Thread by @gordonr

So at last year's global SD conference, I theorized service design standards as a form of network power (Castells).
"Network power can be understood as the standards or protocols of communication that determine the rules to be accepted once in the network." 1/n
#fwd50

They are the rules of inclusion.

You may be able to join the club, be a member of the club, but this club has rules.

And the rules matter, because they limit what can be done in the network. 2/n

Adopting standards does two things - they increase in value when more people use them (Zipf's law) and the old yarn that there's not much value if you're the only one in the world with a fax machine. 3/n

But in the very nature of becoming standards, they limit and lead to the "progressive elimination of the alternatives of which otherwise free choice can be collectively exercised."

What is an example of this kind of network power for service designers? 4/n

As an example, the emergence of service design standards, either w/in your org or across our profession as a whole, provides a solution to the organizational problem of coordination amongst diverse participants (those who consider themselves designers & those that don't)... 5/n

AND simultaneously threatens the elimination of other solutions to the same problems of communication and coordination.

We have a playbook. We all use it.

Here are our standards. Please follow them. 6/n

We trade convenience for choice.

"But we have to scale service design in my organization", I can hear you say, "we have to abstract our knowledge and codify it in standards so we can distribute it and get everyone using it!"

Okay. But that's a form of power too. 7/n

So leaving the standards as service convo with this big question... (while fully acknowledging the utility of standards in practice and often being the one helping define, refine, and make visible in our work). 8/8