Incubating service systems thinking: New frames for collaborating on a pattern language for service systems

“Service systems thinking” is proffered as a label for an emerging body of work that: (i) builds on social systems thinking (i.e. socio-psychological, socio-technical and socio-ecological systems perspectives) to advance a transdisciplinary appreciation of service systems science, management, engineering and design; (ii) explores opportunities to enrich Alexanderian patterns and categorized pattern catalogs into a generative pattern language; and (iii) collaborates on new platforms, moving from inductive-consensual wiki pages to a multiple-perspectives (federated) wiki. The service systems thinking community can learn from work organization methods, tools and licensing well known to the open source community. First steps in the collaboration can follow the incubation patterns demonstrated by the Apache Software Foundation and the Eclipse Foundation. This initiative has been initially endorsed by leaders in the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS), International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) and the International Society of Service Innovation Professionals (ISSIP).