The Netherlands: the place to work in service design!

In December 2009, the yearly Innovation Lecture organized by the Ministry of Economic Affairs was about service innovation. In that context 31Volts last book called Innovation is served, about service design was released. It is a quite detailed lecture about service design: methods, tools, examples...

The keynote speaker was Jeneanne Rae (Peer Insight), she has just written an article in Business Week in which she explains a great initiative from the Minister…

“The U.K. Design Council set up the "Red" initiative to tackle social and economic issues through design-led innovation. They run a "Do Tank" to create prototypes of new ideas for government services quickly. (It is designed deliberately to contrast with "Think Tanks" typically populated by paper-writing policy wonks.) Van Der Hoeven liked the idea  and decided to take immediate action. Following the lecture she put her staff to work to create a pilot to run a similar "Do Tank" in the Netherlands. Her goal: put it toward tackling issues of departmental efficiency.”

To summarize, in the Netherlands:
- Service design is taught to business leaders, government officials, and selected creative individuals who all play important roles in the Netherlands' various government agencies and business sectors.
- A “Do tank” is about to be created to innovate quickly in government services.

Don’t you think that such a country must be a great place to do service design?