Diversity & Inclusion Co-design Workshop

"Diversity is the mix. Inclusion is making the mix work", Andrés Tapia.

After last year's edition, a lack of diversity at the Service Design Fringe Festival (SDFF) was recognised. Even more importantly, it is an issue within the Design Industry as a whole.

So this year, we are aiming at doing better. This means ensuring that Inclusion and Diversity is one of our core values and not only a tick in the box!

That's not all! We see as well the Festival as a springboard to make a change within the industry.

Julian, Alice, and Lior planning the D&I workshop. "Diversity is a necessary step to reach inclusion."

Tonight a workshop is going to be held with a bunch of bright people from diverse backgrounds who want the industry to be more inclusive. As part of this workshop, we will develop a Diversity and Inclusion Manifesto. This Manifesto will be communicated to all people involved with the Festival (speakers, partners, attendees, volunteers...) and we expect everyone involved in the festival to support it and promote it.

More to come on D&I after tonight's workshop.

Operations Octopus on Board!

Hello! I’m Alice and I have recently joined the SDFF as the ‘Operations Octopus’! As an operations octopus, I’ll be juggling various projects to ensure things are happening at the right time, and within the allocated budget.

I am coming from the construction industry, where I used to work as a Project Engineer. My last position as an engineer was on the phenomenal Crossrail project, in London. This is my first position in service design, and I’ve been thrilled to learn about it each week.

I find it to be more than just processes; it’s a philosophy on how to consider your client in the service industry. By starting the design of services from the end user or end customers’ needs, I am confident that service delivery can be optimized. For those who like me want to learn more about Service Design, here's a few links to look at:

Design Lab's take on service design

Interaction Design Foundation's take on service design principles

...and of course the video of the festival.

Across countries, languages and industries I have developed a great respect of teams and teamwork.

The way to succeed is by having a passionate team working towards a common goal, with transparency and honesty.

I am thrilled with the opportunity to champion Diversity and Inclusion, work satisfaction and work life balance at the Service Design Fringe Festival. Service design is a way to change the service industry; let’s do it in an ethical and innovative way!

Working freelance at the moment, I have time to be involved on a part time basis in other projects. I am always free to meet for a coffee (or pint!) if you want to discuss any opportunities. I am genuinely enthusiastic to work with start-ups and charity organisations on improving process, brainstorming ideas, or simply assisting with taking the first step!

Alice

Alice.magand@gmail.com

@AliceMagand

Festival Vision Workshop

In May we held a workshop at the RCA to flesh out the vision for the Service Design Fringe Festival together.

The festival is community-led, so it was essential to work out the overarching strategy collaboratively. 

The workshop was focused around two key areas: relationships within the festival, and how the festival could contribute to the service design industry.

We gave a preview of our then-new website, and video, made by Emily and Sean respectively. Then we split out into two groups and had conversations about how the festival could contribute to industry and build critical practice.

The two conversations headed in different directions: one group shared their perspectives as attendees of the London Design Festival. This group felt that The Service Design Fringe Festival ought to strive to be a spectacular experience in order to appeal to the LDF audience (designers, buyers and the public), who are accustomed to the glitz of mainstream design. 

The second group considered the theme of storytelling in depth. To explain the process of service design, we discussed supporting the festival hosts to construct their talks with characters, high and low points, touch points, and to skip mediocrity. We discussed potentially banning Powerpoint from the festival! 

Both groups agreed that it would be important to map service design and related disciplines during the course of the festival. Service design is changing rapidly as a practice. The industry is likely to change dramatically year on year; recording the state of the industry now will become historically useful in the future in order to understand how the practice has developed. 

Several other ideas came out of this workshop, including creating an awards system for the best hosts, creating a learning toolkit for guests, and collating definitions of service design from all hosts. We are looking for creative people to join our team to take these seeds of ideas on, and develop them in their own style to add to the experience of the festival. 

We split into four teams to consider what each kind of stakeholder in the festival would want to give to the festival and to receive from the festival. After the workshop, Culainn and Lior considered all the information and weaved it together to create a relationship map, where everyone gives and receives what they need from each other.

We'd love your feedback on if this map. Does it express what you want to give and receive from the festival? Please tell us if there's something we haven't considered so that we can improve the experience for everyone involved.