It was not my intension to leave this space empty for such a long time, yet, my thinking has not stopped during the absence of blogging. In stead, I have reached some really interesting findings of my research, and glad that the challenging job of writing and reflecting the three-year journey has gained some positive feedbacks.
Yesterday I went to London and visited Participle’s little but busy office at Tanner Street. Participle has a clear vision that challenges the current state of public service and policy making. One of their most famous projects might be the Southward Circle, a social enterprise aims at solving problems for the aging society using the power of local community. I was delightfully surprised when I heard that they actually live prototype services in their little office – turn their office into the headcounter of a social enterprise for a good couple of weeks to find out what’s working and what’s not. It is exciting just to imaging live prototyping a service rather than writing it up in a report or business plan (not saying writing is not important but you know what I mean) This reminds me of We Are Curious’s method of establishing office at their client’s site in order to develop and exhibit their learning with the key stakeholders. Locations for Service Design seems to be a rather interesting topic to have a look at, it does reflects the inspiration of building a community of knowledge around a functioning service system, isn’t it? Maybe someone should collect examples like these and make it a method… how about call it ‘real space for service prototyping’?
Jennie Winhall, the friendly senior consultant at Participle, asked me what do people do with their big thick thesis. I said, well, disseminate it. So here comes the question of how. Getting back to blogging. After the long break it is good to be back and start again with a fresh mind, with a new background (Who wouldn’t love a blue sky?) Also I am preparing some paper for different purpose right now, one about the different aspects of design outcome for Service Design, another one for design education, and potentially another one for designer’s role in change management. But maybe the best way of realizing the value of the big thick book of knowledge is through practice. Here we go, a Service Design PhD looking for a job to make a difference. So if you happen to know of any opportunity to offer, I would love to hear from you.
