But you know what my big problem with competitions is? They distort the curriculum which becomes all about entering, and all about winning, and little about learning. Educators should be devising briefs that do all this, not organisations like D&AD. D&AD would be much more meaningful of the award were for “best brief”, judged on the criteria above – that single change would revolutionise design education in graphics overnight.

And the SDN competition? I understand the motivation. But the entries should be something you've done, not giving you something to do. Reward good practice, don't create a diversion…
We're not great in design at sharing case studies and knowledge (which is why there's a great deal of suspicion of design research and academics IMHO). We need to encourage more sharing of good practice from a case study perspective rather than a “ooh doesn't this look nice” perspective…

To echo Jonathan's comment below, this prohibition against “contest” work is by no means restricted to service design. The AIGA overview I linked to in my Design for Service post helps hash out some of the objections from the world of graphic design (where this is more common) in more detail. Interestingly AIGA used to have a blanket prohibition about participating in such events. But they had to back off that stance for legal reasons. Apparently the Fair Trade Commission considered it unacceptable for the organization to prohibit any particular price, including zero. So they've had to circumnavigate that legal obstacle. But graphic designers pretty unequivocally hate it as a group. And they're all about producing finished things.

But a reticence toward competition doesn't play into it as much as a reticence toward exploitation. In fact, I think that if handled properly a design annual competition such as the graphic and industrial arts currently enjoy could work. The best model for this is the 1990s graphic design magazine Critique. They published not only glossy visuals but also a detailed analysis of the problem being addressed for each entry. It turned the idea of a design annual into a succinct collection of miniature case studies. Such an approach would benefit service design tremendously by creating an accessible publication with which to whack businesses over the head.

If the SDN contest better represented the ideals of service design and did it without exploiting anyone I think it would be much less contentious. This just strikes me as a terrible way to promote the practice. Service design isn't something you can simply knock out over a weekend. When SDN gets it right I'll be first in line to applaud. But until then it's important to keep a critical eye.

As a designer who evolved to be more of a 'design thinker' than a 'design doer' largely as a result of my parallel life as a ski racer and professional (yes honestly, professional) ski instructor, the issue you highlight is one of big personal interest to me.

The problem occurs I think in that education seems rather quick to push or support people people into either 'doer' or 'thinker' camp. Doers, learn CAD and workshop skills, manufacturing processes and off they go resigning themselves to never seeing an end user again. I jest, but purely to make my point!

Holistic thinkers, in my experience undernourished in many 'product' or 'graphic' courses procrastinate in the face of unfulfilling practical assignments or labour and over intellectualise the more fulfilling graphic and research/ethonographic oriented projects.

Either way both hop from lily pad to lily pad of academic requirements without necessarily reflecting on why or whether their current task is serving some wider (social or personal) goal.

Often sold the idea that coming to university will guarantee them employment (and worse) that they deserve such employment based on their perceived skills and skillset, the education system generally doesn't seem to be good at opening them up to genuine self reflection.

I'm talking about the self-reflection as a result of thinking you are good enough to win a competition and then finding out that actually you are not. Education as I see it should expose students to these real and brutal challenges and guide them not towards 'explicit solutions' but rather the tools to reflect and redesign their approach.

The parallel here, is the professional (yes professional or serious amateur) for whom life is one big, long and seriously demanding and long term process. A process punctuated by a series of competitions (or perhaps design briefs) in which they have the chance to evaluate their performance against a set of defined rules or criteria. If they are successful their might be some prize money, a car or a free trip to Madeira. If they are not they instead go away with valuable feedback on their performance.

Educators and Designers should (from my perspective and as I am currently outlining in my my masters studies) be the coaches in this analogy. Helping and supporting the learners and users to reflect and re-evaluate their behaviour against long term behavioural, ecological and needs fulfilment). Providing them with proven tools and methods and analysing and experimenting with new innovative methods where appropriate to incrementally push the boundaries.

If I wanted to employ someone, I wouldn't want to see their portfolio I would want to see their 'training plan' and performance objectives for the duration of their employment (or study with me) this seems to be something that only happens (generally at a post-grad. level) in this and any other country.

If you are looking for, or might consider a co-author, then I'm always keen to explore a bit more of the iceberg!

The idea of designers who are interested in the ideas rather than the finished thing raises interesting pedagogical issues. How are they encouraged and rewarded in current educational environments? for example, to study design you need a portfolio, having studied art for at least a year. And to pass each module/year/the degree itself, you need to produce finished “things”. If you are more of a “thinker” (argh that term again!) than a “doer” (I know the terms are crude and loaded), are you disadvantaged? Or are you even allowed to enter in the first place? I suspect the answers are yes and no in that order (or “yes” and “yes but not for long”)

You're right to suggest that the concept of a design competition is a paradigm that suits “things-based design” more than “process-based design” which explains, perhaps, why service design tends not to figure in design of the year-type awards. In my comment on the original boycott post I suggested that design competitions in themselves are just a bad idea and the arguments you put forward here are usefully applied in other areas.

Competitions tend to focus on the end. Design (as I constantly bore people with) is like an iceberg. The visible bit is not the important bit. And you ignore it at your peril