How to establish service design in a product driven tech company? / Chris Risdon / Episode #138

A clear pattern is emerging... You know what I see when I look at who is hiring service design professionals these days?

It's product driven tech companies!

When you take a closer look it's not that surprising that these companies are looking into service design.

They are realizing that they need to take responsibility for a larger part of the user experience. A part which includes many non-digital aspects.

Just think of how AirBnB deals with properties, Uber with cars and Amazon with physical goods. But it's not just these tech giants. Examples are all around us.

You could say that these tech companies are going through their own analoge transformation.

Coming in as a service designer into such an environment is... well, quite an interesting experience with it's own set of challenges.

For instance you'll find that your work potentially overlaps a lot with product managers. Next to that you're often not tied to operation so it's hard to show tangible impact on customers. And as you start out embedded in the digital part of the company it means you can influence the entire journey.

So considering all this it's fair to say that the odds of you being successful are not stacked in your favor.

But there's hope.

Our guest this week Chris Risdon has made a sport out of establish service design within tech driven companies. And over the past years he learned through trail and error what works and what doesn't.

As often is the case the most important lessons boil down to a few simple things... things which are unfortunately easy to forget.

Luckily Chris does a great job of reminding us of them.

Even if you're currently not in a product driven tech company I'm confident that these lessons will help you be more impactful.

Enjoy the episode and keep making a positive impact :)

--- [ GUIDE ] -—

00:00 Welcome to episode 138

03:30 Who is Chris

04:30 60 second rapid fire

10:15 Humanizing technology

15:15 Where is this coming from

18:45 The challenges

22:30 Is service design compatible

25:45 Sharing the wins

29:30 Where to start

34:45 The overlap with product management

39:15 What does impact look like

41:30 Connecting the dots

46:00 Be a journalist

51:45 The first steps

56:00 Final thoughts

--- [ LINKS ] ---

* https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisrisdon/

BOOKS

* https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/orchestrating-experiences/

* Artemisia Gentileschi - https://amzn.to/31Fllse

* Visualizing Black America - https://amzn.to/3EEaNZ0

--- [ HOW TO EXPLAIN SERVICE DESIGN ] ---

Learn what it takes to get your clients, colleagues, managers, CEOs and even grandmas as excited about service design as you are.

https://servicedesignshow.com/free-course