Service design identifies what processes, people, and tools are needed to reach the desired state of customer experience. Rooted in a deep understanding of the user, service design practices take a holistic approach by understanding and synchronizing the employee experience and the customer experience. Service design is a growing skill set within government shaping the way people interact with the government and bolstering all aspects needed to support those experiences.
We create safe and experimental spaces for service designers to learn, network, and evolve. This is a free community open to any public sector service designers that are curious and want to grow. In addition to supporting government service designers, we present and share many different methodologies, including Liberating Structures, Game Storming, Participatory Design, Behavioral Design, Equity-centered Design, Design Futures, Inclusive Design, Systemic Design, and much more.
The Service Design in Government group brings together practitioners to learn and share as a community of practice. This group will bring together all levels of service design talent from federal, state, county, and municipal governments.
This talk will explore key concepts from the book, Relationality. Reading the book is encouraged but not a prerequisite for attending.
About the Book: This important new book argues that at the root of the contemporary crisis of climate, energy, food, inequality, and meaning is a certain core presupposition that structures the ways in which we live, think, act and design: the assumption of dualism, or the fundamental separateness of things.
The authors contend that the key to constructing livable worlds lies in the cultivation of ways of knowing and acting based on a profound awareness of the fundamental interdependence of everything that exists – what they refer to as relationality. This shift in paradigm is necessary for healing our bodies, ecosystems, cities, and the planet at large.
Bio: Michal Osterweil - Michal teaches in the Curriculum in Global Studies at UNC Chapel Hill, she holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology, a certificate in Cultural Studies, and has recently been training in various modalities, including Somatic Experiencing, Collective Trauma Healing, mindfulness, all of which she employs in the classroom and beyond. Her most recent book, Relationality: Towards and Emergent Politics of Life Beyond the Human (Bloomsbury 2024) describes new paradigms of social change, in particular, those emerging from various social movements-- ranging from feminist, anti-racist and anti-capitalist social movements like the Zapatistas and prison abolitionism-- to other sources of relational or non-dualist thought and action-- including complexity and systems theory as well as philosophies and practices from various forms of contemplative and embodied practices and thought. Her most recent project is called Transformative Pedagogy in Times of Crisis.
[SDG Workshop] Designing for (and from) Relationality (June 24)
About: Relationality is the fundamental belief and actions of interdependence in everything that exists. How can our service design work be more relational? This workshop will apply relationality theories to our everyday work.
Bio: Michal Osterweil - Michal teaches in the Curriculum in Global Studies at UNC Chapel Hill, she holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology, a certificate in Cultural Studies, and has recently been training in various modalities, including Somatic Experiencing, Collective Trauma Healing, mindfulness, all of which she employs in the classroom and beyond. Her most recent book, Relationality: Towards and Emergent Politics of Life Beyond the Human (Bloomsbury 2024) describes new paradigms of social change, in particular, those emerging from various social movements-- ranging from feminist, anti-racist and anti-capitalist social movements like the Zapatistas and prison abolitionism-- to other sources of relational or non-dualist thought and action-- including complexity and systems theory as well as philosophies and practices from various forms of contemplative and embodied practices and thought. Her most recent project is called Transformative Pedagogy in Times of Crisis.
We meet twice a month--one time for a speaker/training and one small group discussion as part of the Lab Series. Each month The Lab Series provides a space for an inclusive community of service designers to openly ideate, troubleshoot, and experiment with old and new activities and methods. Check out our upcoming meetings below.
January 28 [LAB]: Intentional Gathering with Susanne Wiggins
March 11 [LAB] Atlanta Government with Mariama Ndiaye
Mark 25 [TALK] German Digital Service with Anja Alburg and Sonja Wilczek
April 15 [LAB] Small group discussion
April 29 [TALK] Bring Clarity to Complex Services (Without Service Mapping) with Ayesha Moarif
May 13 [LAB] Ontario Innovation and Service Design Group
June 10 [WORKSHOP] When words are not enough: Drawing complexity with Patricia “Patsy” Kambitsch
June 17 [BOOK TALK] Designing for (and from) Relationality with Michal Osterweil
June 24 [WORKSHOP] Designing for (and from) Relationality with Michal Osterweil
July 15 [TALK] Futures with KARLA Paniagua
July 29 [TALK] How AI is showing up in service design conversations with Lisette Baylor
August 12 [LAB] A Case Study: HCD AI Workflow with Nate Byrnes
August 26 [TALK] Thinking like a coalition designer (with an org design lens) with Lucy Ellis
September 16 [LAB] Expert's Blindspot: Integrating behavioral science into the design process (Case Study from Estonia) with Heleyn Tammsaar
September 30 [TALK] Systems Practice for Social Impact with Katy Mamen
October 7 [LAB] Building capacity for HCD with public-serving institutions with Aaron Wilson-Ahlstrom
October 21 [TALK] Co-creation methods for service design with Danielle Agnello
November 4 [LAB] TBD
November 18 [TALK] TBD
December 2 [LAB] TBD
December 16 [TALK] TBD
Check out our speakers page to view a full list of past speakers/facilitators from 2021-2025.