Interview with Katharina Ehrenmüller In this issue’s profile, Touchpoint editor-in-chief Jesse Grimes speaks with Katharina Ehrenmüller, Managing Director of NEA Design Services in Vienna, and SDN chapter representative for Austria. In November 2014, the Austrian chapter organised the first Austrian SDN conference on the theme of ‘Innovation Katharina Ehrenmüller has founded NEA Design Services together with her comanagement director Isabelle Goller. NEA Design combines branding and service design. She has studied tourism management. Find her on her website: www.nea-design.at
through Service Design’ with more than 100 participants.
Jesse Grimes: In November 2014, you
border in Germany. Berlin has a thriving
hosted the Service Design Symposium in
service design scene, along with other
Austria. Can you tell us about the focus
German cities, and it's good to see such
of the event, and what participants took
cross-pollination taking place. Can you
away from it?
tell us more about what's happening in the world of service design in Austria? Who
Katharina Ehrenmüller: The Service Design Symposium that took place in Vienna in November 2014 was the first service design event of this magnitude in Austria. Being part of the organisational team, we are very happy to have been able to welcome over 100 participants. Our main aim was to give a fundamental understanding of what service design is and to show its potential, not only for large companies, but also for SMEs. The program included specialist lectures, the presentation of customer projects and hands-on workshops, as well as the possibility of meeting up with the community and the SDN. I understand that the symposium also attracted attendees from across the
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is active among agencies, clients and in academia?
In Austria, an active service design community has developed over the past few years. There are regular Service Design Drinks in Vienna and Linz. More that 50 people have taken part in this year’s Global Service Jam. In co-operation with Birgit Mager, the consultancy C PLUS is offering an annual service design course for professional practitioners. Service design is taught at the Danube University Krems, at the FHWien University of Applied Sciences of WKW and at the Management Center Innsbruck. More and more agencies and consultants are integrating service
