Designing for Impact: Insights from Adam Cochrane on Innovation and Community

Gerry Scullion (00:00.411)

I tell you what, like Adam, I'm delighted to have you here on the podcast. We've been messaging. Well, I've been aware of your work for a very long time. And as it turns out, like, you know, I've been connected to you and people that we do know, like Mark Strackendale in Melbourne for even longer. But maybe for our guests, we'll start off. Tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from and what you do.

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Adam B Cochrane (00:24.162)

Yeah, sure. My usual introduction is that my initials are ABC. I was born on Friday the 13th. If you've seen me moderate or talk on a stage before, you would definitely have heard this one. But I originally hail from Melbourne in Australia. I left there about 10 or 15 years ago, and then I spent the last 10 years living in Berlin. I used to run the service design jam, so I used to run the service design drinks. But now I am the per.

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Gerry Scullion (00:39.079)

Hooray!

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Gerry Scullion (00:46.887)

right.

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Adam B Cochrane (00:53.774)

conference director for the Services and Global Conference in my free time, which is also limited, but in my full-time job, I'm the Senior Strategic Designer at Lufthansa Innovation Hub for the last year.

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Gerry Scullion (01:00.815)

Yep.

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Gerry Scullion (01:08.047)

I don't know where to take this conversation. There's many places and many things that we can go to after that intro. Um, maybe we'll, we'll start off with the Lufthansa one, cause I know we need to talk about the SDN, the new role that you're taking on, um, you know, succeeding Jamin Hegeman and, um, Alex Nesbitt as well, I presume. So, um, yeah, big, big shoes, like, you know, they're probably size 10s or 44s in European size.

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Adam B Cochrane (01:27.426)

Big shoes to fill.

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Gerry Scullion (01:35.607)

What is the role like at Lufthansa? How long have you been there and what does the work entail?

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Adam B Cochrane (01:40.874)

Yeah, so at Lufthansa, I'm a strategic designer, which means I'm an expert function. But our role at Lufthansa, like the whole overall team of the Innovation Hub, is to enable innovation for Lufthansa. And we do that in a number of ways. So we do that through strategic intelligence, which is like a research, deep knowledge, trends analysis, customer sentiment. You can have a look on tnmt.com if you want to dive into the world of the airline and mobility industry.

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Gerry Scullion (01:54.436)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (02:02.631)

Hmm.

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Adam B Cochrane (02:09.986)

Then we have some other people that are doing great transformation work, so like a skill enablement, innovation enablement for like the Lufthansa group. But then my team specifically is we have venture developers that kind of build up new ventures, spin them off as their own companies. So things like Navit or Clupio or Swifty. Swifty is like an AI booking tool for business travelers. And my role there really is to help them in the

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Gerry Scullion (02:10.3)

Nice.

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Gerry Scullion (02:17.659)

Hmm.

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Gerry Scullion (02:26.675)

Hmm.

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Adam B Cochrane (02:37.09)

higher ambiguity, fuzzy front end of the process. So what is the problem that they want to try and solve? Why do they think that's a problem worth solving at all? And then kind of validating that through user experimentation, user research, prototyping, co-creation, all of the buzzwords, all the methods that we would be familiar with in the HCD world. And that's really my role there is to kind of be the expert to get them through that phase so they don't get stuck, deflated, lost.

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Gerry Scullion (02:46.244)

Hmm.

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Gerry Scullion (02:57.427)

Hmm.

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Adam B Cochrane (03:06.338)

start pitching things that may be wrong or irrelevant, or yeah, figure out how to kill things as soon as possible so we don't waste our time developing them further. But that's really my role there.

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Gerry Scullion (03:06.695)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (03:16.283)

It sounds like a hybrid role between a coach and a service design, head of service design kind of piece where you're trying to encourage them and mentor them. Is that right?

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Adam B Cochrane (03:28.798)

Yeah, I would say I split my role into three parts, like the doer, where I really get in and do user research or do different things, I mean, with the support of them and the support of others. Obviously, we have about nine to 10 ventures at any one time, so I can't be in all of them all of the time. Then there's a little bit of the consulting coaching side. OK, what's the thing we're trying to validate? How do we get there? So setting targets and then elaborating on the process or collection of methods and tools to get us there.

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Gerry Scullion (03:34.428)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (03:46.279)

Hmm.

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Adam B Cochrane (03:58.442)

And then the last part, which I find really fun, is the enablement part, like actually teaching them about how to do good interviews or how to do good prototypes or experimenting with tools or telling them what service design is. Actually, just yesterday, we did a show, an internal session we call Lunch and Learn with different service designers throughout Lufthansa group. And we actually talked about what is service design and how can you leverage service design for your project. So.

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Gerry Scullion (03:58.724)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (04:10.407)

Mmm.

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Gerry Scullion (04:22.469)

Ah.

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Adam B Cochrane (04:26.934)

That's kind of the third part that I do and spend my time on.

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Gerry Scullion (04:29.527)

Yeah. On that point, how do you measure the effectiveness of that role then if you're kind of encouraging the enablement aspect of it? Is that something that you're involved in or something that you currently do?

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Adam B Cochrane (04:45.47)

Oh, I wish you'd asked how effective I am in the doing part, but the enablement part is, is tricky, I guess. The blank staring faces back at me, if the blank faces become less throughout time, then I've probably done a better job. But there's no real tangible way, I would say, besides, yeah, traction, skill, quality of results in their day to day thinking and work.

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Gerry Scullion (04:51.235)

Well, yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (04:58.155)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (05:10.755)

Yeah, the metrics that you can, I guess, see and touch. It's pretty hard when it's something in the enablement space where you could probably measure requests for support or something like that. I'm not, I'm not too sure, but it's a question that I've had a few times over the last couple of years and I'm usually like you, I'm like, it's kind of hard, but it sounds like you're doing a lot of stuff at the moment and the SDN role for anyone who doesn't know.

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Adam B Cochrane (05:33.515)

Mm.

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Gerry Scullion (05:40.719)

Um, the service design network, we call it the SDN and short within the community. Uh, I'm not affiliated with the SDN, but I'm a huge supporter. I love the work and lots of people who are involved with, you know, the human centered design network are also. Involved with, uh, the SDN. So it's great to learn a little bit more about what they're doing around, especially the upcoming conference. Was it a Helsinki? I think, I think it is in Helsinki. Um.

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I think I saw a sneaky photograph of you having to go over to Helsinki and I was like, oh, that's awful. I'm sure that was very tough.

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Adam B Cochrane (06:12.106)

Oh my god, yeah, it was the worst. We had just had springtime in Berlin, and then I went over there, and we literally had a minus two and a blizzard. It was going back in time. It was crazy. Amazing.

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Gerry Scullion (06:21.931)

Really? I've never been to Helsinki and I really want to go. So it's beautiful, though, correct? Helsinki is meant to be absolutely gorgeous.

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Adam B Cochrane (06:32.414)

I guess you're coming in October, right?

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Gerry Scullion (06:35.631)

Maybe, maybe. I don't know. Yeah, there is a ticket there. But what I was planning on doing with this ticket, the SDN are giving us a ticket, folks, for to give away on the human center design network. As far as I'm aware, if I have to review the contract, if not, I'm going to try and hold them to ransom on this, but I was going to give it away to the community. So. Yeah, yeah, well, you know, someone out there will definitely.

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Adam B Cochrane (06:37.014)

Baby.

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Adam B Cochrane (06:43.918)

Oh.

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Adam B Cochrane (06:56.523)

Wow Gerry, you're so charitable! That's so nice of you!

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Gerry Scullion (07:05.099)

you know, make use of it, I'm sure that like, you know, because we gave five away to the young, the next gen conference was on a couple of weeks ago as well. So we're big supporters. Yeah, I heard I heard they did amazing. And I gave my ticket away, so I haven't actually seen. I just heard. So the five people that wanted inside our own community, our private community, they want it and they're going to be telling us a little bit more about it. They're going to write some articles for us.

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Adam B Cochrane (07:13.79)

Fantastic conference, by the way. Did a great job, right? I mean.

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Adam B Cochrane (07:22.51)

Oh

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Gerry Scullion (07:34.191)

to also elevate the work that you and the team are doing at the STN. Like, you know, has the theme been set, Adam, for the STN conference? Go on, hit us. Tell us.

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Adam B Cochrane (07:34.698)

Fantastic.

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Adam B Cochrane (07:44.29)

Yes. Yeah, the Health Dinky team are really, really excited to have everyone there this year, and they're doing an amazing job at organizing it. I mean, they make me look very good, which is a very honorable role to be as the director. So the theme that they said and that we kind of agreed with them and collaborated on is designing for impact. You know, how to do, you know, this kind of

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Gerry Scullion (08:05.656)

Ah, nice.

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Adam B Cochrane (08:09.454)

strategic impact through service design. So how can service design really play into creating impact, measurable impact? How do we measure that impact? How do we understand that impact? Who's creating impact and how? Anything around this. So we have some sub topics and categories. You can see them on the website, but really the idea is to kind of talk about and illustrate the impact of service design.

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on our government services, on our health services, on our business services. And I think that's something that the Finns also kind of show up very well. They also were the winners of the last service design award for one of their projects, Project Nemo, which did a project around enabling impact in shipping and freight management for a platform there. So like really illustrating impactful design implementation.

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Gerry Scullion (08:47.495)

Hmm.

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Gerry Scullion (08:50.823)

That's right.

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Adam B Cochrane (09:05.45)

and how service design is the kind of key to that recipe, I would say. Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (09:08.195)

Yeah. Now you've got me thinking going to Helsinki in October. Now I'm starting to plan. I'm thinking about going.

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Adam B Cochrane (09:15.978)

Very good.

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Adam B Cochrane (09:19.638)

He likes saunas, Gerry.

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Gerry Scullion (09:22.759)

Do I like saunas? I have been in, I have been known to frequent one once. Yeah, just the once. Why is the sauna is a big thing over in Helsinki? Yeah.

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Adam B Cochrane (09:24.566)

Do you like sonnets?

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Adam B Cochrane (09:29.234)

Oh, once? Once. OK.

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Adam B Cochrane (09:35.366)

Oh, the Finns love a good sauna. And if you come, then we're going to the sauna. I have to say, it's one of my favorite things to do with the Finns. The Finns sauna like nobody else.

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Gerry Scullion (09:40.007)

Ha ha!

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Gerry Scullion (09:44.891)

I'll go if Adam Lawrence goes as well. Um, cause there's that and we'll do a podcast from within the sauna. So, uh, there you go. Yeah. We'll, yeah, we'll, we'll do it. Um, but tell us now around your role. Okay. Because, you know, at the last one that I was at was in Toronto and it was chatting to Jamie and quite a bit. And it seemed to be, there's an awful lot of work and one of the, the kind of premises of this.

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Adam B Cochrane (09:48.231)

Okay, you hear that Adam Lawrence?

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Adam B Cochrane (09:54.299)

That is amazing.

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Gerry Scullion (10:14.151)

this question in particular is I think there's a belief system out there within the community that conferences are expensive to go to and people make astronomical amounts of money at these conferences. And I want to just kind of open up that Pandora's box a little bit because having run three online conferences before and tried to do an in-person one, the risk associated with running in-person conferences and the costs and the money that has to go on the table.

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Adam B Cochrane (10:23.136)

Mm.

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Gerry Scullion (10:44.191)

is extremely high. Okay. So one of the things that I've heard from the community is that they must be making loads of money. And I know it's most likely not. So maybe we can talk a little bit more around your role at the because you mentioned you're the director of the conference. What does that look like? And what are you responsible for?

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Adam B Cochrane (10:45.966)

Mm.

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Adam B Cochrane (11:00.14)

Yeah.

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Adam B Cochrane (11:05.326)

Thankfully, I'm not responsible for the budgets, but I can tell you that we do not make money. I mean, matter of fact, the service design network is a non-for-profit, so they literally can't make money off this conference. They can't make money full stop. They're a non-for-profit. They don't, no one's filling their pockets with the money. So I also want to talk about that myth. I mean, there are definitely for-profit conferences, but I don't think people go into...

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Gerry Scullion (11:08.828)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (11:16.548)

Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (11:23.955)

Sure.

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Adam B Cochrane (11:30.294)

putting on design conferences. And I've spoken to quite a few other conference directors to make a lot of money. There isn't a lot of money to be made. And we actually tried to reduce, even with the inflation this year, to reduce the ticket price to enable more people to come. But thankfully, I'm not in charge of the money. I'm far too creative and far too just undisciplined to do this. In fact, I'm the one that's often the responsible one for spending all the money. But I would like to call out Enis, my like my.

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Gerry Scullion (11:36.887)

Yeah. No.

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Adam B Cochrane (11:59.006)

Patrice, she actually is the event planner and the brains behind the operation. She takes care of the budget and stuff like this. But what I'm responsible for as the director, I guess, is setting and working with the local team. And Alyssa has set up an amazing team there. She's the local director that we're working with. And so working with the local team to make sure that the content is there, make sure that it's up to that world-class standard that we want to have, make sure that it's really

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Gerry Scullion (12:04.147)

Thanks for watching!

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Adam B Cochrane (12:26.91)

an exciting pilgrimage for our people that come back every year. So making sure that we put again on that great standard that we also had last year in Berlin, making sure that we have fun with all the people that come, but making sure that there's also enough space for new people to join and to have them. So making sure that the experience and the overall feel of the conference is that DNA of the service design, global conference that people come to appreciate and have fun. And I think that represents service design, right? The same with HCD.

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Gerry Scullion (12:37.404)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (12:52.039)

Yeah.

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Adam B Cochrane (12:57.226)

You know, service designers are fun and professional. We're a bit like, we're professional and serious, but with a bit of a cheeky smile, like we would do a workshop, but also without shoes on. So I feel like there's this balance of this people. We're going to dance, but maybe dance in a serious manner for, we play, but we do it in a professional way. So I think getting the both of those things where it's something that's fun but also impactful is also good. And that's my job.

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Gerry Scullion (13:13.572)

Yeah.

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Adam B Cochrane (13:26.594)

to make sure that we hit the right, the full, we would say in German. So the right feeling, the right atmosphere.

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Gerry Scullion (13:29.583)

Yeah, the right groove.

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If if the service design network global conference was a band, a musical band, which band would it be? Do you think?

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Adam B Cochrane (13:43.718)

Oh, God. The first one that came to me like YouTube or Coldplay, but it's terrible. I don't want it to be that. OK, yeah, typical Irish. I would say ACDC is a proud Australian, right, or something like that. Akizaka. Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (13:47.079)

Would it be Radiohead?

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Gerry Scullion (13:51.687)

Don't say Colby you can say you too because I'm a huge you too fan everyone knows that in this podcast.

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Gerry Scullion (14:02.071)

I could take it. That sounds good to me. You're going to shake us all night long. And well, that's the thing about the services I network when I was over in Toronto, I think that was 2019. And I think it was the year before the pandemic. I went to the opening keynote and then I blinked and the third day had finished and I had just been outside talking to people for like eight hours a day. And I caught a couple of other talks in between there and then.

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Adam B Cochrane (14:26.021)

Ha ha ha.

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Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (14:31.255)

I did loads of podcasts when I was over there at the same time as well, just to really I did them and I released them like within an hour of finishing them. So they were all up. So we had all the all the episodes up live within an hour. And it was great fun. It was super, super energetic. But everyone that went there, you're right. There seems to be this what I call in the DNA, but a sort of a general theme.

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Adam B Cochrane (14:41.207)

Wow.

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Gerry Scullion (14:57.135)

of the attendees that people are curious, people are respectful. Um, and people are there to have fun and learn. That was the big thing that I took away. Um, and it's, it's just generally a very welcoming event. That's the way I felt after I left the Toronto conference. So as regards, people who are listening to this podcast and other than buy tickets and go to Helsinki, is there.

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Adam B Cochrane (15:05.751)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (15:25.047)

Anything else that you want to draw their attention to, like maybe submitting talks, submitting workshop ideas. How can people get involved with the upcoming service design global conference?

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Adam B Cochrane (15:38.942)

Yeah, sadly, the call for speakers and the call for workshops has closed. So we're a little bit late on that call out. But of course there's always next year. And I can tell you next year we'll be a bit further afield than Europe already. And, uh, but, uh, so I would say, yes, first thing come along, come along, have fun. I mean, there's going to be so many different things going on over that week. There's also within the Finnish community, putting on quite a show.

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Gerry Scullion (15:45.988)

Ah, yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (15:51.549)

Okay.

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Adam B Cochrane (16:06.794)

But if you can't come along and you want to join remotely, there's of course the hybrid event, which has been organized. And we're really trying to think about creative ways to bring the hybrid participants into the conference more and more. I mean, learning is from the Young Network and the NextGen conference and the way that they do it is really quite well. So we're trying to share those learnings and obviously learn from them and how we can integrate the digital aspect of it.

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Gerry Scullion (16:15.186)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (16:29.777)

Yeah.

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Adam B Cochrane (16:34.602)

But of course, if you're in Helsinki, there's still a possibility to put on some Shido tours. So we have the service design open night where we invite different agencies and communities within Helsinki. So you can go and visit those locations. But then there's also other ways to participate, of course, through partnerships. And of course, I would say maybe it's a little bit early to say, but also you can put in for hosting next year as well if you really want. But this year, I think you can participate.

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Gerry Scullion (17:00.7)

Uh-huh.

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Adam B Cochrane (17:02.546)

participate just by coming along and enjoying.

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Gerry Scullion (17:06.195)

OK, so your role at Lufthansa, you've just seen this senior strategic designer. What does that give you as a director of a conference? I'd love to know around the crossover and how you approach, I guess, the design of an experience like this, because it's in person, it's physical, it's experiential. What do you bring to this role and what's the crossovers?

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Adam B Cochrane (17:12.877)

Yes.

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Adam B Cochrane (17:34.978)

I mean, it's a little bit the chicken egg, I would say. Yeah, so it's, so through and out my entire career, there's always been this aspect that maybe it was because I grew up in a religious community where there was always this sense of social responsibility and social justice. But I would say within my career, I've always found it beneficial to get involved with things like the jam service design drinks, your camp, your

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Gerry Scullion (17:53.159)

Hmm.

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Gerry Scullion (18:01.031)

Hmm.

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Adam B Cochrane (18:04.746)

hackathons. Actually, I think my first hackathon that I won was a free flight from Lufthansa. So there you go, it comes full circle. But no matter what I've been doing in my professional career, I've also been doing this extra community building events. And I think that kind of has worked with me in a kind of a cyclical manner. So learning from the community, connecting with great mentors and people. I mean, I'm still in very close contact with the people that I ran my first jams with. We call ourselves the nice people.

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Gerry Scullion (18:10.496)

Ah, yeah, there you go.

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Gerry Scullion (18:22.953)

Hmm.

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Adam B Cochrane (18:32.57)

And they've been great mentors in my life, giving me career advice when I've needed it, helped me support me through some difficult situations. And that's fed into my professional career. And then for my professional career, it's also been helpful to support and come up with content, themes, conversational points for the community events. But I think as a service designer and approaching a conference as a service design conference, there's some principles that I love to iterate. And that's things like keeping it

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Gerry Scullion (18:40.039)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (18:48.487)

Hmm.

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Adam B Cochrane (19:02.286)

uh like the kind of principles there but also thinking about the experience from start to finish from the point of awareness to building loyalty and thinking about those things um but also trying to be very practical and I love like uh you know the practical service design community and I love like a lu dao uh book on a book on good services also thinking about a good service from a conference perspective is an interesting thing as well so

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Gerry Scullion (19:18.108)

Hmm.

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Gerry Scullion (19:28.911)

Yeah.

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Adam B Cochrane (19:30.806)

I don't know, they've always played hand in hand to be doing something in my free time because it's something I'm passionate about, but also something I get paid for. Like having a place that's a sandbox for me to try things, and that has grown. So initially it was the Jams where we could try different things there, the service design drinks where we could try different things here. Now the sandbox has gotten a little bit bigger, I would say, in scale. So a place where we can, again, try and experiment things.

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Gerry Scullion (19:34.96)

Hmm.

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Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (19:48.277)

Mm.

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Adam B Cochrane (20:00.438)

without the pressure of trying to make money, think about business, think about these kinds of things, but do it more for the passion reason and to keep that fire alive of the passion instead of just making it about work.

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Gerry Scullion (20:06.675)

Sure.

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Gerry Scullion (20:09.907)

Sure.

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Gerry Scullion (20:13.695)

Yeah. Have the keynotes been announced for the global conference? No? Okay. Do you know who they're? Do you know who they're?

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Adam B Cochrane (20:20.246)

They have not. I, we're almost there. We're almost there. I can't ruin the surprise, but keep an eye out on the website.

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Gerry Scullion (20:29.144)

This won't go out for a couple of weeks. This won't go out for a couple of weeks, so you may as well tell us.

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Adam B Cochrane (20:34.766)

I can't. I can't. I'm sworn to confidentiality. Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. I can't. I can't burst a bubble. But I can tell you that there will be some...

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Gerry Scullion (20:41.869)

It's like CIA stamped and approved. Okay, alright.

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Adam B Cochrane (20:46.378)

And I know that there will be some interesting diverse speakers bringing in some really interesting points. I'm very, very excited. Sabine and David are doing a fantastic job with the support of Frederico on the speakers team and the content team. There's going to be some amazing workshops. Those will also go out shortly. So I think if you're listening to this podcast right now, go on and just Google services design conference and you should be able to see them.

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Gerry Scullion (21:09.531)

I'll put a link to it. I'll put a link in the show notes.

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Adam B Cochrane (21:12.89)

And, uh, but yeah, that's some really good speakers and content. And also the amount of applications we got was phenomenal this year for, for different talks. Uh, the range of talks were really quite fascinating. I think in today's, like, um, with all the layoffs and, uh, like a bit of the crunch on the design and financial like situation, and I think like this focus on impact is, is brought out some really interesting perspectives of how to really justify.

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Gerry Scullion (21:20.744)

Hmm.

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Gerry Scullion (21:38.002)

Yeah.

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Adam B Cochrane (21:40.926)

and show the value of service design. And there's a lot of talks and a lot of interesting projects that are doing that. And yeah, should be pretty cool. But I can't say anything more.

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Gerry Scullion (21:46.947)

Yeah. Designed. No, no. OK, listen, look, you heard here, folks, I tried to. I did my best to try and get exclusive there. So, so difficult, so difficult to get out of this cast. I'm only joking. And one of the things that's coming out of our own community at the moment, the theme that was set, I think it was four weeks ago, was ageism in design. And what we're seeing at the moment is.

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Adam B Cochrane (21:54.358)

Be turned.

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My arm is very twisted at the moment.

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Adam B Cochrane (22:11.878)

Oh, good one.

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Gerry Scullion (22:16.195)

Now we don't have any hard facts, but we've a lot of kind of anecdotal evidence from individual perspectives of people who are entering kind of more senior ages of their life, like so 40s, 50s, 60s. And those people are struggling to find re opportunities to come back into the industry. And when I train organizations and if I train people like I've been lucky to do this for, you know, for the last five, six years.

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Adam B Cochrane (22:38.318)

Hmm.

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Gerry Scullion (22:44.827)

A lot of the designers that I'm seeing being trained, either in organizations or online, it tends to be in their 20s and 30s. Okay. They're really curious. They're brilliant. Nothing against that. Do you think that there's an opportunity there for the service design, maybe network at this global event, is there anything that can be done to elevate this kind of conversation around ageism, because it is a huge problem and it's sort of.

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It's going to affect all of us. I think at some point, like I'm now mid forties. If I was to go back into the workplace and try and get a job, I most likely would struggle because I'm older. Um, is that something that you could see that may be war sort of woven into the design for impact? Cause it's definitely part of that family.

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Adam B Cochrane (23:35.166)

Yeah, I mean, service design, we wear it with a badge of pride about how we like to be multidisciplinary, bringing multiple perspectives, that we value this kind of diversity of input. And I think, I don't know if we do it so well, but we really should and must do it well. I mean, I don't know if it's a thing of if we're good at it, but definitely it's something that we

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Gerry Scullion (23:39.314)

Mmm.

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Gerry Scullion (23:52.285)

Hmm.

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Gerry Scullion (24:02.628)

Yeah.

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Adam B Cochrane (24:03.35)

proclaimed to be very good at and do. I think service design in terms of this orchestrator role also benefits from a lot of wisdom from a lot of people with different backgrounds as well. And I do see a lot of people that are experienced in other fields and other industries coming to service design and leveraging service design as a way to create more impact in their work. And I think that's also something that's interesting. So I also sometimes see within service design that young people

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Gerry Scullion (24:13.319)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (24:30.171)

Yeah.

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Adam B Cochrane (24:33.09)

just study service design and nothing else, and then try to bring in that, or try to get to that orchestrating position which service designers often need to take, and struggle a little bit because they don't have this depth of experience and depth of knowledge. So on one hand, it could be an advantage to be a bit more experienced, and then switch to service design. On the other hand, I think it's maybe a bit of a wider,

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Gerry Scullion (24:46.96)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (24:52.743)

Mm.

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Gerry Scullion (24:55.908)

Yeah.

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Adam B Cochrane (25:03.022)

problem of our corporate culture that values, yeah, systemic, yeah, exactly, that values this kind of young talent that has further growth and development and is probably cheaper. But I think service design gives itself off quite naturally to people with more experience jumping into service design. But

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Gerry Scullion (25:04.951)

Yeah, systemic.

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Gerry Scullion (25:24.979)

100%.

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Adam B Cochrane (25:28.174)

For sure, it's a challenge, yep.

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Gerry Scullion (25:30.327)

Yeah, absolutely. When I was in Toronto, it felt like that conference was coming from the DNA of the Canadian design world, like, you know, what can we expect at the Helsinki one apart from Saunas?

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Adam B Cochrane (25:46.522)

Aw, more saunas? Uh, I'm very excited. So the tour is like, I don't know, like Berlin has a very famous club culture, right? And so last year it was at Berlin, just in case anyone didn't know the Service Design Global Conference was in Berlin. We had a great deal of fun. It was a very good, a couple of days, we had a great location and a very good final party. So one thing that I'm maybe excited about that probably shouldn't be.

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Gerry Scullion (25:48.956)

Hahaha

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Gerry Scullion (25:56.025)

Yeah.

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Adam B Cochrane (26:10.666)

is the final party because it's even better this year and even bigger. And there is a karaoke room. I've seen it. I've tested it. It's there. We're going to be singing karaoke on the final night. There's also a really great brand new dance and, and a techno place. So if you are really excited and you've enjoyed networking with different people, we can also come and celebrate. So that's what I'm looking forward to at the end. And anyone that's there, I will share with them a shot of mental, which is for me,

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a peppermint flavored schnapps from Finland. We can share a schnapps at the end of the conference. But I think on a more serious note, besides drinking and partying, which is always good. And the Finns do know how to party and drink. That's when they start to get social. Normally people say, oh, Finns are very standoffish. They didn't need any COVID precautions because they were already distancing by one or two meters.

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Gerry Scullion (26:54.833)

Yeah.

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Adam B Cochrane (27:05.486)

you get them drinking and you get them in a sauna and then they will sit very closely and they won't shut up. But anyway, just to not offside my complete team of Finns, but on a serious side, I think Finland has had an amazing, has for centuries, an amazing design culture. I mean, they have a fantastic design, Marie Mekko and patterns and fashion and industrial designs and the legacy. We also partnered with Ornamo, which is one of the

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Gerry Scullion (27:10.705)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (27:22.995)

Absolutely.

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Adam B Cochrane (27:33.142)

the oldest communities of designers and design practitioners in Europe, actually. So Ornimal is helping, I guess, bring forward that design maturity and that finished design aspect to the conference as well. And I mean, there's just so many amazing projects in Finland, like the new library that they've launched, that there's service design thinking and design thinking practices and user centered design practices throughout this entire project. So it's not only that the conference is

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Gerry Scullion (27:46.981)

Nice.

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Adam B Cochrane (28:01.638)

going to be infused with this Finnish design culture, but there's also a lot of things to see in Finland that you can see that are amazing examples of good design. And then I think like the other thing that I think the Finns bring to it is a certain level of practicality and professionalism. Even from one of the talks that I'm most excited about, oh okay, there is one talk that I can tell you about, Gerry, okay one, okay. So we have the head of design from the

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Gerry Scullion (28:07.431)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (28:11.077)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (28:19.324)

Absolutely.

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Adam B Cochrane (28:31.458)

and she will be sharing about some of her work for the Finnish government and from the city of Helsinki. And there will be, just a secret, a bit more drinking, but there will be a special welcome from the mayor of Helsinki himself. So, I mean, they're really putting on a show, and this is what I mean by they're really putting on a show. There's something every night, there's something every day, the workshops are fantastic, there are some great talks, but I think Finn's...

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Gerry Scullion (28:50.572)

Nice.

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Adam B Cochrane (28:57.57)

do design very well. They do user-centered design. They do service design very well. They're one of the biggest chapters I think we have in the service design network. So yeah, that will be there as well. Sorry, I get really excited, Gerry. I'm sorry. I'm rambling.

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Gerry Scullion (29:02.212)

Absolutely.

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Gerry Scullion (29:09.159)

Yeah. No, no, this is this is great. Like I can testify to this that a lot of the Finnish people that I do know are really passionate, not only just passionate about design, but it's in the DNA in the city and the people of Finland. It seems to be that most people that I know are Finnish and not all of them are designers before anyone who's cynical starts chiming up. They can articulate.

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and understand services and design generally better than most. And that's a usually an indicator for me around how cultures are able to adopt services. I, if they can talk about it and understand the components of it. Yeah. I see that quite a lot, like, you know, I'm actually on the website now. I didn't realize the SDN ad services, I'm global conference.com cause I used to always go to the SDN website. So I don't know if this is a new thing, but

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Adam B Cochrane (30:06.126)

So that's our feedback and development learning. So we recently decided and defined that we probably need to up our digital presence. So thank you for everyone that gave us that feedback to help us improve. We're always open to feedback. You can write to me personally at adambcochrane@gmail.com and give me some personal feedback if you would like. Or at heresmyfeedback@service-design-network.

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Gerry Scullion (30:16.408)

Yeah.

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Gerry Scullion (30:25.125)

Okay.

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Yeah, absolutely. I put that up. I'll do that. I'm going to put all your contact details into the into the show notes or.

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Adam B Cochrane (30:34.95)

Oh, okay. You can't share my phone number. That's private.

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Gerry Scullion (30:41.335)

What would you do if I did that? Like, you know, it was just like, hey, if anyone WhatsApp, Adam. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. Well, that that'll be a really cool thing to integrate into your website, like, you know, straight into Adam B. Cochrane. But I will put a link to this website. Obviously, Adam's here like he's multifaceted. He's got really interesting work on our Lufthansa, which we'd love to have you back on and talking more.

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Adam B Cochrane (30:46.142)

What's up, Adam? The Adam Hotline. You can just message me whenever you want.

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Adam B Cochrane (30:54.784)

Mm. Yes.

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Gerry Scullion (31:07.675)

detail about that at some point, but really like we wanted to give a shout out to the STN, the global conference that's coming up on October the second to the fourth in Helsinki. As you can see now, Adam was whispered in who the keynotes are. I do know who the keynotes are. I'm just choosing not to tell him any joke. He wouldn't even tell me who they are. So it's going to be a great event. I'm going to weigh up and see if I can afford to go over there and spend some time.

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At the conference and they can be super cool But Adam is there anything else you want to give a shout out to before we wrap up the episodes? about the conference

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Adam B Cochrane (31:48.127)

Yeah, I think, of course, don't forget that there's the Service Design Day on in June 1st. So if you're in a city with a Service Design Day, they'll probably be celebrating Service Design Day. Great way to get involved as well. And then I would give another call out to maybe, if you're in Berlin, the Service Design

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Gerry Scullion (31:56.427)

Ah.

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Gerry Scullion (32:00.988)

Hmm.

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Adam B Cochrane (32:11.338)

And then the other thing is if you want to chat with me, and if you want to get involved, I mean, you can actually contact me on my email address, of course, but maybe a better way to is to book some time through ADP List. So I'm available for mentoring or coaching. And if you have some ideas or you want some feedback, talk about service design, then you can book in some time and offer their one-on-one mentoring sessions. You can book there. It's also a great platform. So maybe shout out to the team at ADP List for doing some good work.

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Gerry Scullion (32:23.513)

very good.

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Adam B Cochrane (32:40.442)

and allowing people to access some smart people. But no, that's about it. Thank you so much, Gerry. I really, really appreciate it. It's an honor to be on this podcast, finally.

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Gerry Scullion (32:40.723)

Absolutely.

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That's a good shout. And I’m honoured to have you on it as well, like you did give a talk, which we'll try and link to as well, must have been during the pandemic because we were doing an awful lot of stuff and community based work around that time. So I'll put a link to it. I remember that time I edited that one and I go, this is a really, this is a really good talk. And then Marcus was like.

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Adam B Cochrane (33:03.221)

Oh, I'm apologise.

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Gerry Scullion (33:07.227)

I told Mark, he was like, Yeah, I know. Adam is a really cool guy. I can't believe you don't know him. And I'm like, I don't know him. And on this podcast for the longest time, I thought you were German. And then, you know, you get on this, you know, I might as a guy. I'm like, bloody hell, struth, you're Ozzy.

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Adam B Cochrane (33:18.059)

Yeah.

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Adam B Cochrane (33:23.886)

Sure, I am. I try and hide it. I try and hide it as much as possible.

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Gerry Scullion (33:26.695)

Fair dinkum. We're getting them all out there. Come here, Adam. We will have you back on. We'll love to talk to you about Lufthansa, something that I'm really interested in, especially at the moment within the airports and lots of stuff going on. I'm sure that's interesting that the audience would love to hear more about. So thanks again for your time.

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Adam B Cochrane (33:31.437)

She'll be right

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Adam B Cochrane (33:47.586)

Thank you for having me, Gerry. It's been a pleasure as well. Hopefully as always.

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Gerry Scullion (33:53.454)

Yeah. Great stuff, man. You're a rock star.

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