Posterous isn't telling me exactly how many posts to date here but it has been a few.

From taking these pictures and posting them I have developed my own typology of service that I think is different to other analyses of services I am aware of.

My focus has been on the primary value type that the service is offering/providing. It breaks down like this:

1. Services that care for people or things

These services are there to look after you or your stuff. It may be a boiler check or dog walking but the primary value is care. 

2. Services that provide access to people or things

These services enable you to use something that you don't own. It may be access to a train for a journey or to a lawyer for advice. In both cases you only want some of the whole - not every seat on the train or all of the lawyers time. Often these services are infrastructure based - public transport, utilities.

3. Services that respond to people or things

These services help you in some way that is particularly relevant to you and your current context. Could be an ambulance or a car breakdown. The primary value is timely and personal. Many services could do with a lot more of the latter.

These values are not exclusive - a service can be caring and provide access - such as a stay in a hospital with access to facilities there. They are like a Venn diagram.

These three value types are wrapped in a qualitative layer that I am calling performance. This is both to identify the fact that the service is an act that takes place in time but also that it has qualities in the performance. This could be the character of the people or interfaces of the service that make it distinct. An obvious example is a friendly barman but this also applies to a usable webpage or a clean aeroplane.

From now on I am going to post and draw atention to these qualities in the post.