Future foresight within the design department at Deutsche Telekom

Diana Zalbidea Paniagua & Laura Gedatus

What’s the topic?

In this talk, Laura and Diana will show how the Design & Customer Experience Department at Deutsche Telekom is harnessing the power of strategic foresight. They will showcase the methodologies and frameworks that drive foresight initiatives, enabling them to identify emerging trends, craft future scenarios, and uncover long-term opportunities that inform our design processes. This is crucial, as in today’s fast-paced, ever-evolving landscape, innovation isn’t just about keeping up—it’s about anticipating what’s next.

Two distinct approaches to applying strategic foresight will be explored, each offering unique perspectives on navigating future challenges and opportunities while keeping the customer at the center of our focus.

Prior to the talk there will be an opportunity to visit the T Gallery at 17:00h. The T Gallery shows different perspectives and possibilities of a digital world, sparking the conversation about what lies ahead. To join the short tour of the T Gallery, which has with limited space, please register here.

Date: 23.10.2023
Program: 17:00 T Gallery Tour (registration required)| 18:00 Talk & Networking (all guests welcome)
Location: T Gallery, Friedrich-Ebert-Allee 140, 53113 Bonn

About the speakers:

Diana Zalbidea Paniagua
Diana is currently directing Deutsche Telekom Innovation Discovery to set the connectivity business core as a lever to define an ecosystem of services and value. Diana is a Strategic Design Leader responsible for researching and understanding emerging directions for Telekom Connectivity and orchestrating the different definition layers of products and services from a human outlook, changing the paradigm from a telco company to an evidence and knowledge-based customer-centric organisation, using Strategic Foresight and Systems Thinking as innovation boosters. Diana leads strategic design, business, technology, and data domains, helping companies succeed towards a desired future. She’s a passionate defender of hybrid and cross-design profiles that can connect people and generate lasting changes and embraces collective intelligence, experiments, and critical thinking as innovation and growth pillars.

Laura Gedatus
Laura is a Service Design expert at Deutsche Telekom, where she drives research and innovation informed by strategic foresight to envision future life scenarios powered by connectivity. She is dedicated to bringing these scenarios to life, making them tangible, and challenging the status quo. With a focus on sustainability and customer value, Laura fosters the creation of services and solutions that inspire clients to build a connected and future-forward ecosystem.

Previously, Laura was a driving force behind the development of the People Experience Lab at Deutsche Telekom, where she designed innovative employee journeys and led human-centered HR initiatives. Her work centered on transforming HR services to enhance employee engagement and satisfaction, positioning the lab as a catalyst for improving the overall employee experience.

With over 7 years of experience in strategic and service design, Laura has worked with major clients across industries such as insurance, automotive, pharma, and tech. Her consultancy background allowed her to collaborate with organizations in embedding customer-centric strategies into their business operations. She is passionate about creating meaningful value through design, focusing on systems that prioritize the needs and desires of end-users while driving innovation and growth for businesses.

Rethinking Design Through the Lens of Degrowth.

About the Speaker:

Julia brings extensive experience as a service designer, regenerative practitioner and innovation strategist, with a career spanning more than 15 years in large public and private organisations including the NHS, Adidas, AbbVie, Sanofi, Livework and Engine Service Design. Inspired by Ostrom’s Nobel Prize-winning research on ecological transitions, Julia fosters regenerative cultures through design within organisations. Her focus is on developing an innovation mindset that prioritises planet-centred design.

Julia’s expertise lies in planetary health, with a significant portion of her career dedicated to improving health outcomes through design while promoting wellbeing. Her PhD research explored how service design practices can contribute to planetary health and regenerative business models, addressing pressing sustainability challenges. She holds a PhD from the University of the Arts, London and a master’s degree from the Glasgow School of Art, École Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle in Paris, and Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. Julia is also recognised internationally for her contributions to service design and lectures on the topic across Europe and beyond.

What’s the topic?

In this talk, Julia will draw on her PhD research to emphasise the need to shift design practices towards degrowth. Echoing Antonio Gramsci’s insight that “the old world is dying, and the new one struggles to be born,” the session will critically assess the challenges posed by our current economic landscape and the role of design within it.

By establishing a theoretical foundation for degrowth, we will examine conflicts between perpetual growth and sustainable living. Julia will introduce alternative economic frameworks emerging from the degrowth movement and conclude by reflecting on the transformative potential of integrating degrowth principles into design practices. As part of a short-term project focused on designing for degrowth, this talk aims to raise awareness among designers about the need for degrowth and to inspire practical reflections on design project work.

Navigating challenges in the Service Design process

Want to be a supportive partner for public organizations, city administrations, and ministries, as well as in collaborations with leading companies? We’ll showcase and discuss how we can manage the challenges when jumping into this process and providing support in specific phases, such as Prepare, Ideate, or Test. In this cozy and inspirational roundtable, we’ll share our experiences, ideas and visions with each other.

Marcel Befort
Marcel graduated at KISD in Design Management in 2006 before working in Strategic Brand Management for the BMW Group and as assistant professor and researcher in the field of Design Strategy at Wuppertal University. In 2012, he founded Sensity together with Guido Wolff. Marcel supports companies by implementing design and innovation processes in their organizations.

Lisa Hunger

Lisa completed her Bachelor’s degree at KISD in 2019 with a focus on Service Design. She has been working as a researcher at Sensity since 2019, specializing in user tests and workshops. She is also currently a Master’s student in the Public and Social Innovation cluster at KISD.

Sensity Office
Bismarckstraße 30
50672 Köln

The talk starts at 18:00 h.

On January 31st, Thoughtworks Cologne welcomes you to the next round of Service Design Drinks! We will discuss how designers shape society, about privilege, inequalities and planet-centric versus human-centric design. How do we use the tools in our tool boxes to be agents of change?

Thoughtworks Cologne,
Lichtstraße 43i,
50825 Köln,
Eventspace on the 5th floor

The talk starts at 18:00 h.

The talk will be held in English.

This time we are happy to host two co-founders of the Cologne based Studio “Minds & Makers”. They are taking a human-centered approach towards Service Design by making challenges in society tangible. Through their work they create solutions with a social, economic and sustainable impact.