value the intangible

I wrote this on my holiday in Morocco (so long away now), and it also features on Engine's website.

There's a large open space in the centre of Marrakesh. There are no buildings or beautiful architecture, no fountains, no wildlife or breathtaking scenery. Without people, the Djemaa el-Fna is just an empty, dusty city square. Recently this space was declared a World Heritage Site.

During the day, entertainers, storytellers, dancers, musicians and artists arrive and set up their pitches as far as the eye can see, as audiences begin to gather round. Every evening, temporary structures are erected and suddenly a vast open air kitchen and restaurant is in place, at least for the next few hours.

Unesco described it as a 'masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity'.

It is usually not the physical, tangible elements of a service that are responsible for generating the bulk of an experience. Buildings, interior spaces, products and uniforms are props for people - the users and providers - to interact with and within. However, these elements are all often in place before roles and responsibilities of people are defined, staff are consulted, re-trained or even hired.

People can make an experience in any context, and completely transform it. Communities of residents can make a vast difference to quality of life in an area. Flash mobs go head-to-head with the dialogue of physical spaces, often subverting it using surrealism.

Understanding and investing in people can create a world-class service even without a venue (mobile phones, Facebook). The key to producing effective services is co-creation: the immersion of all kinds of users through the design process. Beyond consultation, co-creation seeks to design with users to develop ideas and prototypes for testing and roleplay on the journey to delivering a service.

It's an interesting exercise to imagine a service as the Djemaa el-Fna, stripping away everything apart from the people and what roles, prompts and relationships they have with users and to ask yourself whether you are making the most of the power of people.

service vigilante

I recently found myself stuck on an overground train to central London (for those of you who live in London I realise that this is not a unique experience, but bear with me).

The train had been stationary for a while and was overcrowded, and the automated message repeating an apology every few minutes was only adding to the annoyance of the passengers.

After a while the driver interrupted:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your driver speaking. I'm very sorry for the delay to your journey this morning. Rather than make you listen to another recorded message, I should tell you the real reason why we're stopped. There's a signalling problem further up the line at Canon Street, and because this is the busiest time of the day, there's a backlog, but as soon as I find anything else out I'll let you know but we should be moving in the next 5 minutes.

"Again, my apologies - I know it's monday morning and I know you'd all prefer not to start your week this way, but we're doing everything we can if you will bear with me."

By taking the initiative he eased people's concerns and created empathy by explaining a wider systemic problem whilst identifying himself as a human, empathic part of the service. He even relieved the tension later by joking with passengers.

In this situation, which is not uncommon, this member of front line staff appeared to understand how his customers felt far better than the company, and was ideally positioned to deliver a solution. He knew that it's frustrating to not know what's going on and that the company's provision to limit the damage to the experience in this situation was inadequate and impersonal.

So often the ease of working from the top-down means that organisations deprive themselves of true insights into their user's experiences and the invaluable day-to-day qualitative observations of their staff.

Co-creation harnesses the power of these front-line insights and experiences, and designs with users and people throughout an organisation to develop solutions that are effective, desirable and sustainable. It may even help get trains running on time in London...