Konferensartikel

Regional service innovation is an emerging and important topic within the European Union. According to the OECD it is becoming ever more crucial for each European municipality to support collaborations between regional stakeholders in order to be innovative and competitive. But collaborations between large municipalities with fixed service routines and small flexible SMEs are challenging. In this paper we argue that service design and service designers’ knowledge about different techniques can act as a new approach for municipalities to interact with SMEs in a creative way. As an example of this; the paper describes experiences from a workshop where service designers; SMEs and Swedish municipalities prototypes a visual mapping activity. From this first pilot study we learned that visual mapping is an activity that makes it possible for municipalities to step out of their standardised service routines and step into a more involving and flexible service offering.

participatory activity mapping; design tools; service routines