 Hi guys, my name is Marc Fontaine and welcome to a very special episode of the service design show. This episode is fully dedicated to the upcoming service design network Global Conference that will take place on November 2nd and 3rd 2017 in the wonderful city of Madrid. I've invited a dear friend of the show and former guest who's also part of the conference organizing team, Alex Nisbeth, to tell us what we can expect at this year's conference. Do you want to go to the conference for free this year? Keep watching, Alex will be giving away one ticket during this episode. Welcome to the show, Alex. Hi Marc. Nice to have you back on the show. It's brilliant to be here. Alex, you're part of the organizing team and that's why I've invited you to talk a bit about the conference that's coming up in Madrid. First of all, could you explain a bit what's the theme and why did you choose this specific team this year? Yeah, so this is going to be our 10th global conference. So that's a really significant thing and some of the early themes were about joining the dots. There was a bit of focus on kind of tools and methods, you know, the basics if you like. Then we started thinking about that shift from, as we called it, from sketchbook to spreadsheet. Then we looked at the value to quality of life and we feel that now it's about time after 10 years to start thinking about the real growth of service design and the importance of and the challenges of service design at scale. So we've seen service design grow from arguably quite a small kind of practice if you like. As you might say, a cottage industry into something which is much more akin to a global phenomena. So maybe the real question is how do we, we are making impact but how do we spread the impact and how do we do more meaningful work? Yeah, yeah. So there's a whole bunch of challenges about getting bigger and better, having more spread, more impact, growing, growing pains if you like. So that's what we're focusing on this year. So what can people expect when they join the conference in Madrid? Okay, I think there's a couple of really significant things. There's one thing that I'm going to come back to again and again and again. And that's this word in the service design network, the network word. This is really, really important to us and it's the reason that you'll find that our global conference changes venue, changes host country and city from year to year. So the network is the most important thing, being able to kind of connect with physically, face to face people that are designing services, they're maybe delivering services, they're buying services or they're studying service design. So the first thing is definitely about reaching out to that community, getting in touch with your network and enjoying spending time together. So the network is the most important thing really, I would say. The second thing has got to be the breadth of content. So no matter who you are, whether you're an academic, whether you're a studying, whether you're new to service design, or whether you're maybe a seasoned professional, or maybe that somebody that's in working in house in an organization, there's going to be something for you at this conference. And the third thing probably is, which connects to the network is the fact that we're going to be in Madrid, in Spain, and there's going to be, we're looking forward to the kind of the local, the Spanish kind of flavor, if you like. That's very important to us that each host city is able to sort of present an aspect of their country, of their city, which makes it even more of an experience. So it's not just a conference, it's actually more of an experience. I have a strong memory of that from the conference we hosted in Amsterdam last year. So the theme was the Dutch flavor. So I'm really curious and looking forward to the Spanish flavor in this case. Alex, I know that you're still in the full process of developing the program and curating the presentations, but could you give us sort of a tip of the iceberg? What can people expect to learn during this conference? Well, we're quite careful about setting a theme, if you like, and also breaking that theme down into a number of distinct topics. And we're very much encouraging those that are either speaking or facilitating workshops in some way to connect to that central theme, service design at scale. So we're going to be ensuring that everything kind of speaks to that. We are also going to be looking at introducing possibly some different levels of content. So content which is maybe more suitable than somebody that's maybe new to service design, content on the other perspective for people that are maybe those seasoned professionals. So I think what you might be looking at is the kind of breadth of content around the theme, but also a depth, as I say, for people that are fairly new to it, and also for those that are, as I say, seasoned professionals, if you like. The people who were back there in 2008 during the first one. And I have to say, I have to add that the content, the theme is designed, is co-designed with the local team, the local host team. The content all comes from the network. There will be a few number of people that are invited speakers, if you like. But the vast majority of the content is coming from the network themselves. And I think that's something that we're really, really proud of. We think it's really important that the content comes from you, if you like, everybody out there, the network. So what is the thing next to the Spanish flavor that you are looking forward to? There's a couple of things. I'm personally looking forward to spending some time with some some dear friends, friends that I've met throughout over the years, whether it was from Amsterdam back in 2008 or some of the conferences in between. So I'm looking forward to spending some time with those cool people and hanging out, if you like, and just seeing what's what in their service design world. I'm looking very much looking forward to the fact that this is our 10th conference. So I think if you go along to Members Day, then you'll find there's going to be a little bit of a flavor around looking back and looking forward. I think that's going to be very, very special. But I think most of all, it's going to be the breadth of the content. The kind of surprising talks, if you like, that from people that maybe you've not heard of yet, or maybe people speaking from the flown a long way to the conference with some particularly interesting stories from their from their context and their experience of service design. So, Alex, if people are just excited as me to join you in Madrid, how do we sign up? Okay, so if you want to come along to the Safe Dine Network Global Conference each year, there's the first way to get involved is by submitting a proposal for a talk or maybe a workshop. Unfortunately, the date for those submissions has passed now, and we're already kind of filtering through all those hundreds of submissions. That's the first way. The second way, purchase a ticket. So you check out the link in the comments or somewhere below here. So there are some really good rates for if you're a professional, if you're a member of a company or if you're a student, you get discounts. So there we go, buy a ticket for the two days. But I think we've got a third way this year. Mark, I think we're organizing a little competition, aren't we? I must say that this is a first service design show first. We haven't done this yet. So I'm really curious how this will work out. And I think you offered one free ticket, not the flight, not the hotel, just a free ticket to the conference. When people join this challenge, and what's the challenge, Alex? Yeah, so we'd like you to answer one simple question, and it's connected with the theme of the conference, of course. So if you can answer this following question, what do you think is the most important ingredient for successfully designing services at scale? So what's the most important ingredient for service design at scale? And if you put your answers in the comments below, then I think we'll pick an answer out of the hat. And that lucky person will get to come along to the conference. Yeah, it's not that hard for you to actually obtain that ticket. So leave a comment, share your thoughts, share your ideas, and also learn from what other people are saying. And we'll pick a winner pretty soon. And we'll announce that maybe also in the next episode, because I think Alex, we should do a follow-up on this episode once you know more about the final program and the final presentations, right? That would be really great to be able to share some of the speakers, the talks, the workshops. Of course, you'll be able to find those out. We'll be releasing those on Twitter and on the website. But it'll be good to talk about some of the kind of the really interesting things that are going to be happening at the conference. Awesome. Alex, thanks for your time. Looking forward to the conference and thanks again. Cheers. Thanks a lot. Bye. If you'd like to learn more about the conference, check out the links that are in the description of this episode. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to see more interviews with service design pioneers, check out some of the past episodes and don't forget to subscribe to the channel. For now, thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next episode.