Interview With Tamara Giltsoff, live|work

We advocate dematerialisation, more for less and use over ownership of *things*, and believe that a service view of the world can help design out the waste inherent in our industrialised economy.

Our services provide new market opportunities and economic value, and where appropriate, deliver social and environmental bottom line results.

Our goal: Service Envy. Designing services that have the same functional, emotional and expressive power we look for in products.

* Are you doing something different than a communications agency?

Different yes. We are not trying to compete either. Phew. That’s nice. In fact, we work incredibly well with comms/brand/strategic agencies and we like to collaborate and co-create.

Our work typically bridges the gap between a strategic idea/plan and operations or between policy and front-line implementation on public service transformation projects. (We are advising central government in the UK on exactly this).

We see the world through service eyes; we look for opportunities to ‘servisize’ and respond to real world issues or needs. So, we might ask or be asked, how can we reduce energy consumption in the home at the same time increase revenue opportunities for a provider? Or, how might we turn credit performance data into a revenue generating service? Or, how might we might we turn personal insurance into a self-serve pay-as-you-go industry? Or, turn a Cancer charity into a service for cancer sufferers?

Services have to be co-created with stakeholders (including customers), which possibly also makes our focus or input quite different to a comms agency. They happen in time and over time, so we can’t come up with ideas and hand them to a business and expect them to work and be desirable. That means a large part of our role is facilitating the innovation process right through to implementation and on. A big part of this challenge is getting ideas through a business to market.

What an incredible role for load of originally trained industrial designers, ex-marketers, and kids who were born and grew up in the dotcom era.

I think this feels quite different. No?

* You’re looking to open an office in NYC. Why do you think there will be a demand for your services?

There has always been a sense that the U.S. market would get what we do, because the service economy is so strong (80%) and service is such a key component of America. What we didn’t expect when we first started talking to clients here and introducing ourselves to networks in New York, was that people would get and respond to our offer and the connection with sustainable development so enthusiastically. We thought they might ‘get it’ but not ‘like it’. (We have a matrix that goes ‘gets it’, ‘likes it’, ‘doesn’t like it’ or ‘doesn’t get it’).

In fact, we were slightly shy of talking about the triple bottom line drivers initially, assuming that the market was not ready to respond to world changing issues like resource use, end of oil and climate change. But the response has been to see our thinking as an opportune ($$$) response to challenging issues and so far there is a lot of intrigue. Our work requires of us to continuously challenge assumptions and this one has certainly been challenged. It feels an exciting place to be in terms of new enterprising solutions starting to emerge in response to these challenges… coming from big corporates like Wal-Mart or smaller start-ups like Ozocar.

We are also moving into Scandinavian markets – recently working in Norway, Denmark, Helsinki and Sweden.

* Your work reminds me about Product Service Systems that Graham Hill has been banging on about. Is there a green issue that supports your work?

Absolutely spot on. In fact, Graham and I had a long chat about PSS this week in a Cuban cafe. He is a big fan and wonders why there are not more examples in the world. My response was to suggest that PSS has so far sat very much within the realm of B2B energy and chemicals supply markets (with a few exceptions like Streetcar our client and Zip Car equivalent in the UK). It is also quite a specific term.

So, there are some great examples in the energy and chemicals sector, where providers are offering services to their clients that incorporate selling the commodity but servicing the need. In the case of chemicals this means insuring the most efficient and safe use of chemicals (expert advice) and actually the least consumption of the commodity… The dollars are made on the service.

I have talked already about the philosophy behind our work, but we don’t really use the word ‘green’ as it can have certain positioning issues (though this is changing). This means we have the permission to talk to parts of business that ‘green agents’ sometimes don’t have. We don’t normally deal with CSR departments, we work with business development, innovation teams, senior management/chief execs and marketing departments sometimes.

Our work manifests in different ways. Some directly relate to PSS thinking and some are more about completely changing future business models.

Myself and another live|work partner are going to be contributing a weekly Treehugger post on service innovation and PSS stuff. I want to see this infiltrate the consumer market. I think it is ripe for innovation. Do we all need to own so much of our own stuff? And what might what we do or use define who we are instead?

– I am what I do, not what I own.

* What sort of brands do you work with best?

Anyone who is up for the challenge. Excited about the future. Passionate about customers. Really, the work is not sector specific.

Those who consistency get it within seconds: telcos win. They created the notion of communication service innovation. 2nd place currently goes to companies who own rich data.

The hot industry: domestic energy (yep, we are excited about energy, really excited)

The hot topic: data and personal identity

The hot opportunity: all, but hello Wal-Mart we are here

The toughest challenge: paradigm shift – product to a service view

Email Tamara Giltsoff
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