Thank you, Edinburgh: Service Design in Government
I’m on a train from Edinburgh to London. The sun is out, Winter is over and I’m looking at some of the most gorgeous coastline we have in the UK. Team dxw have just had a wonderful few days at the annual Service Design in Government conference. We’re coming back with new ideas, new friends and (having had a few days off usual work), renewed energy. With this in mind, I thought I’d share some thoughts about why this sort of event is so valuable to dxw.
New ideas
Whether you are a service design professional, or a novice like me, you can’t help but learn new things at events like these. Although a fairly niche discipline in itself, SD in Govt offers up a diverse programme, showing the positive impact of it across health care, local, national and international governments. For a humble generalist like me, I love the simplicity of user centred design to build products and services that help ALL users. It’s something I will champion through my own work and with others. My colleague Stacey – one of our delivery managers has already written about how she’ll be putting into practice what she’s seen and heard. Vita, a dxw user researcher gave a presentation about a project she worked on and answered questions from the audience. Agz and Leanne will be sharing their own thoughts in the coming days too. Whether a developer, a service designer or a marketing manager, everyone would have left the conference with new skills.
Gossip
Another good thing about the event is the crowd. Everyone is so passionate about their work, and by extension, will always be willing to talk to you about it. I love this. Whether it’s the sharing of war stories with people in the Scottish Government or hearing about the beginnings of a digital service in the Jersey government (who had travelled nearly 600 miles) or just chatting with former colleagues in central government. This passionate group is stronger because of its collective network. We should embrace this and help one another wherever possible
Thank you, Edinburgh
And of course, there was Edinburgh itself.
Since the new year, most of us have been working flat out on various projects, some on more than one, so it’s good to have an opportunity to regroup. Edinburgh is such a wonderful setting for a few days to learn and take some time to reflect. We were also able to welcome Amy, the newest member of the user research team.