Service Design Bristol #13 - Lou Downe 'Bad Services' book tour

Come along to a very special edition of Service Design Bristol!

For this event, bestselling author, educator and service activist Lou Downe will be giving a special talk to introduce their new book 'Bad Services'.

Lou will be joined by a host of other amazing voices from the design community - including School of Good Services co-founder Sarah Drummond, returning Service Design Bristol speaker Charlie Fountaine, and the inspirational Rebekah Broughton.

Anyone interested in service design and human centred design is welcome whether you're an experienced or aspiring service designer, or just curious about what it's all about.

Timings

18:00 - Arrive and grab a seat
18:15 - Intro to the evening & our supporters
18:30 - Lou Downe, talk: 'Bad Services: How to fix services that don’t work'
19:00 - Discussions and audience questions with Lou Downe, Sarah Drummond, Rebekah Broughton, and Charlie Fountaine
19:45 - Talks end - TBC: A chance to buy Bad Services merch, or a signed book from Lou
20:00 - Exit the building - continue the chat in the pub!

About the talk

Bad Services: How to fix services that don’t work

Every year we spend an estimated 15 billion hours in the UK ‘administering our personal lives’.

That’s roughly an hour per day, or just over a month per year resetting our passwords, finding customer numbers and requesting refunds. Why, despite advances in technology, does it feel like the services we use are getting worse?

The answer is simple, but the solution isn't.

In this talk, bestselling author, educator and service activist Lou Downe demystifies the reasons why, despite our best efforts, most organisations struggle with the same five problems that stop them from providing services that work, and what we can do about it.

Part of the Bad Services book tour. New book out in late June.

🗣 About Lou Downe
Pronouns: they/he

Lou Downe is the author of Good Services, the bestselling book on how to design services that work and the founding director of the School of Good Services, an organisation that helps people to build the skills they need to design and scale great services.

They are the former Director of Design for the UK Government where they founded the discipline of service design, growing a 2000 strong team of designers into one of the largest, and most influential design teams in the UK - winning a Designs of the Year award and a D&AD lifetime achievement award.

Their new book, Bad Services, is out this June.

Links:
Good Services website
Bad Services book
Pre-order Bad Services at Waterstones, or Amazon

About our special guests

Sarah Drummond is a design leader, with a specialism in service and strategic design focusing on balancing the needs of people and planet. She is currently a director at The School of Good Services.

Sarah co-founded Snook, an award winning design studio and led the company as CEO for over 12 years and went on to take a role as the Chief Digital Officer at NEC. Sarah was given an honorary doctorate from the Glasgow School of Art for services to design in 2019, awarded a Google Fellowship for her work in technology and democratic innovation and was named as Good magazine’s 100 extraordinary individuals tackling global issues in creative ways for CycleHack, an initiative to reduce barriers to cycling.
Website: sarah-drummond.com
Company: good.services

Charlie Fountaine is a Service and Interaction Designer with a passion for making services better for everyone. She writes, workshops and thinks about prototyping as a tool to ensure good ideas are tested and implemented in organisations. Charlie previously cofounded Kalda, the world’s first LGBTQIA+ self-therapy app. Since 2014, she's helped organisations improve services through prototyping, testing, and implementation.
Website: charlottefountaine.co.uk
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/charlotte-fountaine

Rebekah Broughton is the founder of Growth and Balance, working with large organisations to shape how they deliver better services
Over 14 years, she has worked with senior leaders across government and large organisations, helping them navigate ambiguity, align around clear direction, and translate user needs into measurable outcomes.
Operating at the intersection of service design, organisational strategy, and leadership her work focuses on the conditions that determine whether services succeed or fail. She combines service design with executive coaching to enable lasting and sustainable change at scale.
Website: https://www.growthandbalance.co.uk/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thisisrebekah/

Event Supporters

Lloyds Banking Group
Lloyds Banking Group is a leading financial institution in the U.K., known for its commitment to innovation and customer-centric solutions. Our focus on digital transformation helps us provide top-notch banking experiences that meet the diverse needs of our customers. By leveraging cutting-edge technology and design principles, we strive to offer secure, efficient, and user-friendly services.

Lloyds Bank are kindly providing the venue for this event.

Pilot Works
Pilot Works is a digital product consultancy. We use Lean research, strategy and prototyping techniques to help clients generate and validate product and service ideas.

How to the venue
Head to Lloyds Banking Group | Harbourside
10 Canons Way, and ask for "Service Design Bristol". The talk will take place in the Working Café on the ground floor. The venue is on the ground floor with no stairs.

Full address: Lloyds Banking Group | Harbourside
10 Canons Way, Harbourside, Bristol, BS1 5LF