Service Innovation & Design

  • The Design Possibilities in Redefinition

    By: Johanna Johnson Futurice recently hosted an event at their downtown Helsinki headquarters titled “Futurice Design Presents: Redefining Meanings”.  During the opening speech given by one of the employees of Futurice, they encouraged us to redefine the meanings of things we think we already know and carefully curated the themes of the evening to illustrate…

  • You’ve Been Nudged!

    Whether you realize it nor not you have most likely been nudged if you have ever done e.g. some online shopping. Of course, you can be nudged in other environments too but in this blog I will for the most part concentrate on nudging in the digital environment. This is because I took part in…

  • Dealing with complex global challenges

    Event: Sitra Heräämö XL21st of November, in Helsinki Sitra Heräämö XL event is a part of Sitra Lab’s Heräämö breakfast event -series. This specific event was extra-large, because instead of one there were three interesting international speakers, who gave presentations about societal innovations and global challenges: Indy Johar from Dark Matter Labs, Piret Tõnurist from…

  • The growing role of design in government

    Last week the city of Rotterdam (NL) hosted the latest edition of the International Design in Government Conference.  Previously hosted in London (UK), Oakland (USA), and Edinburgh (Scotland), last week’s edition was already the third happening in 2019, suggesting that the interest in the topic is growing world-wide.   Hosted officially by Gebruiker Centraal (User Needs…

  • AI and Service Design

    What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of AI? Robots? Data breach? Self-driving cars? There are as many thoughts about AI as there are definitions. It really depends on who you ask. However, in this blog I won’t go over what it is or isn’t but rather how we…

  • Is There Such A Thing As Too Much Empathy?

    Disclaimer:  These thoughts, opinions, and observations are mine, and mine alone.  They are not the thoughts of my fellow Dash team members, only myself.  I recently had the immense pleasure of participating in the 2019 Dash Hackathon in Helsinki (organized by the Aalto Entrepreneurship Society – “Aaltoes”) which is the largest design hackathon in Europe. …

  • Lessons on language and inclusivity

    Held annually in Stockholm, Nordic Design 2019 is a conference focused on the design within the range of user experience, user interface, technology and graphic design. The speakers were varied and did much more than simply show their impressive portfolios of work. They actively outlined certain manifestos or values inherent in their work. Topics ranged…

  • The power of “playing with hands” in Design Thinking

    I have been thinking about writing this article for so long that I haven’t yet found a proper start. I guess my fear of failing has been always too high in my personality, too many expectations about myself and from others and my natural inclination for perfection hasn’t really helped me in the past.  In…

  • Participation, participation, participation!

    Conference: People-Driven City 2019 27th of September, in Dipoli Aalto University, Otaniemi Espoo In the end of September, I had an opportunity to participate in an interesting conference, People-Driven City 2019. It was the main conference of Lähiöfest – festival of neighborhoods and this was the second time the conference has been arranged. Conference gathers…

  • What is Design Thinking and how to “design think”?

    Modern world possesses bigger challenges and more complex problems with people in the centre. To tackle these and come up with a creative solution, we need to use an explorative approach such as Design Thinking to innovate and solve these problems. I was familiarized to Design Thinking when I attended a course led by Katja…