Category: Students’ stories

  • “Out of the Box and Then Back in Again” – The ABC of Design Thinking

    How many ways of using a pen could you come up with in two minutes? I managed to write down 10. Actually that’s not very creative. Some people can easily think of even 20 or more ways. They are more trained in Design Thinking. We, the SID group of 2013, started our Service Innovation and…

  • The journey of Design thinking begins

    There are thousands of things that can go wrong on the path from an idea to a problem solving solution. To help with the process there are plenty of methodologies and tools to formulate, conceptualize and execute ideas into a feasible business plan. At the end, the goal is to bring the ideas to life…

  • JamJaming in Barcelona

    Global Service Jams are these incredible and really fun events related to service design that are celebrated all over the globe. Twice a year, a bunch of experienced jammers and hosts meet to make them wilder, more fun and even more productive. Its the JamJam. Last time, it happened in Barcelona, on September 27th-29th. And,…

  • Failures are possibilities

    Me and 27 other students were privileged to start the Service Innovation and Design Master’s program last September in Laurea University of Applied Sciences. Our first course was about Design Thinking held by Katja Tschimmel a Design professor and an entrepreneur, and Gijs van Wulfen the writer of the excellent book “The Innovation Expedition”. How many things…

  • The Rabbit Hole of Design Thinking

    Professor and researcher Katja Tschimmel and ideation facilitator Gijs van Wulfen showed us where the Rabbit Hole of Design Thinking is. So I also jumped in it, dug together with fellows hands on for two full days – and we are still digging. The more we explore, the more we find. This post is about what…

  • Innovation versus an intern’s comfort zone

    I met Christopher Fabian, co-lead of UNICEF’s Innovation Unit at New York Headquarters, in spring 2012 in Finland. He was one of the panelists at the conference “Zombie Innovations or True Development” organized by Aalto University. During the conference I realized how close the subject was to my Master’s Study Programme in Service Innovation and…

  • Field notes from Cape Town

    By SID student Terhi P. Howzit? My calendar tells me that I have been here in Cape Town for three months now. Time flies, even in a place where the concept of time is very different, African-time, as they say. Project work and studying at CPUT I am here related to the UFISA collaboration and…

  • Cut the corners first – Harness the power of futures thinking

    “Futures are about knowledge. We must be inspired about futures. Futures are also about storytelling. “ explained lecturers Minna Koskelo and Anu K. Nousiainen. In the course Futures thinking and foresights methodologies we learned how futures thinking is linked to service design and how it can be applied in business. Through hands-on workshops lot of new…

  • Helsinki Service Jam 2013 retrospectives

    It was an amazing weekend! A weekend full of surprises, with some doses of emotions and full of fun!  After a whole week of intensive work, finally Friday arrived. I was waiting for this moment already a long time. I’ve  got a really good feedback from guys attending Helsinki Service Jam (HSJ) earlier and I saw…

  • Future of the book – workshop

    by Juho Hyvärinen My course fellow Anu. K. Nousiainen arranged a year ago a workshop regarding her thesis. The idea was to create ideas in order to help her to get material for the thesis and help with the research part. Anu only had a one problem: She needed qualified facilitators to keep the discussion flowing…