ServDes.

For years, many organizations had a sound and healthy business model. Nowadays, as a result of drastic changes, organizations find out that their current business model does not work anymore. The financial crisis, changing consumer behavior, the Internet and (free) access to information and knowledge changed the rules of doing business. Traditional business models become outdated and create the urge for new and
innovative business models.

Thinking about business models is more important than ever. 15 years ago, many industries were dominated by one single business model. Now different models are intertwined. Market opportunities are enormous if pictured properly and played into correctly. Examples like Apple, Google and Skype illustrate that the scale and the speed with which innovative business models change the industrial landscape are greater than
ever.

During the UnConference session “Business Model Innovation”, the participants discussed how to systematically invent, design and implement powerful new business models. The big interest was how to question, challenge and transform old and outmoded business models and how to turn visionary ideas into game-changing business models that challenge the establishment.

Camilla van den Boom from Business Models Inc. (www.businessmodelsinc.com) explained an approach how to systematically understand, design and implement (new) business models. She opened a discussion on market trends and forces that hit almost any business or sector. She took the participants on a journey through the landscape of business models and showed what business modeling is all about. The participants
worked with various strategic questions related to their own business models and presented various scenarios in front of the group. The participants finally drew up their own future business model.

Quotes of the participants:

“It was great to participate in the Business Modeling session. I am (re)designing my business at the moment, and I got to see the relationship between the context, my ambition, my target group and the way I will generate revenue. I will bring this back to my colleague and work this out in detail.”

“This was very useful, even though very irritating. Business modeling in this way pinpoints very clearly what I have neglected in my business during the last six months. Now it is time to shape up and make sure that we will perform the way we can. Due to this UnConference Business Modeling session, I now have a clear format how to approach these issues.”

/Camilla van den Boom

Three weeks have past since ServDes.2010 and it’s slowly getting time for us to say goodbye. But first we want to share some more details with you.

First and foremost, next ServDes is planned for spring 2012 in Finland. Janne-Valtteri Nissula from Laurea University will be leading the local organising team. We’ll be posting more information here as soon as it is available, but the rough schedule says that the call for papers will be released in late spring/early summer and the paper deadline will be around August-September.

Secondly, we have been posting videos and photos from the conference (with great help from our friends at Tackle Service Design). You can find selected photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/57253478@N03/.

If you want to re-live or experience the talks from the conference, they can all be found through our vimeo-account at http://vimeo.com/servdes. At the time of writing all talks have been uploaded, but only one out of three workshops. Don’t worry – the last two workshops will follow.

Naturally, you can find the videos linked from within our webpage as well. If you visit the conference program you’ll find both videos and pdfs of the papers linked from each talk.

We would also like to take the opportunity to once more thank our sponsors (Almega, Doberman, Linköping University, NuLink, Transformator Design and Twingly) as well as our volunteers (Sophie Andersson, Sonay Ardi, Cordula Brenzei, Therese Glimskär, Haris Kadic, Jan Krause, Lisa Malmberg, Ingrid Mårtensson, Sofia Nygren, Thomas Wreiner). Without your help ServDes would never have been what it was!

Thank you everyone who has showed an interest in ServDes.2010 – be it as visitors, submitting papers, following us on Twitter or any other form. We hope you are as happy with the conference as we are.

A great end of the year to you all, with hopes for a fantastic 2011!

/Stefan, Johan and Fabian