• Applicant: Kathryn Grace
  • Funding agree: £500
  • Dates: 6pm Friday 26 February 2016 to 4pm Sunday 28 February 2016

The Leeds Service Jam is part of an international annual open event the Global Service Jam. We are volunteering to make it happen in Leeds and make it relevant to our city audience. No one organisation/company owns it, but is shared. It is a 2.5 day event where people from the public sector, commercial sector, third sectors and world of academia come together to learn about ‘service design’ , ‘people-centred design’ and ‘collaboration’. We use our professional networks and social media to reach out to new people and people who have an interest and want to give ‘service design’ a try. Previous attendees have included people from all sectors, Leeds City Council, NHS Trusts, Voluntary Services, University of Leeds, Orange, Lloyds Bank, Utilities providers, Assisted Living Technologies and more. With it running over a weekend it enables those with more packed schedules to attend and devout more time. Our ideal is the event helps enable cross sector working, which we know is an increasing need for the city challenges we have today.

The hosts and facilitators (5 people) offer skill sharing, guidance and tools to enable the attendees to conceptualise and realise a service in the form of a working prototype. It is a high speed and fail fast environment which helps people make progress and learn quickly. We get attendees to engage with the public to research thinking/attitudes or to test out their ideas – learning to engage with users in a new way. Learning by doing and working with new people in small teams enables new ways of thinking and working in a safe environment. We provide a level of playfulness in our approach as we have learned that people are naturally more creative and open when that is allowed, though nothing is forced everyone chooses the approach they wish to take.

Friday is the launch of the international secret theme to start us off. Saturday and Sunday run as full days to develop and test service ideas and create working service prototypes. A prototype could be a ‘learn to cook service’, with leaflets, kitchen space, classroom, website, mobile app, booking process, post service options… the whole environment to enable an attendee to experience the customer’s journey through a service.

We are not looking to create amazing services at fast track, but create learning that will enable people to take back to their day jobs and form links between people who might work together in the future.

Service Design crosses both in person, face to face, telephone, online and mobile service provision and putting people in the centre enables the bridging between them all … this is an increasingly valuable approach as our services develop and needs rise is various sectors like Health and Public Services, where cross sector collaboration is key.

 

Funding will cover:

  • Materials – art/craft materials and printed templates we use as tools
  • Venue Hire
  • Drinks and Snacks
  • Lunches

It is a non-profit making event, a low ticket fee and sponsor’s funding is literally to cover costs.
We are looking for multiple funders, to enable collaborations.