A sudden surge in Service Design this month

Hrm. Is it only because I am diving back into the literature this month or all of a sudden is everyone writing about Service Design? Here's some things I have picked up in the past few days:

Design Management Review on Service Design
Roberto Saco and Alexis Goncalves write Service Design: An Appraisal offering us "an overview of the field and practice of service design, including a definition (not as odd as it sounds, considering the wealth and breadth of issues that contribute to the design of services) and a look at how such companies as Ritz-Carlton, Herman Miller, and Egg Banking incorporate service into their design strategies. They also discuss trends in service design, including IBM's SSME (service science, management, and engineering) initiative, which seeks to encourage service-related research, and the UK Design Council's RED project, which explores the impact of design on social issues." You can download more Service Design articles from the issue here.

Fast Company Magazine: Using Design to Crack Society's Problems
Interesting how the DMI leaves us at the end on the topic of social issues.. This month, Fast Company Magazine profiles Hiliary Cottam and her company, Participle. Here' a bit of what they have to say: "Cottam is one of a new wave of design evangelists who are trying to change the world for the better. They believe that many of the institutions and systems set up in the 20th century are failing and that design can help us to build new ones better suited to the demands of this century. Some of these innovators are helping poor people to help themselves by fostering design in developing economies. Others see design as a tool to stave off ecological catastrophe. Then there are the box-breaking thinkers like Cottam, who disregard design's traditional bounds and apply it to social and political problems. Her mission, she says, is "to crack the intractable social issues of our time." View the entire article here.

Fast Company Magazine: Three More Who Design for Sociey
A little on what 3 others namely, Ezio Manzini, Marcia Lausen, and George Kembel are all doing in the same social design space.

Design Council Magazine: Service Design issue
The Design Council have archived all issues of their Design Council Magazine (DCM). Check out DCM Issue 3 which is mostly about Service Design.

Service Design Conference Amsterdam
And don't forget this one happening in a month's time. More info here.

Universities exploring Service Design

Following on from the previous post, here are some Universities I know of exploring, researching and/or teaching (usually as a subject) Service Design. To date, there is no running course in Service Design (but I am aware there are definitely some on the cards shortly).

Northumbria University (UK)
In 2006, Northumbria University held the first Service Design conference called ISDN (International Service Design Northumbria). Since 2006 the University has held 2 other conferences around Service Design, one later in 2006 and the most recent, this year in April (download presentations and listen to podcasts here). I am currently doing my PhD research out of Northumbria and 2 other peers of mine are also exploring PhDs with strong Service Design themes.

Birmingham City University (UK)
Birmingham City University’s Service by Design programme is funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and seeks to raise awareness of Service Design in SMEs both in the private and public sectors. The SbD programme does this by developing their academics as “Innovation Managers” to work with SMEs. In September, SbD held a Dissemination Event explaining the progamme, experiences, learnings and results. You can download a presentation file of the event here.

Imagination Lancaster (UK)
Imagination Lancaster is a research lab situatated at Lancsaster University. One of the lab’s focal areas is Service Design undertaking research and projects into service design models, processes, evaluation and tools. See details here.

Carnegie Mellon University (USA)
Since 2004, CMU has taught and been involved in Service Design. CMU have also hosted conferences called Emergence in 2006 and 2007 exploring the boundaries of Service Design. Their next conference will be in 2009.Having worked with CMU design graduates before, I am quite familiar with their robust user-centered design methodology applicable to both products and services.

Kingston University (UK)
This year, just began a Master programme called Design for Development, which "focuses on the value of design as a vehicle for addressing social and ecological concerns in both the developed and developing worlds." Core modules include strands dealing with service design and sustainability, and optional modules include subjects that deal with human rights and politics.

Koln International School of Design, Koln University (Germany)
Since 1995, Koln University has been involved in Service Design research, teaching and publishing, spearheaded by Professor Birgit Mager. In 2005, Klon joined forces with other international Universities and design practices to set up The Service Design Network. In 2006 Mager founded sedes research (the Centre for Service Design Research) at Koln University.

Polytechnico di Milano (Italy)
Having produced some of the first Service Design PhDs, Polytechnico di Milano also runs a Master of Science course in Product-Service-Systems Design.

Domus Academy (Italy)
Offers 8 Masters degrees with Service Design strands throughout.

Laurea University of Applied Sciences (Finland)
In 2009, Laurea University will offer a Master of Business Management degree progamme in Service Innovation and Design. Click here to see more detail.

Kuopio Academy of Design, Savonia University of Applied Sciences (Finland)
A source tells me they are about to launch a BA in Service Design in Autumn 2008. I’d be keeping up to date with their News page to see when it finally launches.

Linköping University (Sweeden)
The University is currently undertaking projects around developing design techniques for service development, projects in healthcare, IT and learning labs for innovation. More details here.

Said Business School, Oxford University (UK)
This project, named Designing for Services in Science and Technology-based Enterprises (click on the name to go to the blog), ran from 2006-7 and looked at what would happen if you put Service Designers with science-and-technology SMEs. Academics also participated in the project, attending several workshops throughout the project process to make observations on what was happening. A key deliverable was a report published earlier this year, edited by Lucy Kimbell and Victor Seidel who lead the project.

University of Technology, Sydney (Australia)
As mentioned in an earlier post a few months ago, I completed my undergraduate design degree at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Service Design is a major one can do in their Master of Design Degree.

Here are some further additions to the piece I have been informed about.

(From Jeff Howard's Design for Service blog)

Rhode Island School of Design (USA)
Rhode Island's Service Design Studio is currently running a course which "explore[s] opportunities, tools and methods in the emerging field of Service Design."

Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design & The Danish Design School (Denmark)
The schools, in collaboration, will be piloting a Master of Interaction Design programme with a large Service Design component. See curriculum outline here.

(From Nico Morelli)

Aalborg University, School of Architecture and Design (Denmark)
Nico says, "We have been teaching design of Product Service Systems for about 7 years now, as a part of the Master in Industrial Design. Some of the outcome of this activity and some research, methodological and strategic results of our research is available at the wiki servicedesign.wikispaces.com."

(From John)

Illinois Institute of Design (USA)
Are currently teaching a class called 'Services in an Evolving Society.' The description reads, "This class will discuss the trends driving this dichotomy of constraint and abundance and explore how services can uncover new possibilities for people to live well in a resource constrained world."

(From Qin)

University of Dundee (Scotland)
The University's Master of Design degree covers Service Design in its focus on multi-disciplinary design research and practices.

Thanks Jeff, Nico, John and Qin!

Just in...

Glasgow School of Art (Scotland)
Their Product Design degree teaches Service Design, recognising that the term 'product' needs to also encompass the design of systems, services, interactions & organisational behaviours.

Design-led consultancies involved in service design (public and/or private sector)

I get asked this question a lot, so I thought I'd provide a list and links below, of design-led consultancies (in alphabetical order) I know of currently involved in service design (please note that most of these consultancies offer many other services so their websites are definitely worth exploring!).

Most of the following consultancies will be UK-based as I currently undertake my research and reside in the UK. Please feel free to contact me if you know of any others, or if you are one!

United Kingdom
Design Options
Direction Consultants
Engine
Fresh voice
Hygge
IDEO
live|work

More Associates
Participle
Plan
Plot
Radarstation
Spirit of Creation
Teko London
Thinkpublic
Uscreates
We are curious
?Whatif!

Europe
31 Volts (Netherlands)
Copenhagen Living Lab (Denmark)
designthinkers.nl (Netherlands)
Ego (Finland)
Experienta (Italy)
fuelfor (Spain)
IDEO (Europe)
live|work (Oslo)

USA & Canada
Adaptive Path
Design Continuum
HumanCentered
IDEO
Peer Insight
Work Worth Doing
Ziba

Australia
2nd Road
Future Canvas
Proto Partners
Thinkplace

In the coming weeks I’ll do more posting lists on intuitions I know of, such as Universities and think tanks, also exploring Service Design, and a few blogs that I visit frequently. Keep tuned!

Service Design Conference 2008 Amsterdam

Image from Conference website

Great speaker line up (often called the "usual suspects"), great workshop leaders and great city to bring together Service Design practitioners, students and academics.

Check it out and register here.