ISSIP

June 2013

Letter from the Executive Director

This month marks the one-year anniversary of our society, and thanks to your commitment and passion, we have been off to a great start! We are a global community of more than 315 members (greater than 30% growth only over the last quarter).  ISSIP SIGs are growing in total numbers, in membership recruitment, and in quality of outputs (white papers, books, workshops,etc.). Thanks to our Ambassadors, we are now co-creating value with more than twelve professional organizations. ISSIP is planning its first co-sponsored conference, and its first T-Shape workshop in collaboration with the Center for Services Leadership, to be held in Phoenix, Arizona, November 2013 (more on this in the next issue). And, last but not least, thanks to our members in Germany, we have kicked off ISSIP’s first local chapter.

In addition to our existing SIGs: Cloud MobilityService FuturesUser Experience, and Education and Research, our fifth SIG on Energy and Power (EP) kicked off this month. The EP SIG was started, and is now chaired by Dr. Oliver Yu, President of Stars Group and Professor at San Jose State University. With its initial six members, all industry and academic veterans, the SIG aims to stimulate both technology-based and human-based service innovations in these sectors. More on the EP SIG in the next month’s newsletter, in the meantime, if you are interested in learning more, please send an email to EP SIG_Chair.

We are linked to seven additional professional societies with the recent appointment of five new Ambassadors (featured in the current issue of the newsletter), bringing the total number of ISSIP Ambassadors to eleven as of this moment.

ISSIP Germany, chaired by Niels Feldmann, Service Innovation Lead at Karlsruhe Service Research Institute (KSRI), and formerly Head of Innovation Management Consulting IBM Germany, started operations last week. The mission of ISSIP Germany is to promote service innovation in the German-speaking community in Europe with a goal to build a community of researchers and practitioners focusing on methods for service innovation, service design, and design thinking interconnected with global ISSIP SIGs. If you are interested in learning more, please send email to ISSIP_Germany_Chair  for information about calls and activities.

As always, please feel free to reach out to me (email to execdir@issip.org) to inquire about the SIGs, Ambassadors Program, Chapters, or to share ideas, feedback, and suggestions.

Thank you for your ongoing dedication and contributions to ISSIP and Congratulations on the one-year anniversary of ISSIP!

Yassi Moghaddam
Executive Director

Message from the Editor

Dear ISSIP Members,

I just returned to California after attending the QUIS 13 conference in Karlstad, Sweden and the Naples Forum on Service in Ischia, Italy. Apart from providing me with the opportunity to meet fellow ‘ISSIPers’, both conferences reminded me, once again, about the emerging gap between academia and industry, and the opportunity for ISSIP to bring these groups together.

Around the world, academics and practitioners alike are interested in service innovation. And while one could argue that this is a good thing, these groups rarely talk to one another. My academic colleagues acknowledge this fact, yet most of us do not change, but prefer to observe the ‘real world’ from the sideline.

It appears that language is the most important element that can bring us together, or keep us apart. Academics like to discuss value co-creation, service systems, or resource integration and, even amongst us, there is often little consensus as to what these terms imply. I suggest that we develop, and master, a common language of service that creates synergies between academia and industry. Moreover, the potential benefits of bringing academia and industry together, ideally under the umbrella of an organization like ISSIP, are obvious. Examples include joint research projects, educational initiatives or entrepreneurship resulting in ‘real world’ value co-creation. Shall we get started? This is our first birthday, and things are just about to begin.

In this month’s newsletter, we will keep you up to date with the most recent developments within the ISSIP community, highlight initiatives and publications by some of our members, and provide you with an overview of the most interesting upcoming service-related conferences and events.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please do contact me at editor@issip.org

Christoph Breidbach

 

Feature Article from our SIGs: The Future of Services and Community

Charlie Bess, Service Future SIG

Recently, I was part of a discussion with a number of leaders talking about personnel retention. One of the points brought up (which is actually common sense but I hadn’t thought of quite the way they expressed it) is the role of “belonging” in retention and development. If people don’t feel like they belong, they have one foot out the door.

When we think of something as industry independent and ubiquitous as service, it isn’t often that we discuss:

·         How do we share our understanding with others?

·         How do we belong and support each other in a community?

This is one of the primary areas of focus in ISSIP. The Service Futures SIG is taking it a step further and tries to share the drivers, perspectives and opportunities of the future from a diverse perspective. One of the ways we’re helping members of the SIG feel like they belong is by having them present their perspective on the future and then discuss the implications with the rest of the group.

Often, as individuals advance through their career, they become focused and possibly a bit myopic on what the future may hold. Community involvement can be as important as their day-to-day role in developing a more holistic view. Additionally, the ability to internalize and share these diverse perspectives with co-workers helps everyone feel valued.

Part of what we’re addressing in the Service Futures SIG is providing individuals a platform to both generate and explain the implications of Service Futures for their home organizations. My experience is that the process of explaining a concept to others always enables me to understand the nuances in greater depth.

Our next meeting is July 10th and we’ll be discussion changes to the Service Economy. Drop a note to vicepresident@issip.org if you’d like to become more involved.

 

Opinion: Exploring New Values, A Different Perspective on Networks

Diego Borras Moreno, ISSIP Member

We all would agree that networking is a key activity for any business and association. It offers the possibility to interact with individuals of either the same or different industries to achieve any number of different goals. From increasing the breadth of our professional possibilities, to marketing our products, networking and good networking practices have become a common activity for any company and cornerstone for success.

Nonetheless, it would be naïve to think all networking events will provide exactly what we look for. Regardless of brand equity, revenue or experience, quality networking will be dictated by the level of the participants, and the level of their engagement establishes new relations and supports others’ in achieving their goals. That added value provided by the participants is what I call Network Equity. Quality and professionalism are key features and, regardless the number of attendants, Network Equity can become a key competitive advantage for any organization that can properly leverage such an asset.

Therefore, awareness and development of a solid Network Equity will improve organizational foundation and increase the quality of relations. Thus, growth in brand equity and brand relevance will be enhanced as the result of the co-creation of value these new high quality relations will generate. Finally, we can anticipate that the ultimate result for the company would be a stronger positioning in his operational ecosystem and an overall higher value.

ISSIP, as young an organization as it is, possesses a high Network Equity value given the level of it’s members, most of them top executives or senior members of the most relevant organizations and educational institutions in the world. Such added value is not to be overlooked, since it may become the key to future success.

 

Ambassador Appointments June 2013

ISSIP Ambassadors link ISSIP to other professional associations and as such help represent ISSIP in professionals associations with service SIGs and/or service innovation related conferences, publications, or other activities. We are delighted to announce the following new Ambassadors:

Jeffrey Welser, Ambassador to IEEE Technology Management Council, Electronic Device Society

Daniela Sangiorgi, Ambassador to Service Design Network

Oliver Yu, Ambassador to IEEE Technology Management Council, Power and Energy Society

Ammar Rayes, Ambassador to IEEE Communication Society

Lou Freund, Ambassador to IIE, HIMSS, and HFS

Upcoming Service Innovation Related Conferences and Events

 

Frontiers in Service 2013. July 3rd – 4th. Taipei, Taiwan

http://www.im.ntu.edu.tw/frontiers2013/

7th International Conference on Management and Service Science (MASS 2013). September 24th – 26th 2013 Beijing, China 

www.massconf.org/2013

1st International Workshop on Service Science for e-Health (SSH 2013). October 9th -12th 2013 Lisbon, Portugal

CFP First International Workshop on Service Science for e-Health (SSH 2013)

 

2013 INFORMS Annual Meeting: Service Science Cluster. October 6th – 9th 2013, Minneapolis, MI, USA

http://meetings.informs.org/minneapolis2013/index.html

 

1st International Conference of Serviceology (ICServ 2013). October 16th – 18th 2013, Tokyo, Japan.

http://icserv2013.serviceology.org

 

Innovation for Financial Services. October 24th – 25th 2013. Singapore.

http://www.innofin.org/index.html

47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. January 6th – 9th 2014, Big Island HI.

http://www.hicss.hawaii.edu/hicss_47/47cfp.pdf