Service Design Finland

Last Friday we attended the launch of the Service DEsign initiative here in Helsinki in the design week. Satama hosted the event. There were presentations from Live works, Satama/Nokia, and Forum Virium. There was a very nice moment when the founder of Live Works showed a screen of what they did in 2001 when they searched in google for service design and got zero results. It just happens that me and Xavier Blanc did exactly the same about the same time. We were in those days exploring the same ideas on how to export the design principles to the design of intangible services. We ended talking about architecture, since service design had different implications on those days. In the end it was the same. I think the guys at Live works have done an excellent work in generating awareness and building the tools, frameworks that gives flesh to what more and more clients should demand. We have come across them and Ideo iin the last months. It was interesting to see so many people around this topic. I guess there is at least interest. There is an academic side of the service design as Live works also mentioned. I studied with one ogf the gurus in the area, Professor Christian Gronroos from Hanken, the Swedish School of Economics in Helsinki. They have done this type of consulting work for a couple of decades. However what we do and what live works do is to sytematized and frame the problem solving process that takes place when designing a service for your client.

Aula 2006

I have been so busy all this time that I missed the chance to post on the Aula event (www.aula.cc). This year Aula asked us at Fjord to help organizing the event here in Helsinki. Andreea did an amazing work doing the project management of the event. The event itself was awesome. I got the chance to talk to Martin Varsavski from FON, among other. All the presentation on the second day were great, but I specially liked Saul Griffith's presentation on people making things and Adam Greenfield's presentation on the ethics of future UI design (with whom I had a very good chat on AR).