If you’ve never heard of Global Service Jam, this is the article for you to know WHY YOU HAVE TO JAM!
A Global Service Jam is a super intense yet invaluable experience for human beings that lie under any profession to collaborate and create. It’s an event that kicks off simultaneously in 100+ cities, gathering a bunch of individuals worldwide, dedicating 48 hours of their precious weekend to work with people that they’ve never met before, to come up with a problem and eventually, prototype services that were inspired by a secret global theme.
#You don't have to be a Designer!
You don’t necessarily have to be a designer to participate or provide value; creativity is a superpower that we were all born with, but not noticed. I’ve read a book written by the founder of IDEO, about unleashing your inner creativity, which goes something like this:
“It turns out that creativity isn’t some rare gift to be enjoyed by the lucky few — it’s a natural part of human thinking and behavior. In too many of us, it gets blocked. But it can be unblocked. And unblocking that creative spark can have far-reaching implications for yourself, your organization, and your community.” — Tom Kelley, Creative Confidence
Global Service Jam is closely connected to the core idea of “Design Thinking,” by trusting and practicing the general infrastructure, we can explore ways to change the world around us and try out a design-based approach to problem-solving and creativity.
#It’s normal to be uncomfortable
Okay, so this is your first time jamming, without having any understanding forefront, what can you do? The whole context about design thinking is to help you sort out your tangled ideas to a more precise focus. Try to adopt a playful mindset even towards a serious project, and also approach everything with a “Yes, and” attitude, ask LOTS OF QUESTIONS, expand your knowledge, push yourself outside of your comfort zone, learn from fellow jammers and facilitators, and most importantly — Let go of your mind and CREATE!
#Use your bare hands
To quote from John Cleese, “We don’t know where we get our ideas from, what we do know is that we do not get them from our laptops.” We all have our stereotypes that designers work 24/7 in front of a shiny polished screen, but guess what, a fun fact to share, throughout the entire Jamming, we barely have a chance to touch our computers! Most of the time we were playing around with legos, cutting out cardboards, sketching and drawing, gluing and pasting, basically making our hands as dirty as possible!
“The computer is really good for editing your ideas, and it’s really good for getting your ideas ready for publishing out into the world, but it’s not really good for generating ideas.” — Austin Kleon, Steal Like An Artist.
#Networking
If you are more of an introvert like me, a long-days workshop is your ideal playground to carry out the networking! Having the struggle when you attend a short evening meetup, but wasting most of the time imagining a plot in your head, and when you finally built up the confidence to step out and start a small talk, BOOM — THE MEETUP IS OVER!
Being part of the jam can help you bond with your peers, develop a deeper connection with your teammates, and most importantly, for you introverts out there, giving you extra time to warm up and be comfortable around strangers. The jam is no doubt one of the most robust ways to know people qualitatively, and you can actually end up making really good friends!
#What to do after jamming
After the 48-hour intense brain-juicing, you’ll most likely be exhausted but still feeling super motivated to dig deeper into the context of service design. You will want to write a blog post (like me), want to gain more insights into the design field or know how you can apply these methodologies to your daily job. There are always ways for you to self-educate, read more books, watch YouTube videos, take online courses, but most importantly, keep this urge of curiosity in mind and NEVER STOP LEARNING!
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I’m a UX Designer in progress, currently learning and collecting every piece of experience I can to have more insights into this attracting field. Please don’t hesitate to comment or connect me on LinkedIn in exchange for some self-learning resources! I have a pile of book recommendations, YouTube channel suggestions and more!
