Meet the service designer: Katrine Rau Ofenstein

I didn't plan on being so interested in this ethnographic study, but it quickly caught my attention.

Touchpoint decided to get to know more Katerine Rau Ofenstein,the principal of SDN National Chapters, who recently joined GEas one of their first service designers. Interview by Birgit Mager.

How did you ever get in touch with Service Design?

I started thinking about designing services before I even knew about the term. When I was traveling in Southeast Asia for half a year, I had a lot of time and interest in learning how people in other cultures where performing their services. I didn't plan on being so interested in this ethnographic study, but it quickly caught my attention. In the areas where I travelled, service employees valued taking the time to connect with people in their work. It really opened my eyes to how much our rushed culture has change the world we live in and our expectations for good service.

You were one of the first founders of a National Chapter of SDN - what made you push this forward?

I was really interested in connecting with likeminded people and sharing stories. I was finding that there wasn’t enough experience sharing in Denmark. The events that were taking place were always related to one company telling their story not related to the service experience they were delivering. I wanted to create a neutral forum that was not colored by one company. The SDN gave me this opportunity. My cofounders and I set out with a mission of creating stronger bonds between designers. From there, we would be able to reach out to more companies and organisations to teach them about the service design approach.

[...] getting the government and the policy makers to consider alternative ways of thinking would have a giant impact.

You are now at GE as a service designer. What difference are you hoping to make? Where do you see the opportunities?

GE is relatively new to the term service design even though they have been thinking along the lines of service design for many years. An interesting thing about GE is that there is a buy-in on design and the impact of design from the higher executive levels. One of my main interests is to focus on service interactions and human-to-human interactions. I see this focus applying not only to GE employees but also to users of GE’s products. All that being said, I’m interested in discovering new opportunities for integrating service design within the divisions of the organisation.

You moved to San Francisco about a year ago - does USA need the same type of Service Design as Scandinavia?

When I moved to California and started interacting with the companies here, I was very fascinated because I discovered one main difference between the evolution of service design in Europe and USA; in Europe the public sector has really been on the forefront for utilising service design and in the US service design has mainly being popularised in the private sector. The service design work that is seen for hospitals showcases this - In the US some of the largest hospitals like Kaiser Permanente and the Mayo Clinic have been working on service design for years. In Scandinavia many of the public hospitals have been picking up the model seen at Kaiser to create their own internal design teams. In reality, modern healthcare systems across the globe need service design. However, the economic model of each culture influences when and how service design is integrated. The same applies for any other industry. Most importantly, I believe that the countries all have a need for service design in both the private and public sector.

What is your favorite service?

While I may enjoy a variety of smaller services, I don’t have a favorite social service (which is the area I’m most interested in with my work). That being said, one of the biggest opportunities for service design that I see is within the government. Imagine how much we could do for our society? Not to say that service design or a single service designer can change the world, but just getting the government and the policy makers to consider alternative ways of thinking would have a giant impact. That would be amazing. One of my favorite service design companies that I always refer to is Participle in London. They have done amazing work for the public sector. They are in the forefront of understanding how to influence a government by creating meaningful services for the people around them.

Katrine Rau Ofenstein is service designer at GE. She is very passionate about solving problems on a systems level. Before joining GE, she worked as a consultant in Denmark and the US where she helped Fortune 500 companies, non-profit organisations and healthcare groups to identify business challenges and solve user problems through service innovation. Katrine has a MSc in Service Design from Aalborg University, Denmark and is on the management team for the Service Design Network as the National Chapter Principal.