The UK Guardian today has a 10 page supplement on Service Design. It’s exciting to see a description of the discipline paired with concrete examples of its power laid out in plain language.

So far, a couple of concepts have jumped out at me. They aren’t particularly revolutionary, but well articulated.

• Nick Marsh’s discussion of Silent Designers. These are people with good ideas, who know an organization well, but lack the skills to express their ideas and make them happen. These are candidates for learning the process of design (aka design thinking). These are the people I get the most joy from working with.
• Dan Pink’s comment that design without empathy is mediocre design (can’t find it online, only in the print version). Sounds obvious, but happens so rarely. So many people think that they are empathetic, think they know their customers well, but don’t take the time (aka spend the $$) to look closer and test their assumptions.