Does this mean service design cannot take off in the United States? No. I think it’s got a shot if we can show businesses the value of such an approach.

During the Interaction10 conference, I had the opportunity to meet with Birgit Mager and Shelley Evenson, both founders of the Service Design Network, to talk about plans for a US conference to promote the value of service design to the business sector. One possible location we discussed is Boston, given Shelley’s current ties to Microsoft there. There have already been rumors that Microsoft will sponsor the event. Though these rumors, I have been told, are premature.

But if all goes as discussed, the one-day conference will take place in October around the same time as the Berlin conference. The plan is then for a full US service design conference in 2011, similar to the Berlin conference with content for practitioners, academics, and students. I hope to have a hand in both events, and am excited about bringing the conversation about service design back to the US after the dearth that resulted after the Emergence conference ceased.

While bringing conferences to the US will certainly help raise the profile of service design here, some designers I have talked to either dismiss service design or don’t think it will take hold. What do you think?

Everyone seemed really excited and positive. So we decided to make it a monthly event. Bar 821 was a bit loud, so I will be searching for another venue for next month’s SD drinks.

You can find San Francisco Service Design Drinks events on servicedesigning.org, Twitter (@servicedesignsf), and Facebook (group: Service Design SF). Many thanks to Geke van Dijk, Nick Marsh, and James Nel for the helping on the backend and the encouragement.

Since studying interaction design and service design at Carnegie Mellon University, I have wrestled with the relationship between the two. During an interview with Jeff Howard, a few days after graduating, I tried to address this relationship. It was both a great privilege and opportunity to share my thoughts at Interaction10 two years later.

Talking about service design at an interaction design conference had its challenges. I covered why I thought we should be talking about service design, what service design looks like, how it’s different from interaction design, and what interactions designers can do if they’re interested in service design. I was happy to get a lot of positive feedback after the talk. But going in, I didn’t know what people would make of it.

OH: “When I hear ’service design’ I reach for my gun.”

This was tweeted from the conference the night before my talk. While no one shot at me, one audience member did say the talk rubbed him a bit the wrong way. And another person in the audience took issue with service design as an emerging field. He seemed to ignore that I said the design of services is not new. But the conscious application of design practice to services is new and emerging. Subtle but significant difference. I suppose this all supports some rumors I heard that my talk was controversial.

Good! I further heard that the talk generated a lot of good conversation. That’s what I hoped to do, so I am happy.

If you were there and have feedback, good or bad, I’d love to hear it. I spent a lot of time thinking about the relationship between interaction design and service design, but it’s definitely a work in progress.

Finally, I’d like to thank Jared Cole, Kip Lee, Imran Sobh, Carrie Chan, and Susan Dybbs for their feedback.

It’s hard not to be underwhelmed by a product that we already had a good idea of what it would be, especially if you’ve ever used an iPhone. But aside from there being little surprises, and an arguably terrible name (there’s nothing poetic about iPad), what I find more interesting are services the device will enable.

I work for Nokia, so I’m either working on or analyzing new service opportunities created by mobile devices. I’ve been using an iPhone since 2007. At this point, the phone itself is no longer what impresses me. It’s the services that others have built on top of the platform that continue to impress. It’s the same for Nokia devices. Sure, our phones have some pretty solid technology. But it’s the services that mobile devices enable that are really compelling. Nokia Life Tools, which provides agriculture, education, and entertainment services in emerging markets, is a good example. So is a mobile service I worked on last year to help HIV positive youth take their medication.

And While the iPad isn’t marketed to address agricultural issues for farmers or medication adherence for HIV positive youth, I cannot help but wonder what services this new device (and I predict future devices much like it) — somewhere between a mobile phone and laptop — will enable given its size, portability, slick interface, and robust application delivery platform. So while the iPad seems somewhat predictable, the new services it will enable are not. And that, I find exciting.

A small party of Bay Area peeps interested in talking about service design got together this past Friday at Lime in the Castro. The somewhat last-minute event was organized by Aidan Kenny, who was here on business from Kilkenny, Ireland.

The gathering included people from organizations like the American Heart Association, Adaptive Path, Apple, Intuit, Nikon, and, of course, Nokia (me!). The intimate affair gave me a chance to talk to everyone and hear different challenges for service design, from incorporating it more into business development to finding places to practice it. I even got an idea or two for my upcoming service design talk at IxD10.

After coming back from the Service Design Network conference last October, I toyed with the idea of starting up service design drinks here in San Francisco, as it seems to work for the European crowd. I had resolved to kick it off this month, so was happy to find out that Aidan beat me to it. However, since he’s not from these parts, I will try to keep it going. I am looking into some venues and will aim to have a meet-up in February after I get back from IxD10.

Let me know if you’re interested.