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| http://conferences.service-design-network.org/sdgc14/welcome/ |
Before the conference:
I’m
really excited about the trip to Stockholm. Service Design Global Conference seems
like a high quality conference and very professional event. The topic “Creating
value for quality of life” is a current topic and well-chosen for this kind of
conference in my opinion. That’s what service design is for after all, to
create services that improve quality of life. I’m also looking forward to get
to know my fellow students better who are participating on the student trip and
of course people who are attending the conference.
For the
actual conference and Service Design, I have a few expectations. I want to dive
deeper into the world of Service design by listening what the experts of the
field have to say. I expect to participate on interesting lectures, share ideas
with new people and most of all to have meaningful and fascinating workshops. I
want to meet inspirational people who can broaden my way of thinking and my
knowledge about service design. So far I have only scratched the surface of
service design and now I’m ready to expand my knowledge about the subject.
Things I
would like to know after the conference:
·
How
to become a professional in the field of service design
·
How
widely it is used in companies and for what purposes
·
How
well it is known in different countries
During the conference:
Sunday Oct 5th
My
adventure started by flying from Helsinki to Stockholm. The flight departed at
9.30 and arrived to Stockholm about an hour later. Next step was to get to the
hotel. I had compared ticket prices for a bus and a train from the internet and
bus was a clear winner, so I took a bus from the airport. It took me to
Hornstull and from there it was just 5 minutes by walking to my hotel.
The
hotel was fairly easy to find and it was located in a small island. The
surroundings were great, but the hotel wasn’t as great. It was relatively
shabby and dirty, but the most important thing, my room, was alright. Even
though my own room was clean, common areas were not and I didn’t have my own
bathroom so I had to use those common bathrooms. In the end I didn’t have much
time to spend at my hotel and I slept well there, so I had nothing to complain
about. I didn’t expect a five star hotel anyway, so there was no point feeling
disappointed.
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| Hotel room |
After
finding the hotel, I headed to our group meeting at the Scandic Grand Central hotel.
Although I had found my hotel, I had to take my luggage with me to the meeting,
because my room wasn’t ready at the time. Luckily I didn’t have big luggage so
it was no big deal. We met at the Scandic hotel at 1 pm Swedish time. The
purpose of that meeting was to get ready for the conference, share some
expectations for the conference and get to know Ulla Jones, who introduced a
company called Arla to us. After the meeting we had time to chat with our peer
and do what we wanted for rest of the day.
Monday Oct 6th
On
Monday we had a student day at Hyper Island. In the morning we participated on
“Everything you’ve always wanted to know about service design but never dared
to ask” workshop. There were professionals to answer our questions and I
believe we all learned a lot from that. We were asked to evaluate our knowledge
on service design before and after the workshop and the average score was much
higher afterwards. It was especially interesting to hear what kind of tools
there are to measure service design’s success and where service design belongs
in a company. The latter was a question that I was searching for an answer from
this trip and it was nice to get the answer on the first day. The short answer
to that question = everywhere.
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| Hyper Island |
At lunch
time we went to the city centre of Stockholm. That was an adventure where we
had fun exploring Stockholm and ate well in a kebab place.
After
lunch we had a workshop, where we planned social, sustainable and groovy services
for a city called Vallastaden. We were divided into teams of 4 to 6. Our team’s
idea was to create a trading place where people from different generations
could meet and trade their own personal items. Our idea had a great reception
when we pitched it to other teams. One bonus in that workshop was, that we
could craft a Lego building to represent the trading place. We truly unleashed
our inner children there.
At the
end of the day we set our course to the city centre again and got some dinner
and drinks, which was a nice way to end the day.
Tuesday Oct 7th
This was
the day when the conference actually started. There was just one problem. It
was a nightmare to get to the venue! I had printed a map where the route seemed
pretty clear, but when I walked there it was a real pain in the ass trying to
find the right path. I don’t understand why there weren’t any signs indicating
which way we should go. The road I was walking was really near the place, but
it took almost half an hour to find that place. I also should mention that it
was pouring rain and I was hoping to find the venue in a short period of time. In
order to do that, I asked a stranger, if she happened to know the way to the München
Bryggeriet (place where the conference took place). To my surprise she knew
where it was. In fact she was also going there as a guest, which was a funny
coincidence. She offered to walk with me to the venue. As we walked there, we
got to know each other a little and I learned that she was from San Francisco,
United States. She told that service design was fairly new concept there and
she was looking forward to learn more about it in the conference. As we
approached the venue, we had major problems finding the entrance even though she
had been there the day before. I saw many others who were lost too. At last we
found the right door and we were at the venue. I was quite amazed that almost
every other person who I talked to said that it was easy to find. I guess I
chose the wrong route to get there.
Okay so
my morning didn’t go as planned, but everything from that on went brilliantly. The
München Bryggeriet was simply elegant, stylish and worthy of the conference. There
was a nice gift bag waiting for all of us and food service was very well
organized. Everything that I saw there, gave me the impression that they had
put a lot of effort into putting it all together.
First
keynote speaker started at 9.30. He was Mark Levy from Airbnb and that speech
was awesome! He talked about the story behind Airbnb and how it all started. This
conference is going to superb if the other keynote speakers are as good as
Mark, I remember thinking to myself. Next speaker was Stan Phelps. He had great
ideas how to get publicity to a company and how to make successful company in
the first place. He talked about a purple goldfish and how every business
should have their own purple goldfish. By purple goldfish he meant something
extra that gets the company to stand out from the crowd. The speech was really
inspiring and at that point it was clear to me. This is going to be a wonderful
conference and I’m certainly going to learn a lot from these inspirational
professionals and people.
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| Stan Phelps |
The rest
of the day went nicely by listening speeches at the main stage and enjoying the
conference’s unique atmosphere. People were generally in a good mood and very
open minded. You could have talked to anyone there and they would have been
happy to chat with you.
In the
evening we had SDGC14 party at Stockholm’s old town. I was pleased with myself,
because I found the party place really quickly even though the route seemed
like a small labyrinth on the map. The party was a great way to relax and
forget about service design for a moment. I talked to a guy who was from India
originally, but nowadays he lives and studies in Finland. Quite a coincidence,
am I right? All in all the party was fun and it made the whole trip feel more
relaxed and casual. When it was time to go I had a tiny problem. Metro was not
running at that time anymore, although I had asked if it runs at that time and
I was led to believe that it will. In the end I took a taxi with Timo, Kalle
and Petri and I got back to the hotel conveniently.
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| SDGC party |
Wednesday 8th
Second
and final day of the conference. Feeling tired from the trip and last night’s
party, I was really happy to start my morning with relaxing meditation. Meditation
was guided by Tenzin Shenyen, who is a Buddhist monk. I have never tried
meditation before, so it was a pleasant new experience. I didn’t focus on the
religious part of it, but I enjoyed the peaceful state of mind that it created.
It felt very soothing and calming after a wearing trip. Mr. Shenyen continued
with a speech after the meditation. He is very intriguing person and it was
nice hear his thoughts about the world and his way of life.
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| Tenzin Shenyen |
Perhaps
the best talk of the day came from Richard Newland, who talked about good
customer service and how apply logic and common sense into services. It’s not
always enough that you have a killer idea, because without a good brief that
idea is going nowhere. You have to make sure that your killer idea is going to
be executed. That was simply the message that Mr. Newland wanted to pass on.
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| Richard Newland |
That
ended up being the last speech I saw at the conference, because after lunch we
had to head to the airport. We had plenty of excitement for the way back home
as well. Amazing race from Stockholm to Porvoo began. We had two teams, team
boys who were flying with Norwegian and team girls + I were flying with
Finnair. The team which was first in Porvoo won and unfortunately due to our
delayed flight we lost. We had fun though and that sums up the whole trip
pretty well. Even when things didn’t go always as planned, I had fun and
learned a lot. I got so much out of the trip and I’m really glad I was a part
of it.
Reflections:
I got
good answers to my questions that I had before the conference, although one
question remained open.
Things I
would like to know after the conference:
·
How
to become a professional in the field of service design
o
I
didn’t really get a straight answer to this question. Service design is still
quite a new concept and only a few schools teach it. That means today’s
professionals in the field service design have learnt it through different
paths. That is the answer I guess. There a lot of options how you can become a
professional in service design
·
How
widely it is used in companies and for what purposes
o
It
is used and it can be used throughout the whole organisation. It belongs
everywhere in the organisations. That is a challenge in service design. When
different people in different levels in the organisation are involved in
service design, how do you get them to work for a common goal? People with
different titles have different goals of their own and they still need to stick
together to have meaningful results from service design. If you eliminate
different levels and involve just people from a small group to work with
service design, you are not able to have winner results in the end. That means
that it is important, that you involve employees from various sections and
levels and with different titles to make something good for the company
·
How
well it is known in different countries
o
Nordic
countries have been talking about service design for a while now and the
concept has just spread into United States and in all over the world. So we
could say that Finland and other Nordic countries are leading in this field at
the moment, but it is spreading fast all around. Perhaps in a decade it’s going
to be something really big and everyone has heard of it, but for now it is
still quite unknown and new despite the country
I’m
actually going to use my knowledge of service design and apply it into a
project we are currently working on. We are using customer stories and journey
maps in order to create ideas for Estonian company, which operates in health
sector. So I’m putting theories into practice and I can’t wait to see how much
service design is going to help us in that project.
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| Probe |
Journey map
You can
see below a journey map of me getting to the SDGC party on Tuesday.
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