Raw notes from Day 1 (morning) at Emergence 2007

Friday night

Last night, had a nice dinner with folks from Electronic Ink, including Liza Potts, who is a student of Bill Hart-Davidson, who was a student of mine (over 10 years ago).

Jamin Hegeman, Shelley Evenson: About the conference

Many eyes with lots of examples of death, drinking, oil and political speeches.
Community angle lets visualizations evolve along with the discussions.
Text analysis: tag clouds, word trees.
Article about Blog discussions of the visualizations.
Integration into other sites: Visualizing Earmarks.
And many more stories where these visualizations are making a difference. Scientific discovery, personal expression, journalism and advocacy, social interaction/fun.
Target pain points (traditional) vs. Erogenous zones.
This is an example of "visualization as a service", instead of as an application.

From last year: Service triangle (where technology is in the middle). His model: Technology (off to the side) to enable the human providers of the service.
Examples: 911 call center, diner menu system. These "back stage" systems often not designed by designers.
Designers are: observers, communicators (visually), modelers, problem solvers.
Health service examples from Electronic Ink.
Start with observing and drawing the relationships, processes, etc. Visual artifact example: data visualization of transfers to other hospital units, leads to recommendations on physical organziation. Then can come some technology recomendations, like wireless devices.
Net: this group of people had no means of drawing pictures (models) to understand what is going on at a high level.
Documenting "breakdowns" (not all are bad things).
Biggest problem: Selling design here. Quickly provide value (within a week).
Needed for insurance, healthcare, etc. - but Design Education needs this the most. "Why would we ever send a designer into a hospital? We do posters."
Designers are unique because as they analyze, they start thinking of the solutions (vs. just documenting the problems).
Collaborate with human factors, and many others, so it is really the multi-disciplinary team that is the key.

What is the difference between manufacturing-thinking and service-thinking?
Negative definition of "services" - what it is not. Can go too far - everything is a service. Both useless.
Definitions of "customer" - the person who pays vs. the person who recieves the value.
Customer-intensive is when the "production" cannot really start until the customer arrives (car repair, hospital). YOU are on the conveyor belt.
Customer-centered view: provider and receiver, part of the process, it waits for me, it uses me.
Official list of services (NAICS) - which are not customer-intensive industries? Movie-making, publishing (including shrink-wrapped software).
Continuum of manufacturing to service models.
Minimize the perceived time (e.g., fix the PC overnight).
Measure of quality of a service includes the process.
Emotionally-loaded.
Product designers vs. services designers.
Good: human-centricity. Bad: New methods needed because of customer intensity. Ugly: Theater director type skills needed, not artistic talent (people, timing, emotions).
What happens when the customer is a business? Navy does not know how to procure a service.
Back-end systems are impregnated with customer stuff.
Question: Utility company, put customer consuming electrons at the center of the model.
Question: B2b services, pace-layering.
Question: Is service design fundamentally different from product design? Design of the iPod (vs. designing iTunes store).

Time for lunch

(Reformatted September 14th for easier scanning)

Keith Instone