So what is this thing we call Co’Creation? I will try to explore this new business phenomenon because I’ve found there are certain important aspects in need of a good looking at. The following will be a quite critical stance on Co’Creation. It is not to say that I cannot see any potential for new value based profit generation – I am simply trying to point out some obstacles for this our new joint venture. Hopefully this will push the discussions and development in a fruitful direction.

I have distinguished between the levels of analysis here: the discursive level (equivalent to “what people say it is”) and the practical level (how it’s actually done). Based on anthropological qualitative research in a Copenhagen-based design company and with a Dutch artist heavily engrossed in similar creative processes, I have found the following to be true:

- Co’Creation is not necessarily something new
- Co’Creation is something inherently impossible
- Other groups (such as artists) have been using the method for at a long time
- The relation between form and content; process and result is integral to the understanding and implementation of new business models such as Co’Creation

First of all: is Co’Creation new?

The discursive level indicates that it is something completely and ontologically new. It is being talked about as if it was the golden altar on which our future rests – and not only our future in regards to business – also in relation to public management and government policy. We have apparently struck gold here, people…

Co’Creation is apparently something so new and refreshing that it requires immense amounts of clarification and elaboration from the beginning on. It could be deemed fair to compare the practice (or phenomenon as I think of it) to a very young bird unable to fly without the total vigilance and guidance of its parents. It needs to be kept on its wings – but why is this? In the great and powerful mojo of global capitalism the doctrine would be fly or die – not fly or “we will keep you on your wings”. This poses the question: why is it fruitful to engage in these endeavours of keeping the concept afloat? My answer is this: It is important exactly because it is a much needed concept of an integral nature – namely that of the “new”. In that sense it follows tropes such as ‘user-driven’, ‘innovation’, and ‘creative’ as the proverbial new ‘black’ – hence the title of this blog entry.

But can this feeling of “newness” bring forth bright new wonderful things or is it merely an apparition; a grand design by business leaders and innovators? Isn’t it just yet another sparkling new hollow buzzword to rally under? That remains to be seen.

Maybe Co’Creation is inherently impossible? As a discursive concept it has very real and tangible consequences; we are being moved and are moving the world in return – hence the importance of taking this thing seriously. So: why should Co’Creation be impossible you might ask? Good question. It isn’t. But it does require a certain change of mindset unlike anything seen in the world of business since the industrial revolution and the advent of modern capitalism. It is indeed true that the Co’Creation manifesto tries to incorporate this idea of a new mindset but two important questions arise: Does it do so successfully and is this truly a new mindset?
I find the answers to be ‘no’ and ‘no’! The manifesto does try to take into account the need for the devaluation of the expert role, the necessity of flat non-hierarchical structures and the importance of knowledge sharing. But does it do it itself?
‘We are not experts’ but we sure act like them. There is such a great distance between the design level and Helvetica thinking of the inhabitants of this network and the very people with whom we are trying to co’create, that it seems implausible to lower ourselves to their level. And this is exactly what the discourse is in grave danger of doing. We are not on any particularly different ‘level’ – we are simply on a different kind of scale. Even the term ‘Co’Creation’ seems so heavily to be thought up at a higher level that it is almost impossible not to keep the notion of a hierarchical ‘level’ in the back of our minds.

In my opinion, we should never try to comprehend our informants. We should try to take them seriously and heed the call of “thinking with them”. They offer equally valid tools for understanding the world as we could ever dream up. So instead of thinking outside the box (and various other clichés) we should open our eyes and ears and experience, in a very tactile way. We have to sensitize ourselves to the very real and dirty and ugly world outside the conference room or ‘think tank’.

This would open the way to understanding better why Co’Creation is a valid method. Based on my work I would suggest first thinking harder about what Co’Creation is. Taken at face value it is a promising new land for the business of innovation. When delved into a bit harder it seems a new perverted monster of neo liberalism. And here is the trick: Co’Creation is face value. The content is the form. Co’Creation is a new shape of business thinking in which the content is the actual powerfully real outline of the concept itself. It is a meaningful empty concept.

Furthermore: it is a conceptual method in which the result is the process. What does this mean? It means that the very object of concern for co’creational processes is not an end result – it is the means by which we arrive at those ends. It is a shape/form of business modelled on the simple notion of open process – free flowing open uninhibited honest unmanipulative creative process. But is this even feasible? I would point to artists’ communities around the globe and how they are working together on making their projects come to life. Many of them – I have learned – talk of how their materials speak to them. The very real shape, colour and feel of their materials encourage them to perform certain actions with them, manipulate them. Here is a clear parallel to what could/should be the method of Co’Creation. The process is the centre of attention – the materiality and values of people’s lives is what should be speaking to us. We should be taking them seriously and letting the process assume their unpredictable shape. That is the way forward.

Now let me make this completely clear: I am definitely a proponent of Co’Creation but I am simply insisting on using the method on it’s own terms – not ours. To do Co’Creation is in my view to take seriously any and all input and aesthetics. It also entails a disregard of the classically economistic modes of business. Can we do this? This, also, remains to be seen.

Ladies and gentlemen – we have unleashed a monster designed to trample on with or without us. Our only choice is to jump on it’s back, adapt to it and hope it can be wielded as powerfully as it promises – not hide behind big words and reduce it to just another buzzword.

About
Jesper is a student of cultural anthropology at the University of Copenhagen who is currently undertaking fieldwork and theoretical work on the method of Co’creation – specifically on the intersections between creativity and sociality. He has conducted fieldwork in a Copenhagen based design company and among artists in the Netherlands to shed some anthropological light on the social processes of creation. This light is intended to be an illumination of aspects of ownership (ideas, processes, methods, results), time perceptions in relation to the notion of potentiality and first and foremost creativity from a critical stance.

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.

/ read full case

The collaboration between IIT Mumbai and IIT Chicago featured Chicago students directing research in Powai, and IIT Mumbai students directing research in Chicago. As a result, research approaches were tailored to each group of students’ needs. IIT Mumbai students focused on physical product design solutions and IIT Chicago focused on designing systems and strategies encompassing combinations of product, communication and service design opportunities. The goal of all of the projects was to contribute to increasing prosperity and small business growth within Chicago and the Powai neighborhood.

Key insights and design ideas derived from the collaboration

Exploring the possibility of for-profit and not-for-profit hybrids

Students explored the creation of for-profit/not-for-profit hybrid organizations by designing systems that:

• Strengthen communities by connecting local resources
  A self-sustaining business model for a Balwadi that integrates a non-for-profit community service provider, a for-profit entity and an educational incubator around the core values of creating social and economic value for the Powai slum community.
  (Gauri Verma, Valerie Campbell, Edwin Steinmetz , Vishwesh Kelkar)

• Empowering Self-employed Women in Powai through Social Networking
  A Kitty-Cooperative model for women’s groups in the Powai slum designed make NGOs more effective in addressing the needs of their constituents in the areas of health, education and financial independence.
  (Bhumi Gajjar, Soham Patel, Anshul Maheshwari)

Utilization of Ubiquitous or Predominant Technologies

Record-keeping and Credit Management Systems for Kirana Stores in Powai. New paper ledgers and record-keeping applications for mobile phones address preponderance of credit-based transactions, unclear payback details, and shop owner’s monopoly of the main register in stores. (Antonio Quinones, Nai-Hwa Chiang, Preethi Lakshminarayanan, Swapnil Jadhav)

Exploring New Types of Currency

Efficient Scrap Collection Systems for Powai Slums A scrap collection system that offers increased efficiency and profitability to Powai scrap collectors by facilitating networking, scrap processing, price transparency and the introduction of incentives. (Vasile Bora, Dan Folwaczny, Kyungsun Kim, Shilpa Rao, Amy Sprague)

The full paper was presented on April 7, 2009 at SDSE 2008, Bangkok Thailand.

20091123_092213_Sustainability_and_a_Global_Design_Process.pdf

Consumer behaviour
A company like Novozymes that produces enzymes for use in industrial processes (primarily detergents) has to be very well informed about human behaviour. So well informed, in fact, that they are totally familiar with our eating habits and how we wash our clothes. For example, a connection has been made between the new ‘light’ products that grace our dining tables and new kinds of stains that appear on our clothes.

”What it’s all about is that Novozymes have developed enzymes to wash clothes clean even at 30 degrees Celsius. And when we lower the temperature on the washing machine we save energy and CO2– without having to alter our habits. This is one of the easy choices people can make in their daily lives, and at the same time have a positive influence on the environment. These days we cooperate on innovation with those of our customers who produce detergents and who possess a wide knowledge of the needs and wishes of consumers. In the future, when sustainability will be a decisive factor in terms of innovation and finding new solutions, we shall have to understand to an even greater extent at what point along the value chain it is important to make a special effort to make our daily lives more sustainable, and to understand how we can contribute to this. This is why we have adopted an approach to innovation based on the value chain,” explains Mette Johnsen.

Focus on the whole of the value chain
‘I do 30′ is a campaign which has been launched quite simply to get people to lower the water temperature when they wash their clothes. To get an overview of the environmental challenge – in this case the total CO2 footprint connected with washing clothes at a high temperature – Novozymes, using a so-called Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), has been able to identify at what point along the value chain it pays to make an effort. That point is the heating of water in washing machines. Put briefly, it is all about linking a technology that makes it possible to lower temperatures with human behaviour.

”We take the broader view and focus on the high energy consumption connected with doing the laundry. 70% of all CO2 emissions connected with the production and use of detergents are in fact related to washing – and not least drying – clothes at high temperatures. If we are to live up to our vision about sustainability, we shall have to win over the consumers. What is new in our campaign, apart from the whole sustainability approach, is that we are getting the message right out to the end users and getting them involved. It’s out there that we see the effects”, says Mette Johnsen.

Co-creation turns the spotlight on the solution rather than the product
Instead of using TV spots and advertisements, co-creation has made it possible to establish a dialogue with people who do their laundry in a proper manner. Thus, the focus is not on the detergent, but on what people can do themselves.

”The whole campaign is constructed on a social platform. For example, the logo has been designed using what we call crowd sourcing, which means that we had more that 200 suggestions to choose from. The video has been made using ordinary people who have been casted to to take part at street level. Moreover, the further conduct of the campaign will closely involve our online members, who now number over 10,000”, concludes Mette Johnsen.

/ link

About Mette Johnsen

The core of co-creation is innovation and the ability to cooperate across specialist areas. What challenges do you think face designers in terms of cooperation with customers?


Traditionally, most designers have been working to provide results for customers within a particular field of design: graphic design, multi-media design, product design, and so on. The designer is the expert responsible for developing the project and carrying it through. Within the past twenty years we have witnessed an increased reliance on user-driven methods, which provide input to the development process and hopefully improve the quality of the final product, but the designer is still the expert responsible for developing and carrying out the project. Students today learn these methods at most schools of design, and many design bureaux employ anthropologists and sociologists to carry out various surveys and such. But when we start talking about ‘cooperation’ we are indicating the need for a new range of skills. We are asking design bureaux to facilitate externally types of processes which they perhaps have not yet applied internally. This calls for a new kind of explicit knowledge about design processes and methods and an insight into psychological, educational and organisational mechanisms, for example. How to lead and manage cooperation between various areas of expertise? How to design processes? Who is responsible for the end results when untrained staff is at work in the kitchen? GK VanPatter of Humantific in New York uses the metaphor of a baker’s shop: in traditional terms, the designer has been the baker delivering good bread. The customer buys the product and hopefully goes home satisfied. End of story. But what if the customer wants to help develop the dough and bake the bread? That’s a completely new situation. Translated to the world of the design bureaux this means that the business has moved from R+D and production to Training & Development.


Co-creation is about designing WITH people rather than FOR people, which calls for new patterns of cooperation between customer and designer. What potential do you see in this for the customer and the designer?

Co-creation offers both opportunities and challenges. If customers are involved in finding solutions, there is a greater chance of them being implemented and integrated with other activities within the organisation. In my time as a designer and product developer I have seen loads of consultancy projects hailed as exciting and inspiring, but which have never been implemented – perhaps because they are too far out in terms of the general stance of the organisation, do not attack the central problem at issue, or are not given priority and nursed along in terms of existing internal solutions. Another potential is the learning potential. The design company is not alone in learning from development projects; the customer and the design company learn together. In this way a closer relationship is established between the design bureau and the company, one which can lead to long-term cooperation. For example, IDEO is the house designer for Proctor & Gamble. Among the challenges is the fact that the design company has to muster a whole new range of skills which they can’t simply take down from the shelf. Facilitating design and development work is a complex affair. In addition, it becomes difficult to maintain one’s original ‘expert’ role – and then there’s the question of who is responsible for the final product.




Danish design companies are beginning to achieve positive results using co-creation, but as yet there is not a broad store of experience with co-creation, either in Danish commercial circles or Danish designers. This was pointed out several times at the Copenhagen Co’creation Seminar in August. How do you see the position of Danish design companies in terms of co-creation? 

Well, I can’t answer that question in general terms, but I am in contact with several design bureaux that are experiencing internal challenges with regard to delivering product and process services. We are back to the role of the designer as expert. Many designers work intuitively from their experience and are basically not interested in involving customers in finding design solutions. They feel considerable responsibility for the form of the final product and tend to see cooperation as a challenge in terms of creating the best result. Another problem is that customers often buy into the style of a design company. If you open up and invite cooperation you have to hand over a degree of responsibility and control, otherwise cooperation will not be lively and based on equality. This means that you have to keep a clear head about when in the process you can cooperate, or alternatively draw sharp lines between different kinds of services. I recently encountered a graphic design company that alongside the traditional graphic design package, in which the customer is not co-creating, offer Co’creation and an interdisciplinary think tank to help customers work with complex questions. This seems an interesting approach to me and I am looking forward to seeing how it works out. In my experience, most design companies in Denmark are still product-oriented – the last link in the food chain. What I mean by this is that customers only approach the company when they have identified the problem they need solving: a new visual identity, a new product line, website, etc. It would be fantastic if Danish design companies could be strong players in terms of the innovation agenda and be able not only to find solutions, but in addition to unravel complex situations, ask those difficult questions and coach their customers. I think we are going to see more of this in the future.

Silje Kamille Friis, PhD, researcher and consultant has been working with innovation processes and methods within a large number of companies; e.g. Danish Radio, Montana, Novo Nordisk through her consultancy company innovatingwithpeople.

(Lisbet Thyge Frandsen was asked to give her take on the question ‘what is the state of the art for the Danish industries working with co-creation and innovation?’ Read the case ‘Grundfos invests in talent’ here)

About Lisbet Thyge Frandsen

(Lisbet Thyge Frandsen was asked to give her take on the question ‘how do you see co-creation as a potential for future growth?’ Read the case ‘Grundfos invests in talent’ here)

About Lisbet Thyge Frandsen

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

Recognize or reward people for their co-creative efforts, but keep in mind that intrinsic motivation beats extrinsic motivation.

Don’t try to design experiences for people. You can’t. Do provide scaffolds for them to use in creating their own experiences.

(Copenhagen Co’creation asked Liz Sanders to comment on three co-creation challenges. Read the interview with Liz Sanders ‘The right tools for the job’)

About Liz Sanders