One of the most common issues STBY are asked to help with is how to successfully integrate customers into innovation processes. This issue manifests itself in a diverse number of ways, and the problems it presents can vary wildly from sector to sector. A project recently completed in The Netherlands therefore granted us an opportunity to get to know yet another diverse group of customers – the theatre audience.

Theatre Institue Netherlands (TIN) are in many ways both the heart and the memory of theatre in the Netherlands. They document, support and promote Dutch theatre; they offer the largest multimedia theatre documentation centre in Europe, organise debates and public exhibitions, promote talent in both the Netherlands and abroad, and try and facilitate connections and harmonisation within the theatre sector. Their work strengthens the social position of theatre, and promotes a rich and inspiring theatre climate throughout the country.

Looking to improve their work still further, TIN came to STBY for advice and support on how to involve their audience in the innovation of their services. They had already attempted via an intuitive process to become more customer focused as an organisation. They had some success incorporating the use of personas for specific customer segments as part of their daily service delivery, for example – which of course often proves very useful. When looking to truly innovate their service offering however, and identify new and engaging strategic opportunities, they felt that they were struggling to find a suitable approach – their efforts to date lacking structure when it came to long-term plans. After speaking with them in detail about what they’d achieved so far, our suggestion was to introduce them to Customer Experience Labs method – an approach we’ve had great success with in the past when helping companies embrace co-creation.

One way in which this method helps structure co-creation processes, is that it provides an easily identifiable focus point. When working with a specific product or service the focus is obvious, but in projects such as this you can still define a focal point by exploring those resources already at hand. In TIN’s case, this mean their Theatre Encyclopedia.

Over the years TIN has built up an extensive online database with descriptions of thousands of theatre productions together with rich audio-visual illustrations. This Encyclopedia contains more than a million objects, dating from the 17th century right up until the present day. The posters, photos, costumers, models, scripts, audio, and video contained within provide a rich account of the history of Dutch Theatre. These materials are already used for physical exhibitions and online data retrieval, but they also offer an excellent foundation for a much broader portfolio of services – services that audience could help create, innovate, and define.

In order to explore potential ideas for and interest around these new services, STBY organised a Customer Experience Lab at the Park Theatre in Eindhoven. A mix of people who all regularly visit theater performances – and have an interest in theatre-related information – were invited to participate in a half day interactive workshop. During this session we involved them in a series of exercises to capture and explore their existing habits and needs, using visual maps of recent customer journeys. From discussions in pairs to joined-up group conversation, we invited them to share ideas on how their needs could be better catered for – or even how TIN could surprise them with services that they may not have expected to find there.

The session turned out to be extremely productive, with a large number of ideas and suggestions being generated and recorded. We even got to make the most of working in a contextual environment, celebrating the outcome with dinner in the in-house restaurant before watching a performance by Toneelgroep Amsterdam.

Having now experienced the process under the guidance of STBY, the team at TIN are planning to run similar Customer Experience Labs in the coming months. They’ve thus gently acquired a new technique for their toolbox, supporting them in their quest to be customer focused in their service innovation and delivery. And we got to spend some time in the theatre, so everybody went home happy!

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Summer might not have made an appearance yet, but that hasn’t stopped us planning a PICNIC for this May.

The PICNIC Innovation Mash Up will be a one-day, active learning event focused on “how”: how businesses in other sectors can successfully apply top innovation and creativity processes used by Dutch and international creative industry professionals to launch new products and services, connect with customers and grow. Featured processes include design thinking, scenario planning, crowdsourcing, service innovation and open design.

The event is led by creative industry experts, who’ll be coaching, collaborating and contributing valuable expertise, ideas and feedback. We’re delighted to be amongst this team, and will be sending along Geke, Bas and Maire to host the workshop on Service Innovation. We’ll be exploring how ’Mashing up’ design, research and strategy development is typical for service innovation, and requires a team that combines people from these different backgrounds. Conducting and using ethnographic research together in a co-creative way can be the glue that makes this mix coherent – and this is something we’ll be exploring in detail on the day.

PICNIC events are always great fun, and it’s a fantastic networking opportunity too, with people from Adidas, Vodafone, IDEO and many, many others already confirmed as attendees. Registration is open now at the PICNIC website – hopefully we’ll see you there!

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Since 2007, STBY has worked with Yanki Lee on Heartlands in Cornwall, a new ‘cultural playground’ and also World Heritage Site near Redruth in Cornwall, UK. Now, after years of preparing and building, Heartlands will open this weekend, 20-22 April.

Our latest involvement was about one year ago, when Bas and Yanki helped Sarah Williams of Cornwall County to organise a workshop called Creative Conversations. In the workshop we explored the question “How can art & culture tackle inequalities, create stronger communities & invite different people to the table?” In our work with Heartlands and together with people in Cornwall, we have found several answers to that question, some of which are now documented in a booklet that sums up the results of that workshop. This film gives an impression of the workshop.

If you can’t make it this weekend, do try to make it later this year to Heartlands, to see a wonderful mix of culture, heritage, nature and community services. Enjoy!

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If you want to keep an eye on next sessions, and would like to join us, sign up on www.servicedesignnetwerk.nl

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During the launch event, Stefan Marzano, the founding dean of THNK, encouraged them to have their heads in the cloud, but to also have their feet firmly on the ground. “Creative leaders are not just fancy thinkers. They need to be ready to step into the mud, and to expect some tomatoes thrown in their faces, as innovations are not always immediately successful”. Well said, and completely in line with the famous quote from Samuel Beckett “Fail. Try again. Fail again. Fail Better.”

So congratulations to THNK. It has been a tough process at times to get everything lined up for this final official start. The school has been 3 years in the making, including a few pilot projects during the past year.

STBY is proud to have contributed to the start up phase of THNK. About a year ago we conducted an extensive series of interviews with creative leaders (to be) around the world, and talked with them about their expectations for a school of creative leadership. We learned a lot about their thoughts on the program, the topics, the tutors, and also the type of organization and collaboration would want to experience.

The results of this study informed the staff of THNK in further developing the plans for the institute. It was great to hear that they made good use of it.

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What services are needed to support people living with dementia? STBY recently tackled this question together with Zuidzorg, a Dutch provider of extra-mural health care services who (amongst many other things) offer services targeted at at dementia sufferers who want to remain living in their own home.

Whether these people live alone or with their partner, they invariably depend heavily on people within their social circles to provide some (or indeed all) of the care they need. ZuidZorg provide additional care and support, and asked STBY to investigate how they could collaborate more with these personal carers, whether they be partners, children, or neighbours.

Over a number of projects we’ve built a long-term collaborative relationship with ZuidZorg, meaning that in this instance we could build on this previous work and approach the issue as a single, cohesive project team. We supported ZuidZorg in setting up interviews with carers; advised them on recruitment and script preparation; helped them analyse the material gathered and select those elements that would be useful in concepting workshops; and report the results from these workshop sessions after they had been completed.

Our collaboration continued after these first workshop sessions were completed. After an initial round of concepting, we organised a further co-creation workshop, working with the carers from the fieldwork in order to both validate and enrich the concepts which had been generate. This was followed by a final workshop in which these concepts were tested and prototyped.

This last session actually evolved – largely by happy accident – into an early version of one the services that had been developed. The idea centred upon a weekly local cafe which would be run by carers, thus providing both a place they could meet between themselves, as well as somewhere they could take the people they cared for. Over lunch during the workshop, the carers became so enthused with the concept that the workshop room became an early example of how the cafe would work in practice – a great example of how workshops have to be flexible, and adapt around the direction the discussions move in on the day.

The other prototypes were equally well-received, but still needed a little more work on their format. A service that used augmented clocks to support dementia suffers in keeping to their routines  – and updating carers as to whether these routines are being followed – was considered interesting, for example.  but we were told that clock-reading was one of the first skills you lose when starting to suffer from dementia. A great example then of how prototypes and concepts can be iteratively improved via the interactive involvement of the people they’re being designed for.

The next step in the project involves working with ZuidZorg to prepare some longer-term prototypes, which will examine how the proposed services would work for sufferers of dementia and their carers over longer-periods once installed in their environments.  It’s been a very rewarding process so far, not least because of the enduring partnerships we’ve created during this period of extended collaboration. Working with such committed and talented people on an issue that has a real impact on people’s lives is something we hope continues long into the future.

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Nicole Reinhold is an associate of STBY and also works as an independent consultant at SOCRATIZE. She is  a Research & Innovation Consultant researching people’s behavior, lifestyle and business trends and translating them into business practices.

Nicole has a background in Social Science and today she combines her research skills with facilitating skills. She facilitates workshops and creates strategic frameworks, for innovation projects. Her interests lie in complex B2B environments, new technology, and social media. Nicole has 14 years of work experience in which she has worked in R&D at Daimler Benz and E-Business within Philips Consumer Electronics and Philips Design at the Strategic Future Department.

Nicole’s methodological interest focus on the online domain and how web tools influence market research practices. She has worked and published on online panels, new marketing practices, virtual worlds and qualitative online research methods. She published and trained at ESOMAR, Philips and AIOR.

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