In a captivating conversation with El Periscopio, Jon Rodriguez, industrial designer and leader of the Service Design team at Philips, chats with Marc Fabra, Head of Design at Lúcid and shares his fascinating professional journey dedicated to service design, reviewing his beginnings in Mondragón, Basque Country, to his current position very focused on the healthcare sector at Philips.
Jonstarted his career working for the Rotterdam City Council who hired him for research prior to the design of bicycle stations, marking his entry into public service design. Although the term "service design" was not used at the time, Jon had the opportunity to combine research and urbanism with one of his passions: cycling.
His career at Phillips began in consumer electronics with a focus on Service Design. Today he leads the Service Design team in the healthcare sector where he leads projects focused on addressing medical challenges, from maintenance of hospital systems to education and consulting services. In the podcast he highlights the long-term satisfaction he gets from working on healthcare solutions.
During his career at Philips he has experienced the transformation in service design thinking, in which he says that service design has taken a much more global and comprehensive approach in which he has found that the early involvement of service design roles in projects is key to achieving a significant impact on design projects.
When asked about tools and methodologies, he laughs when he admits that in his early days he was called "Jon Flow". Today, he recognizes the importance of curiosity and explains that for him it is a priority to work on tools such as digital dashboards that provide updated information on the implementation and launch of services. In addition, he highlights the close collaboration between departments and different profiles, allowing a more comprehensive approach to design.
In the podcast, he addresses the complexity of designing solutions for medical equipment, given that many of the projects are characterized to be multi-stakeholder. He also talks about Artificial Intelligence and recognizes that this discipline has been impacting the healthcare sector for some time now and that it is being of great help in many processes. He highlights, for example, the use of AI for the diagnosis of diseases, remote monitoring of health systems and more efficient medical decision making.
Jonrecommends the book"Good Services" by Lou Down and highlights Lou Down as a leading figure in service design. He mentions the government of Great Britain as a case study that has worked well in this discipline.
In summary, Jon Rodriguez's experience and perspective offer valuable insight into the evolution of Service Design and its impact on healthcare projects, highlighting the importance of collaboration, adaptability and constant innovation. This journey from industrial design to leading innovative projects in healthcare highlights the versatility and evolution of the design discipline throughout Jon Rodriguez's career.
