I totally agree with you, service designers should be ‘infiltrating’ these type of events.

Recently, working on mypolice.org I have had the ‘pleasure’ of attending official police conferences and finding again, that I am in the 25:1 ratio of wearing jeans (smart black ones but still it isn’t a 3 piece suit) and feeling like a bit of an alien.

Service Innovation is talked about alot, but everytime they talk about survey questions, reaching users etc (but not very well) I am compelled to raise my hand and suggest that service designers should be involved within these organisations, and the response? Fantastic. Someone said to me the other day at a police conference in London, “We need more aliens like you” which is a compliment if read in context. She said we need people with a fresh pair of eyes, who understand how to engage with users, aren’t wrapped up in red tape of the organisation and can zoom in and zoom out. A large amount of people have also welcomed the idea of more creativity being involved in the service innovation part of their business.

James Samperi on Twitter today said, “#Servicedesign should be core capability of any organisation & embedded within it’s culture, maybe it’s just currently called something else”

My masters this year is about implementing the service design process at the heart of a public sector organisation and making sure that the solution is sustainable and workable by ‘non’ designers. They will also be employing service designers as part of a radical change in the company. It’s exciting to be part of this recognition of service design.

Sorry, just some thoughts, let’s take over the world, yes?!!!!