Service Design Podcast

We talk with Mia Mo, Robyn Carino, and Samiha Essakhi as they take us through the innovative model they co-created to integrate health, social, and physical supports directly within Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (NORCS).

We talk with Maarten Raemdonck, Head of Innovation at Aquafin, and Lien Dewitte from Leap Forward, about how innovation takes root in a large, technical organisation. From bold early experiments to building lasting change, they share honest lessons from Aquafin’s journey to make innovation part of everyday work in a company that treats the waste water of 5 million people daily.

In this episode, we visit AZ Groeninge in Kortrijk to meet Brian Desplinter and Jurgen De Klerck, the duo behind a unique collaboration between healthcare and telecom. From private 5G networks to co-designed care services, we explore how design thinking is driving real change in a clinical setting.

What if your home had a memory? In this episode, PhD researcher Sun Ah Hwang joins us to explore Digital Building Logbooks — the “health cards” of buildings. From DIY dreams to data-driven renovation advice, we discuss how DBLs are reshaping our approach to sustainability, ownership, and building design across Europe.

Dr. Samuel Huber shares his takes on how to design better futures from a planetary perspective. Being both a design entrepreneur and researcher, he utilises his academic side for real-life prototyping of strategies.

How do you engage active neighbours in saving energy together with the rest of their neighbourhood? How can you improve social cohesion in local communities? Djoera Eerland shares the challenges and learnings of kickstarting neighbourhood collectives at scale, with Buurkracht.

This is how Coral brings us to Brazil at the start of our conversation. She is currently working for re.green, an organisation that restores tropical forests at scale, and she recently published her book on Ecosystemic Design.

How to make your services more inclusive and accessible? Tom Van Hoey from District09 and Yalenka Mariën from Knight Moves share insights from Flanders' City Deal 'E-inclusion by Design,' where they focus on crafting accessible digital tools for 13 Flemish cities. Together, we discuss the importance of small-scale experimentation, encouraging city officials to adopt user-centred approaches, and using storytelling for sustainable collaboration.

How can service design revolutionise maritime logistics? Sanna Vainionpää gladly answers that question as she shares how their 10 years vision concept for Finnish Maritime “Single Window” - named NEMO - enhances efficiency, reduces environmental impact, and optimises port operations. Don’t hesitate to dive into this engaging discussion on the power of service design in the maritime industry. A lot of opportunities lie ahead!

In this episode, we have a thoughtful conversation with Ashleen Nee and Linda Klotzbach going int-depth into their project “Save Time, Save Lives”, winner the 2023 Service Design Awards for Best Student Project executed together with YuYu Sun.

Adam B Cochrane is a Senior strategic designer at Lufthansa Innovation hub where he facilitates meaning, purpose and future visions through service design. Throughout his career - with previous employers such as Zalando, Taxfix, IXDS and Telekom - he developed a keen interested in ritual design and guiding new business ventures. Now, he ‘s also the co-director for the 2024 Service Design Global Conference in Helsinki - having been already a driving force for the 2023 conference in Berlin.

Khushboo Balwani is a designer, creative researcher, and futurist active in Brussels through her socio-artistic citizen lab BrusselAVenir. Enjoy this hopeful and inspiring conversation about Khushboo’s work, her approach for understanding and visualising future needs and the power of collective future building.

As designers, we assume a lot of responsibility when it comes to involving users. How can we do better, and how can we stay kind to ourselves? Giulia and Pardis share good laughs and serious answers on using the Do No Harm Framework in their daily practice at Designit.

Join us as we dive into the wonderful world of healthcare innovation with Jiri Vermeulen and Lola Bladt from Minze Health. Jiri and Lola share their personal experiences as entrepreneurial designers, narrating the transformation of a visionary idea in 2015 into an established digital healthcare company today with multiple products in the global market. Enjoy this honest and fun conversation about transforming healthcare through design.

Finnish strategic and service design agency Hellon has been working together with the Helsinki Regional Transport Authority (HSL) for the past 6 years to ensure the sustainable future of Helsinki’s public transport. For their productive partnership, they received the Service Design Award 2022 Best Non-Profit project! We speak with Lotta Julkunen - design director and partner at Hellon - to discuss their well earned award, the philosophy of their partnership with HSL and many more interesting elements for doing successful service design at scale.

Leading up to her captivating talk at Knight Moves' Arena last month about ‘Trust Falls: catching users when they fall', we welcomed design strategist Sarah Drummond in our studio in Ghent. We talk about how to build trust in the design process, innovation vs. familiarity and the value of predictable actions for users in order to trust the systems they use. Get immersed in this fascinating topic and learn how to design for trust.

We welcome Sydney Johnson and Kristofer Kelly-Frere from Canada-based studio J5 Design. They shared their experience working on the project ‘Braver Training Grounds: Customer Experience Design & Social Housing Organizations’ which earned them the global service design award best commercial project 2022.

Chu-Yi Vuong — winner of the Service Design Award 2022 for Best Student Project — came up with a service to nudge sustainable choices to consumers. We welcome her in our studio in Ghent to talk about her thesis, her journey into the world of service design and her job as a service designer at IBM iX. Learn how her innovative solution, "Save," can make it easier for consumers to shop for groceries with sustainability in mind.

We continue the keynote talk of Dr. Leyla Acaroglu backstage at the Service Design Global Conference in Copenhagen. We discuss sustainability, systemic change and most of all, actionable steps for us, service designers and humans to make a difference. Take in her inspiration for activating your agency.

In this episode, we share a heartfelt chat with two amazing people from the organising team of the Service Design Global Conference: Peter Nørregård from Playful Innovations and Christina Melander from the Danish Design Center. Tune in to discover what designing for good means for them, and why having courage as a designer is so important—now maybe more than ever.