Services Science

Looking for Service Innovations for the 21st Century?

Start here. Or click on one of these: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 On November 17 & 18, 2004, IBM hosted an inquiry to explore "services science" at its Almaden Research Center that attracted a wonderful, multidisciplinary crowd of original thinkers from academia, government, and the corporate sphere as well as IBM itself. Services (the wrong name but the only one we've got for products that are created and consumed at the same time) account for 80% of the GDP. Having grown up in an era when industrial-age thinking was top dog, government and management are in denial that the service sector is meaningful. There is no agreement on metrics or best practices, and few have studied how to make services more effective. The session at Almaden was designed as a wake-up call and an invitation to join a nascent community of practice.