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.
Upcoming events
Ask me anything – Authors of Service Design: From Insight to Implementation
Right horses for the right courses – how and when to democratize research
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