It’s taken a while (like ten years) but the idea of running software applications from the Web has finally caught on. In the early days (late 1990s) the term was “ASP” or application service provider. Today the term most likely to be seen is “SaaS” or software as a service. There are obvious benefits to running your applications from the Web, not the least of which are being able to access the app from anywhere, easy updates to the code, and the ability to monitor exactly how individuals are using the application (none of this is possible when the app is running from your desktop computer).

So, it occurred to me when we talk about service design, that we should borrow this SaaS acronym and slightly modify it for our purposes. Organizations must look at service as a system as opposed to a single department or function. Once people start to think of service as an integral part of their entire business system (or eco-system), then the idea of consciously designing services becomes very obvious.

Angry fan
by Crashmaster007

Friend and colleague David Cooper of Foxman Group has a great insight on the difference between going to see live sports and live music. "At a concert, you have 20,000 people, all of whom are having a great time. Everybody walks out happy. But at a sporting event, the whole idea is that half of those people are going to go home very ticked off because their team lost."

This is one of those insights that you take for granted, until you really start to think about. People pay lots of money and spend lots of time, only to be made miserable. (Same holds true with gambling, but in that case at least the customer has hope that they will go home richer. )

Of course, that loss stings even more after paying for the ticket, sitting in traffic, paying $12 to park and another $7 for a flat Bud Lite…

A lot of folks on the client side don’t know this yet, but most traditional advertising agencies – even ones with a shiny new “digital/on-line/interactive” department – are headed for a world of hurt.  Why?  Three reasons.

HISTORY
For more than 100 years, ad agencies have all operated pretty much the same way. Be clever, know how to sell, and get in deep with the client. Being clever is a good thing, as is getting in deep. But ad agencies are so focused on selling the client’s stuff – and have been for so many years – they are not very good at figuring out what people want to buy.  Consider the very terms that are used in sales and marketing: “taking market share,” “grabbing eyeballs,” “capturing customers,” etc. Even the word “brand” originally meant a red-hot piece of metal used to burn the identity of the owner into a horse or cow’s rump. Barring a few bumps in the road (like when big media mark-ups went away) the ad agencies have pretty much continued on status quo. But now that the power has shifted to buyers (as opposed to sellers), ad agencies continue to tap dance on an ice-berg that is slowly – but surely – melting.  So why can’t they change? (more…)