Dear Don,
Thank you for your message. I appreciate your correction on 'We know what
service activities are and we know what design activity is.' Thanks for
pulling me up on this. I was thinking about the issue more loosely at the
time that I wrote that.
>I question the statement: I don't know what services are. I don't know what
design is. More precisely, I don't know what any of these things is NOT.
I agree about the difficulties of separating services and products in terms
of a definition. There seems to be some simialrities to the wave particle
issue.
One dimension I've found gives useful insights is looking at services and
products in terms of $/hour vs. $/thing. In the literature on organisation
development, there is a significant step where a small business transitions
its value offering from $/hour to $/thing. Usually this step is associated
with strong increase in profit, improvement in customer relations and
improvement in operational efficiency. Not for profit organisations appear
to have a similar step change. It is an indicator that the organisation now
deeply understands all the dimensions of a particular specific service they
offer to the point they can offer the service competitively at fixed price.
For example, a surgeon charging by the hour or by the procedure. Where
organisations are not fully on top of a services issue they must price by
the hour to be competitive otherwise they must add such large margins to a
fixed price to ensure they do not make a loss. . This makes them
uncompetitive to those pricing on a cost-plus basis.
>... backstages often have employees working therein, and for each employee,
there is a front stage and a back stage. The front stage is what people or
equipment they interact with. Their back stage is all the rest of their
organization (or interacting organizations) that are involved.
I agree with you about the different perspectives of individuals and
constituent groups in which they might view the same issue as a service or a
product (and this might change in the moment depending on their
circumstance). Thus far, I've found it useful to see this issue in terms of
constituent orientation and as a reflexive system such as that represented
by a Beerian VSM (which allows it to be product or service at any time). Its
a design approach that seems to work regardless of the topic area. This
approach seems to be particularly useful for identifying 'leverage points'
where design activity can offer potential for significant improvements. Its
an approach myself and Trudi Cooper used in analysing a bunch of problems
with a hospital stroke unit ( a preprint is available at
http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2008/Hospital%20stroke%20unit%
20design.htm)
I'd love to see a copy of your paper on waiting in lines, especially the
connections between the interaction design features and the OR. I remember
the psychological stress and the 40 hour travel time from missing a flight
from UK to Australia after British Airlines changed its queuing process to
make it 'more efficient' and user friendly!
Its just after dawn here and time to drive the 60km to Fremantle for coffee,
croissant and setting up the International Design Out Crime Conference this
December.
Best wishes,
Terry
____________________
Dr. Terence Love, FRDS, AMIMechE, PMACM
Director, Design-focused Research Group, Design Out Crime Research Group
Researcher, Digital Ecosystems and Business Intelligence Institute
Associate, Planning and Transport Research Centre
Curtin University, PO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845
Mob: 0434 975 848, Fax +61(0)8 9305 7629, [log in to unmask]
Visiting Professor, Member of Scientific Council
UNIDCOM/ IADE, Lisbon, Portugal
Honorary Fellow, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development
Management School, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
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