Key Lessons from a Service Design Community / #Circle Special

This one is a bit different... Not the usual interview that you're used to. In this episode, you'll actually hear me answering the questions. Why? Well, it's become a bit of a tradition to start the year by reflecting on the lessons learned while building the Circle community. The Circle started 3.5 years ago as an idea to see what would happen if we created a safe space for in-house service design professionals to connect and share regularly. Today, it's grown to a healthy size with members from companies across the globe and in almost any industry you can imagine — from big tech to church organizations (I kid you not!). Service design professionals are everywhere these days. I'm very grateful for where the community is today, but it certainly hasn't been a straight line up. Designing a service (which is essentially what our community is) for service designers is quite hard, who would have thought? ;) So, for this episode, I sat down with Ru Butler who's one of our Circle Council members to discuss the biggest wins, challenges, and ambitions for the coming year. Even if you're not working in-house, I think you'll still enjoy this behind-the-scenes look at how we're thinking about and trying to design our community. I'd love to hear what you think of this episode format. Would you like to hear it more often? How could we make it better? Any other feedback is welcome, too. Send me a message or reach out on LinkedIn. Happy 2025 and take care, Marc --- [ 1. GUIDE ] --- 00:00 The Circle 2024 Special episode 03:00 Who is Ru 04:30 What stood out last year 09:30 Marc's key motivations 13:00 Ru's Circle Highlights: 1-on-1s 17:30 Benefits of 1-on-1s: accountability 19:00 Leading the Circle community 24:30 Favorite sessios in 2024 31:00 The community's growth 37:00 The importance of community 43:00 2025 Vision and The Loop 46:00 The follow-through 48:30 Seasons for the Circle 2025 54:00 2025 Goals 58:00 For the Self-Doubting Designers --- [ 2. LINKS ] --- https://www.linkedin.com/in/rubutler https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcfonteijn Advancing Service Design Talk: Increase your confidence, influence, and impact --- [ 3. CIRCLE ] --- Join our private community for in-house service design professionals. ⁠https://servicedesignshow.com/circle