Interview with Richard Ekelman In this issue’s profile, Touchpoint Project Manager Cristine Lanzoni and publisher Prof. Birgit Mager speak with Richard Ekelman, Service Designer at Chicago-based bswift, and cofounder of the annual Service Experience Chicago conference. Richard Ekelman is a Service Designer at bswift and co-founder of Service Experience Chicago, a 501(c)3 charity dedicated to accessible Service Design education. He has consulted for Fjord and Slalom and worked internally at Walgreens and bswift. He holds an MFA in Service Design from SCAD.
Cristine Lanzoni: Richard, you have been raising awareness of service design for some years now. In 2013, in Chicago, you founded Service Design Meet-up and in 2014, Service Experience Chicago. How did your life and professional path lead you to become a service design evangelist?
Richard Ekelman: It was my time in the Navy – I spent four years in the U.S. Navy – that really made me think about how badly things are designed for a system. There are so many things that are so important to people's lives that you can be creative and can solve big problems. That's how I kind of started my path to service design. I studied product design at Pratt Institute for a year and I felt that product design was really interesting, but something that was not going to fit me long term. When I transferred to SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design), I discovered service design. I met Diana Miller and Robert Bau. The program was starting and it felt like a good fit, with my background in psychology and a passion 78 Touchpoint 7-3
for research. Then, I was recruited by Acquity Group, which is now Fjord, and got to Chicago. Being one of the first people to graduate from a service design grad program in the U.S., I feel like it's a responsibility to spread awareness and to help people understand what service design is and maybe even make career changes if that's what they decide to do. Or, if they're happy and successful in their current field, to add new things to their toolkit. And that's why I started the Service Design Meet-Up, and really just wanted to get it going. Chicago is a great city, the design community is very, very friendly. And luckily, thanks to the work that the Service Design Network has done over the years, there is something to build on. Without that, I don't think we'd have been able to do much of anything. Birgit Mager: Probably you would! I love the idea that people feel devoted to the field and just because they were fortunate enough to get into it have energy to share.
