The Murmr

It starts with a name. Brent Starling—not chosen, just given. But sometimes the universe has a sense of humor about these things.

Growing up, I never thought much about sharing a name with those small, chattering birds. It was just a surname, inherited like eye colour or the tendency to overthink things.

Starlings are remarkable creatures. Small, adaptable, intelligent. Often dismissed as common garden birds, but there's more to them than meets the eye.

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They're mimics, capable of learning and copying sounds from their environment. They're problem solvers, figuring out how to access food sources others can't reach. They're social, constantly communicating with each other through calls and gestures.

Individually, they might seem unremarkable. But each one brings something unique to the collective—their own experiences, their own learned behaviours, their own voice in the conversation.

A murmuration isn't just a flock—it's a conversation. Thousands of individual voices creating patterns, responding to each other, adapting in real-time to whatever the environment throws at them.

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This is how the best teams work. Not through rigid hierarchy or detailed instruction manuals, but through shared understanding, quick feedback loops, and the trust that everyone is working toward the same goal.

It's also how Service Design works at its best—bringing together different perspectives, letting ideas flow and merge, finding patterns that no single person could see alone.

And then there's the word itself—murmur. Not a shout or a declaration, but something quieter, more intimate. The kind of conversation that happens when people feel safe to share what they really think.

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The best insights don't come from boardroom presentations or formal reports. They come from those moments when someone leans in and says, "You know what I've noticed..." or "What if we tried..."

These are the conversations that change everything. The murmur that becomes the murmuration.

There's a running joke among people who know me—the "Brent Army." It's what happens when you can't help but get excited about Service Design and that enthusiasm becomes contagious.

It's not that I'm particularly persuasive—Service Design just has a way of making sense once you see it in action. Like a drop hitting water, one conversation creates ripples that spread far beyond the initial impact.

People start noticing where systems break down, where user needs aren't being met, where a little design thinking could make everything work better. Before long, they're asking questions like "But what does the user actually need here?" or "Have we tested this assumption?"

That's the real Brent Army—not a collection of people named Brent, but expanding circles of influence. Each person becomes their own drop in the water, creating new ripples, inspiring others, forming their own murmurations of change.