![[logo]](http://owela.vtt.fi/cocreation/wp-content/themes/owela-theme/img/logo_owela_gif.gif "Co-creation"){kind=logo}
The following eight principles for Living Lab co-creation are suggested as a summary of the INTERACT 2009 workshop Towards a manifesto of Living Lab co-creation.
Please comment on the principles; likes and dislikes are just as welcome! On basis of your comments made before September 15, a revised set of principles will be suggested and made available for a co-writing process.
1 Living Lab co-creation is user- and stakeholder-centric
- The participants of Living Lab co-creation are end-users and stakeholders, in addition to the innovation team.
- The characteristics of the end-user participants are known. The selection criteria and recruitment process are specified.
2 Living Lab co-creation improve innovation
- The participants contribute suggestions, decisions, and background information. (Suggestions include ideas, designs, or changes. Decisions include choices in the innovation processes. Background information is related to the application area and user profiles.)
- The participant contributions have direct consequences for the innovation process.
3 Living Lab co-creation is systematic
- Living Lab co-creation is a defined part of the innovation process
- The Living Lab is equipped with a formalized set tools and methods with known performance characteristics.
- Data analysis is well defined and transparent to the innovation team.
4 Living Lab co-creation is sustainable
- The Living Lab is an established innovation organization
- The Living Lab does not depend on a single project
- The Living Lab is founded in sound business models
5 Living Lab co-creation is a community effort
- The participants see themselves as a community for innovation
- Innovations evolve through dialogue and exchange within the community
6 Living Lab co-creation is contextual
- Co-creation is conducted in the intended context of the innovation.
- The context of co-creation is familiar to the participants, preferably their every-day context.
7 Living Lab co-creation is motivating
- Participants only take part in co-creation of products that they see as important to themselves.
- End-users get direct feedback on their contributions.
- Processes iterations are short, and their results are presented to the participants.
8 Living Lab co-creation is easy – from the participants’ perspective
- The Living Lab process is well defined and transparent to the participants
- Living Lab participation should not require more than basic ICT knowledge
9. Privacy and trust might be a point 9?
- Tell the living lab community what you are going to do, and why.
- Assure the living lab community that personal infromation will be kept confidential
- Never disclose someone's identity without consent
Questions are the users owner of the pictures content they provide? And what about hte ownership of the products and services they co-create????
Point 7 motivation: From different perspectives members of the living lab might be motivated to participate by extrinsic rewards like money, presents as well as intrinsic rewards?
Good comments, Petter! Several of your points could be expanded on in a section of best practices, in particular.:
- How to handle trust and security
- How to handle IPR issues
With respect to Petters point on motivation: What do you all think? Should monetary motivation be recommended as a principle for Living LAb co-creation?
This is a good start. I especially like point 6 about contextual cocreation. However, several issues require thorough definitions, for instance what exactly do we mean with a community and easy. The motivation issue is also important, but could be a part of principle 7. I would not say immediately by monetary rewards, this could even attract the ‘wrong’ type of participants.
In our vision, Living Lab should support the whole design cycle, from exploration of user needs, to prototype testing. What do you think?
Here are comments from Carina and me. All in all, good job!
Principle 1:
First bullet: We suggest another definition here, start to talk about stakeholders and exemplify that mandatory stakeholders are e.g. end-users (consumers), researchers, companies etc. Exactly who the mandatory stakeholders are or if we should use the term mandatory stakeholders at all needs of course be discussed. In our opinion, the innovation team consist of all relevant stakeholders that are involved in the innovation process.
Bullet 2:
We are not really sure if the characteristics of end-users always are known, we have examples of LL activities that have helped business stakeholders to actually get to know user characteristics. LL can for example provide insights in use patterns etc. Also to say that the selection criterion is specified seems to us to risk exclusion of important end-users that you not necessarily thought to be your end-users / consumer. This might be the case of the eye of the beholder, i.e. that we read more into the written statement than we should :)
Principle 2:
Nothing to comment here, together with a change of the first principle, this is very much aligned with our ideas of LL.
Principle 3:
Bullet 1:
Might not need “Living Lab” in the beginning of the principle, should be enough to start with “Co-creation”?
Bullet 2: "set tools" --> "set of tools"
Bullet 3: If we should use the term “innovation team”, we suggest it should be clearly defined in principle 1.
Principle 4 -6:
No comments
Principle 7:
Bullet 1: Should this be normative? Would it not be nice if some users could boost innovation capacity even if they don’t see it important to themselves? We don’t see the need for this statement, please elaborate. We also think it is important to add services, not just focus on products.
Bullet 3: Good with short iterations probably, maybe state why it is important. At the moment we don’t see the connection to the motivating part of the principle?
Principle 8:
No comments here either.
Hi Annelise. You are right that we are in need of improved definitions. Hope that we can sort that out during the co-writing process.
On the innovation life-cycle role of Living Labs: It is a good aim for Living Labs to support the full innovation cycle. I am, however, not sure if that should be part of the co-creation manifesto. I assume that we would want to call it Living Lab co-creation even if a Living Lab does not support the full innovation life-cycle?
Hi Jesper and Carina. Lots of relevant comments! I guess that some of the details will be best handled in the co-writing process. As Annelise noted, we are in need of definition of key terms, such as stakeholder, end-user, innovation team, community, and easy.
On the issue of motivation: This seems to involve some important disagreements. In particular:
- is it ok for Living Lab participants to receive incentives? (cnf. Petter)
- is it ok for Living Lab participants to be part of teh innovation process of products/services that are not important to them?
Please share your opinion on this :-)
Good work!
I agree with Petter that we might need one or two additional principles (probably making them an even 10 ;-) ).
Below are some comments and suggestions from my part - for better readability I am re-quoting (only) the additional / changed bullets.
1 Living Lab co-creation is user- and stakeholder-centric
- All participants (including end-users) are taken as valuable co-creators, overcoming traditionally separated spheres and time-frames of design & use.
- Living Lab co-creation pursues attentive awareness for heterogeneous interests, requirements and communicative practices of different stakeholders involved.
2 Living Lab co-creation improves innovation
- Living Lab actors appropriate newly developed technologies, services and products and thereby serve as important actors of the innovation system and diffusion processes.
3 Living Lab co-creation is systematic
- Living Lab co-creation aims at innovative practices as well as technologies, services and products
- Living Lab co-creation is reciprocal - integrating both innovation push as well as adoption pull.
- The Living Lab is equipped with a specified set of tools and methods appropriate for the context and assures quality control.
4 Living Lab co-creation is sustainable
- Living Lab co-creation aims at establishing sustainable innovation infrastructures
5 Living Lab co-creation is a collaborative community effort
- Cooperation and collaboration are important factors for Living Lab co-creation
9 Living Lab co-creation values privacy and trust
- Tell the living lab community what you are going to do, and why.
- Assure the living lab community that personal infromation will be kept confidential
- Never disclose someone's identity without consent
10 Living Lab co-creation is a meaningful human-centric activity
- Living Lab co-creation should improve various aspects of human activities
- Living Lab co-creation is bound by ethical standards
- Co-Creation is accounting for the appropriation activities involved in creating personally as well as shared meaningful practices.
- Co-Creation supports the exchange and negotiation of diverging assignments of meaning, purpose and use of technologies, services and products.
- Human exchange and creativity are key elements for co-creation.
Regarding the life-cycle issues raised by Annelise & Asbjørn, I would argue that Co-Creation activities spanning the complete life-cycle for innovations are highly desirable but not always reachable - fundamental however to me seems the notion of not taking 'users' as simple 'testers' etc. and thus lessening the barrier of seperated design & use activities / processes.
Therefore I would augment Principle 1 with:
- All participants (including end-users) are taken as valuable co-creators, overcoming traditionally separated spheres and time-frames of design & use.
Another thing that came to my mind while reading our principles was that so far they seemed quite 'conflict-less'.
For me coping with, managing and negotiating the diverse and hetereogenous interests, value and meaning assumptions as well as adoption practices of stakeholders are vital for productive LL co-creation. I have tried to add some suggestions including process issues as well as aspects in regard to innovation potential.
I think you've found a nice way of stretching the cocreation beyond testing, Steffen. I fully agree with your definition.
One thing that I thought of is the difference between cocreation and codesign. In an article of Elizabeth Sanders and Pieter Jan Stappers, they defined codesign as something close to the design process and even between designers, and cocreation more open and involving others than designers. This seems in line with the cocreation that we propose, but perhaps you already gave that some thought Asbjørn?
And I propose another addition to bullet 9:
-Provide clear guidelines&proposals concerning IPR issues.
Wow. We have good discussions here! Great!
@Steffen: Yes we definitely need 10 principles, and I believe that you have filled the last two with relevant content. I am looking forward to merge the original principles with your input and the input from Jesper/Carina, and also the additional IPR-bullet from Annelise.
@Annelise: I am not sure if we want to go into the potential minefield of defining us away from the field of participatory design. But it is definitely relevant to state our heritage to varying traditions - even if that does not go into the principles. Perhaps the placing of Living Lab co-creation in relation to its disciplinary ancestors could be a good chapter for the edited book that Jan is in the lead of?
About the principle 2: "Living Lab co-creation improve innovation". With innovation we should not think about only ideas and suggestions. Steffen mentioned technologies, services and products, but I would like to see also higher aims here: What is the value for the people and the society? Is the aim to produce money for a company or welfare in the society? Different living labs may have different aims, but at least the aims should be stated clearly in each case.
Should systemic thinking (or systematic innovations) be mentioned somewhere? The goal of a living lab is not to help only one company, but the whole stakeholder network and finally the local community or whole society.
@Pirjo: I like your comments, both on the need to clearly state aims of the clearly, and the inclusion of societal or systemic innovation. Do you have any suggestion for how such issues could be stated as part of Principle 2?