We gathered more than 50 people together in a bar in Shanghai on June first, the Service Design Day. In Addition, more than 400 people joined us online through our live stream on Wechat. They are here to not only celebrate Service Design, but also here to brainstorm for the main theme of Service Design Conference that is going to happen in October. 

It is all about collaboration and perspective

A great idea never came from just one person, it is always done by a team of people from different fields. Our event is the perfect example of this. Through breaking all of our participants into working groups, discussion and connections are made. Experts from different companies such as Google, Huawei, Alibaba, SAIC VOLKSWAGEN, Spring Airlines, Frog, and many others shared their thoughts and perspectives.

SDN Shanghai is the pioneer.

At the beginning of the night, Cathy Huang, the head of SDN Shanghai, also the founder of CBi China Bridge, gave a few words. She warmly welcomed everyone, and talked about the history and development of SDN in Shanghai and China. She also brought up the reason why Service Design played an important role in both economy and society level in China along with the implement of it.

 “Service Design is like MSG”

Nadia Cervinscaia, a trained Service Designer who is also the speaker of the event, said this while explaining the concept to people. “you can add it to any food or any dish you want, to make it have a better taste”. Same as Service Design, people can use it in any type of field. Nadia’s words not only raised people’s appetite, but also opened their mind on what is Service Design before starting all the activities.

It took three steps to put an elephant into a fridge

And yes, that is how simple Service Design is except we used the two diamonds method.

With four magical Ds, many brilliant ideas have been created and delivered. One group said that we should build platforms for communities of different interests, and strengthen their social impact. Another group mentioned the attention on the sex economy should be raised. Others speak about the importance of Service Design in the future should be reinforced. People also bring up the Sang culture and Zhai economy in China. Service Design can be used to improve the living space of wild animals in cities, another team said.

Ideas are like a little seed. People bring the seeds to this event, and it has grown into a towering tree after two hours. It didn’t grow by itself, people watered it by the different perspectives from different fields. Service Design is not only about one idea and one person, it is about collaboration and co-creation.

Service Design Futures

This workshop showed the power of service design and what it can achieve. It also contributes to the theme of the Asian Service Design Conference, by exploring the public’s interest. Just like Service Design, this conference will not be successful with only one person, or one idea. With the power of co-creation, we can let more people understand, and learn about, and eventually strengthen the power of Service Design on a global surface.