Familiziaring with Service Ecosystem Design, thanks to the guidance of Josina Vink

Josina Vink‘s experience and expertise led the fourth meeting of the ‘Sparks of Innovation’ review. Participants had the opportunity to reflect on service design’s horizons, then, on assumptions and a shift of some milestones, such as from cognitive to embodied, or from neutral to political, and, again, on means of shaping, and more. The audience learned about a more systemic understanding of service design, in a service ecosystems design frame, which does not mean designing in huge, complex systems, but simplifying by making connections visible, starting from concrete points.

Reasoning about Service Ecosystem Design is definitely important because these are theories and practices that can support practitioners in intentionally shaping social structures to realize long-term change. In particular, Josina Vink described how the Iceberg model can be used as a mapping tool for social structures, which are the shared norms, rules, roles, values, and beliefs that guide how we interact and live in society but are generally taken for granted and invisible. These structures are concrete networks that surround us, and they can be powerful transformative forces for social systems change. Participants worked collectively through a case example, achieving hands-on approaches for building awareness of social structures and purposefully altering these structures toward desired futures, thanks, in particular, to the Create/Disrupt/Maintain Model.

This Masterclass enabled the audience to develop an alternative, systemic understanding, and theory on service design, with the final purpose to build up new methods for realizing long-term change in social systems, while gaining practical approaches for creating awareness of social structures within a given context. In addition, the afternoon left space for considerations for critically assessing the consequences of shaping social systems and fostering strategies for intentionally shaping social structures.

Now, it is time to integrate these reflections, day by day, into our work as service designers.