Any service designer will tell you that value exchanges (or cocreation) are our core concern. At every point in the unfolding of service, value is exchanged or generated among those receiving, delivering and supporting that service. If the value exchange is solid, the service feels worth it to everyone, and everyone plays their part. If it stops feeling worth it, people stop participating, or they withhold full cooperation, and the service starts to unravel.

Typically we think of these exchanges as investments and returns. ?Everyone puts something into a transaction, in order to get something out.

But there is another element of value exchange that is neglected, if not rejected: those things we give because we need to give them. These are our gifts, and giving these gifts gives our lives purpose.

When we are given opportunities to give our gifts, life enters the services we serve, and invests our organization with purpose and consecrating radiance.

Few system-builders consider this crucial and infinitely renewable resource.

Most organizations are ready to squander everything in order to avoid wasting time and money.

Years ago I made a list of resources designers should consider. Somehow the original list got lost, but I found one record of it in a list of planned talks:

“Lean How?: How Design Methods Make Waste Tradeoffs” – Lean methodologies tend to emphasize efficiencies of time and money, but these are often gained at the cost of wasting other resources. This talk proposes looking at forms of internal waste (time, money, team morale, organizational credibility) and external waste (customer goodwill, innovation opportunities, attention and brand equity) and seeing choice of methodology in terms of waste trade-offs.