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In this episode we speak with Lyle Sandler. I met Lyle when he was CDO at Aon, the mega-insurance firm, and it was clear from the off-set that  he was a natural story teller.    As you'll hear, he doesn't think that he's a natural storyteller. He's learned tactics and religiously rehearses his stories so that they land and create the right impact.

Lyle has bottled 100 of these tactics in his new book  Universal Principles of Storytelling for Designers, which will help both Narrative Newbies and Tried and Tested Tale-Tellers to up their games.   

Enjoy.

About Lyle

Stories ignite design, and design inspires stories, creating a dynamic cycle that propels human progress and sparks innovation. Lyle is a storyteller and designer. 

The story/design connection became an "aha" moment during his undergraduate days at Hofstra University, where I shuffled between theatre, design, and anthropology, three disciplines that seemed to join forces effortlessly. His storytelling and design journey deepened at the American Film Institute's Center for Advanced Film Studies, art directing in Hollywood, crafting theatrical sets in New York, working in illustration, and  designed high-end window displays.

At Merrill Lynch, he redesigned how analysts communicated with the patrons of Wall Street, and at Goldman Sachs,  he pioneered UX and data visualization. He began to explore and create innovative techniques that enable humans to interact with large volumes of data efficiently, discerning hidden characteristics, patterns, and anomalies within dynamically changing information spaces (non-language, data-centric, progressive storytelling).

 Later, he co-founded Brew, a design and innovation consultancy that assisted organizations to think differently, innovate, and design unique consumer experiences.

His career has spanned global design leadership roles at NCR and Aon where he has applied design approaches to create impact and value; staying true to his  roots in storytelling and anthropology, ensuring that my designs and innovations always delivered meaningful value to the people they were created for.

Currently, as a consultant, he help organizations transform and grow through storytelling, design, and "storythinking" – powerful drivers for developing new forms of value in anticipation of future human needs.

Links:

David Foster Wallace: This is Water commencement speech. 

Learn more about Hitchcock's Production Director, Robert Boyle here.

Service Design YAP is developed and produced by the Service Design Network UK Chapter.
Its aim is to engage and connect the wider Service Design community.

• Episode Host: Stephen Wood
• Production Assistance: Jean Watanya

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In this episode we meet John Lynch, founder of Context Studio based in Dublin, Ireland. 

John's career path has taken him from countries where design is part of everyone's mindset, to places where some businesses have yet to see the full value that design can bring.  He shares the approaches that he's used to gain traction and make the case for adopting Service Design and stories of how design-led approaches have helped his teams to engage diverse stakeholder groups and generate better service outcomes.

We talk about the privilege of working with public sector folks, who's vocation is to make society better... and we talk of the impact of "better" vs. "new" and why Renovate often delivers more than Innovate when it comes to Service Design.

About John.

John Lynch is founder and director of Context Studio, a service design studio in Dublin, and a voluntary board director at the Institute of Designers in Ireland. With a background in software development, John is a committed advocate of design in the service of the public good.

References from John's episode.

Stratification of Design Thinking  -Stefanie Di Russo
Danish Design Ladder
Dark Matter and Trojan Horses  -Dan Hill
John Heskett 

Ireland's Action Plan for Designing Better Public Services.

Service Design YAP is developed and produced by the Service Design Network UK Chapter.
Its aim is to engage and connect the wider Service Design community.

• Episode Host: Stephen Wood
• Production Assistance: Jean Watanya

Send us a text

Design is often seen as an activity that happens at the front-end of transformation programs, but what if companies adopted a design-led approach to their overarching transformation?

In this episode, we catch up with the legendary Ben Reason, founder of Livework Studio to hear about the firms 6 pillars of design led-transformation, the work that Livework has done with Adidas, TFL, Kone and the NHS (and to get a glimpse into Livework's three, top sectret trophy cabinets).

Check out Ben's article on Design Led Transformation  here. Its a quick read that's packed with insight.

We've adopted a different format for this episode, cutting straight to core topic to give us a shorter, punchier episode.  Let us know how you feel about the new approach. Perhaps you miss the quick fire round? 

Service Design YAP is developed and produced by the Service Design Network UK Chapter.
Its aim is to engage and connect the wider Service Design community.

• Episode Host: Stephen Wood
• Production Assistance: Jean Watanya

Send us a text

Tubes, trains, boats, trams, bikes, busses and even a cable car combine to make Transport for London (TfL), a system that helps 9 million Londoners and a few tourists navigate the world's greatest city.

Designing the digital tools that help people to turn complex logistics into practical travel plans is no mean feat, but that's exactly what Hanna Kops and her team did with the TfL Go app.    In this episode Hanna tells us the story of how the  TfL Digital Experience team collaborated with a complex matrix of stakeholders and launched an app that's now on every Londoner's phone. 

We also talk about:

• The formative role that playing games with her family had on Hanna's development as a designer and reflect on how the shift to screen-based play will shape tomorrows designers.
• How the singleminded pursuit of "scale" often strips the value out of designed experiences.  

If you're curious about the vintage "Mind The Gap" sound bite in this episode and are in the mood for a romantic story, then click here. 

About Hanna 

Hanna Kops is Head of Experience at TfL Digital.Over the last few years, she co-built TfL Digital, the team behind the TfL Go app and other future digital experiences. TfL Go includes an innovative new approach to digital maps, was shortlisted for a D&AD Award and won multiple industry awards, including BIMA, The Drum and Design Week.Hanna is also a Visiting Lecturer at the Royal College of Art.Before joining Transport for London, Hanna led design teams, innovation projects and culture change for a wide range of organisations in the UK and USA. She also co-founded a design studio.

Service Design YAP is developed and produced by the Service Design Network UK Chapter.
Its aim is to engage and connect the wider Service Design community.

• Episode Host: Stephen Wood
• Production Assistance: Jean Watanya

Send us a text

When the Scotland consolidated its police forces it saw an opportunity to add a Service Design team to the new organisation.  Not only would this team make a material contribution to Police Scotland's radical transformation, they would also become a core part of the force's new ways of working. 

In this episode we're joined my Chris Muir, who tells the story of how he discovered service design and how he and the Police Scotland Service Design team work with officers at every level to discover, design and deliver services that keep people in Scotland safer. 

Chris talks about the benefits of running a design studio in a 14th century castle, once owned by the Blackadder family and of how the design team's six principles helps the to build trust and deliver value through their work. 

We talk about how spending time out on patrol with officers helps Police Scotland's designers to create services that meet the needs of officers whether they're in high population density Glasgow, or in the rural extremes of the Highlands & Islands.

References from this episode. 

Radical Candor. https://amzn.eu/d/h04WOyV
Nine Lies About Work https://amzn.eu/d/7m9vFq2
This is Service Design Doing https://amzn.eu/d/3DCngOv
Beyond Sticky notes: https://amzn.eu/d/j0RFTrH
Good Services https://good.services/home
McDonalds removes AI from their sites https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c722gne7qngo#:~:text=McDonald's%20is%20removing%20artificial%20intelligence,orders%2C%20was%20announced%20in%202019.

Service Design YAP is developed and produced by the Service Design Network UK Chapter.
Its aim is to engage and connect the wider Service Design community.

• Episode Host: Stephen Wood
• Production Assistance: Jean Watanya

Send us a text

In this short, bonus edition of YAP we spend time thinking about and playing with AI.

Most designers state that AI will become the most powerful design tool of the decade, enabling them to mine the world's data, to find inspiration and to create better products and services.

Designers who remember sign painters being replaced by naff vinyl sign printing machines see AI as a cut-price competitor rather than a tool.  ( Sign Painters  is a great -if niche- documentary) 

So,  how will the design profession evolve in the face of AI?

In the spirit of exploration we  just asked AI... and we also wondered if we could use AI to create an entire episode of YAP.

We also saw this experiment as a way to find tools that could help designers to build audio mock ups, or provocatypes; thought provoking artefacts that you don't want to spend too much time on, but which land better with the target audience if they have good production quality.   

Let us know what you think of the episode and where you think that designers are under estimating the impact AI in the design process at the moment. 



To create this episode we used:

• Chat GPT to collate content. The tool gave us deeper case study content, but failed to really bring any new concepts to the table.
• Jelly Pod structured and create the podcast audio. Jelly Pod's text editor will really help designers looking to create audio provocatypes as its quick and easy to use.  The custom voices also make audio mock ups really compelling.
• Suno was used to create the new closing music. Its simple and even simple prompts generate quality outputs aligned with expectations.  
• Adobe Firefly to create the episode cover. This needed the most rework and lags behind tools like Mid-journey.

Service Design YAP is developed and produced by the Service Design Network UK Chapter.
Its aim is to engage and connect the wider Service Design community.

• Episode Host: Stephen Wood
• Production Assistance: Jean Watanya

Send us a text

In this festive bonus episode of Service Design YAP, we sit down with Adam St John Lawrence to understand how he uses tactics and techniques from theatre in his design work.

Adam, the goatee sporting GOAT of Service Design, draws on an "eclectic" background that includes farming and psychology (plus some bouncing and stripping), to offer some radical challenges to design’s dusty  “best practices”. 

He a natural raconteur who  tell stories and shares insight that everyone will find funny and enlightening in equal measure.

Enjoy your break, how ever you spend it.

Let us know what you think about the episode on our Insta account ; tell us which podcasts are inspiring you and  who you think  we should interview next.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stickdorn?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app

The YAP team will see you in 2025. 

Please note, no rubber chickens were harmed in the making of this episode.

Links from this episode:

https://www.thiagi.com/game-design
https://www.appliedimprovisationnetwork.org/

Adam, Marc Stickdorn,  Markus Hormeß and Jacob Schneider’s book This is Service Design Doing.

Service Design YAP is developed and produced by the Service Design Network UK Chapter.
Its aim is to engage and connect the wider Service Design community.

• Episode Host: Stephen Wood
• Production Assistance: Jean Watanya

Send us a text

How can you encourage a retail bank, which will always focus on risk management and stability, to innovate?
 
In this episode we talk with Ian Crawford, NatWest Group's Head of Innovation Design. We  explore the ways in which designers are uniquely positioned to help corporate innovation programs to think differently.

Ian shares how his group interviews design candidates to evaluate their innovation mindsets, and talks about the trends that his group believe will reshape retail banking in the future. 

In a conversation that roams from Dieter Rams to Blackadder's Christmas Carol, we explore how you can promote two of your designer superpowers: 

• Framing and encouraging bolder thinking,  
• Expert facilitation helping to create consensus and commitment to get great ideas into the real world.  

About Ian

Ian leads an Innovation Design team at NatWest Group as part of a wider department of approximately 70 people in Innovation & Partnerships. The department are responsible for catalysing the creation of brand new services, products and experiences for the wider Group, often leveraging start-ups and other technology partners to bring NatWest’s strategy to life.

He is an award-winning designer with over 15 years of experience across design, digital strategy and marketing and has worked with a wide range of organisations including Lloyds Bank, Amazon, Microsoft, CYBG, Standard Life, the NHS and Scottish Government among many others.

Sources cited in this podcast:

The Innovation Expedition:
The Jobs to be Done Playbook:
When Coffee and Kale Compete: 

Service Design YAP is developed and produced by the Service Design Network UK Chapter.
Its aim is to engage and connect the wider Service Design community.

• Episode Host: Stephen Wood
• Production Assistance: Jean Watanya

Send us a text

In this episode we get inspired by 7 incredible next generation Service Designers. We find out about how they view the world of design, where they go to get inspired, them and which emoji or meme best represents their design styles.

Featured in this episode:

Marcela Gómez Abundis
Eva Mega Astria
Jane Tzu-Yuan Chao
Anna Han
Jihee Hwang
Linda Paulauska
Agata Kowalska  


Resources Listed In this Episode.

Marcela's Mega List of Design Resources Notion Page

Userpalooza- A Field Researcher's Guide.

Doug Deets video on Transforming Healthcare.

Fireside chat with Don Norman

Change by Design. Tim Brown

Humans of New York (and other countries)

Jane Jacobs documentary


Dan Hill: Dark Matter and Trojan Horses video

This is Service Design Thinking/Doing 


This episode's interviewers were:
Alice Kennedy
Jean Watanya

Service Design YAP is developed and produced by the Service Design Network UK Chapter.
Its aim is to engage and connect the wider Service Design community.

• Episode Host: Stephen Wood
• Production Assistance: Jean Watanya

Send us a text

Special Projects' co-founder, Adrian Westaway  talks to us about his journey from amateur magician to master designer and how the skills of illusion can be applied to drive better design outcomes.

Design and magic are both human centric disciplines that leverage  psychology to influence behaviours and attitudes; and both benefit from "someone spending more time on something than anybody would reasonably expect". 

We talk about: Adrian's experience at the burlesque experience, Lost Vagueness; about managing creative partnership with your life-partner and talk trough how to create awe when designing experiences.... Could it be magic?  We certainly think so.

About Adrian.

Adrian is an award-winning designer and inventor whose unique approach to design draws on his two biggest passions: magic and technology. Fascinated by the similarities between the two disciplines, he joins them together in products and experiences that have the ability to not only surprise and delight but prompt positive change for individuals and communities.

As co-founder of Special Projects, the London-based design and innovation studio, Adrian leads a team that crafts strategic design visions and reinvents user interactions for forward-thinking global clients. Special Projects blends magic, humanity and technology to transform ordinary interactions into extraordinary experiences. The studio's work spans sectors including consumer goods, technology, AI, automotive and health and wellbeing for clients such as Google, Samsung, BBC, Lego, Sonos and P&G.

A thought leader on design thinking and innovation, Adrian frequently speaks at events for organisations such as Innovate UK, Design Museum and Google Creative Lab and was on the Advisory Panel for the UK Design Innovation Network, helping deliver the UK Government’s innovation strategy.In 2007 Adrian became the first ever James Dyson Fellow, and in 2012 a Fellow of the Royal Commission of 1851. He is also a full member of the Magic Circle.

Links from this episode.

Hoxton Street Monster Supplies.

Its not how good you are, its how good you want to be. By Paul Arden

Anika Yi's great flying sculptures at The Tate Modern

The Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design.

Service Design YAP is developed and produced by the Service Design Network UK Chapter.
Its aim is to engage and connect the wider Service Design community.

• Episode Host: Stephen Wood
• Production Assistance: Jean Watanya