On 24 February 2012, people interested in service and customer experience will meet at locations all over the globe.
They will be designers, students, academics, business people, customers, mums, kids and grand-dads.
In a spirit of experimentation, innovation, co-operation and friendly competition, teams will have less than 48 hours to develop and prototype completely new services inspired by a shared theme. At the end of the weekend, their collection of brand new services will be published to the world.
What a Jam is…
Imagine a Jam session in music. You come together, bringing your instruments, your skills, your open mind. Someone sets up a theme, and you start to Jam around it. You don’t overanalyse it, you don’t discuss it to death, you Jam. You bounce your ideas off other people, and play around with what comes back. Together, you build something which none of you could have built alone. And at the same time, you are learning new ideas, discovering more about how you work and whom you best work with, sharpening your skills, and having a great time. And who knows, maybe there are one or two ideas there which might make it to the next album. Or maybe you Jammed so well, you decide to form a band…
The Global Service Jam works in just the same way. But it’s not music you are Jamming – it’s ideas. You’ll be working with people you might never have met before, bouncing ideas off one another and building on what bounces back. And it’s not just talking – you are here to turn your ideas into a concrete design, prototype and plan of action which you or somebody else might want to make real. Can you prototype and plan it in a way that someone could go out and make it real, knowing what resources they would need, what they should do, and who they should talk to? That’s the challenge of the Jam.
JAM TIMETABLE – a global beat
Multiple locations, worldwide, jamming to the same beat:
Fri. 24 February at about 5 pm local
The Jam participants come together at worldwide locations prepared by local organisers (see footnote 1).
Fri. 24 February, not before 6.30 pm local
The global themes and achievements (optional goals) for the Jam are presented (see footnote 2). Discussion in informal groups. Dinner is a good idea.
Fri. 24 February, at about 8pm local
The local Jam comes together for the pitching session. Anyone can present their basic idea, groups form, and participants join the group that interests them (see note 1).
Fri. 24 February, about 9pm local; until Sun. 26 February, exactly 3pm local
The groups work independently, supported by Mentors and Specialist Providers in some locations. Research or observations are performed virtually, or through short excursions. The teams develop their service design and prototype it using whatever methods they choose. Sleep is optional, but recommended.
Local Jams are in contact globally through social media, wormholes, carrier pigeons or whatever else we set up. Share, exchange, inspire. But remember – it is deeply Cheesy and Uncool to communicate the themes to teams to the West of you. For a level playing field, themes are announced at LOCAL time…
Sun. 26 February, exactly 3pm local
The teams deliver documentation of a working prototype (see footnote 3). This can be a film of human interaction, photos of a mock-up, a dummy website, or anything else that provides a permanent, publishable record of their idea and work. These are uploaded and published for the world under Creative Commons licensing.
After publishing, we suggest that the teams present their results to the other local teams. Perhaps there could be some symbolic prizes…
After that, teams can sit back, kick back, enjoy a well-earned beverage and browse through the global results. Or they can get busy supporting teams further to the west…
Take a peak….
Melbourne Sustainability Jam 2011 – Film by @DanielParonetto
Global Service Jam London film by @annlytical
