 Patrick. We've got an issue. What's the issue? I told you it was episode 180. It's not. It's 179. 179? Can you do another intro for me? Are you gonna slice in a completely different environment? I'm absolutely. So it's 179. We were one up ahead. Yeah. Can you just wing it? Can we? Yeah. Hi. I'm Patrick. Welcome to the 179th episode of the service session. So welcome back to a brand new episode of the service design show. This is going to be a very special edition because we're actually doing her life in person conversation. I think second or third time in the history of the show and I'm here at the heart of service design in the U.S. I'm in the harmonic design studio in Atlanta. Thanks for inviting me, Patrick. That's great to have here. And Patrick, you're a returning champion. You've been on the show before. Do you recall which one, which episode it was? It was during the pandemic, so it's all blur. I would say, what was I? Maybe midway through your 107 or 80? It could be. Yeah, it could be. And since then, we joined forces. You've been a partner of the show. People might know you from the show. They also might know you from the book, which was also celebrating an anniversary. Five years. Yeah. May first. Yeah. Orchestrating experiences. We'll get into that a bit later. So, Patrick, I'm really excited for this. I already told you we got a bunch of questions also from your team that might be a bit different than you'd expect. So, let's jump into this and see where we end up. First question is about the future of our profession, about the future of service design. If you think about where it's heading, what's the thing that excites you most? I'm excited about the impact that service designers can have. In the U.S., the roots, I think, are still sinking into the soil in a lot of organizations. And for ones that I've seen make the investment, building internal teams, hiring partners to work with them or help them build those teams, I think the future is bright for the profession to grow here. But I also, probably you have questions about this later, but I think it's also going to require to continue to really push and evolve what service design is and what it means. It has to be responsive to the needs of organizations in the world around us. And so, I'm really excited about the future, but it's going to require continuous innovation of what we do. And redefining the boundaries of it, I think it's going to continue to be very important. And when you think about the boundaries of our profession right now, what's the thing that we would need to redefine? In talking to different teams and leaders, talking to the few schools that teach it, looking at curricula, I still think that a lot of practitioners are under indexing on operations and culture. There's a lot of organizational design, business design that I think is really critical. I think over the last few years, the more and more people are understanding the intersection of systems thinking and more systemic service design. I think that is a sign that our profession is looking at our complex world and the organizations that you're trying to work with and responding to that. There's been a lot of people that have been voices for that for a long time. I'm seeing more of that starting to bubble up. I'm seeing it more being taught. But I think that's incredibly important. I think obviously, within a lot of organizations, the push to digital transformation sucks a lot of oxygen out of a lot of opportunities and where it could be going. And I think we have to continue to kind of cut against that grain because I think organizations need more than digital services. Are you optimistic about the future of service design, maybe especially in the US? It's hard to say now, obviously. Yeah, I mean, in the US, like other parts of the world, we're seeing a recession. I believe that service design is a form of strategic design. In recessions, companies start to pull back their horizon lines a little bit, start to look on how can we perform in this recession, pull back on investments, innovation. And obviously, service design plays across that whole gamut from new things and making existing services better. So if you look at it from this point of view, we've been seeing playoffs in the US in service design. But that's been true of lots of more strategic positions. It's hitting engineering and technology. I think it's a blip in terms of the investment that companies will make in this. But it does mean that service designers have to, whether you're internal or external, you've got to be able to speak to the business impact of the work. And that's a good thing. Like in the long term, it's going to benefit the entire community. Yeah, I mean, back in 2008 when we had the bigger recession here, based off of the crisis around home loans, that was a much bigger challenge to the design profession. I remember I was leading a team of about 30-something people. And I remember standing in front of them and saying, all right, so this is where we've got to get innovative. We have to figure out new methods. We've got to be able to talk more about the value of what we're doing as designers. And during that time period, that's when a lot of the lean approaches to different design professions mature during that time period because you had to be able to show you could work with less. So I think every challenge is an opportunity. I think it's a good time for reflection. And I'm seeing amongst people that I think are leaders in our space, seeing them make some better and better more compelling arguments for the value of what we all do. So yeah, so I'm overly optimistic about it. But yeah, we have to stay on our toes and keep pushing. And educating in a way that's not just academic. We need to do it in a here is the value of making this investment and trend. And I think I've always believed in doing small things build to the bigger things. So smaller ways to make an impact to build confidence of leaders to invest more. I'm here in Atlanta. This is my, I think, second or third visit, which was the other ones were quite long ago. And I learned already in the days that I'm here, two very important things. Apparently, everybody has their own mac and cheese recipe. And everybody loves the beach. And your favorite beach is Rehoboth Beach. So my next question is related to this. Let's imagine that you got the opportunity to create a service design cocktail inspired by Rehoboth Beach. What kind of cocktail would it be and what emotions or experience would you want the cocktail to invoke in its consumers? So tell us first a bit more about the beach and why you enjoy it so much. So a lot of people are like, we're with beaches in Delaware. So the first response to people in the U.S. is why Delaware? And the answer is pretty simple. Best friend of mine, each other since we're five years old, has a place there. We visited him for years. Their cocktails there are very, the most popular things they're currently are like vodka with a fresh squeezed fruit in it, which is not my thing. So I'm more of a bourbon person. So I would be cutting against the grain by making bourbon drinks in Rehoboth, but I'm a big fan of old-fashioned. So I would probably try to start to build more of an appreciation for a mix for old-fashioned, but it probably would have to incorporate some sort of orange or lemon kind of taste. Maybe the bitters would be lemon bitters or orange bitters, for example. So what would that cocktail message would be? It would message that the goal is that I retire there at some point. So it would message I'm here, I'm old, and welcome me to the party. Yeah, we need to make that happen. Add it to your bucket list, a service design cocktail. So Patrick, another reason why we're here is that Harmonic also recently celebrated its 50-year anniversary. I'm sure a lot has happened in those five years and I'm going to probably pose a pretty challenging question. If you have to think back on your proudest moment in those last five years, is there anything that pops to mind? It's probably, you know, we're five years old, so if you track back, we were under two years old when the pandemic happened. So I would say proudest moment is how we, this team here, just very nimbly adapted to it. So I'm sure a lot of people have similar stories of how you just had to overhaul everything that we're doing, how we're approaching working with clients, and as a young company and still building our client base and our reputation to be able to do that and then grow during it. What was the secret? When we formed, a big believer, we're a small company, but even as we've grown, my goal has always been that people, that we have a very open discussions and talk about what we're doing, where we're going, how we're working together. So I think that, that and how we work together is just so, such a foundation to be able to then communicate to one another. We've always had a, you know, one of my values has always been to bringing the companies taking care of one another. So we all leaned on one another. And then when we were starting the company, you know, we opened up for people to take a piece of building the operations of this company beyond beyond work of the clients and our practice. And so everybody just kept taking a piece and figuring out like how do we, how do we adapt and how we're working together and to give each other feedback about it. Um, we also just slowed down some things and said, it was interesting. We grew, but we were slowing down those goals. It was very interesting. Um, because I just wanted people not to feel overloaded. I think we all, there was this initial buzz when the pandemic first happened, the first three or four months was very obviously disconcerting and destabilizing for everybody. But there was this weird energy of like, yes, we can, you know, do this. And then it's kind of like you get the take a deep breath and go, oh, we're still in this. Right. And so I think the other thing is just encouraging people to take time, take care of themselves, hold back on a few of our goals. Things like we're doing this week here in Atlanta of our practice week were goals that we had back then. And we just, you know, iced it for a while. And when we felt ready and have the energy that we would do it. Um, and so, um, yeah, I think it's, I think it's that, um, you know, the team just did an amazing, amazing job and, uh, and leaned on one another. What surprised you the most, because I can imagine that going through a pandemic, seeing client work change, um, doubting if client work will still be there. It took us two years to get through the pandemic sort of fully. If you now look back on that, what's the biggest surprise coming out of it? You know, I'm, it's been, you know, the way that organizations work and there's still headlines of where people work and is it hybrid and get back to the office or don't come back to the office. I think, I think we all have to remember what it, what, well, there's different perspectives on work life. I think we should all kind of put things in perspective of what a, what a crazy experience to go through together as humans. And that a lot of, and a lot of people are doing, doing their best, right? And we all bring different ideas and values. So, you know, I'm, well, I'm, like I was saying before, I'm optimistic of service design. I was surprised by companies, you know, just a lot of our clients were under, like us or in some sort of form of trauma from this experience we're going through. And while there were some tough moments along the way, overall, I felt that people were kind to one another and trying to do their best work together. And I don't know, maybe that's not a surprising thing. It's probably the depth of it. I don't know. I just felt, you know, I was very appreciative of why I'm always, of course, like we're a business, we get paid for what we do, you know, it's very valuable for us to like, we try to show up and being our best and when our clients were as well when we're all struggling and trying to figure out how do we even work together, much less accomplish what we're trying to do. I'm just appreciative of it. So, I don't know if I swerved on your question, but that's what came to me. Let's hope that that's going to continue. We don't lose that appreciation and that respect for each other. Now, once everybody starts adding things to their to-do lists. Yeah, I mean, we know that what service designers do is, you know, there's a lot of craft to it, but obviously, facilitation and bringing people together and creating alignment. And so much of it is that we show up with energy. We ask the same from others. And so, yeah, I think we obviously all have to model that in our profession. But it, you know, yeah, it was, it's just a, like I said, I agree. I hope that can, that continues. I hope people don't forget how everyone was trying to bend and be flexible and try to get stuff done. And it doesn't return to, you know, its rigidity that you see in some organizations. Yeah, I think it was some good lessons learned in that. And like I said about the recession, like every time something happens like this, it just, you know, it accelerates practice development. Right? It is. Yeah, never waste a good crisis in that sense. Yeah. Right. Let's talk about the book for a second. You're a best-selling author, recognized. I don't know how best. We've had your co-author on the show as well. The book is there behind us. I don't know if I have a signed copy. I do have a copy somewhere. The book is titled Orchestrating Experiences. Have you seen organizations generally be able to orchestrate their experience? There's a lot of work to do. Well, you know, in the book, that's a, intentionally has two meanings, right? So, you know, if you look at the experiences that are provided to customers or other people, there's the ability to create these experiences over time and especially in companies that operate in more than one channel, which most do, how that comes together and, you know, ideally customers move fluidly through reaching their goals and the system of touch points responds to them. There's a lot of work to do there. I think there's a goal in a lot of organizations, you know, there's more journey work happening. There's more journey management work. I think there's still the maturity level, I think, of how you get to the goals of journey management versus how you do it. There's a lot more work to do, but that, you know, in, I don't know, I think I did my first journey map like 15 years ago. So, like, if you look at the trajectory of that over time, maybe longer, the trajectory is good. I think more people are trying to determine that. I think one of the barriers to it is less technological or methods, the intent. I think it's the other thing we talked about in the book, which is how you work together. I think, you know, an organization being able to, you know, work together towards that end to have a vision and believing that experiences are really material to how they create value, that it's not something that you just kind of chip away at in an agile team over here and the communication team over here, that you have to have, you have to work together. And there have to be people helping to see the forest while the trees are being created. I think that's where there's a lot of struggle. And I think that's true of any, you know, companies have tried to move to agility. It's the same challenges. It's humans, right? And in the end, like, getting people to work towards this bigger goal and how you balance having that clarity of what you're trying to create and orchestrate versus the two-week cycles of getting stuff done, that messy middle between strategy and implementation is still ripe for doing better work. So I think it's more and more of a stated goal that organizations have the same way that, like, 20 years ago would be customer centered. And now you hear about journeys, right? So, but I think there's, it's a challenge because if you look at customer centricity, you know, walking that talk has been a struggle. And so journeys to me are an even greater challenge, right? But I'm optimistic about the seeing it more and more in organizations making that investment. But there's, everyone's still trying to figure out how to do it well. Yeah. I think literature like this definitely contributed to growing demand, growing awareness. And then the execution part is still something people are trying to figure out, even though it's already written down, but the fact that people are asking for it, trying to learn about this stuff, that's already a big win. Although we always want things to move faster, but Yes. Yeah. I tend to take a longer view. But yeah, there's, you know, and I'll tell people, you know, when we're working with a company and they're, everyone wants, you know, or many people want like that best practice shortcut. And it's like, and I'll literally say it, even though I wrote a book, this is like, you're not going to find the answer in a book, you're going to find signals, clues, pieces, but your organization, while you can see patterns across them, you're your own weird little universe. And it comes down to people working with people. And so that's what, you know, and so I would say that's, you know, in the book, the last chapter talks about that a lot, which is just this is little step by little step, making change, building coalitions of the willing. It can't be, you know, some of it can be education, but a lot of it is just trial and error, you know. When you get the opportunity to speak to people who have read the book, what's the biggest misconception they have after hearing the story? No, one doesn't come to mind, to be honest. I think overall, I mean, I've been, you know, there was a, when Chris and I were writing it, it was always this struggle of there are, there's not one way to do this, right? But you have to make it tangible. And so we were trying to balance this, you know, little philosophy, a little bit of the mindset you need to have, the concepts, and then, yeah, this tool, that tool, this change over time. I think, you know, the workshop examples on it, I think one of the, it shows a way to do it. And I'm happy there wasn't a misconception that that is the way to do it, at least when I talk to people, that they've tried it, they've adapted it. But no one said, hey, I did it exactly like you wrote it down. And, you know, it was trying to make it just really concrete of, and it was a little bit of how for each of those things, like focus on your outcomes, you know, so that's, that's been, that's been good. You know, it's interesting, we also, at the time, made a conscious decision not to say, you know, service design on the paper. And the reason for that was we were, we were trying to pull from lots of different things in it, obviously. And so it's interesting that as many people will see it as a service design book as not, and that was, that was intentional, because, because, you know, in the US, especially, still trying to have people understand what it is, and there's always a, do you lead with that or not? And in the end, we just decided like, we just want people to do good work, help them, if this helps you do good work, call it whatever you want. And so that was an intentional decision. And so that's been, that's been nice as well. If you know, five years later had to add a single chapter to the book, what will be? Yeah, I wrote a blog about this a couple years ago. I know more now too. The, in the book, there's a chapter on journeys that I think would blown out moments even more. But that's become a big part of our methodology here. But there were things that when Chris and I were working at Adaptive Path together and with others, they are like, James Hageman and others, like, the things that we were working on in our practice, when we were writing the book, we were just where Chris and I were in our thinking. So I think that would be it. And then, you know, I would say when we turned our outline in, what Lou Rosenfeld, the publisher, told us was this is three books. So one way to think about it is there's 11 chapters, like nine chapters or one book. Chapter 10 is a book that I think Chris really wanted to write, just getting deeper into prototyping and implementation. And then the last chapter was kind of like what a lot of stuff I wanted to write about, which is I think a lot of what we do at a harmonic is more about the intersection with organizational design and like how do you change, how do you get these things into organizations? How do you evolve and using these approaches? So yeah, so it might be a missing book. But yeah, those are things that come to mind. But yeah, I think the use of moments as part of the architecture of organizations, we've been doing a lot of experimentation. And but again, you know what you know when you write it. I mean, that book came out five years ago, but you really have to lock what we were going to write about even a year and a half before that. So, you know, it's interesting. It's like a, it's kind of a, for me, it feels like a good historical document of like my thinking in 2016. And yeah, I've definitely learned so much from since then and watching my team just like, do some amazing work. That's why we're all waiting for a revised version, like a new and updated. Lou, if you're watching, he definitely is. I know he is. So Patrick, I know you're a big fan of Game Night to recharge and get back into, get back on the energy. Please help us to take us back to a moment where there was a particular hot situation with a client where you definitely needed Game Night to get back on your, in your rhythm. I mean, definitely there were moments during the pandemic where, like I was mentioning before, like in general, everyone's trying to show up as they can. But we definitely, you know, I think this will probably resonate with people. You, you're working on something and we work in a very collaborative way with our clients. And there is definitely on one initiative, a kind of clashing of methodology. So I think they're more specific. Yeah, there was, you know, within the branding and marketing world, I think there was, at this client, I think there was a kind of approach of using some frameworks that they were comfortable with. But they were hiring us to do things differently intentionally. And I think as the project was very high profile project in the organization, it's a very large company, CMO level visibility. So I think it's one of those times where our team is trying, we work very, we're very flexible. But it was getting to the point where it's like, no, this is breaking, right? Like the logic of the work was starting to just fall apart. So we, you know, it was very stressful. And this was during the pandemic. So like already just life stressful. And so emotions were very high amongst everybody as a result. So yeah, definitely had to like collect my thoughts on the whole team and definitely work, we've worked through it. And, but it's, I think those are the things where how you handle those moments. I talked to my teams a lot about that of, you know, best laid plans, right? And a lot of the work we do fortunately is important to these companies. It's often has this dual thing that I think a lot of service designers face of you're trying to, you're being hired to introduce new things. But then as you go through it, there's a pull within organizations to the norm, right? And how you navigate that together either sometimes it's the people you're working with in the client and they're having to work with that around them. Sometimes it's within the team. But yeah, just being able to work through that. And you know, in a lot of, I think like a lot of designers who come from a human-centered background still practice that way. We're highly empathetic. I'm an introvert. So these things weigh on me. You take it personal. Not personal, but it takes a lot of energy. Sometimes I take it personal. I just, yeah, I have a, I believe service design like with what we're doing and we're trying to create these things that ultimately we're trying for all the people involved to win. So it's like, am I the customer? Am I employee delivering the service? Am I impacted by it three degrees away? Can we figure out ways to balance that? So that's how it feels to do a project too. So when I go through those, I'm like, I just want us all to have a good experience and listen and help one of those needs. But these, yeah, there's moments where it's just really hard to navigate it. And that's when I need to recharge because that energy, I don't get energy from that. I'm going to be exhausted after we finish talking. So it's that kind of thing. So, but that's, you know, I'm in a big part of, like I was saying earlier, you know, it's people working with people. So you have to show up and work through that and it takes that energy and then you got to take care of yourself. Any specific lessons that you took away from that experience? I would say that why I say we're very flexible, you know, to bring forward things as soon as possible, right? I think it's not uncommon in client relationships where you're trying to be responsive. And then we'll figure that out, you know, but a lot of this work and a lot of the model we've been doing here, it's, you know, you're really building a team together. So you have to be able to create and we really have worked on as a practice, like how do you create that ability to like the merits of who you work for? Can you create the right climate on the project or the initiative within the team to be able to have those conversations and tackle things before the trajectory gets too far off? And sometimes it's the reverse. Like we're, we think we're doing what's best and they're not feeling comfortable, but they may be going, well, we'll trust them. They should bring it forward. So it's a two-way, it's a two-way street. We're all trying to do our best. And I think that's how we try to, we try to signal is like, let's just good communication, you know, and don't try to get it out and not have those conversations when you need to have them. So this is a nice leeway into my follow-up question. In your early years, you ran a high skating rink. Skating rink? No, no, a soccer shop. I need to, I need to double check my info here, but I knew I didn't rank. Oh, there we go. When I was a little kid, when you were a little kid, I was a roller skating rink. I was a little entrepreneur when I was a little kid. Yeah. So skating rink, soccer shop, I knew that as well. Now the question here is, how did that influence your leadership style today? All those things, I mean, I have a partner, James, here. I wrote a book with Chris. I'm more, I lean towards collaboration. And when I think about those things, like the soccer shop with my dad, those things that I did as a kid, I was sometimes the person who was the spark for it or, but I was also, if someone had an idea, I'd be like, oh, let's do that. I think that's, and that's, the way I try to lead is, I definitely have responsibilities in a role as a owner of the company or if I'm leading something with a client, but I always think of it as we're doing this together. I try to show up that way, create the space for all of us to think through how to do this together. And that's what I've tried with clients as well. I believe that leaders should be, I think that everyone on the team, no matter if you're like right out of school, or you've been doing it for 20 years, we all know something. We all have a perspective that is unique and valuable. And that's how I try to show up, and I encourage my teams to do that. I think when, I think when, I think poor leadership is when it develops into leaders and followers, like almost a term leader sometimes as a mucker, right? Because that says, I've worked with some companies where it's almost like a paternal relationship of leaders and employees. And I always say, leaders are employees. So it's this little dance of like, being supportive of one other, if it's not your idea, just because people look at you as the leader, like BS and to it, help one another. So I think it's that, I think as a kid, I always was captive of my soccer team, but I was surprised they wanted to make me, and our coach was surprised. He's like, are you sure? Because I am more introverted and quieter, but I am about the team. So I think those are things I learned at a very young age. It's about the team. I'm guessing an interesting balance towards moving forward together as a team versus I'm assuming that you also have a vision where things are heading. The company celebrated its fifth year anniversary. When you go for a walk or have a game night, you're probably thinking about, okay, what's next? What's going to happen in the next five years? I want to know about that. And if Dublin also plays a role in that story. All my friends in Dublin, hey, Tim. I don't know, business-wise, any excuse I ever, so yes, I have a love of Dublin. So any excuse to get over there. But I definitely have thoughts in terms of where I think things are happening. I try to share that with the team. But it's also listening to them. So if we're not connected to what we're doing, if every practitioner here, then you lose some of the advantage of being a small external party, right? And so how are the answer of what's going to happen over the next five years will be dependent on the people who aren't in this room and helping to take their passions and see can we turn that into something that are we addressing a need that's there? Are we helping people see a need that they have that we can help address, but connecting our passions to what organizations need? I think what I see most clearly is that, and I was just talking to an owner of another service design firm the other day is just how, as an external party to working with organizations of different kinds, how we work with companies will continue to need to evolve. And that's what I see most clearly. We've leaned into that. I still consider the way we've been practicing as experimental. We've been experimenting with engagement approaches that we've learned so much about what to do, what will work and not work. And then you tried another organization, and I think what we're still trying to find are the partners that we really look for in organizations really want to do it together. And the ones that have really leaned into that model have shared that that has been a more enjoyable way to work. And they've seen the outcomes. It's definitely enjoyable for us. And so I think over the next five years, like what I hope I would see is that we are able to help continue to push on how we work with organizations and lean into the things I was talking about earlier, which is how organizations can be more tuned oriented to service. And that word service and service design, I think is the should be a real focus for in our profession. There's obviously mental models about what design means within companies, right? And that's always shifting and changing. But I think that a service economy, service organizations that provide services, that's the playing ground, I think. And that's the business relevance, right? Because then design becomes a way that people see you get to those outcomes. But what outcomes are we talking about, right? And what that word service means and can organizations and leaders really lean into that more and more versus digital or transformation or all these words that are thrown around. I really think service versus customer centricity is very important because as an organization, you need to create, retain those customers. But I think that service and my vision would be that organizations continue to realize that the customer experience and employee experience are the same problem ultimately. That is the service ecosystem that you're trying to make healthy, right? That everyone is thriving within what you're trying to to do in the world. So I would love, at five years from now, that more organizations were seeing that investing in it. And embracing terms like service, journeys, growing their vocabulary, awareness. Exactly. And that's moving away from product because those delivering products these days, nobody is still there in that language. Yeah. I mean, a service technically is a form of product, but I do think that word product is still a barrier. We probably talked about this last time. I could keep going. But yeah, I do think this, you know, a big goal that I think a lot of service designers have is that shift, right? Is can we, can the mentality move from, yeah, we're trying to move things off the conveyor belt in a new way that's not waterfall? But are we still focused on outputs over outcomes? And are we still focused on, are we not focused enough on creating these, you know, like the idea of service of like, human to human service, when every organization I've talked to that's going through digital transformation says, but how do we keep the human touch? You know, especially if an organization has been around for more than 20 years, that's their, they believe that's part of their DNA. And the answer is, well, if you, if you use the approaches from service design, if you use service dominant logic, if you think of service orientation, you're essentially trying to figure out how the interaction between two people, how do you do that at a scale that's often mediated through technology, and it's not through industrial approaches? It's not. So that's the big change. So five years from now, probably still working on it. But I think that's, that's a trajectory. And what that means for our business and how we're doing it, we're going to just continue to be sharp on evolving. But that's the North Star. And we're seeing more and more role models. And I think that's the good thing. There are more and more companies publicly stating this like recently, Airbnb, putting out a statement around this. So that, that helps. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was glad they, I was glad they did that because, you know, being out in San Francisco and doing a little work with them, you know, they, that's their DNA. They have been doing versions of it for a long time. And when they, you know, when they, when they're, I forgot who it was, but the venture capitalist firm that worked with them originally, you know, they did a case study and like put out the storyboards that they had. And that example, if I just show that to people of like, like this, you know, it clicked, right, of, oh, okay, so that's like a journey. And though those are moments like, okay, I got that. So when they do something like that, it, it is incredibly, you know, such a service to service design, to, and to doing good work to helping companies understand like the, and to have the founder do that, right? That this is not, that's in their scale. This is just, and how close he is still to the importance of that and how that keeps their company oriented around their, not just their business model, but the, the experiences that people have that make it work. Like it's just, yeah, that'll be one we point to for five, the next five years, right? It's going to be a ripple, create a ripple effect. I hope so. I hope so. I was very, very excited. I saw a lot of people posting that and I think we should be all trying to draft off of their reputation and, and that example. It's the next one I'm going to invite on the show. You should, yeah. We need to have, Yeah, he's a good guy, yeah. Well, we'll exchange details later. So we discussed clients a little bit. Now, I'm really curious, I don't know how often you do this, but if you go out and take your client out for dinner, what would be the perfect dinner? And if you could invite a band, a music band, would boy genius be part of that? Well, dinner, well, I would, I would be hostly, first of all, so it would be what they would want to have for dinner, but, and it would depend on where we are, because I would lean towards where the good food is in town. But, you know, if they were, if there was their first time in Atlanta, and we were going out to dinner, I would, if they were adventurous, I would, they have, we have an area called Buford Highway that just has a lot of great international, like every few blocks, it's like you're entering a different country. So that would be really great to do. But yeah, probably, you know, the firm I used to work with, we were really big on taking people to sushi. I might do that. Music wise, yeah, boy genius is good. They just played in Atlanta. Yeah, I'll stick with that for now. I have my music taste changes constantly. Well, that's part of the design. Yeah, I will say for, I will say that, yeah, there were some shows here in town this weekend, but I would say Idols from the UK tore it up. So I would say I might play Idols. That's like great dinner music. If we flip the table and sort of think service design, how has that influenced your life? So rather than you influencing the craft, how has the craft influenced you in your personal and professional context? Well, yeah, I guess it's a series of things. You know, I think this community around service design, the conversations like this one with other people, I really like the people who hang out in our little crazy little world around service design. I've just made a lot of good relationships and friendships through it and learn so much from everybody. So I would say, yeah, that I'm big on continuous learning and so it's kept me focused on that. I'm still curious and interested in it, but a lot of very interesting smart people are attracted to this and it's enriched my life just by being part of it. And I'm sure others feel that way, assume for that's why you do this. But I really, yeah, it's really, it's opened up so many relationships around the world. So that's just been very rewarding. So I, you know, like I said, I'm introverted by nature. So that has gotten me to like, just make a lot more relationships that way. And so, and I think that part of enduring services on a lot of the facilitation that's part of it and things like that, that has been pushing my boundaries. I think of my practice, how it's evolved over time and the comfort level that I've built over time of just getting into a room of people and seeing what happens. So that's been great, great too. Being okay with ambiguity. Yeah, yeah, I was always okay with it. But it, yeah, it's just, it's made me more and more comfortable. Yeah, because just, yeah, you just lean into it. And that those opportunities to be able to do that and then create those opportunities for other people. So yeah. When we think about building new relationships and expanding the network and meeting interesting people, who's your current design crush? Who is the person that you think, man, I wish I had come up with that? Well, I love Lewis book. So good services. The clarity of that. We recommend it to people all the time. The goals of that were different than what Chris and I did, but I hit the nail. I'm sure you've heard that from other people. It's just people read that and then start to then really understand really deeply. And so I just think that is Chris to the point, well-designed book, really, really great work. So yeah, I would say live. That was just, and been helpful, similar to the Airbnb thing. It's just something that like makes the practice more accessible. Yeah, to a wide audience beyond the design community. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, that's one that we, a lot of people here are like, oh, this is great. Now, you know, Patrick has a design crush on you. So good. We're also waiting for the sequel, that one, definitely a classic. So looking again for a brief moment on your life, personal, private, if you got the opportunity to do something out of something to iterate upon, what would it be? Anything? Anything. Yeah. What needs an iteration? So many, well, so many things. We're talking about me in general. No, I, you know, it's mentioned before about like the pandemic and taking care of yourself and stuff like that. I don't always do that for myself. So I would say that's the biggest thing. I'm, you know, if anyone needs something, I'll be, I'm there. And, you know, it's tripe, but true. Put your mask on before you try to put the mask on someone else in the airplane. So I would say if I could do iteration for me would be to like build in, which is something I'm working on constantly, but you know, build in better self-care practices into my routines. I think that's important for anyone. It's definitely tough when you're leading an organization and working with clients in a pandemic. Yeah, exactly. So I would say that's the main thing. And I would say like, you know, I give that advice to people all the time. I should probably take my advice. What are you doing? Studying yoga, meditation? Yeah, lots of yoga, you know, therapy, like having, being able to have somebody just like listen who with no judgment or is awesome exercising, you know, spending more time with friends. It's a constant battle, but I'm the true, you know, I'm trying to get better and better at it. I mean, you know, like a lot of people I'm ambitious. So it's, it's hard for me to say no, but, but I'm learning. And also, you know, I have a healthy dose of imposter syndrome. So also just cutting myself a break and be kind saying it's good and kind. Yeah, exactly. So, but yeah, I think that's, I think that's something that, you know, building those habits and, and things I'm doing now to get better at that. If I had done that years ago, you know, be a different person. It's never too late. Never too hard. That will work in progress. So making a habit and maybe a collaborative habit over here, like doing push-ups every, every hour with the team, right? Why not? So, um, question around harmonic. There have been rumors that there's a secret initiation ritual that involves a unique design task. Can you confirm or deny the existence of that? And if so, what is it? Design tasks. I don't know. Maybe I'm not aware of it. And if there would, would be one, what would it be? Well, one, one thing we did, we do have questions we ask people when they, when they join. I think partly because of the pandemic, one of the questions we ask is how tall people are, because we were hiring and people who, we have staff all over the country. And so we had never met in person. So that, that was one, there's a big battle over coffee versus tea here. Um, the tea people are wrong. Um, but, uh, yeah, there's, there's a fun little like quiz of the thing and questions and things that, that we asked us to get to know, to know one another. And there's a, a crazy spreadsheet that captures that whole history of everyone that's worked with us. So if you want to know any, anyone's height, um, or their Myers-Briggs score or, uh, their favorite food, we have a spreadsheet. Don't let that get leaked on the internet. Um, Patrick, one of my final questions is, if you wouldn't be the current CEO of harmonic design, what do you think your career would have taken you? Oh, that's a good question. Um, I think I would still be doing services on, uh, you know, we, this company emerged out of people who'd worked together before working together again. I think if that, if I had like not come back to Atlanta and met up with that, that gang again, or if, uh, I think I would be maybe trying out what we're seeing with a lot of people in our profession of that solo practitioner, right? Um, but my guess is that I would have gravitated back to then, um, want to be part of a team. So, uh, and I'm not sure if it would be internal or external because both have, um, both can be good and, and, and challenging, but, uh, yeah, I think, uh, yeah, probably, I'd probably be part of some team somewhere and, uh, and I would be as happy to be, uh, to be doing service design and strategy than leading a team or leading company. Um, it's just good work. Uh, I love doing it. Anything outside of the design space? Um, retiring? Uh, no, I really want to teach. Um, I have, uh, you know, we obviously, we do a lot of teaching through our work, but, uh, yeah, I've not had, because of running a company, yeah, I would say I'd probably would have, uh, have been pursuing doing adjunct professorship or, um, writing something else, things like that. Um, that probably would be spending more time on those things. So I hope that's ahead of me. Um, but, uh, yeah, running, yeah, obviously for me and company leading it, uh, there's only so much time. So that's what I've said no to at the moment, but yeah, that's still a passion area. Yeah. So this brings me to our last part of our, of our chat. Uh, thanks a lot already for sharing a lot of these insights into who you are better beyond the service design professional and also the person. Um, before we go, I want to give you the opportunity, any last final words of wisdom or shout outs that you want to do? Uh, well, first, I appreciate you coming to town. Uh, and not just for harmonic, you know, when I would, I'm going to give a shout out to Atlanta. Um, so, you know, maybe outside the U S, you know, New York, San Francisco, et cetera. But I, when I was in San Francisco and I moved back here to Atlanta, um, it was not necessarily to form a company, but I knew this would be a good place to do service design. There is a really great community here. We are not far from Savannah, uh, College of Art and Design, which has a great service line program. Uh, I knew that it, that this would be a good place for me personally to be closer to family and friends, but I knew that I would be surrounded by a bunch of talented people who were, um, we're going to help service design go wherever it was going to go. And so, uh, I would say I'd give a shout out to the community here, um, which I know, you know, a good bit of them, uh, and probably meeting more of them. And, uh, if you are, you should consider Atlanta. If you are interested in service design, it's, uh, it's a really, really great group, uh, a group of people here. So, um, that'll be my shout out. And then of course to my, my team here who are part of that, but, uh, yeah, it's a great place to practice. Yeah, I can second that based on the short experience that I have being here for the last few days, Atlanta definitely seems like a good place for, in general, for, for people, but for design, the design community, uh, in general, so especially that's what I wanted to say. Patrick, uh, thanks again for inviting me over for this opportunity to have a in-person conversation rather than doing everything virtually. Um, was, was an absolute honor. Yeah, great. It's awesome to that you're here and I wish people on the video could see what you're doing the rest of the week, but maybe you'll be sharing some of that too. We'll try to share. So, um, you made it this far into our conversation. Thanks for tuning in to the service design show. I hope you enjoyed it. Please keep making a positive impact and I'll catch you very soon in the next episode. Let's shake hands.