Service Desk: Resources

Use this when: Your organization is stuck optimizing what you already do, but you're not sure if what you're doing actually matters.

The three phases:

Phase 1: Reframe

Stop asking "what content should we make?" Start asking "what service could we provide?"

• Identify the actual job your audience needs done
• Surface and challenge your institutional assumptions
• Define the community problem you're solving and the outcome you're aiming for

Phase 2: Minimal Viable Intervention

Find the smallest thing you can test that would create real value.

• Design something you can try within weeks, not months
• Focus on learning quickly, not building comprehensively
• Choose interventions that are accessible and immediate

Phase 3: Measure What Matters

Track whether you're actually solving the problem, not just whether people are clicking.

• Focus on outcomes and behavior change, not pageviews
• Set up simple measurement routines you can actually maintain
• Build feedback loops that help you improve

What you get: A clear service statement, a concrete first step, and a way to know if it's working.

Use this when: You're facing a specific challenge and need to cut through the noise fast.

This is the structure we use in our 60-minute consulting sessions. You can use it yourself or with your team.

The process:

1. Frame the uncertainty

• What do you think the problem is?
• What evidence do you actually have?
• What are you assuming?
• What would change if you knew the answer?

2. Define the job-to-be-done

• What job is your audience hiring you to do?
• What are they trying to achieve in their lives?
• What alternatives exist?
• What makes you different?

3. Design minimal viable intervention

• What's the smallest thing you could test?
• What would you learn from it?
• What resources does it require?
• What's the timeline?

4. Set up measurements

• What would success look like?
• What signals would tell you you're on the right track?
• How will you collect this data?
• When do you evaluate?

What you get: A one-page summary with your problem clearly framed, a concrete intervention to test, and a plan for measuring results.

Use this when: You need to align your team on who you're serving and why—or you're planning something new and want to start from the right foundation.

This is a one-page canvas that helps you map out the real job your information does in people's lives.

The canvas covers:

The Situation

What's happening in your audience's life that makes them open to your service? What constraints are they facing?

The Job

What are they actually trying to accomplish? What progress are they trying to make? What does success look like to them?

Current Alternatives

What are they doing now? What other information sources exist? Why aren't those solutions sufficient?

Your Value Proposition

What unique job does your information do? What makes you better suited than alternatives?

Forces at Play

What's pushing them away from current solutions? What's pulling them toward yours? What makes them hesitant? What keeps them stuck with what they're already doing?

Outcomes & Measures

How will you know they've made progress? What behaviors indicate the job is being done?

What you get: A shared understanding across your team of who you serve and why. A foundation for making decisions.

Use this when: You're stuck, strategies aren't working, or you're about to launch something new.

This is a sequence of questions that helps you break down problems and challenge assumptions.

The questions:

1. What do we think is true? (Surface your assumptions)
2. What evidence supports this? (Test whether your assumptions hold)
3. What would have to be true for this to work? (Identify what you're depending on)
4. What are we optimizing for? (Clarify your actual goals)
5. Who are we serving and why? (Return to fundamentals)
6. What's the simplest version of this? (Strip away complexity)

The key move: Getting from "how do we get more traffic?" to "what problem are we solving for whom?"

Use this when: You feel like you're running on a hamster wheel—busy but not sure if you're getting anywhere.

Warning signs you might be in the trap:

• Most conversations are about distribution, not purpose
• Success is measured only in clicks, opens, and time on site
• "Best practices" drive more decisions than audience research
• You adopt solutions because competitors use them
• Your team knows what to optimize but not what you're optimizing for
• Experiments change tactics, not underlying assumptions
• You talk about "engagement" without defining what it means
• You have growth goals without clarity on who you're growing for

The reset questions:

• Who are we serving?
• What job are we doing for them?
• How would we know if we're succeeding at that job?
• What would change if we had that clarity?

Use this when: You're making decisions and want to understand how solid your reasoning actually is.

Not all evidence is equal. This hierarchy helps you evaluate what you're basing decisions on.

From strongest to weakest evidence:

Strongest: Direct audience research

Interviews about specific jobs-to-be-done, observation of actual behavior

Strong: Observational signals

Qualitative feedback, community conversations about your work, patterns in behavioral data

Moderate: Proxy indicators

Analogies from similar contexts, academic research on information behavior, trends in adjacent fields

Weak: Secondhand claims

What worked for someone else in a different context, vendor promises, "best practices" without validation, institutional preferences

Weakest: No evidence

"We've always done it this way," "Everyone does this," assumptions about what people need

The point: Make decisions based on the best evidence you can access. When you can't get strong evidence, at least know you're working with weak evidence.

We're gradually building a collection of templates, checklists, and guides you can adapt for your context.

Available now:

• Jobs-to-be-Done Canvas (digital and print formats)
• Service Design Blueprint for news
• Service Shift Planning Template
• Evidence Hierarchy Worksheet
• Tactical Optimization Trap Audit
• Audience Interview Guide (JTBD format)
• First Principles Diagnostic Guide

The principle: These are scaffolds to help you work independently, not create dependency on consultants.

Templates coming soon. For now, contact servicedesk@gazzetta.xyz if you'd like access to any of these.

• Book: Just Enough Research by Erika Hall
• Organizations and Initiatives: Sustainable Journalism Partnership, Biodiversity for a Livable Climate, and the Othering and Belonging Institute.
• Articles/Frameworks: Anita Li's "Action Journey" developed with The Green Line.
• Inspirational Examples: Midcoast Villager, The Edinburgh Minute, and the "Don’t Mourn the Death of Alt-Weeklies. They’re Alive and Well".
• Article/report: New report rethinks who creates the news and information communities need, by Anika Anand and Darryl Holliday
• Academic Research: Jobs-to-Be-Done and Journalism Innovation: Making News More Responsive to Community Needs by Seth C. Lewis, Alfred Hermida and Samantha Lorenzo
• Articles/Academic Research: Solidarity Journalism; Defining Social Justice and Superficial Solidarity vs Substantive Solidarity by Anita Varma
• Academic Research: From Cultivating Fans to Coping With Troublemakers: A Typology of Journalists’ Audience Relationships: A Typology of Journalists’ Audience Relationships by Wiebke Loosen, Julius Reimer, Louise Oberhülsmann, and Tim van Olphen
• Webinar/Frameworks: AIMS Framework in Research in the Face of Complexity: New Sensibility for New Situations

Nothing here is entirely new. We're building on decades of work from practitioners across journalism, service design, product development, and adjacent fields. The methods we've documented here reflect patterns we've identified and formalized through our work, but they draw heavily from established practices.

If you find these methods helpful and use them in your work, please credit Service Desk. This helps us continue developing and sharing these resources.

Contact: servicedesk@gazzetta.xyz

Organizations interested in formally adopting and teaching our Service Design for media methods can pursue this through:

• Multi-day training workshops
• Co-facilitation experiences
• Case study development
• Ongoing advisory relationship