Markus Hormeß and Adam Lawrence, WorkPlayExperience

Markus Hormeß and Adam Lawrence lead WorkPlayExperience, a service innovation consultancy with a uniquely theatrical approach. With a joint resume which includes process design, rock musicals, psychology, theoretical physics, product development and stand-up comedy, their mission is to help organisations “put the rock and roll into their services”. The WorkPlayExperience approach is energetic, empathic, fun-filled, and based on a firm rule of “doing, not talking”. In their own work, they draw on theater and showbiz concepts to address the dramatic arcs of service experiences, use theatrical concepts like subtext to examine emotion and motivation, and develop services using fast, action-oriented methods.

WorkPlayExperience is based in Germany, but works internationally with major players in telecommunications, retail, financial services, government and other fields. Markus and Adam are co-founders of WorkPlayExperience, the initiators of the Global Service Jam – the world’s biggest service design event (so far), and the owners of several rubber chickens.

Markus Edgar Hormeß is a service designer and organisational consultant from Germany. For years, the qualified scientist and accomplished musician has worked in the engineering, banking and IT fields, helping companies to improve complex services and to make them more customer friendly.

Briton Adam Lawrence is a professional service design consultant, comedian and actor with a background in psychology and the automotive industry. For years he has been using expertise gained in the world of theater and film to help organisations influence and impress their customers and partners.

 Katri Kallio, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland

Katri Kallio is a Master in Economics from Management and Organizations’ perspective. She currently works as a Doctoral Student and Project Manager at VTT specialized in renewal and development of expert organizations and networks. She is particularly interested in different ways to manage and organize service development and innovation processes. Lately she has focused on service development from user-driven perspectives and she has developed co-learning methods to facilitate innovations. Her speech at the SINCO seminar will concentrate on service design as part of a user-driven development in municipal services. For real life examples see www.innovointi.fi

Katri Kallio on koulutukseltaan kauppatieteiden maisteri johtamisen ja organisoinnin pääaineesta. Tällä hetkellä hän työskentelee jatko-opiskelijana ja projektipäällikkönä VTT:llä, jossa hän on erikoistunut asiantuntijaorganisaatioiden ja –verkostojen uudistamiseen. Katri on erityisen kiinnostunut erilaisista tavoista johtaa ja organisoida asiantuntijapalveluiden uudistamista sekä innovaatioprosesseja. Hän on viime aikoina kiinnittänyt erityistä huomiota palveluiden käyttäjälähtöiseen uudistamiseen sekä organisaatioiden oppimisen tukemiseen ja fasilitoimiseen. Hänen alustuksensa SINCO seminaarissa keskittyy palvelumuotoiluun osana laajempaa käyttäjälähtöistä kehittämistä kuntapalveluissa. Tosielämän esimerkkejä löydät osoitteesta www.innovointi.fi

Reima Rönnholm, Service Designer, Palmu

Reima studied media in University of Lapland, and ended up working as a designer for services and experiences. He is still not quite sure how those can actually be designed – but finds that work extremely fascinating. Recently he has worked for example with reinventing travel, retail, transportation and public services.

Palmu is a service design agency that helps its clients to develop their service business, design new service concepts, and create more value with less resources. Palmu has offices in Helsinki and Copenhagen. www.palmu.fi

Juha Kronqvist, Design Researcher, Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture

Juha is a design researcher at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture and a senior service designer at Diagonal. His research work at Aalto ARTS Media Lab focuses on how co-design environments support a creative and future-oriented mindset. He has taken part in several research projects, conducting ethnographic research and facilitating workshops in various contexts ranging from the innovation processes of a large company to high-level policy making. Most recently he has worked within the domain of healthcare, studying the experiences of patients in relation to hospital services and environments.

He believes that service design should be done with providers and their customers in an engaging and inspiring environment. His drive is to create superior service concepts through combining the latest research knowledge about technology, societal issues and human creativity. At Diagonal, he works in close collaboration with product designers, interior designers and business experts to make these ideas a reality. www.juhakronqvist.fi

Mikko Koivisto, Lead Service Designer, Diagonal

Mikko Koivisto is a Lead Service Designer and a partner at design agency Diagonal in Helsinki. Mikko has a background as an industrial designer and is one of the pioneers of service design in Finland. He has years of experience for designing superior services and customer experiences across multiple sectors including: retail, telecommunications, energy, construction, health and social care, finance and insurance, manufacturing, hospitality, transport and gaming.

Mikko’s strengths are human-centered and participatory design processes, service innovation and business development. Besides working as a consultant Mikko teaches service design at The Aalto University and is also a frequent speaker on the topic. He has contributed to several books and journal articles on service design. Mikko is on the board for both International Design Foundation (World Design Capital Helsinki 2012) and Association for Finnish Industrial Designers.

On Friday Mikko will present a case study of a service design project for the Helsinki University Main Library. It was developed as a part of World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 programme, which sought to radically rethink the library services for students. The research and design process of the project resulted in various new services, service improvements and gave a new direction for the library service strategy. New services were designed, developed and evaluated in co-operation with the service users themselves. Key insights of the research and final results will be presented.

Emma Vironmäki, Researcher

Emma will at the SINCO seminar launch a pack of cards introducing service design thinking in Finnish language. The pack of cards is the end product of a Tekes-funded development project and present 16 cases in which service design was implemented. The cards function as thought-teasers and inspiration and their eloquent appearance is designed by graphich designer Michael Diedrichs.

Emma Vironmäki holds doctoral degree in business adiminstration/higher education research and has worked as journalist (food, design and living), writer, researcher, columnist, and R & D manager. Her research interests lie in implementing service design thinking in administration and economic control of higher education organisations.

A webpage for developing service design concepts in Finnish language and introducing service design thinking in practice will be opened 12.12.12. www.palvelumuotoiluajattelua.fi