass a special breathaliser test. The scheme is proving very successful, and Dr Paul Ballard, from the NHS reports that the idea from the scheme came from just talking to local smokers about what was important to them:

"We worked with local people to find out what would motivate them to quit smoking and using the message, 'You'll be healthier for longer' clearly wasn't going to work, what was important to them was putting food on the table... The figures that are coming through are showing that it's very successful."

I think this is great. It's a really simple, innovative approach to the serious health problem of smoking, and there's a BBC news video you can watch containing interviews with participants and organisers here. If only they could somehow get the tobacco companies to pay for it.

My concern for this scheme is its long term viability - the participants are poor, and some unemployed, and I imagine they'll get used to the extra £12.50. What happens when they've completely quit? Will they start smoking again to get the £12.50 back?

The second piece was reported in the FT yesterday - in areas of the US that have been hit hard by job losses Kmart is offering a discount programme for the unemployed.

This is a nice piece of corporate social design - everyone wins (although the unemployed won't feel like winners right now.) What's not in the online version (I read it in the print edition) is that the manager at Kmart just stole the idea from an apparel company that was offering 'insurance' on mens suits - buy the suit now, if you loose your job you get the money back.

Importing and modifying ideas from other sectors and industries, is an excellent, low cost service innovation strategy. Some people call it 'fast following' or 'playing not to lose'.

Reflections on the Department of Health Innovation Expo

Nick Marsh — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 02:05:57 -0700

Joel has posted some interesting reflections on the recent Department for Health Innovation Expo. He asks/states:

Why does social care appear to be the poor cousin to health care?
Design: it's a chick thing. 60% of delegates were women, women are spearheading service design in the NHS. (This is true. Definitely)
Service design is a big deal. Darzi basically put it front and centre in his keynote.
Tele health is going to be big. Agree.

Check out his thoughts on his blog. Steve has also posted a review with some reflections of his own.

Jen Bove from Kicker presents as part of Dot Dot Dot 'The service...

Nick Marsh — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:26:02 -0700

Jen Bove from Kicker presents as part of Dot Dot Dot 'The service designers'. More videos on the mfa interaction design blog. Via Kate

SILK: People's lives as sources of innovation: the story of the Social Innovation Lab for Kent

Nick Marsh — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 05:17:04 -0700

SILK: People's lives as sources of innovation: the story of the Social Innovation Lab for Kent

Article by Sophia Parker and Peter Gilroy on the SILK programme so far...

Two today!

Nick Marsh — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 08:19:15 -0700

Short vanity post - Choosenick (in blog form) is two today! Here's the first post. Prior to that, it was an Expression Engine powered portfolio site, and before that ... hand written html, of which the only record is now on my computer. Those were the days!

Service Design Thanks!

Nick Marsh — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 05:30:27 -0700

Thanks to everyone who came down to service design drinks 4. It was great, nice to see some new faces, and to catch up with more regular service design drinkers! In no particular order, it was great to catch up with Arpit, Dan, Olly, Mayo, Gavin, Tamsin, Richard, Lauren, Jaimes, Melanie, Joel, Luke, Fergus, Tobie, Steve, Alex, Erick, amongst others - if I missed you or didn't say hi, sorry! Next time!

Speaking of next time, next time we'll use Eventbrite to coordinate and we'll have badges to identify us, which should make it easier to figure out who's there! Here's a few photos from Alex of the event - if anyone else took any, please let me know.

Just do it; why in design actions speak louder than thoughts. | Ferg's Blog

Nick Marsh — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 10:58:37 -0700

Just do it; why in design actions speak louder than thoughts. | Ferg's Blog

Fergus Bisset is thinking about not thinking about design thinking in order to design better things. Phew. Let him know what you think here.

Designing Behaviour Change

Nick Marsh — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 10:55:56 -0700

Dan Lockton has posted a long appraisal of Robert Fabricant's recent essay on design with intent for Frog design's online journal (which itself borrows a lot from Dan's thinking).

It's definitely worth reading in full, as it summarises much of Dan's thesis in a single post, which is great, and contains loads of links to lots of good further reading. Of course, there's much more to Dan's work, including loads of practical stuff.

Some of the best content is around the apparently uneasy relationship between user centred design and design for behaviour change - although Dan doesn't see a tension:

"I would argue that in cases where design with intent, or design for behaviour change, is aligned with what the user wants to achieve, it’s very much still user-centred design, whether enabling, motivating or constraining. It’s the best form of user-centred design, supporting a user’s goals while transforming his or her behaviour."

Anyway, check it out, and let Dan know if you're applying any of his thinking or tools in your service design work in the comments!