Claus Raasted is an experience and behavior designer who creates Live Action Role Play events, where groups of strangers come together to collaborate on co-creating their shared experience. We discuss how to help a group of collaborators become comfortable enough as a team to co-create something great.

Developing our confidence as designers isn’t just for our own benefit. Sometimes, it can be the driving factor in getting important ideas heard and growing our impact as a designers. This week's episode features Lauren Currie, OBE, is Head of Design at Good Lab in London and the founder of #UPFRONT - an organization that exists to change confidence. Show notes: http://www.whyservicedesignthinking.com/podcastepisodes/lauren-currie-developing-confidence-as-a-designer

Real estate (for housing and office space) is not just a commodity - it is an important service in our lives that needs to be designed as such. Lindsay Miller is the Managing Director of Business Development & Operations at the Dubai Design District and she played an instrumental role in developing this human-centered neighborhood. Check out the show notes for all references and links. ________ Feedback loops are crucial in service design! Please take a moment to share your thoughts...

One of the most important applications of service design is in the government or public services sector, where there is a big potential to create efficiency and meaningful change. We talk with Benjamin Taylor, who is a consultant in public services. As the founder of RedQuadrant management consultancy and a Chief Executive of the nonprofit Public Service Transformation Academy, Benjamin has a long history of innovating public services. Check out the show notes for all references and links. ...

Today, we talk with Paul Bulencea, who is the co-founder of the College of Extraordinary Experiences, a disruptive annual experience design conference that is held in a castle in Poland. Paul discusses how the economy is shifting from being based on services to being based on experiences and how businesses can beat commoditization by providing memorable experiences. Check out the show notes for all references and links. ________ Love what you hear? Please subscribe, rate, and review us!...

Jod Kaftan is the Group Design Director at Fjord in Los Angeles, overseeing the LA design practice and developing the team and quality of work. As a proponent of meaning in design, he provides valuable insights about how creating meaning can lead to customer loyalty. Check out the show notes for all references and links. ________ Love what you hear? Please subscribe, rate, and review us! Each review goes a long way! Special thanks to Monica Shriver of BraveMusician.com for this episode's...

Behind every successful business is solid backstage system that gives its customers a consistent experience and helps the business become sustainable in the long run. Joanna Waterfall, founder of Yellow Co, talks about how she implemented systems within her business from day one.  Check out the Yellow Conference! In the episode, Joanna references the book, The E-Myth Revisited. Check out the show notes for more info! ________ Love what you hear? Please subscribe, rate, and review us! ...

WIN A COPY OF MATTHEW'S NEW BOOK AT WHYSERVICEDESIGNTHINKING.COM/FUTURES.   Social Enterprises are one of the most important forms of business today and one of the most crucial components of a social enterprise is to create the future that we want to live in. Matthew Manos, designer, social enterprise builder, and innovative thinker, wants to help you do just that, with his new book, Towards a Preemptive Social Enterprise. ________ Love what you hear? Please subscribe, rate, and review...

DOWNLOAD A FREE CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAP TEMPLATE on whyservicedesignthinking.com!   One of the first steps business owners should take in serving their customers is identifying the customer journey. As a customer interacts with different points in the business, there are multiple opportunities to design their experience every step of the way. We talk with two design strategists in Europe - Daniel Sunden and John Flitcroft, who walk us through making the most of a customer journey.   ...

This is an unprecedented mini episode that will preview our next big topic – customer journey mapping. I just had a wonderful interview about with two design strategists in Europe - Daniel Sunden and John Flitcroft. Somehow our discussion about customer journeys led us to look at the customer journey of pizza. It was such an interesting tangent that I wanted to share it with you in its own context – 3 different journeys of ordering pizza in the UK, Sweden, and the US. Enjoy and look out for...

For this week’s episode, we are in for a special treat. This is a recording of a fascinating panel discussion called The Future of Customer Experience, by the service design community in Los Angeles. Hosted by John Ayers, who was our guest in episode six, they discuss the differences, similarities, and benefits between service design, design thinking, user experience design, customer experience, and more. The panelists are: Jod Kaftan, Group Design Director at Fjord Sarah Stern, Service...

Hello to friends old and new! I want to take a moment to thank you for being here. Thank you to those of you who have listened to the show, written a review, and shared episodes with friends. We are now streaming in more than 100 countries! Season 2 of Why Service Design Thinking will be released on April 3, 2017. In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you at: whyservicedesignthinking.com/feedback Share your thoughts on the existing episodes, tell me what topics you’d like to hear...

Research is an important part of service design and design thinking because it is the center of the empathy and insight that will lead your work. Design researcher, Seth Weissman from BCG Digital Ventures, talks about different research techniques including Ethnography, Observational Research, Surveys, and more. He shares tips on how to get comfortable speaking with people, what sorts of insights to look out for, and even a design fail about suds-less soap. ________ Participate in the...

One of the most fun techniques of design thinking is analogous inspiration: applying an out-of-context concept to the problem that you are trying to solve. We talk with Victoria Vivas, an experience designer in Chile, who focuses on enhancing the process of learning through analogous situations. ________ Participate in the design challenge on our website. ________ Love what you hear? Please subscribe, rate, and review us! Want a free Idea Brainstorming worksheet? Get it at...

Starting a project or business can be easier said than done and there are many touchpoints that an entrepreneur goes through when starting something. We talk with Jon Leyh, the founder of Ruckus Projects, a community of entrepreneurs who come together to create projects that matter. Jon shares his powerful philosophy about why it's important to design your experience as an entrepreneur, while you are designing your project. Read about the incredible projects created by Ruckus Projects...

Service Design is unique in its customer-centric practices because it views each experience in two components - the frontstage and backstage interactions. For every customer-facing activity (frontstage), there is a series of behind-the-scenes technology, training, and processes (backstage) required to create a positive interaction. John Ayers, an LA-based service designer and customer experience designer, tells us all about why service blueprinting is a crucial element and how a business can...

Innovation can still sometimes to be considered an "extra"or "nice to have" in business. But it is actually essential to competing in the constantly-evolving business landscape. So how can a company adopt innovative practices? We talk with Allen Weaver, who is an expert at facilitating innovation among groups of all sizes,having worked with companies such as Target, Direct TV and AT&T. ________ Participate in the design challenge on our website. ________ Love what you hear? Please...

In this episode, we talk with Jesse Grimes, of the Service Design Network. Jesse, who is a practicing service designer at Informaat, is on the management team of the Service Design Network (SDN) as well as the editor-in-chief of SDN’s publication, Touchpoint magazine. Jesse tells us about the wonderful resources at the Service Design Network, including its plethora of free online information, in-person gatherings, and its official trade publication. It's not too late to register for the...

Service design and design thinking can have groundbreaking results when applied to business. But imagine what could happen when these innovative principles are applied to education! Near LosAngeles, in Silicon Beach, there is an incredible school called Incubator School, started just a few years ago by visionary educator SujataBhatt. Thoughtfully built using human-centered design and featuring a curriculum that teaches design thinking and entrepreneurship, theIncubator School provides an...

One of the BEST ways to get acquainted with service design in person is through an annual event called Global Service Jam. This event, co-founded by Adam StJohn Lawrence and Markus Edgar Hormeß of the service innovation agency WorkPlayExperience, is a "hackathon" where people from all professions gather to ideate and prototype a service business, all in one weekend. It is simultaneously held in more than 100 cities each year, with thousands of participants in a tight-knit community. Adam is...

Happy International Service Design Day! This is episode 3 of 3 in a series celebrating #ServiceDesignDay! Join the global discussion by sharing this episode with your network! Check out the show notes + details on #ServiceDesignDay. ________ Raj Singh, founder of Go Moment, talks about creating Ivy, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool that provides automated text message-based customer service at hotels. Service businesses of all types can learn from the insights and successes of Ivy. ...

Happy International Service Design Day! This is episode 2 of 3 in a series celebrating #ServiceDesignDay! Join the global discussion by sharing this episode with your network! Check out the show notes + details on #ServiceDesignDay. ________ Tatiana El-Khouri and Olivia Lucas, talk about Gobe, an app that connects nonprofits to volunteers. Through the design process, they participated in a co-creation exercise that helped solve some of their design challenges. ________ Love what you...

Happy International Service Design Day! This is episode 1 of 3 in a series celebrating #ServiceDesignDay! Join the global discussion by sharing this episode with your network! Check out the show notes + details on #ServiceDesignDay. ________ Nathan Lucy and Jessica Tungesvik of XWorx agency share a case study about transforming a new business from a digital product into an in-demand service. They discuss the importance of designing for a specific customer. ________ Love what you hear?...

We've heard a lot about why service design is important but what does it look like in the context of People, Planet, and Profit? We talk with Martin Dowson, a UK-based service designer and Certified Customer Experience Professional who creates customer-centric organizations that deliver profitability through meaningful customer experiences. Martin mentions resources from the UK Design Council, including the Double Diamond design process and the Triple Bottom Line of people, planet, and...