Listen: Advancing Service Design 2024 curators Ben Reason and Patrick Quattlebaum discuss the new virtual conference
Is it time to advance the practice of service design?
Ben Reason and Patrick Quattlebaum think so. They’re veteran service designers and co-authors of a pair of Rosenfeld books—Service Design: From Insight to Implementation and Orchestrating Experiences: Collaborative Design for Complexity respectively.
Ben, founder of LiveWork Studio, and Patrick, who founded Harmonic Design in Atlanta, join Lou to talk about launching a new Rosenfeld conference—Advancing Service Design—designed to highlight the service design’s potential for a new generation. They see opportunities for service design to go deeper—by integrating with and strengthening existing practices, like product management and agile, and broader—by better connecting systems that span multiple organizations (think healthcare).
Working with the Rosenfeld team, they’re creating a conference program that you can be a part of—they describe the kinds of presentation proposals they’re looking for from prospective speakers. Patrick and Ben hope you’ll join them in advancing service design; the conference will take place virtually December 3-4.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
- The real meaning of service design
- How service design is evolving
- Some crucial differences between the work in North America and Europe
- Why communication between organizations is so important
- How the upcoming conference will inspire and support you
- How to contribute and become part of the upcoming case studies
- How the panel discussions at the December conference will be different
Apply to speak at Advancing Service Design 2024
We’re so excited to announce the launch of a new virtual conference: Advancing Service Design 2024! The conference will take place virtually December 3-4; it is curated by Patrick Quattlebaum and Ben Reason, and produced by Rosenfeld Media.
Why do we need a new conference on service design? Because, as a methodology that helps us connect and communicate designed experiences at a systems level, service design is clearly more relevant and important than ever before.
But we feel there’s a dire need to demonstrate service design’s value in new contexts: how its toolkit can support other practices, like product management, and how it can make a difference even broader, more complex settings that are often inter, not intra-organizational.
Whether you identify as a service designer, systems thinker, or something else entirely different, we encourage you to submit a proposal (see form below) to speak at the inaugural Advancing Service Design. Specifically, we’re seeking case studies that demonstrate how service design:
- Integrates with and supports other practices—like product management, agile processes, and corporate strategy—within an organizational system.
- Engages with wider systems that go beyond individual organizations, as required for impact in such areas as healthcare, the green transition, or with advanced technology.
We anticipate that these presentations will run 20-25 minutes (not including Q&A).
Do you have a rich story to tell, or even a formal case study? Then please submit a proposal to speak by completing the form below. Submissions are due by EOD Monday, August 19.
Important notes for prospective presenters:
- Let’s Advance Service Design together. We’re looking for stories in which Service Design is not the hero; rather, it should be a critical ingredient in a cross-disciplinary partnership.
- This is not your grandfather’s presentation preparation process: Our speakers prepare their presentations over the course of 2-3 months in a highly iterative, collaborative process. You’ll be part of a speaker cohort, getting and providing feedback to your fellow presenters with the aid of our curators and a speaker coach. It’s work that requires your commitment (and if it’s not honored, we’ll remove you from the program). But it also offers a unique opportunity to delve into your idea with lots of support and the benefit of time. You’ll ultimately be positioned to give a great presentation, maybe your best yet—whether you’re new to speaking or a seasoned presenter.
- Diverse perspectives are required, not a nice-to-have: You don’t advance a field by recycling the same voices and perspectives again and again. So we employ our CFP to uncover people from underrepresented groups and others who, for various reasons, haven’t presented frequently. Whether or not you intend to make a proposal here, please also encourage others who might not ordinarily consider speaking to submit a proposal.
- Our CFP asks a lot. We appreciate your spending time to seriously communicate your case study: its context, problem statement, and outcomes. Also note that we request DEI information as part of your proposal, and employ a double-blind review process–so please don’t include personally identifying information in your submission except where we request it.
- What happens next. If your proposal is accepted, you’ll receive a complimentary ticket to the conference and a small honorarium after completing your presentation (and remember, it’s virtual, so no travel required). We’ll also promote you and your case study, and help you develop it. If your proposal is not accepted, we’ll let you know by mid-September.
Reminder that the deadline to submit is EOD Monday, August 19. Contact the Rosenfeld team ([email protected]) with questions.
Meet one of our Conference Curators, Patrick Quattlebaum
Patrick Quattlebaum is a designer and teacher who gets up every morning to bring creativity, rigor, and humanity to problem-solving. He is the co-founder and CEO at Harmonic Design, a US-based service design consultancy. Previously, he was Managing Director at Adaptive Path and Head of Service Design at Capital One. An expert in design strategy and service design, Patrick places a premium on pushing design practice to be more value-centered, collaborative, and iterative. He and his co-author, Chris Risdon, share their design philosophy and its practical applications in Orchestrating Experiences: Collaborative Design for Complexity.
In addition to consulting and writing, Patrick is a passionate speaker and instructor. He has taught thousands of practitioners in North America and Europe on topics such as service design, design strategy, design research, and interaction design. His other passions—storytelling, film studies, and improv—often find their way into his design work.
You can follow him on Twitter @ptquattlebaum and thisisharmonic.com.
Meet one of our Conference Curators, Ben Reason
Ben Reason is a co-founder of pioneering service design consultancy Livework. Over the past twenty-three years, Ben has led the company and developed the service design practice into new fields and sectors from Public Services to Design-led Transformation.
Ben graduated from Liverpool John Moores University in 1994 with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, following this in 2000 with a master’s in Responsibility and Business Practice from the University of Bath. He has a background in design and innovation in network-enabled services with Razorfish and Oyster Partners.
Ben has provided strategic guidance and project delivery for a wide range of organizations large and small, public and private. From the UK National Health Service to a community Hospice; from Ford to car share start-up Streetcar, from Transport for London to a project exploring the use of Drones for public good. Ben is currently focused on how to use design to speed the transition to an ecologically sustainable future.
He has written articles for the NHS’s In View magazine and has been featured in the International Herald Tribune. In 2009 he was voted one of the top 20 most influential designers in IKON magazine. His academic and teaching experience includes working with SAID Business School Oxford, Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, and Royal College of Art.
