Service Design as a Counter-Cultural Force

This talk looked back over the past 12 years of service design as part of the writing of the second edition of Service Design: from insight to implementation. In it, we argued that rather than service design become more "productised" it should, instead, act as a counter-cultural voice in organisations.

Transcript

1. Service Design as a Counter- Cultural Force ©2025 Andrew Polaine Touchpoint Roundtable Andy Polaine Ben Reason Lavrans Løvlie Find me here: Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash
2. ©2025 Andrew Polaine The last 12 years
3. The rise of product and the resurgence of silos ©2020 Andrew Polaine Image: Lenny Kuhne on Unsplash
4. ©2020 Andrew Polaine These are not products
5. “Words create worlds” – Abraham Joshua Heschel ©2020 Andrew Polaine Prisoner of War Asylum Seeker Activist Invasion Enemy Combatant Illegal Immigrant Terrorist Special Operation Semantics matter
6. ©2020 Andrew Polaine “Services created in silos are experienced in bits” – Løvlie, Polaine, Reason, Service Design
7. ©2025 Andrew Polaine The changing role of design
8. ©2025 Andrew Polaine The age of average alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average
9. ©2025 Andrew Polaine The age of average alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average
10. ©2025 Andrew Polaine The age of average alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average
11. ©2025 Andrew Polaine Service Design can and should be a counter-cultural voice Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash
12. Thank you! ©2025 Andrew Polaine Find me here: @apolaine@pkm.social Website: www.polaine.com Podcast: https://pln.me/p10 Newsletter: https://pln.me/nws Th arg for to T The in has Dr Andy Polaine is a design Dr Andy Polaine is a design