Co-creation has been identified as one of the business strategies of the future, improving effectiveness and knowledge sharing and thus cutting down on the use of resources and consumption in general. During Copenhagen Coʼcreation: Designing for Change 09, more than 250 Danish and foreign companies, designers and experts in innovation concluded that there is a huge potential in using co-creation as a business strategy for innovation. As a pilot project, Copenhagen Coʼcreation invited management teams from Sticks’n'Sushi, ME-FA and KPMG to work for a day on how each company could use co-creation to translate knowledge and skills into new products and solutions and improved work processes. One of the aims of Copenhagen Coʼcreation is to spread the knowledge about co-creation gained during the international meeting in August 2009 to Danish companies.

Sticks’n'Sushi took part in a one-day workshop on 3 December 2009 – and when we asked Kim Rahbek afterwards what his company gained from working with co-creation, he stressed that he sees great potential in it in terms of processes of development within Sticks’n'Sushi.

On 3 December 2009, SticksʼnʼSushi took part in a Copenhagen Coʼcreation Workshop. Kim Rahbek, SticksʼnʼSushi (left) with Mikael Hallstrup and Niels Clausen-Stuck, Designit, who ran the workshop.

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A global talent machine
A practical example of how Grundfos uses co-creation is their new talent programme.
”One of the major challenges that we constantly face at Grundfos is how to train and develop a staff of over 18,000 people in more than 50 countries. We have come a long way with training the broad mass of our employees, but on top of that we now also need to be world class at developing the very best of them, those with real talent. We badly need the best people because we have designed a very ambitious strategy with a vision that aims to develop radically innovative products and solutions”, explains Lisbet Thyge Frandsen.

To meet the challenge of designing a concept for developing talent that can be used all over the world, Grundfos has chosen to develop the concept as a co-creation project.

”We had to act quickly and it had to work all over the world. And because it will affect a very large number of people, I felt it important to develop a concept that that they all could relate to. So, to ensure that the concept had local roots and was culturally broad in scope, we gathered a group of 40 managers and specialists from 23 countries who were all passionately interested in the task and prominent in terms of forming public opinion in their local environment. This was a very diverse group and they were given four days to design a new concept for talent development”, adds Lisbet Thyge Frandsen.

Diversity sparks off creativity
The fact that we involved so many different people in the process has led to an increased level of innovation and a fantastic sense of ownership. Lisbet Thyge Frandsen stresses that this can only be achieved if people dare to challenge both themselves and others: ”It’s very tough and demanding. There can be lots of disagreement, so if you’re leading the process you have to let go of the reins. In the end, it’s a question of daring to renounce some of one’s own power”, she says.

Lisbet Thyge Frandsen sees it as a clear global tendency that companies increasingly involve specialists. Another tendency is that barriers between companies are being broken down and an increasing number of so-called free agents are appearing on the scene. These tendencies are reflected at Grundfos.

”At the moment here at Grundfos we are trying to build up the skills needed to design innovative products and solutions by calling on designers, anthropologists, engineers and economic experts. The idea is that they each use their special professional skills to help map out the needs of the market in cooperation with future users. I see innovation as combining things in new ways, which means involving people with radically different approaches”, concludes Lisbet Thyge Frandsen.

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About Lisbet Thyge Frandsen

In August this year, 35 international experts in co-creation and design thinking gathered in Copenhagen to form the international Copenhagen Co’creation Network. The aim of this network is to harvest the experience already gained through the application of co-creation and to disseminate knowledge of co-creation as a tool to tackle the social, cultural and economic challenges we face today.

The public sector in the western world was very much in focus, especially the question of increasing pressures to make social innovation a priority and the related question of: What must be done to equip the public sector to react positively to this pressure and come up with viable solutions?

When asked to identify the greatest challenge facing the public sector today, apart from climate changes, employment and new technologies, Christian Bason selects one central challenge, which concerns the system and its users:

“The public sector is facing staff shortages in the coming years. Every second manager in the public sector and one quarter of all public employees will be retiring in the next 7-8 years.”

“At the same time, the public is demanding more and more of its public services. People expect coordinated and meaningful services that can effectively help them to meet their own personal challenges.”

All in all, this means that the system must become more effective and innovative and must to a far greater extent than it does at present base its efforts on the citizens and their needs.

This is where Christian Bason sees a major potential in the way co-creation is organized and applied as a method to create innovation:

“In co-creation, innovation takes place for and with the citizens, and in cooperation with others who may be involved id the development of viable solutions (other administrative bodies, government agencies and ministries and/or private companies).”

“The task facing the group is defined in the first instance by the client, then by the whole group working together, to ensure that all aspects of the matter have been considered and that the solution arrived at is viable.”

“The general approach and the tools used are mostly borrowed from the design sector and the way designers think and develop their products: the basic themes are empathy, openness and holistic thinking, cutting across entrenched ’silos’. At the same time, the tools used effectively actualize (through visualization) what otherwise are long, abstract discussions, quickly implementing and testing ideas in practice (prototyping).”

One of the most important things for him is the work process (of co-creation), which challenges ways of thinking in the public sector and the way the system is managed at the present time. Co-creation forces public employees to work with an eye to the future and to see potential for development, instead of focusing on the past (evaluations) and on problems. It also forces them to cooperate with citizens and other public agencies – agencies which they may perhaps see as ‘enemies’ today, but which it would be dangerous to ignore from the point of view of innovation. Co-creation might be the way to take issue with traditions that are not always advantageous and could act as a catalyst for development in the public sector, ensuring its viability – even in 50 years’ time.

/ mind-lab.dk

About Christian Bason

The success or otherwise of co-creation depends to a large extent on whether we are able to utilize the knowledge and experience of participants and apply them to meet a specific challenge. To this end we can use a broad range of tools that aim to encourage individuals to contribute by drawing on their own experiences, both rational and emotional.

To learn more about what tools can be used and how they can be made to work, I have interviewed Liz Sanders, one of the participants at Copenhagen Co´creation. She is an expert in the use of tools that help people express their feelings, experiences and knowledge with a view to innovative development in a community setting. She develops and runs co-creation processes through her consultancy company, MakeTools, as well as doing concurrent research on the tools she works with.


NECESSARY PRECONDITIONS
To start with, Liz stresses that tools are only the tip of the iceberg. There are other, deeper levels which are necessary preconditions if the tools are to work at all. As Liz herself explains – on the basis of the model, ‘Exploring co-creation on a large scale’:

“For tools to be effective, you will need several other layers. ‘Tools’ is only the first step in the co-creation process. Tools need to be applied via methods which are often nested within more inclusive methodologies. The mindset with which the tools are applied is even more important than the methods or methodologies. In co-creation, you need to be working with the mindset that all people are creative and that they are able to produce creative things when given the tools and the stage on which to practice or perform. For example, I have seen good tools/methods fail in the hands of a person who did not actually believe that the people he gave the tools to would be creative with them. Then, in order for an organization to practice a culture of co-creation, the tools need to be applied via methods/methodologies and with the right mindset by people within the organization working together.”

Exploring co-creation on a large scale (Liz Sanders, MakeTools, 2009)


“The other important context for the use of tools is that there is a preferred sequence in the kinds of tools you would use if you want to explore future scenarios or opportunities with people. Basically, you will need to let people:

1. Observe their current behavior, reflect on it and talk about it;
2. Remember, relive and share their past memories and feelings; and then,
3. Use those experiences (from 1 and 2) as a springboard to move into the imagination and expression of aspirations or ideas about the future.
The tools needed for each step vary.”


THE TOOLS
In relation to the three phases, Liz uses three different categories of tools:

· Generative design tools for immersing
· Generative tools for remembering
· Generative tools for making and telling

While the tools in the first two categories focus on describing and reflecting on the past and the present, those in the third category aim to help participants create something new in the future. I would like to present just one tool from each of the three categories – tools borrowed from Liz’ tool-box and her work with co-creation:


TOOLS FOR IMMERSING:
An anonymous postcard activity in which people draw, write or otherwise record a secret about the topic at hand. This works especially well with topics of a sensitive nature that participants might not otherwise be willing to touch upon.

I like the smell of soap on my hands afterwards


TOOLS FOR REMEMBERING
With this toolkit, Workflow Mapping, people can show how the work is done, where it is done, and the relative importance of daily activities and interactions. Completing the mapping makes them more aware of their daily workflow.

Workflow Mapping


TOOLS FOR MAKING AND TELLING
Mash-ups take two previously unrelated topics and combine and remix them into novel ideas, forms, or goals. The result is more than the sum of its parts, opening up new avenues of creative possibility. The mash-up format is particularly useful for eliciting creativity from people who otherwise may not consider themselves to be creative.

Mash-ups

All three kinds of tools have this in common, that they encourage participants to very precisely describe and visualize what they already have experienced, or wish to experience in the future. The tools force participants to work no longer exclusively with verbal language, but to a greater extent on visually describing what their deepest feelings are. In this way, participants manage both to describe and to activate the rational and emotional aspects of the challenge, thus creating a comprehensive pool of insights on which to build something new.


SUCCESSFUL CO-CREATION
Liz strongly emphasizes that tools alone are not enough, and I see this as the essential message of her work. Tools only work if people have the right mindset. By stressing this, we focus on the facilitator and the process of facilitation itself, making it clear that the success of the tools depends on facilitation being able to implant in the participants the belief that they can succeed – by using the tools. If this happens, then co-creation is worth its weight in gold – not only in terms of developing a new product or service, but also in terms of personal development. So, not only does the company promote innovation, but it also gets employees with much greater self-confidence and the energy to tackle new and greater challenges.




About Liz Sanders
Liz Sanders works at the front end of the changes taking place in design. She believes that co-creation practiced with a human-centered mindset has the potential to impact the significant social challenges we face today. She uses her company, MakeTools, as a vehicle for exploring new forms of generative tools for collective creativity. Liz divides her time equally between consulting and teaching in order to accelerate the change design process.

Liz Sanders at the Copenhagen Co'creation Summit

Look for more tools, cases and articles at MakeTools.

About Liz Sanders