Author: wpadmin

In the week of midsummer day, we had LTT (Learning, Teaching, Training) training activity. The training took place in Finland and was organized by the local project partner SIEC. In total, LTTA lasted 4 days. 2 project partners from Finland, 1 from Cyprus, 2 from Spain, 3 from Estonia, 2 from Portugal and 2 from Greece participated in the training.

Through the activities of LTT, we had the opportunity to harmonize the project partners’ understanding of service design and how to use it for the development of sustainable business and environmentally friendly service provision, and to increase the knowledge and skills of all parties.

In order to proceed with the next steps of the project, it was necessary to achieve a common level of knowledge about this topic.

The topics of the training were:
– Service design with four process phases, focusing on synthesizing and prototyping. This, in turn, increased the participants’ knowledge of service design phases and the logic of design thinking.

– Synthesizing methods were discussed and practiced: affinity diagram, persona, empathy map, customer journey. This increased the ability to synthesize qualitative data from interviews to create personas and develop empathy maps.– Using a matrix to select ideas for prototyping.

– Prototyping methods were discussed and practiced: models, design samples, storyboards, etc.

– Value proposition and how it relates to the persona/empathy map method. Thanks to this, the skill/ability to create a value proposition based on the persona/empathy map of the target segment was acquired.

– Sustainable business models and provision of environmentally friendly services through service design. Thanks to this, the participants’ ability to connect service design with sustainable business models increased.

The activities implemented during the LTT were the following:
– Partners presented the results of their focus groups/interviews and the results were synthesized, commonalities were found.

– Based on the interview results, personas were created and analyzed. Different individuals representing findings from different countries were compared.

– Objectives, topics and learning outcomes of the study modules were discussed and a first draft was prepared to create a training approach and module curriculum.

– Options for creating an online learning environment were discussed and the first possible approach was established.

The training also helped to create a pleasant and freer communication environment between the project partners, and thanks to this, it creates a more productive environment for the efficient and effective implementation of the rest of the project’s activities.

SeDiHUB aims to develop micro and family businesses to use service design for sustainability and digital service development and is structured around the following objectives:

• Raise the awareness of small and family businesses about services in order to develop customer-oriented services of the digital economy in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way
• To provide suitable, skills, competences to small and family businesses that contribute to the development of customer-oriented services to a large extent themselves
• To provide vocational education and training providers with a methodical approach to use new tools and online learning resources in teaching sustainable development, taking environmental issues and digitization opportunities
• Securely create training material for small and family businesses, with guidance and tools for services
• Create an online learning platform for developing service design thinking for small and family businesses
• Create a hub for small and family businesses where stakeholders can learn how to design services, meet and create shared services
• To increase the awareness of policy makers and stakeholders related to the business development ecosystem about sustainable thinking, as an important point in the development of value-added services, digital economy and sustainability.

As a result of the SeDiHUB project, partners will create:

1. SeDiHUB’s training approach and modular curriculum, which includes a training methodology and subsequent evaluation, which is helpful for improving the skills of small and family businesses in the development of environmental services, sustainable development of sustainable entrepreneurship and the use of the digital economy.
2. SeDiHUB’s training materials, firmly designed through its structure and content to pay attention to the needs of small and family businesses, to develop a sustainable and environmentally friendly service related specifically to their personnel and field of operation. The training material serves the principles of distance learning, online and independent learning and service design theories.
3. SeDiHUB’s online platform, a certified online learning platform for small and family businesses to deliver training materials, and great insights into the service design process and tools. It is enriched with a toolbox for web-based service design, including gamified resources.
4. Guide to using SeDiHUB tools, during which a comprehensive guide is prepared for creating a center for small and family businesses and for the further use of the SeDiHUB field, both for vocational education and among those who provide training, support, consular services, etc. for small and family businesses.

All the partners gathered for the project Kick-off meeting in January 2023. Due to the travel restrictions, the meeting was held online. During the meeting partners introduced their organizations and shared their experiences with service design. Forwardspace as the project leader introduced the main goals, objectives and activities of the project. Panepistimio Patron as the leader of the first result – training approach and modular curriculum – introduced the activities that are needed to be done by every partner in order to produce excellent output. Thanks to the meeting, partners had more common understanding the activities and the importance of this object and interesting work for producing the results got started!