Service Design Thinking Lecture- Marc Stickdorn

Marc Stickdorn came to Parsons last night for a lecture on his work in service design and also to talk about his forthcoming book, This is Service Design Thinking. Lots of great insights about methodologies, tools and case studies from Stickdorn’s teaching and consultancy experience and the book looks like it will be a great tool for any course looking for a rock-solid reference book. In fact, he created the book using his own methodologies of a) user-centered b)co-creative c) sequencing d)evidencing e) holistic design approaches. Four things that stood out for me at the lecture:

1)How come Europe is leading the way in service design as a methodology/discipline/career path?

2)It seemed there was a lot of desire to discuss wether or not service design should be called a methodology, a discipline, a tool or something else. Stickdorn was not in favor of calling it a discipline because it might lose it’s edge as a methodology that sits at the intersection of a number of other disciplines. I think those in favor of wanting to call it a discipline were antsy only because wouldn’t it be great to get a masters degree in service design/service design thinking? Heck, it would be great to take a class called service design, which gets to my last observation,

3) Stickdorn mentioned that he often works with a multi-disciplinary team, and it seems that the projects he’s often describing are often addressing spatial issues. So, I asked if he had ever worked with architects or interior designers, and if so, what was the experience like. He said he had worked once with architects, on a design hotel in Germany, and the experience was not good. He spoke of the group working together on the lobby design. It turns out the architects were not interested in what Stickdorn had to say about making a better service experience based on what guests and employees might actually want in the space to make it a more engaging and comfortable experience. The architects wanted to design a lobby with no seating area and to create a panopticon office of the boss which would hang over the second floor, looming over the front desk. Oh, how I wanted to burry my head in my hands. What is wrong with the architecture profession? If anyone is in great need of a course in service design, I would argue it is architecture students, and actually, the majority of working architects could also take some continuing ed on this subject and benefit greatly. There is a huge gap in how architects understand space and how end-users use space. It turns out, architecture and engineering are not in Stickdorn’s forthcoming book, which is a huge tragedy, but perhaps also an opportunity for some young writer types working within the architecture industry. Anyone? My hope is one day a service design course will be required as part of an architecture education.

4)Co-Creation- Stickdorn champions the idea that co-ownership creates value and mentioned the opening of a new storefront in New York, Make Meaning. Make Meaning is a place where people can come and create things together including ceramics, jewelry, painting etc and is based on the premise that when we do something and make something together, we create value. Kudo’s to the person who turned this idea into a business plan! I believe strongly that we can also use this methodology for public art projects and plan to continue to use this as a methodology for the work I do with art + textiles. Watch out for more public quilting bees!