Do's and Don'ts of Digital Collaborative Innovation
1. The Do's and Don’ts of
Digital Collaborative
Innovation
April 2012
Magnus Christensson
Socialsquare
Partner and CEO
2. Socialsquare is a leading social design
consultancy.
We help your organisation identify
opportunities and design digital business
prototypes for a social and networked
marketplace.
seriously social since 2005
16. Converging paradigms
-> <-
NETWORK SOCIETY
Social
NETWORKED PEOPLE
20th century 21st
century
TECHNICAL PARADIGM
CULTURAL PARADIGM
17. If you look five
years out, every
industry is going
to be rethought
in a social way,
you can remake
whole industries.
That’s the big
thing.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/
2/57933bb8-fcd9-11df-
ae2d-00144feab49a.html#ixzz18
HJBsEbh
18. ...the world is becoming too fast,
too complex and too networked
for any company to have all the
answers inside.
Yochai Benkler.
Yale University
from The Wealth of Networks
19.
20.
21.
22.
23. BACKGROUND & THE MUNICIPALITY OF COPENHAGEN’S ISSUE
Apparently, more bikes than inhabitants
A lack of conscious notion of bicycle culture
No common language around biking
Needed to bring down accidents and death
27. WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO PARTICIPATE IN?
- Make Copenhagen a bicycle city?
- Create a positive bicycle culture in
Copenhagen?
- Be part of a movement for better
circumstances for bikers?
37. CITY CITIZEN
IDEAL ORGANISATION
Internal and external on the same platform
Public servants, politicians and citizens are
all members, are all participants
38. CITY DIGITAL BICYCLE CITIZEN
MOVEMENT
IDEAL ORGANISATION
Internal and external on the same platform
Public servants, politicians and citizens are
all members, are all participants
46. a) Controlled process
You ask for ideas or present a
challenge.
You’ll get input and clear
answers from participants.
47. b) Open process
You provide the tools and
facilitate the conversations.
You’ll listen and identify
patterns and get initiatives and
actions from participants.
48. CONTRACT OF PARTICIPATION
ORGANIZATION PRODUCT OR PARTICIPANTS
SERVICE
GOAL CULTURE MOTIVATION
PROMISE PURPOSE POSSIBILITIES
DIRECTION PRAXIS CONTRIBUTION
RESOURCES RULES REWARD
49. Ask not what you can get,
but what you can give.
Employ people that can listen
and contribute to the
community as peers.
Hello. Thanks for an interesting conference and for letting me share some of my experiences with co-creation\n
My name Magnus Christensson and&#xA0;I am partner and CEO of Socialsquare.&#xA0;\nWe are digital innovation bureau based in Copenhagen.\nWe help organizations...\n- understand how internet is disrupting their business and identify business opportunities in these. \n- we develop and designed business prototypes to test and validate strategic decisions to exploit these opportunities\n- we launched new digital products and services to make these strategic decisions real in the marketplace.\n\n
Since 2005, we have worked for some of both danish and international companies and organizations\nWhat I will present today is based on some of our experiences from these collaborations and innovation projects \n- with a particular focus on co-creation in digital communities\n\n
I will use the next couple of minutes to;\ntalk about how the internet is changing the way we should think about co-creation\n\n
and then about how we should re-think the way we work and organize ourselves in order to get the most out of co-creation\n
My hypothesis is that is wrong - even dangerous - to view co-creation as something added to the design process. \nMy hypothesis is that co-creation is not only a method is also the goal and result of the design process. \nMy hypothesis is that the result of design, the products and services, we create, will be co-creation in itself.&#xA0;\n
Internet was born out of a need for easy information sharing.&#xA0;\nIt was originally intended to be easy to read as well as to write and publish on the web.\n&#xA0;But the internet that became mainstream around 1995 was a &#x201C;read only&#x201D; type of web\n
It was an archive of files.&#xA0;\nAnd we used it to publish physical formats (like a magazine) in a digital form without adapting the content to the web.&#xA0;\n
We used it to talk to people and to mimic our traditional communication view. \nSeeing&#xA0;the process of&#xA0;&#xA0;communication&#xA0;as something with only one active part - the sender of a message&#xA0; - to a passive receiver.\n
But as the iconic book, The Cluetrain Manifesto, though us 10 years ago; markets are in reality conversations.\nWe have always discussed products, services and companies with friends and family - which products are good and which shall you avoid.&#xA0;\nThats why we are called &#x201C;Socialsquare&#x201D; - reflecting the relevance of the townsquare where sellers and buyers meet, where business is made, feedback is given, products developed and reputations are build.&#xA0;\nThis very old human behaviour have moved on to a new and larger scene with the raise of the internet, giving us all a larger range of people to share our opinions with, to rate and discuss companies and to fundamentally changing the rules of the game.\n\n
Today, the internet is made of people and not only of data.&#xA0;\nAs we are able to connect to more people globally, we are able to connect with our people sharing our interest, with our niche. \nThis makes the niche,&#xA0;the new mass and ends up with&#xA0;the &#x201C;long tail&#x201D; Chris Anderson from Wired are describing in his book.\n
We are using others, our network, our friends and family to filter relevant data from irrelevant data.&#xA0;\nThis used to be done by others - editors and the likes - but in a digital-enabled world, our relations are presenting what they find relevant and as we follow them - we follow what they filter out. \nThis also works the other way around - I help my relations by presenting to them, what I find relevant.&#xA0;\nWe are not suffering from information overload if we have social filtering - that makes the relevant stuff bubble up.\n
On the internet we have production, distribution and consumption in one single system.&#xA0;Therefore we have very low cost of publishing, contribution and of creation.&#xA0;This makes us all potential publishers and all of us creators. This is essential in how we view products, services and co-creation today.&#xA0;\n\n
Because, to share, contribute and create together with others is becoming a integrated part of life.&#xA0;Its not as much a discussion of offline/online anymore. It is the same. And this behavior results in vast amounts of data, of sharing and of co-creation.&#xA0;\n
This is from 2009.&#xA0;At that time, more video was uploaded to YouTube within 2 months, than if ABC, NBC and CBS had been airing new content everyday all of the time since 1948.\n
We have had a technical paradigm with a strong focus on the network as an infrastructure.&#xA0;Now we have a cultural paradigm which is all about networked people.&#xA0;\n
Mark&#xA0;Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, is cited for saying that&#xA0;&#x201C;every industry is going to be re-thought in a social way&#x201D;\n
and one way of re-thinking business is to open it up and organize and build products and services based on co-creation as "no company can have all answers inside" - they must open up to get input. Let me show you what I mean...\n\n...\nthe value chain as such is being teared in to pieces and the different parts of it is opened up and created together with customers and stakeholders.&#xA0;\n\n\n
airbnb\nthe way airbnb is challenging the hotel products and services we know by putting electricity and network to sharing flats - a behavior people have been doing for quite some time.\n\n
spotify\nit is also seen in how the&#xA0;music industry&#xA0;and its products and services&#xA0;is both challenged and saved by spotify (and sound cloud)&#xA0;\n\n
blockbuster\nit is also how blockbuster was challenged by netflix and other ways of sharing films once they became digital. This is also evidence of what can happen if you as organizations fail to realize that everything that can be digital will be digital - and that when it is digital, it will be social, it will be co-created.&#xA0;\n\nnot only industries are being challenged by this disruptive digital paradigm. the value chain as such is being teared in to pieces and the different parts of it is opened up and created together with customers and stakeholders.&#xA0;\n\n\n
kickstarter\nthe site that helps cultural projects build interest, build a market for themselves and ultimately fund their initiatives together with people who are interested in their products and have an intention to buy from them.&#xA0;\n\n...\ni guess most of you have heard about them - they are doing quite good - and according to their own calculations they are facilitating more funds to cultural projects in 2012 than the US state.\n\n
threadless\n this business build community, let people upload t-shirt designs, let others vote for the once they want to buy, give money to the designers that are put into production and handle the sales of these back to the community. the "only" thing this company does "inside" is to facilitate the community platform and put the t-shirts into production - but I guess that the printing of the t-shirts are outsourced as well.&#xA0;\n\n
mechanical turk\nin the case of production - mechanical turk is an interesting service - a marketplace for work - that help people that have things that needs to be done - outsource tasks to a workforce that have the skills to do it.&#xA0;\n\nall of these services are based on co-creation, on the fact that there are more people using the service that you and on the premise that this is why these services are valuable and useful.&#xA0;\n\n
ibikecph.dk case\nI want to tell you about a project I have been involved in together with the municipality of CPH.\nI believe it can help us understand how a platform for the city can create and coordinate more citizen action.&#xA0;In my eyes its a prototype for a platform for the city - a co-created digital environment for joint interests, action and coordination.&#xA0;In this case its context is bicycling.\n\n
The last couple of years, Copenhagen have invested heavily in infrastructure, in bike lanes and in where people are biking.&#xA0;Not in behavior or how people are biking. \n
It started out as a communication project. \nThe city wanted to talk&#xA0;about the norms and culture of bicycling in order to create a better understanding of how to act in traffic and eventually change away from improper behavior.\nThe idea that language changes the way we behave is noble and valid.&#xA0;But our approach was different - the people need to talk, but they also need to be able to act together. They need to co-create.\n\n
Therefore is wrong to see the value of co-creation as only:\nlegitimacy and image improvement \n- there are also other organizational benefits from working this way:\nNew/improved knowledge, policy and service\nand problem-solving\n\n
IbikeCPH consisted of a lot of physical activities - much like ongoing campaigns - headed by the city.&#xA0;\nBut when inviting people to participate - you need to ask &#x201C;what do they want to participate in?&#x201D;&#xA0;And how do we build for that?&#xA0;\n
The mayor wanted IbikeCPH to support his ambition of CPH being the best bike city in the world.&#xA0;\nBut thats not a reason for ME as a citizen of Copenhagen to participate.\n
Even though the goal might be the same we need to design for different ways of participation\n
In order to co-create, people need to participate. And in order to participate they need to feel motivated to do. It has make sense to them to invest their time, skills and network in it.&#xA0;\n
It needs to be pleasurable to participate - easy or fun or something else but pleasure is a strong motivation\n Self interest - there needs to be some reward in it for me - could be prices etc. immediate or delayed.&#xA0;\n Recognition - to be seen and heard - there needs to be social acknowledgement and meaning\n Sense of belonging - a sense of community and trust - there needs to be a sense that other participants are my peers\n\n
heres a model by butterfield & webb, modified by mygdal by introducing engestr&#xF8;ms social object\nbasically it gives us a set of parts to consider when we are building a networked platform. \nsocial object - is what people engage and socialise through (a photo on flickr, a soundbite on soundcloud)\n\n
In the case of IbikeCPH the social object could be \na project/initiative\na tip/an idea\na place/proximity\n\n
\n
An umbrella and a&#xA0;platform that&#xA0;gathers all &#x201C;I bike CPH&#x201D; initiatives in one place.&#xA0;\nSomething I can be a part of that create connection between physical and digital activities.\n
So a focus on the individual and the community of interest.&#xA0;\nA focus on taking initiatives on behalf of oneself and the city.&#xA0;\nA sense of meaning, identity and belonging.\n
A place for co-creating and sharing bicycle culture in Copenhagen:\n\n Citizens initiatives\n Engaging in conversations \n Organize events and create partnerships\n Across places, time and people\n\n\n
Sharing your tips about good stuff for bicycles\n
Groups initiated by citizens but also...\n\nGroups filtered by niches - people&#x2019;s style of biking places them in a group\nDesign for serendipity - people find new people in new ways\n\n
So, how do we use and organize for co-creation?\nIn an ideal world everything is open. \nThis is really important because this is what cities and government is not today.&#xA0;\nOne thing is setting data free, being able to share etc. what you produce\n\n
But for this to work the city needs to participate themselves.&#xA0;\nToday the processes of participation in city life/public service life is bound by campaigns and activities in shorter time-spans.&#xA0;\n\n
But we need the city and the citizens on the same platform.&#xA0;\nLong term collaboration and development.&#xA0;\nParticipation from all relevant parties.\nIn order to co-create sustainable co-creation and value over time\n
It resulted in a niche community for people biking in the city.\nPeople using the platform to organize.&#xA0;Taking ownership. \nSaturday biking hockey events.\n\n
People using the platform creating their own logos.&#xA0;\nAnd giving input and contributing to the development and life of the platform and project\n\n
From communication about the city.&#xA0;To development of the city.&#xA0;\n\nWe need to move from only talking and sharing ideas about the city towards a collaborative development of the city where we give the opportunity to act and create.\n
It still has some activity today. \nA success more from a engagement perspective than from a scale perspective.\n\nBut in this setting it makes more sense to view it as&#xA0;a prototype. Showing how an iterative&#xA0;design process that invited the users to participate in the development of the service - both before, during and after launch - can help you build social product.\n\n\n
As this is such a challenge to business and governments around the globe - this is a disruptive challenge to design and design leadership.\nHow do we design for this type of permanent change and ever evolving products and services. What does it take to work with co-creation?&#xA0;\n
First of all...\nHave a purpose with it. \nThey need want it and&#xA0;they need to participate themselves. Dont invite people to do something you dont want part in and expect them to be motivated. The&#xA0;Copenhagen Municipality *did not* participate in IbikeCPH and they didn't use it themselves which resulted in less &#x201C;response&#x201D;/feedback/action\n\nThis is really simple. And yet one of the most common issues with co-creation. And it ties back to the different benefits - if you only see the co-creation activity as a legitimacy and image improving effort - you end up comparing it to other marketing activities and you end up failing miserably - you end up organizing it in the wrong way, budgeting it in the wrong way, handling it in the wrong way and measuring it in the wrong way.\n\n
Second of all&#x2026;\nYou need to determine what kind of business process you are engaging people in.&#xA0;\n\n
Either a controlled process where you ask for input, advice and assistance - you get input - and you take these back inside your organization to work on them alone.&#xA0;\nIn the controlled process you get less activism and more&#xA0;ideas for improvements & defined areas, you might primarily involve existing customers and potentially test prototypes etc. but you will get improvements, market buy-in and incremental stuff rather that radical new ideas or perspectives.\n\n
Or you engage in a more open activity where you provide tools -> data, platforms, identity and let people act on these.&#xA0;\n\nIn the more open platform you have less control, you act more as peers than as someone asking for input or giving out tasks. \nThis could help you identify unknown ideas, patterns or opportunities for radical innovation or identify unknown issues, challenges or unmet needs. If you succeed you will engage&#xA0;passionate domain experts & peers. But as this approach is less controlled and more reliant on a true collaboration with external stakeholders the risk is greater and you might never get any great or radical ideas out of this either.\n\n
So you need to define your contract of participation...\n\nWhat does the city or the organization need to get done - what makes sense to put effort into? What is the goal? What types of resources do we have?\n\nWhat cultural and praxis do we want the product and service to have\n\nWhat motivations and possibilities does the participants have?\n\n
To do this you need people&#xA0;that know how to do this. \nThey need skills & mindset to take part and facilitate the community, to listening to customer using the product and to contributing to the community themselves, the need to be able to facilitate and amplify the collective actions of the customers and identifying and evaluating opportunities for further development. \n\nIn the case of IbikeCPH the public servants should perhaps be seen more as an facilitator of urban development, an activist in their own right and as people that used bikes as well, rather than a enforcer of law and bureaucracy.\n
As designers we need new skills and approaches to built products, services and platforms for co-creation - I call this social design and it focus on designing for sociality.\n
heres a model by butterfield & webb, modified by mygdal by introducing engestr&#xF8;ms social object\nbasically it gives us a set of parts to consider when we are building a networked platform. \nsocial object - is what people engage and socialise through (a photo on flickr, a soundbite on soundcloud)\n\n
Design for organization and community - so that user can take own initiatives and e.g. create groups, organise and coordinate activities among each other\nDesign for conversations - what can we talk about? how do we do this? How is the conversations showed to others?\nDesign for active sharing - give users ways to share ideas, good tips, tricks, e.g. activity around bikes in cph - what is the "social object" that people interact around - the photo of flickr, the run of Connect Garmin - and in reality all of Garmins runnings products and services.\nDesign for activity and flow - present call for actions and explaining what a user can/should do as well as for&#xA0;"passive" activity by showing activity through automatic communication/use of the service\nDesign for relations - do I create relations to other users? Do I follow spefic areas of interests? How can I see and manage these relations? Are they synchronized or synchronized\nDesign for presence - is this product or service live? How do we show time and when I was in here last time?\nDesign for identity so that user can define parts of how they are viewed by the community. How do I see the others? How do I show my identity and my interests?&#xA0;- e.g. the way you think you ride a bike - in the case of ibikecph.dk\n\n\n\n
Design for organization and community - so that user can take own initiatives and e.g. create groups, organise and coordinate activities among each other\nDesign for conversations - what can we talk about? how do we do this? How is the conversations showed to others?\nDesign for active sharing - give users ways to share ideas, good tips, tricks, e.g. activity around bikes in cph - what is the "social object" that people interact around - the photo of flickr, the run of Connect Garmin - and in reality all of Garmins runnings products and services.\nDesign for activity and flow - present call for actions and explaining what a user can/should do as well as for&#xA0;"passive" activity by showing activity through automatic communication/use of the service\nDesign for relations - do I create relations to other users? Do I follow spefic areas of interests? How can I see and manage these relations? Are they synchronized or synchronized\nDesign for presence - is this product or service live? How do we show time and when I was in here last time?\nDesign for identity so that user can define parts of how they are viewed by the community. How do I see the others? How do I show my identity and my interests?&#xA0;- e.g. the way you think you ride a bike - in the case of ibikecph.dk\n\n\n\n
Design for organization and community - so that user can take own initiatives and e.g. create groups, organise and coordinate activities among each other\nDesign for conversations - what can we talk about? how do we do this? How is the conversations showed to others?\nDesign for active sharing - give users ways to share ideas, good tips, tricks, e.g. activity around bikes in cph - what is the "social object" that people interact around - the photo of flickr, the run of Connect Garmin - and in reality all of Garmins runnings products and services.\nDesign for activity and flow - present call for actions and explaining what a user can/should do as well as for&#xA0;"passive" activity by showing activity through automatic communication/use of the service\nDesign for relations - do I create relations to other users? Do I follow spefic areas of interests? How can I see and manage these relations? Are they synchronized or synchronized\nDesign for presence - is this product or service live? How do we show time and when I was in here last time?\nDesign for identity so that user can define parts of how they are viewed by the community. How do I see the others? How do I show my identity and my interests?&#xA0;- e.g. the way you think you ride a bike - in the case of ibikecph.dk\n\n\n\n
Design for organization and community - so that user can take own initiatives and e.g. create groups, organise and coordinate activities among each other\nDesign for conversations - what can we talk about? how do we do this? How is the conversations showed to others?\nDesign for active sharing - give users ways to share ideas, good tips, tricks, e.g. activity around bikes in cph - what is the "social object" that people interact around - the photo of flickr, the run of Connect Garmin - and in reality all of Garmins runnings products and services.\nDesign for activity and flow - present call for actions and explaining what a user can/should do as well as for&#xA0;"passive" activity by showing activity through automatic communication/use of the service\nDesign for relations - do I create relations to other users? Do I follow spefic areas of interests? How can I see and manage these relations? Are they synchronized or synchronized\nDesign for presence - is this product or service live? How do we show time and when I was in here last time?\nDesign for identity so that user can define parts of how they are viewed by the community. How do I see the others? How do I show my identity and my interests?&#xA0;- e.g. the way you think you ride a bike - in the case of ibikecph.dk\n\n\n\n
Design for organization and community - so that user can take own initiatives and e.g. create groups, organise and coordinate activities among each other\nDesign for conversations - what can we talk about? how do we do this? How is the conversations showed to others?\nDesign for active sharing - give users ways to share ideas, good tips, tricks, e.g. activity around bikes in cph - what is the "social object" that people interact around - the photo of flickr, the run of Connect Garmin - and in reality all of Garmins runnings products and services.\nDesign for activity and flow - present call for actions and explaining what a user can/should do as well as for&#xA0;"passive" activity by showing activity through automatic communication/use of the service\nDesign for relations - do I create relations to other users? Do I follow spefic areas of interests? How can I see and manage these relations? Are they synchronized or synchronized\nDesign for presence - is this product or service live? How do we show time and when I was in here last time?\nDesign for identity so that user can define parts of how they are viewed by the community. How do I see the others? How do I show my identity and my interests?&#xA0;- e.g. the way you think you ride a bike - in the case of ibikecph.dk\n\n\n\n
Design for organization and community - so that user can take own initiatives and e.g. create groups, organise and coordinate activities among each other\nDesign for conversations - what can we talk about? how do we do this? How is the conversations showed to others?\nDesign for active sharing - give users ways to share ideas, good tips, tricks, e.g. activity around bikes in cph - what is the "social object" that people interact around - the photo of flickr, the run of Connect Garmin - and in reality all of Garmins runnings products and services.\nDesign for activity and flow - present call for actions and explaining what a user can/should do as well as for&#xA0;"passive" activity by showing activity through automatic communication/use of the service\nDesign for relations - do I create relations to other users? Do I follow spefic areas of interests? How can I see and manage these relations? Are they synchronized or synchronized\nDesign for presence - is this product or service live? How do we show time and when I was in here last time?\nDesign for identity so that user can define parts of how they are viewed by the community. How do I see the others? How do I show my identity and my interests?&#xA0;- e.g. the way you think you ride a bike - in the case of ibikecph.dk\n\n\n\n
Design for organization and community - so that user can take own initiatives and e.g. create groups, organise and coordinate activities among each other\nDesign for conversations - what can we talk about? how do we do this? How is the conversations showed to others?\nDesign for active sharing - give users ways to share ideas, good tips, tricks, e.g. activity around bikes in cph - what is the "social object" that people interact around - the photo of flickr, the run of Connect Garmin - and in reality all of Garmins runnings products and services.\nDesign for activity and flow - present call for actions and explaining what a user can/should do as well as for&#xA0;"passive" activity by showing activity through automatic communication/use of the service\nDesign for relations - do I create relations to other users? Do I follow spefic areas of interests? How can I see and manage these relations? Are they synchronized or synchronized\nDesign for presence - is this product or service live? How do we show time and when I was in here last time?\nDesign for identity so that user can define parts of how they are viewed by the community. How do I see the others? How do I show my identity and my interests?&#xA0;- e.g. the way you think you ride a bike - in the case of ibikecph.dk\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
So to sum up and conclude - \n- we are moving from a state where organizations could focus on master the relationship between the organiation and its market - a mastery in which design and design management have played a integrated role - to a much more complex situation.&#xA0;\n
A situation where we also need to take into account how the products and services are evolving, modified and changed as customers or citizens use our products and services while they interact with each other, share, re-mix, contribute, create and how these products and services are changed as these customers get back to us - giving us ideas, or sharing add-ons, extensions, new use scenarios or adding functionality.\n\n
The consequence of this is that co-creation is not only a part of our process as designers.&#xA0;\nIt is also an integrated part of the result of our efforts; the products and the services that we design.&#xA0;\n\nSince they to an increasing degree are made valuable, meaningful and useful through the connectedness and use of others they are in themselves co-created.\n\n