 Hi, I'm Mark and welcome to a very special episode of the service design show. This episode is fully dedicated to in-house service design. You're going to hear about some very specific challenges in-house service designers face, but also get some very practical advice on how you can be more successful when you're embedded as a service designer within an organization. But I think the stories that you'll hear will also be very useful, even if you are not currently working in-house. Here's a brief background to this episode. There's no denying that service design in-house is growing rapidly. More and more organizations are building in-house service design capabilities, building in-house service design teams, but in doing service design in-house is different than working for an agency or a consultancy. For one, you usually don't have a lot of peers around you who you can share stories and struggles with. And often you don't have a very good benchmark to see if you're doing things right, while the rest of the organization is looking to you as the expert. The past few weeks, I hosted a new round of the service design Campfire. The Campfire is a private group where in-house service designers get together, connect with their peers and exchange stories. I'm really excited because we've just finished the third edition of the Campfire and in this episode you're going to hear the stories from the eight participants. They're all in-house service designers from very different industries, teams, organizations and countries and they're all going to share with you the challenges they face and give you some practical advice on how you can be more successful. If the Campfire sounds like something that you might also be interested in joining, I have good news for you because the application process for the upcoming round has just been opened. If you want to learn more about that, head over to servicedesignshow.com slash campfire and read the instructions carefully because we just have eight spots available in the Campfire and there is a quite strict application process. The sooner you send in your application, the bigger your chance of getting in. Now I'm going to introduce you to the eight in-house service design professionals who will share their stories with you. Sit back, relax and let the show begin. Welcome to the show everyone. Hi Mark, how are you doing? Doing well. I am happy that everybody is here from this Campfire season number three and this is our final episode and we're going to reflect on what happened in the last few weeks, some of the learnings, some advice maybe for people who didn't get the opportunity to join the Campfires. Let's just kick off. Let's start with the first camper as we came to learn to know you all and that is Dee. Dee, could you start by saying who you are and how you got into the Campfire? What made you interested to join? Sure. So Dee Sieber, I'm a senior service designer and experience lead at Phillips Experience Design, which is part of Phillips. What brought me to the Campfire? I will say in hindsight it's actually different than what I originally came for. In hindsight, I think I was really looking for evidence of what in-house experience is as a lot of the service design professional industry tends to take a consulting and sort of an external design perspective. So in hindsight, I think I was just looking for others like me. Yeah, and I hope you found them. Indeed. Others like you, but still the same. What do you feel is a typical challenge that in-house service designers face? Yeah, I think one of the things, especially when we were talking in this Campfire, is sometimes the challenge of having your design colleagues actually understand what you do as much as having your business colleagues understand what you do. So particularly in say UX or communication design mature organizations, there's a lot of what do you do as a service designer that you have to explain and educate your design colleagues on? I guess some people who might be listening hope that as an in-house service designer, you're sort of freed from that responsibility and that people embrace you and know what you need, know what value you bring, but that still is very much part of your job. So if you could give one piece of advice to the people listening in making the life of an in-house service designer easier, what would your advice be? My biggest advice would be really taking an asset-based development approach. Finding what the teams you're working with already have from a service design perspective and then looking to build on that. So you're not necessarily starting from zero, but you're also not trying to get to 100% from the first go of working with them. Makes a lot of sense. Now the final question for you in this Campfire, what do you think you'll remember in a year time from this experience? I think one of the biggest things that I really took away was how much I already have at my disposal to solve my challenges. Really the other campers were able to kind of reflect my own experiences and remind me of things that I'd already done. But then I think on the flip side, going back to why I originally did the Campfire of looking for others who have similar experiences, I think I've ended up with a lot more humility and appreciation for how much other great in-house work is happening, which I've been a little skeptical of. So I think I've been really impressed by how quickly and just for sessions we were able to build a community and find both our shared experiences as well as the offering that we can provide to each other. And I have to thank you because you're a professional camper and we borrowed a lot of camping slang from you. So thank you D for that. I'll remember you for that for sure. Let's move on to the second camper in this Campfire, which is Patrick. Patrick, could you briefly tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do and what brought you to this Campfire? Yeah, hi. I'm head of experience design at a large insurance company here in the US. And actually a co-worker introduced me to your show and to this Campfire. And I thought it was a great idea to meet with other service designers and share experiences. And the colleague was also part of the previous Campfire. So it's the passing on the baton. Yeah, what do you feel is a typical challenge for an in-house service designer? I think because service design touches so many different parts of an organization, it is easy to accidentally step on toes. And it's also important to be able to educate other parts of the organization around what service design is because they may not know where it starts, where it ends. And there might be also a bit of a tension between getting things done quickly and getting them done right. Hmm. I think a lot of people will recognize that stepping on toes, where are the boundaries of service design? Service design is so holistic. Whose responsibility is it anyway? Is your piece of advice linked to this? Or are we heading in a different direction? What kind of advice would you give to somebody? Well, I think it's connected in some way. Change takes time, especially in larger organizations, especially in organizations that maybe are not as ingrained in terms of customer centricity. So you kind of have to have a bit of a patience. And also you have to find a good balance between getting some quick wins to kind of show your value and working on the bigger issues. They're oftentimes systemic, which makes it really difficult and it takes time to solve. Patience is a word that we've heard a lot in this campfire. How do you actually do it? How do you come up with the patience? How do you personally do it? Well, the question is, do I do it? And some of my co-workers would say that I don't. So I may be the wrong person to provide that advice. It's the piece of advice for yourself. Yeah. But you know, a lot of it is about education, right? People don't know what they don't know. So you kind of have to help them kind of on that journey that we're all on together. And when you get smaller wins, you celebrate those. And you just keep chipping away at it, I would say. This is a very good point because I think we tend to overlook the small wins that we do find as a service designer. We take those for granted, but it's really smart to actually put them on a stage and celebrate them. You heard seven other stories in the last few weeks. What is your biggest learning from this next to being patient? Well, I think the interesting thing is that we're all, no matter where we are in the world, we have folks from Europe, from the US, no matter where we are, we have really the same challenges. And it's very relatable what other folks are going through. So I would say that that is an insight. You know, it's the same problems that we had, the same challenges. And we can really learn from each other. And it's nice just to listen to each other, actually. And it's a bit of a therapy session, isn't it? Therapy, yeah, anonymous service design is a little less anonymous. And this is, I think, a very important thing. Because when you're at an agency, you have other peers around you to share your successes and frustrations with. When you're in-house, you're usually part of a small team, pioneering. And then it's very hard to gauge how well you're doing. And it's hard to find a benchmark. So I think these sessions are really helpful for that. Also the question to you, Patrick, what do you think you'll remember from this campfire in a year time? Well, I remember how everyone was so generous with their time, so helpful, listening, and willing to share their experiences. So I think that's all I'll remember you all. That's what happens at a good campfire, at least. Thanks so much, Patrick. I'm moving on to the next camper. Who is Cecil? Hi, Cecil. Hello. Who are you for the people who don't know who you are? Yeah, so I'm Cecilia, I work as a service design manager for Visma, which is a big software company based in Oslo, Norway. Oh, Ens, what brought you to the campfire? I was listening to one of your previous campfires, which really got me inspired that I should try and apply for this. And I really wanted to just meet some other in-house service designers and just to understand better about what I'm doing. Is that similar to what other people are doing? Other people having the same challenges as I do. So I really just wanted to speak to someone and reach out to other people within the same community just to, I guess, learn and share stories. Do you remember if there was something specific in that previous campfire reflection podcast that made you think, I need to be part of this? I think a lot of what they said, just like the challenges that they had, was just like, I really felt the same challenges. So that's why I wanted to be part of it, just because I thought that it sounds like we're all dealing with a lot of the same problems. And it'd be great to speak to some other people than the business and the stakeholders that you usually deal with. And speaking about challenges, what do you feel is a typical challenge for in-house service designers? Well, I think just the understanding of what service design is and how we can benefit the business and the work that's involved with doing service design and how to measure service design. So many of those challenges are just something that we've talked a lot about and that I also heard in the previous campfires that I think a lot of people are struggling with and trying to find their best way forward. Yeah, and it's easier when you have seven other people trying to help you get forward rather than having to figure this out all on your own or within your context of a single company. Knowing what you know now, what would your piece of advice be for an in-house service designer or a service design team? Well, I think a lot of what Patrick touched upon, this thing about taking small steps, celebrating small wins, and maybe if you find parts of the business or the organization who sort of adopt to your way of working and want to work with you, then work with them. Don't sort of spend a lot of trying to get into a pay basis where they're not as interested. So try and work with the people who are open to working with you and then maybe create some really good success stories from that and use that as a basis to broaden your scope and where in the organization you work. So don't forget the good parts of what we are doing well and the good feedback and let that sort of help you to move forward. Yeah, and there are people who already understand see the value, appreciate your contribution, and it's very tempting to sort of get into the eventualizing mode and try to convert everybody. But maybe it's easier to sort of first focus on the believers already. What is your biggest takeaway or learning from these sessions? I think that many of us are in the same boat. We feel the same pains and we have the same issues and just knowing that I'm not on my own, I think it's been a great comfort to me. And also that, at least I felt like we are doing a lot of good things already or I'm doing a lot of good things where I am and not forgetting that. So we have challenges, yes, but let's not forget that we're doing a lot of the right things as well. So that's been a big learning to just, I guess, like trust what you're doing is right and keep going with that. Yeah, that's I guess a little bit of the part of validation that you sort of want to know that I'm heading in the right direction, having other professionals were in a similar situation. Sort of, yeah, just saying to you, I think you're doing pretty well, because otherwise you might just focus a little bit too much on the things that aren't working. What will you remember from these sessions, from this campfire experience? It was really great to meet some new people from all over the world. I thought that was really cool that we're sitting here in totally different ends of the world and having the same issues in the same talk. So definitely that will be my biggest memory. And also that hopefully we can reach out to each other after this session. Yeah, it's not over. It's not over, that's for sure. Thank you, Cecil. I'm going to hand the talking stick to our next camper who is Natalie. Hi, Natalie. Hey, Mark. How's it going? Awesome. Good to see you. For the people who haven't Googled you yet, tell us a little bit about yourself. Sure. My name is Natalie Kuhn, and I work for a financial institution within the United States. I'm also co-founder of the Service Design Network New York Chapter. Awesome. Yeah. Good to have somebody from the Service Design Network chapters community also in the campfires. I'm really curious what brought you to our campsite? To learn. I wouldn't want to say I'll echo a lot of what's been shared so far, really to learn from others, share anything that I can help others learn from, and just understand how Service Design is being practiced, applied, successes, failures across other organizations. I love the component of it being across the world. Really in understanding the trends that we can see in different places as well, and again to echo what others have said, there are a lot of similarities and then some differences too. It sounds, when I listened to you during the campfire, it's like you're in an organization which is quite mature when it comes to design maturity. What do you still feel are some typical challenges that you encounter in that kind of context? I think for us and I appreciate that I actually have reflected and seen that we are rather mature within my organization and I would say that there's still challenges around number of service designers, although we have a huge design arm of the organization. They're not all service designers, not that they all should be, but it's such a mix of different backgrounds from a design perspective that we are consistently understaffed we are consistently understaffed from a service design perspective. So I think the bandwidth that we have to really practice service design at scale is still could be improved. And then additionally, I think alignment with the business and what we're prioritizing is the most important when you think of that service design mindset and looking across breaking down silos. There's a lot of heavy lifting that has to happen to do that. And so to do that heavy lifting, we have to have alignment with the business and we don't always prioritize the same things. So that can be a challenge at times. It's really interesting because what I've seen throughout these campfires is that it seems that there's like a tipping point within organizations where at first you have to, you're just happy that you get one internal stakeholder to do a project with you and then sort of it starts to spread like wildfire and then the next challenge becomes which projects am I going to say no to because there aren't enough service designers around to take on all the work. So, and it goes really fast. It seems to be like there's really a tipping point. Your piece of advice, anything you could tell an in-house service designer who wants to be more successful? Sure, patience, plus one to what everyone has said. I think that it's really also plus one to the small wins. I think what I'll add to that of really finding ways to get in the door and show value immediately with service design is switching the conversation from telling to really showing the value of what you can contribute as a service designer. So if you can find ways to get in the door and immediately start using some of the tools to whatever capacity to really indicate service design is something we should be doing. Sometimes I don't necessarily try to do a whole education on what service design is. I just start using the tools and the team starts understanding that I as an individual have some tools and then slowly they learn, oh, those are service design tools because she's a service designer and it starts to click and then there's a little bit more demand. But I would say try to see how you can integrate the tools right away. Any of the methods, any of the thinking and mindsets from service design try to just get those going and being used by teams and then maybe a retrospective of what are these tools. So maybe a backwards way of approaching it. When I started I was very much like, let's put everyone in a class and teach them and if they can't apply the tools right away they won't get to see the value right away and you won't have that lasting bond and trust with business partners. I guess going through the experience or part of their experience is probably the most powerful way to convey the value of service design and of our approach. I totally echo that. What is your biggest learning from these seven or eight stories that we've heard? It's tough to pick just one. I think that to see the themes across individuals it felt very relatable, feeling like finding that larger community. I would say the biggest learning is really how we're all in a very similar place. I know that that echoes a little bit of what other folks have said but we're not far off from one another even given our different locations, our different industries, the different maturity of service design within the company. And so I think it's just been eye opening to see that wherever I think I am it's very similar to others and we all have slight differences but there are a lot of really big themes across what we're doing. What was your expectation when going in into this? I guess I really just hope to find a larger community. I think that the service design community is very large and they like doing things like this and I love that about the service design group just as a practice of individuals. And I think for me it's, I'm just reminding, I got excited about the community and then I forgot the question. Yeah, go ahead. I was curious what your expectation was when getting into this, yeah. Yeah, sure. I guess for me I just wanted to talk to people. I didn't really have an expectation of what I would learn. No idea where my organization might fall within this evolution or maturity of practicing service design. So really it was just like, I expect to talk to some people, hopefully they're friendly people and that was pretty much it. And is that the thing you'll remember from the campfire or is there something else that stuck with you? I would think each individual story has really stuck with me trying to think if there's anything else to add. I kind of started saying it in the last response of just how incredible I think it is that we will spend time on a Monday or weekends and really sharing our stories with one another, the commitment that we have to growing our individual practices but also coming together as a community to share and grow as a larger group and I love that and that's something I take away from this is the commitment to ourselves but also to the larger community to grow. Yeah, I love that you stress that because I think it's so important to reward yourself with the time to do some reflection, some critical thinking, some questioning. Usually when you're in an environment where you're only chasing goals and deliverables and deadlines it can be really tough to find that time so congratulations to all of you to putting yourself first and finding this this time. Thank you Natalie for sharing this and I'm going to pass the talking stick to our next camper who is Gabi. Hi Gabi. Hello, how are you? I'm doing very well. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you to the campsite? Yes, of course. So I'm Gabriela Machado. I work as a global service designer at a luxury e-commerce platform based in Europe and actually my main motivation to join the campfire was my interest and curiosity about the challenges, responsibilities of in-house service designers like me. And service designers like you in-house service designers like you what are some typical challenges they run into? So I think I already heard a lot of them but I think one thing that stuck across almost all the challenges is how hard it is to prove the value of what we do very so in a fast way let's say. So vouchers, take holders either in the business side or even designers themselves. And I think one aspect that also caught my attention let's say is the change management work that accompanies every service design project. So I think this is something we should talk more about as a community. The change management aspect, yeah. That's a really good point. With regards to advice maybe the piece of advice is that something that you'd also have liked to know before you got into service design or when you got started with it? Like the piece of advice that you're going to give us right now? Yeah, so it was something that I applied actually. So once if you're looking for a job in service design you're not in a company applying it as well already but actually looking for it. I think it's to understand the maturity level of the company not only towards design but towards service design itself because in my perspective it's very different if you are a team of one or if you sit within a large team of service designers and it really helps you to understand your responsibilities, the impact, the tasks everything that you're going to face within that organization. Yeah, so be a little bit do some research do some digging and understand Ask questions. Ask questions a lot of them to basically gauge the type of work that you're going to need to do because you have to do different work if you're a team of one or just a small service design team versus getting into a service design machine almost. What is your biggest learning from these campfire sessions? So my biggest learning I think is the same as everyone's is that there is a bigger community and it actually yeah, is that the learning? We are part of a bigger community and it's really amazing how even within different organizations within different working dynamics and cultures we all face the same challenges or very similar ones so this is my biggest learning that we're not alone. That we're not alone, yeah. No, we're a huge community and I'm often surprised that it has to come out through ways like this but what I've experienced through the service design show that service design is a global phenomenon nowadays. What is the thing that you'll remember from this experience after a year? So I don't want to be repetitive but the people for sure so I think it's really amazing how much we can observe and also absorb from only 19 minutes per week from each other so we are very different and we all have similarities in a way and I think this allows us to learn a lot from each other so I look forward to follow your future adventures in camping and working so the people, yes. The people, yeah. Yeah, thanks Gabi and I'm sure this won't be the end of our conversation here but we're going to move on to an next camper who's sitting and waiting to share their story and that is Hedda in this case. Hedda. Hey. Hey. Who are you? Yes, I'm Hedda Söder. I am a senior service designer at the Digital Healthcare Provider CRI in Sweden. In Sweden. I'm based in Sweden. Yeah. They're available in Europe too. What brought you to our lovely campfire site? Yes, definitely a lovely campfire site. Yeah, so I'm one out of two service designers in my organization and been the only one for until just recently and I would say that the main reason to come here just as other people said is to have a context to share and talk about challenges in with like-minded people so and people outside maybe my immediate bubble of other service designer that like old co-workers and stuff to see to get some fresh eyes on things. And do you feel that you got did you find what you were looking for? Yes, indeed I did. I'm happy to hear that. So you're a team of two nowadays that's a different context than some of the other campers. What do you feel is a typical challenge for a team of two in-house service designers? Yeah, it's definitely to get attraction of the service design perspective, right? So the organization that I work with is a very product-centered organization. We are like a scale-up company so very fast-moving, very product-focused. Being the only one have been tricky in the way, I guess, to find leverage and to make sure that we have the more holistic perspective and not thinking on individual touchpoints but really the whole journey, for example. As I also talked about in my story, the thing that more organizations also seem to love which we call quick wins or MVP's and how to move away from that which I think is the core of service design work as well to be more holistic. Yeah, and we've had many service designers who are in a product-oriented context and that's a super challenging environment because product is driving everything. It needs to be released, features and then trying to design the holistic experience, that stuff. So yeah, I can imagine that being in a campfire like this is helpful. But I also think that the best is when product and service goes together, right? So having quick releases but also having the holistic perspective. So if I manage to have those two, I think that's a pure success. Yeah, I think your role as a service designer should be to help the product people make more informed, better and smarter decisions. And I think that's a very, very important role. What would your... Did I ask you for the piece of advice? I lost track. No, you didn't. No, well. I'm happy to share. Yeah, let's go. What's your piece of advice? Yeah, I would say manage your stakeholders closely, understand them and find them in your organization to see who you need to collaborate with and who you need to stay informed and so on. And also to remember to... It was mentioned before, but ask questions as much or maybe even more that as you look external, you should look internal to understand the whole structure and how things work internally. Of course, then to marry that together with the customer perspective. And do you have a 30-second tip on how to manage your stakeholders, how to keep them closely? How would you do that? I mean, when I first started, I did this stakeholder map with understanding who was important for me. And then I mean, now I don't keep it updated on paper as much, but it's more in my head to remember who are the important stakeholders within different areas and so on. And also, as I said before, like a fast-moving company, it changes a lot over time. So I think when you've been in a place for a while, you can understand how to navigate in that part. Map the system, right? That's what we do. Yeah, absolutely. So what is your biggest learning from this experience? Yeah, I mean, I'm going to plus one what's already been said, but that we have such similar challenges, regardless of country or company and where we sit in the organization. It seems like we have similar challenges. It's been really, really great to reflect on that and spend time on thinking on how services sign is structured and how it can be improved. But it's maybe not only about where you sit, but how you do it. And do you feel that people who might be listening right now and are a team of one might be in doubt if the campfire is something for them? Like they might be thinking, I need to have years of experience. How do you feel about it now, having gone through this? If it's worth doing it? Yeah, if you're a team of one. Yeah, definitely. I mean, especially if you're a team of one or two, because then this is a perfect way to expand that team for a couple of weeks. Yeah, you're getting external colleagues for a few weeks. What will you remember head up from this campfire in a year time? The openness and honesty and how we from the first sharing session had great discussions. And also, I would say that I learned how popular Oakley is around Europe when we had this check-in exercise showing each other's fidgets. There were Oakley everywhere. Yeah, absolutely. Those are the fun things that we also try to share during the campfires. It's not purely professional, but we also want to learn the human behind the service designer. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for sharing. And I'm going to pass on the talking stick to Yevda in this case. Are you there, Yevda? Yes, hi, Mark. Hi. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? A little bit. I'm working as a consultant for an IT and consultancy firm. And currently, I'm on an assignment for a big bank where I'm coaching I think six teams now who are trying to come up with new services and do the whole service design process, which is lovely, but it was the first time for me to be in-house. And therefore, these campfire sessions, they were a perfect addition for me to reflect on what I'm doing there and how I can do it maybe better. So why did you feel you needed to sign up? What made this an attractive offer to join the campfire? Yes, it's partly just talking with like-minded people like the other set, but also especially the international perspective because as a consultant, I've seen a lot of Dutch companies from the inside and I, well, learned a lot from them as well, but I figured it's good to see also other places in the world how they're doing it. And looking in hindsight, it's also the different team sizes and dynamics. They're more diverse than what I usually see. So that's it. We hear a phone a bleep. This is what happens. This is reality. Yeah. No, I'm not sure. I think so. So being an in-house service designer brought in or coming from a consultancy, what have you found to be a typical challenge? Yeah, a typical challenge is, I think some of you, at least Natalie and Hedda, you're touched upon it. You start small and that's a natural thing to do, start small with quick wins. But a challenge is to transform it from starting small and showing these quick wins to do more fundamental things. And they sometimes, or actually often, they don't show the quick win right away. It takes months or sometimes years to invest into these transformations. So I consider that a big challenge. Yeah. So how do you move beyond the quick wins and how do you get the opportunity to actually make bigger wins? That's definitely a challenge that I've seen as well. Any piece of advice around that? Well, I think from the talks we had, what stick to me was saying, we are the problem solvers. We're there, we're asked by people to come and solve something. They ask us to be there. So if you keep focus on this problem, which is sometimes a small problem, but also could be a bigger, more fundamental problem, then it creates space to also work on that. Yeah. Yeah. So keep in mind that you're there for a reason. Yeah. Yeah. You're learning from these last few weeks. What would you say? Yeah. I think it's about, I had a pilates teacher and she always said to me, consistency is the key. And it's sort of, I always believe like flexibility is crucial to find your way in an organization. But at some point, consistency is the key that you really have to stick to the process that you're there to present and use the methods that we as a community have provided for us. So sometimes you just have to stick to that and keep doing that. And also combine it with what Patrick mentioned, a little bit of patience. And it will get you much further than being flexible all the time jumping. Do you have a compass or a guiding star when to be consistent? Like how would we know? How would we know? Well, for me, it's about sharing the things that I do with others and that discussing how we approach it that makes it that I am consistent because I'm sharing it. It's not just me, but it's something with a group of people that that's something that helps. Helps maybe even better than then agreeing on a book or a framework or just aligning with other people. Keeps you consistent. And repeating your story. Sometimes I feel that we as service designers are really in love with doing new things and want to move on. But like it has been mentioned in this session already, patience and I think repeating ourselves a lot is needed to get the message to stick and come across and at some point create momentum. What is the thing that you'll remember in a year time from these sessions? Yeah, I think it's... I mean, we learn a lot from each other as the others already stated. But I think it's mostly that we can also learn a lot from ourselves because in contradiction to most meetings online in the campfire sessions, you have like 10, 15 minutes to just talk without anybody responding or interfering or... And I felt like this dynamic of just talking, preparing a talk, talking and then have an audience asking you some questions on your thoughts and reflection on it. That's really valuable. And actually, I think we'll sort of know the answers or at least a way that we can move forward with things for struggle with, but we don't take the time to reflect on it. So I think that's something I keep... I will memorize. Yeah, sometimes you just have to say out loud the things you're facing, the challenges that you're facing and the problem might be gone by just verbalizing it. And I think it's a conscious activity. You really have to put the time and effort into verbalizing that. Thank you. And we're going to continue to the final camper at this campfire site. And that is Nara. Are you there? No? I'm here. I'm here because... Yes, very good. Happy to see you. Can you share a little bit about yourself and how you got into the campfire? Sure. And so I'm Nata Kostenko, a service designer. And in 2020, I worked for Flavio. It's an e-commerce email marketing agency. I worked as the only service designer in the company, which is based in the US. And I live in Estonia. So there is zero organized local community, no meetups for service design. And I felt like my online interactions with other service designers were quite limited. So I decided to explore another world of masterminds and talking about the service design challenges. And I was curious if it's just me facing some issues in the projects and see what is normal. Yeah. Like, you're really pioneering. I know that everybody as a service designer feels like they're pioneering, but doing this without a local community, without an established practice around you. Yeah, that requires some perseverance and belief in it. So awesome that you're doing that. Now, in your situation, what would you say was a typical challenge for an in-house service designer? So the one that I posed during our conversation was that I faced how to integrate ethical design into everyday work. So some decisions, they might make sense from the profit side, but so they aren't usually even questioned. But then we're advocating for the user and sustainable development of the company. It's impossible without this emphasis on ethics. So my challenge was around the topic of how to have this conversation in the company and how to approach eliminating dark patterns and so on. Yeah, the trade-offs there, even the question is if there are trade-offs even. What kind of advice would you give to an in-house service designer? Is it related to ethics in design or is your advice something else? I think I'd rather have a universal advice. So what I found is that it's important to position yourself in the company in the right way from early on. And if you don't, then work on this as soon as possible. Like think of what kind of brand you'd like to have in the organization and then work around this. Because in the consultancy business, people might check feedback for your work or your portfolio, but inside the company in-house, the words, it spreads in a different way. And then your image, the brand that you built, then helps you to sell service design. And what kind of image now in hindsight do you think is a smart image to build or I don't know how to actually phrase that, but let's say you start out as a service designer in a fresh new company, what do you think would be a smart approach? At least for me, it's important to establish yourself as an expert so that people know that they can come to you, but not say that I have all the answers because you don't. You have all the questions, but you don't have all the answers. So kind of balance on this part. And I think Jepta also pointed out an interesting part about branding of service designers. Like, you know, be those quirky, sometimes crazy guys, you know, that people know, oh, there is something interesting going on there. So they're even naturally drawn to discover what's up there. And then you kind of work with this interest. Yeah, and I think it's a really good point that sometimes we need to show a little bit more of who we are and what we bring to the table. I know a lot of service designers are quite humble and quite modest about what they do and the value they bring, which is a great attitude. But we, you are bringing value and it's okay to help other people understand what that value is without becoming an asshole. So yeah, it's good to explain that. Now, what would you say is your learning from these stories that you've heard over the last few weeks? So I decided to take away not only an insight but also a question. So I'll be asking myself more often what did previously work in a similar situation. Because I know it's like very tempting to go after the next shiny thing, approach or tool. But we really have, like we all have wisdom and from the past lessons available to us. So definitely that's something I'll be capitalizing on more. And is that also the thing you'll remember in a year time or is there a different memory that you think you'll recall? Oh, there is more. So first, I was very pleasantly surprised how openly and honestly like people shared so the whole atmosphere of the campfire and definitely remember that. But then is that building capabilities is more important than fixing the bugs? I think we all talked about this, you know, that a lot revolves around the culture of their organization and that we as service designers are in position to build it, to develop this. So definitely like this empowering message, you know, like yes, you can, would be something I'll remember. If you want to be part of the next campfire group, here is what you need to do. Head over to servicedesignshow.com slash campfire read the instructions carefully on how to apply. The next campfire group is starting on March 10th, 2021. We've just got space for eight participants in this campfire. So if you want to increase your chance of getting in, make sure you send in your application right after this episode. So head over to servicedesignshow.com slash campfire and read all the instructions there. I really hope you enjoyed the stories and got something useful out of it, even if you're not an in-house service designer. Thanks so much for listening. Keep making a positive and I'll catch you in the next episode.