A great structure for co-creation

If you come and read here occasionally you would probably have seen my love of co-creation and the idea of bring the consumer into the development process. Via @Armano twitter feed he tweeted a great link from a management consultancy in Amsterdam called Fronteer Strategy which is a whitepaper delivering a great structure on how to make it happend. Here is a little summary ....

The four types of co-creation

• Club of experts: A very specific challenge is needing expertise and breakthrough ideas. Contributors are found through a selection process. Quality of input is what counts (e.g. Nokia)
• Crowd of people: Also known as Crowdsourcing. For any given challenge, there might be a person out there having a genial idea that should be given a podium. It’s the Rule of the big numbers (e.g.Threadless)
• Coalition of parties: In complex situations parties team up to share ideas and investments. Technical breakthroughs and standards often happen when multiple parties collaborate (e.g. IBM)
• Community of kindred spirits: When developing something for the greater good, a group of people with similar interests and goals can come together and create (e.g. Linux)

The five guiding principles in co-creation

• Inspire participation: Trigger people to join your challenge: open up and show what’s in it for them (e.g. P&G Connect & Develop)
• Select the very best: You need the best ideas and the best people to deal with today’s complex issues (e.g. Innocentive)
• Connect creative minds: You have to enable bright people to build on each others ideas, both on- and off-line (e.g. Lego)
• Share results: Giving back to people - and finding the right way to do it - is crucial (e.g. Apple iPhone App store)
• Continue development: Co-creation is a longer-term engagement, in- and outside your company. Only then it will deliver results (e.g. Dell Ideastorm)

They also have a more comprehensive whitepaper on the subject which is awesome.

I have recently been talking with an old school mate who works at PWC. I am finding it interesting the different way we address things. If a management consultant says its alright, it must be. If anything they have created a great intangible by understanding the tangible. He often talks about going into companies and saying what everyone has been saying, but they dont want to take the blame so they hire consultants to do it for them.

My view is if they believe there is something in co-creation. Maybe our clients will have a little bit more trust in the marketing guys using it.

Collaborative intelligence not collective intelligence

I got this from Victor on twitter

Collaborative intelligence is more important than collective intelligence. Collective intelligence taps the consensus “wisdom of crowds” and harnesses algorithms to transform diverse input into a better-than-average consensual output. Collaborative intelligence taps the diversity of individuals, manifesting principles of evolutionary design to adapt to continually changing ecosystems.

Everyone loves co-creation

Participatory Marketing - What it is, How it Works

View SlideShare presentation (tags: marsden clickadvisor advocacy brand)

Great presentation from Paul Marsden and his company click advisor
I have seen a few different presentations from Paul at different points. He has done some great work on advocacy and how co-creation can drive it. Check out some of his presentations on slideshare.

Co-Creation Companies

On from my post about brand using co-creation. I found a company over at RMM London that is all about bringing seekers and solvers together over at Innocentive. Thats pretty cool

The real reason we are watching less tv.. cognitive surplus

I got this over at Neil's Only Dead Fish as well (he is having a great week). Cognitive surplus.. brillant

Co-Creation is the way forward

collectivization, originally uploaded by marisa zuk.

I have really been into the whole collective intelligence and the use of co-creation for a while. It sounds fantastic and makes sense but I am starting to see and hear of more and more great examples which make it more real. I was at the IPA Strategy debate today (I will write more soon) and heard of a few more. I think this is a really interesting way of what I call 'opening the ivory tower' that big companies seem to live in. So I thought I would list out a couple that I liked.

Starbucks: although I hate starbucks and their whole model. Supposedly some people do. So their input is starting to be heard at the company.

Incentive : is a program P&G developed in 2005 after the CEO stated in the future he wanted 50% of his innovation to come from outside the company. Supposedly 90,000 people are involved compared to the 7,500 they have in their R&D division world wide. It supposedly has made them launch 137 products. One of which is the international Olay Regenerist. I will try and find a website for it.

Dellideastorm: this is an interesting one that Dell created off the back of their issues with their batteries that started catching fire a few years back. This was a great way to turn the issue on its head and open up the company to comments and also innovation.

Legofactory: I was a great lover of lego as a kid. Also as I have grown older, I have started to gain a macho need to build something. So the great guys at Lego realised that the digital world was going to kill their business. So they asked the public for their help and the factory was built online. They have also used it to start building products that they are putting into stores as well.

Boots17: I think this is a great one, as although online co-creation is awesome at this stage in its life cycle (for lack of a better word) you have to utilise it for the appropriate audience and appropriate reason. Teenage audience on myspace for this brand is perfect. Teenagers want to express themselves through their creativity... (reason why myspace is full of them) and also having their names on the actual products is a huge amount of 'egoboo' a term used in the social networking world. Which is when you boost a users ego.

So there are a few great examples of co-creation. There are a number of areas that make this interesting which are:

1. Cheap research: having access to people at any time needed
2. Cheap R&D: why pay for a number of experts when you can have thousands of people who dont do it for money
   
3. Truly putting the consumer at the heart of the business
4. Advocacy: the hawthorne effect that was highlighted in research that dates back to productivity in a factory in the 20's and 30's, highlighted that getting people involved in the process increased their appeal towards it because of the respect placed on their opinion. This is a great way to deliver advocacy of your brand

This is going to become more and more important for innovative companies but also great marketing companies as well. Get moving on it

Why can they do it better ???

Jason Oke over at the Leos Toronto blog showed me a great link over at Here be monsters on what we can learn from TV producers. It talks about how the different professionals within a TV company can work together for the end result. I have a friend that always uses the analogy of a how a group of different specialists can come together to develop a car. Designers for the exterior, interior, engineers for gearbox, engine, onboard computers etc. Why can they get it together and not the marketing industry. So I started thinking about different industries that contain collaboration of different styles of people in the process. What other industries come together.

Computer Manufacturers

Car Manufacturers

Im sure the list could go on. So why do they work well together. They all have the same goal in mind. Creating the best overall product / service. Not just their element. Maybe we should all start to have a look at what they do and start stealing some techniques.