Service design performs value
Summary
Service performance is never neutral: it encodes ideas about value, power, and whose knowledge counts. Drawing on 25+ years designing business models across equity research, venture capital, product & experience design, development finance, and impact investing, Jen van der Meer examines patterns of service performance operating globally, from platform models optimizing for capital accumulation to government programs measuring institutional delivery to community-led financing ecosystems centering self-determination and sustainable transitions. This talk argues that systemic challenges are produced by the finance and business models we currently use. As AI reshapes service delivery at a geological scale, the question becomes even more urgent: whose theory of value gets encoded in technical systems? Addressing systemic challenges requires not better services within existing frameworks, but understanding business models as designed systems that encode power, determine what services can exist and for whom, and shape whose performance matters. Knowing how business models encode theories of value reveals both the constraints you’re operating within and the choices that remain avoidable, possible, plausible, and preferable.
Key Insights
-
•
Finance is a performative system staging worldviews, not purely objective or rational.
-
•
Business model metrics like lifetime value and customer acquisition cost strongly shape service design decisions.
-
•
Venture capital accepts early losses (J curves) betting on exponential growth, which sets performance expectations for startups.
-
•
AI scribing in healthcare shifts performance from care delivery to cash flow acceleration and operational efficiency.
-
•
Community-led health interventions, like Raven Indigenous outcomes, co-create success metrics blending clinical and culturally relevant indicators.
-
•
Service design often arrives after financial arrangements are fixed, limiting scope to fix systems rather than reimagine performance.
-
•
Designers must be proactive, not waiting for briefs, but initiating engagement to influence system-level performance.
-
•
Understanding financial context enables service designers to position their work strategically within organizations.
-
•
Scaling community-centered outcome contracts requires democratic governance and blended finance portfolios.
-
•
All models and metrics are temporary scripts; performance is an ongoing rehearsal where value is continuously redefined.
Notable Quotes
"Finance is not just a system; finance is a performance."
"Every spreadsheet is emotional. It’s a stage direction."
"Service design performs the belief, finance performs the control."
"Don’t wait for the brief. Go out there and make some waves."
"Investors front load the cost they expect to win at all costs."
"In Indigenous outcomes, payments are released only when medical and community metrics are met and validated."
"We cannot just sit around and map systems. We can design where performance arrangements are made."
"Venture investors accept a J curve of losses by design if they expect exponential growth."
"The challenge and opportunity is to expand what performance can mean."
"All of our models and metrics are temporary scripts. What matters is the rehearsal and how we keep rewriting the score together."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Buffalo is the city of good neighbors—people immediately asked how they could help after the tragedy."
Kyria Stephens Marlon KernerPower to Heal: Civic Design in the Aftermath of Tragedy
November 17, 2022
"We need to push back when we see the concrete boat coming, but it’s really hard to know how."
Sarah Brooks Jennifer PahlkaFireside chat with Sarah Brooks and Jen Pahlka
October 21, 2021
"SSML is huge for advancing bot voice; tone and cadence carry more meaning than words alone."
Greg NudelmanDesigning Conversational Interfaces
November 14, 2019
"We want to foster a partnership between researchers and AI to enhance human expertise, not supplant it."
Taylor KlassmanThe Evolution of UX Research Platforms
March 10, 2026
"I would prefer not to reduce human understanding to shallow sound bites."
Jemma AhmedTheme 1 Intro
March 10, 2026
"Imagine a world where research bots at IBM talk to the Rosen bot to give you better guidance on interpreting research."
Louis RosenfeldThe Rosenbot and the Rosenverse: An AMA with Lou Rosenfeld
June 5, 2024
"Research is a group project and learning is a group project—you don’t have to be an expert but find those who are."
Liza Pemstein Jane DavisScaling Research Via an Ops First Model at Clever
March 27, 2023
"Design teams don’t want a design ops drill, they need a quarter inch hole that requires a little bit of program management."
John Calhoun Rachel PosmanMeters, Miles, and Madness: New Frameworks to Measure the (Elusive) Value of DesignOps
September 24, 2024
"If you don’t do local research before launching a product, you risk disastrous failure."
Chloe Amos-EdkinsA Cultural Approach: Research in the Context of Glocalisation
March 27, 2023
