Emergence Conference 2006 keynote

The inaugural Emergence Conference, an international design forum hosted by the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University focussed this year on Service Design. The conference featured speakers from three continents discussing state-of-the-art work, ranging from case studies highlighting customer-focused service design to innovative theoretical frameworks. Industries such as energy, financial services, health care, and retail were explored, and new approaches are proposed that cull from design theory, human-computer interaction practices, and computing infrastructure considerations.

In his keynote address Oliver explored the reality of service design practice. Referring to Engine’s experiences he explored the emergence of service design in the UK against a backdrop changing needs amongst designers, users, and providers of services. He shared his experiences of identifying and developing a commercial service design offer-the challenges faced, those overcome and ones still to be met by the industry-and the central principles, Five fundamentals and methods that both differentiate and draw together service design with traditional design disciplines and complementary consultancy services.