Sinco team members, Essi & Antti, participated in September to ICDHS 2012 Conference, which was held in São Paulo, Brazil. We presented a paper titled as “Voices Of the Users: How Technology Can Help in Co-Innovation“. The paper focused on how new technologies, such as the ones used in SINCO, could be utilized in co-development and co-innovation with citizens. It also tries to answer to question how co-innovation with users can be done in the public sector, and how the service design tools – service prototyping in specific – are able to help in doing this.

The ICDHS – short for International Committee of Design History & Design Studies – was interesting, and very current from technological perspective. Service development & Service Design were not very present, but there were few presentations about developing new services. Our paper, written about a case study and it’s findings for TEKES-funded CoSVac -project (Co-innovation in Service Value Chains) introduced SINCO’s mobile version, that was utilized during the prototyping sessions of the case.

Read More >>

The Design Research Society, founded in 1966, organized DRS 2012 conference in Bangkok, Chulalongkorn University last week. This was the first time for Southeast Asia to host international design research conference. The informal theme of the conference was: ReSearch: Uncertainty, Contradiction and Value, as the conference aimed to highlight the significance of design research for sustainable development and encourage a distinctly contemporary exploration of issues facing international design communities.

Read More >>

Two weeks, three real-life cases and intensive days with service design tools and methods! Arctic Circles Art & Design Summer School was organized on 28.5.-7.6. at Rovaniemi. This two week summer school was divided in three areas: Arctic Art, Sustainability design and Service design. The service design workshop was led by project manager and lecturer Simo Rontti and Satu Miettinen who is Professor of Applied Art and Design at the University of Lapland. One of the SINCO-team members was as an assistant in service design group.

Read More >>

ERRIN, the European Regions Research and Innovation Network, organized a two and half day long Design Days 2012 June 6th-8th in Brussels. Essi from SINCO had an opportunity to go there and facilitate a one and half hour workshop with “light” SINCO that was built in 30 minutes in one of the conference rooms. The aim of the Design Days was to put focus on regional initiatives, voices and activities that encompass design and societal changes.

Read More >>

For almost any company summer is the slowest time of the year. Most of the customers are having summer holidays and there isn’t that much work to do. Nevertheless, workers are still in company payroll and salaries has to be paid. Seven-1 advertisement agency wanted to develop new ways to enhance their daily operations by using agile service design methods, so that they could find new revenue streams for the summers and years to come. The company contacted the SINCO personnel to get some fresh ideas. Well, they called to the right place. Industrial design students from the University of Lapland  were ready to take the challenge!

Read More >>

As a part of a healthcare design project, a prototype of hospital environment was built at Aalto ARTS Studio Stage. Simo, Essi and Antti from SINCO had an opportunity to go see the prototype, un-formally dubbed as “Cardboard Hospital” due to its main building material.

According to Juha Kronqvist and Heini Kervinen, the designers behind this prototype, thick cardboard plate was chosen for the prototype due to its strong structure enabling to build large elements for the hospital prototype, and yet being so light, that the elements were easily movable by a single person if needed.

Read More >>

The traditional library doesn’t raise attention for the teenagers. For most of them, the library comes across as a boring place. The mission for service design student team was to change these feelings and develop the future of the library. The focus was on a service path and a new, special space for teenagers. The project has also another important challenge – environment. Rovaniemi’s City Library is designed by well-known architect Alvar Aalto in 1965 and the space is part of the building.

Read More >>

During the course “Service design methdos and company case” we worked as a student team for Rovaniemi theatre. The greatest challenge and initiator for the case was the factor that theatre is currently in temporary premises, and is divided into several locations in the centre of Rovaniemi.  The framework for this case was to find out ways and solutions that help theatre to improve their services in under this unfortunate situation.

Read More >>

User-centered design for an academic book is a challenge. The book will be published by the Lapland University Press. A new book on service design has a working title “Service Design with Theory”. Experience prototyping of the book user gave new ideas for the editing work of the book. This kind of prototyping session should be fundamental when planning a new book.

Read More >>

Services in a welfare state are a prerequisite. Public services will, however, need to be produced more with fewer resources, while the population is aging. In the production of services renewals needs to be done.  We are gaining inspiration from service design in developing InnoWellness management model to public sector www.innovointi.fi.

Read More >>