Service Innovation

Tor Andreassen from the Centre for Service Innovation (link) recently sent me a link to the New York Times article, reporting some work from England about how self-service checkouts encourage or even result in stealing. This is work from the UK, that has also been reported during the summer in the British press, which I find […]

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Ryanair recently announced a 32% jump in profits and their quiet CEO puts this down to a changed image and that they have stopped ’unnecessarily pissing people off’, according to boss O’Leary. The Guardian newspaper (link) describes this nicely, including presenting a few great quotes from the master himself, Michael O’Leary. “The underlying trend is enormously positive. […]

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Think like a patient, act like a tax-payer: This was one of the more interesting take-aways from Simon Stevens’ recent speech about the new focus of the National Health Service in the UK. Although the sentence might be seen as a bit of cheap spin, I think that if most health services asked themselves if they […]

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There seems to be a major gap between businesses’ view of design as essential partner in innovation projects and research that shows the value of design. This is something I have been thinking about for a long time, and my experience is that companies have to experience the value of design to be able to […]

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This simple video (simple in terms of technology, not message) gets across two sides of the view about books in paper or electronic form. It works very nicely by adding a twist in the middle which makes you rethink all of the arguments you have followed along the way. This gives you enough of an […]

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Found this site recently (link), not that I am thinking of planning, saving or getting married. What struck me about it was the obvious link and connection between the two actors –  a wedding planning magazine and a savings bank. The site incorporates the two parts nicely into an integrated whole, and its is difficult […]

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For those of you interested in comparisons of methods to gain user insights, Brianna Sylver has compiled a nice comparison over at Core 77. It can be found here. Most of it is known stuff, but I like the way she relates the different methods to the different phases of the design process. However, its obvious […]

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The web is a perfect way to get customers to provide feedback and suggestions for improvements. We have mentioned before that customers are bursting with comments, criticisms and ideas, and just waiting for an opportunity to share them. Creating a dialogue between a service provider and customers in this way is a sure way to […]

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John Thackara (link) introduced me recently to Hello Health (link), a thoroughly modern primary  health service in New York. They have done something that seems obvious and simple – made the doctor personal again – through using the technology many of us have (Iphones, video-phones, email etc).  There is something compelling about this, even though […]

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Razorfish has just released an interesting report describing how moms use digital tools.   After interviewing 1500 women, they conclude: 1. 65% of mums use social networking sites, 56% SMS and 52% game online or via a game console. Gaming is no longer a niche activity for adolescent boys but has gone mainstream. 2. Moms […]

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