Thanks to Mark Davis and his staff at Bentley University, in Waltham, MA. Their “Art & Science of Service” conference last week was a big success, with attendees from industry and academia who came from as far away as Germany, the Netherlands and Israel. There were lots of good contacts and networking opportunities. Our workshop, “Thinking Outside-In: Identifying New Service Revenue Opportunities” on Friday (see photo), generated some good interaction among the attendees. Thanks to all who contributed!

Some key takeaways from my conference notes:

• Out of IBM’s $103 billion USD of annual revenue, services now respresent more than half – $57 billion USD.
• IBM: Service science is more like biology (focused on classification) than physics (focused on mathematizing).
• “Service is value co-creation” – not just about money, but also about knowledge.
• At one hospital in the Boston area, a 1% turnover equals $250,000 USD. At one point, their turnover (prior to a new management team with a service design focus) was up around 20%.
• Why not show the wait times in an emergency room, similar to an airport terminal or deli counter?
• M2M acronym equals “machine to machine”
• Technology which enables M2M is exploding – both embedded devices and the back-end services. (Can security risks/opportunities be far behind?) This will have big impact on service design.
• What’s needed is a conference specifically focused on “service design in healthcare.” Lots of best practices and case studies, but it such a large sector that it needs its’ own vertical focus.