Final workshop - 5 October 2007

For our final project workshop, the core participants of around 25 people were joined by some guests from service design practice, including Plot, Engine Group, and Orange, and academia, including Tom Inns (Dundee University, and director of the Designing for the 21st Century research initiative), Daniela Sangiorgi (Lancaster University) and Stefan Holmlid (Linköpings Universitet).

The aim of the workshop was to hear from the academic participants - many from social sciences/management studies and some from design studies - their reflections on the project. The short presentations presented a number of sometimes complementary, sometimes contradictory, perspectives on the 'data' that emerged in the project - what happened in the engagements between the service design consultancies and their science enterprise pairs, and the accounts given by people from these organizations in the previous workshops; and the wider context in which 'service design' and 'the designing of services' are emerging as bodies of knowledge and subjects of research.

In discussion it became clear that the project had achieved its aims - to bring together a diverse group of academics, practitioners in service design, and entrpreneurs in science and technology enterprises offering services - to explore the different kinds of understanding they have about service design in science and technology-based enterprises. Participants also raised questions about the relevance of this kind of exploratory research for practitioners - since service design is arguably being led at present by service design practitioners.

The speakers included
- Antti Ainamo, reflecting on research in services marketing and technology services
- Kate Blackmon, comparing the cognitive maps, mental models and language in service design and operations management
- Lucy Kimbell, giving an overview of the Designing for Services project as a whole and showing a rough cut of a short film which will be one of the public outputs of the project distributed in a web archive
- Victor Seidel, discussing the modularity evident in the services offered by technology enterprises participating in the project
- Bruce Tether, drawing on UK Design Council data to make clear the extent of 'silent design' in service design and innovation
- Marc Ventresca, raising questions about the role of language in creating markets and institutions
- Chris Voss and Leonieke Zomerdijk, talking about their recent research into the design of experiences
- Jennifer Whyte, discussing the role of visualization and boundary objects in the interactions between designers and design clients
- Bob Young, reflecting on the relationship between design theory and service design theory and practice

As with the other workshops, we had the services of a scribe (graphic facilitator) documenting the event. The scribed output by Josh Knowles is available for download here (PDF, 455kB). Christian Toennesen helped out during the event and took photos (coming soon). And a team from the Oxford Academy of Documentary Film recorded the event on video, some of which will be available on the web archive.

Comments

[Joe Mansfield]

Hi Lucy, this workshop sounds fascinating - I am currently writing a Masters thesis on the use of design as a strategic tool for developing and promoting UK Festivals - I wondered if you might be able to email and/or provide links to further info on the keynote speakers, the event itself and any recording/documentation that was made? I look forward to hearing from you! Joe