Innovation

through

Co-creation
Driving Innovation through Co-Creation
By Uday Dandavate,
December 8th, 2008

1.1 Background

The real challenge for a future-focused organization lies not in just

coming up with great product ideas, but in coming up with ideas that
resonate with the “real” consumers. Additionally, a greater challenge
that companies face today is getting multiple teams in the value chain
to buy into the vision of the creative teams, and executing the vision
with a passion and precision so that such an innovation translates into
profit.

Every year, global companies cumulatively spend billions of dollars on

innovation. A very small number of ideas generated through voracious
churning of creative minds actually hit the market, and an even smaller
proportion of these ideas generate profits. The real challenge faced by
companies worldwide is how to streamline the innovation processes in
a manner that optimizes investment in innovation and maximizes the
chances of success.

1.2 Evolution of design

The field of design has reinvented itself with the purpose of keeping
itself relevant to market realities. Traditionally, design was considered
a domain of creative minds—of people who were trained to envision
and execute ideas that could change the course of consumers’ lives.
Designers had the power to manipulate everyday lives of consumers.
Unfortunately, this power did not always translate into business
success. The result was a typical tension between creative teams and
the product planning teams on one hand, and the engineering and
marketing teams on the other. Inevitable culmination of this tension
was a lot of finger pointing for failed ideas and missed opportunities.
Designers were quick to recognize the benefits of a User-Centered
Design (UCD) process to enhance the chances of design ideas
succeeding. In the course of time, designers began to integrate creative
teams with experts in anthropology and cognitive psychology, who
could bring the knowledge of consumers’ needs and aspirations to the
innovation process. Ethnographic research methods became popular
amongst designers and innovation teams in global corporations. With
the advent of UCD methods, designers had to adjust their internal
conceptualization processes to the need for understanding,
internalizing, and being inspired by information from and about the
“real” users of their products.

Another development affected the practice of design and innovation.

With the popularization of PCs and various other digital devices, User
Interface (UI) design (both hardware and software devices) became a
critical consideration in product development. The UI design
community recognized the need for inputs regarding “real” users in
design. As a result, usability studies became an integral part of the
innovation process within the UI design field. Usability studies helped
designers to gain sensitivity to the user experience of their products
and to make improvements before their designs were put into the hands
of the consumers.

Emergence of the UCD approach has helped move the onus of

innovation from the creativity of a single designer to the information
acquired from a systematic study of user needs and aspirations. While
UCD helped increase the chances of making designers’ ideas more
relevant to the consumers, the source of ideas still remained with the
designers. The end users of a design were still used as a reference
point. This is where Participatory Design (PD) came into the picture.
According to Wickepedia,
“Participatory design is an approach to design that
attempts to actively involve the end users in the design
process to help ensure that the product design meets their
needs and is usable. It is rooted in work with trade unions
in several Scandinavian countries in the 1960s and 1970s;
its ancestry also includes Action research and
Sociotechnical Design. In participatory design end users
(putative, potential, or future) are invited to cooperate with
researchers and developers during an innovation process.
Potentially, they participate during several stages of an
innovation process: they participate during the initial
exploration and problem definition, both to help define the
problem and to focus ideas for solution; and during
development they help evaluate proposed solutions.
(Wickepedia 2006)”

The main difference between UCD and PD is that UCD uses end users
in a consultative role, whereas the latter users are included in the
ideation process by way of having access to the tools and methods
similar to the ones designers would use to conceptualize ideas.

Figure 1. (L) Even adults discover the freedom of expression when given the task of
representing a complex experience in a collage form. (R) Velcro modeling, like
LEGO, triggers the imagination of the participants. It helps translate the tacit
knowledge they have about their own needs and aspirations into solutions.

The benefit of the PD process is that, when users are given the tools of
conceptualization that designers typically use, they are able to translate
their tacit knowledge about their own needs and aspirations into
solutions. Wickepedia itself is a good example of PD. The solutions
created by the participants of this process are analyzed to understand
the motivations behind the solutions suggested by the participants.
The design field is now moving beyond the PD stage of evolution.
While PD was focused on eliciting user inputs about the end product, it
still did not address the need for moving the ideas efficiently and
effectively through the value chain. Getting various stakeholders in the
value chain to own the insights and ideas, get their commitment to
execute innovation, required a new approach. This is where the
concept of co-creation emerged. C K Prahalad, professor of Corporate
Strategy at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of
Michigan, was the first to introduce the concept. In suggesting a shift
from creating designs for consumers to developing experience
platforms, Prahalad stated that “innovation” is not necessarily
innovation in technology, but it comes from the ability to personalize
an experience (Prahalad 2004). A key consideration in introducing the
co-creation process in an organization is to recognize the fact that one
cannot isolate the experience of an end user from the experience of the
designer, the client, the marketer, the channel partners, and all the
other stakeholders within the value chain. Each one of them has their
own motivations and constraints within the value chain. Unless all of
these considerations are taken into account while developing an
innovative idea, it would be difficult to follow through with the
execution of it. This is where co-creation becomes imperative for
innovation.

1.3 Understanding co-creation

The basic philosophical foundation of co-creation is similar to the

principles of PD. In order to maximize the effectiveness of co-creation,
some of the highlights of the process must be understood:
1. Innovation refers to the impact of your product (which includes
service, retail environment, or a brand) on your consumer. It does
not refer to just the end product.
2. The objectives of various stakeholders must be reconciled when an
innovative idea is executed. Your product cannot succeed if it is
only driven by the objectives of the CEO, the engineer, the channel
partners, or the consumers.

Figure 2: (L) Co-creation workshop at BBC, London. (R) Co-creation

workshop at Bell Aliant, Halifax, Canada.

3. Design is an act, not an artifact. It is an act of meeting unmet needs

and executing dreams for an experience. The embodiment of
design is only the culmination of the design process.

4. People choose products based on the experience they want to have

with the products or because of the meaning such products hold for
them, not just for their features and functions.

5. When given appropriate tools of visualizing and expressing their

ideas, such as the tools used by designers, everyday people can tap
into their tacit understanding of their own needs and aspirations
and build ideas for future products.

Figure 3: “Capturing moments” through visual tools helps focus on miniscule

moments of life that have a big impact on how people feel overall about new
technologies that afford those experiences.
6. Verbalized and written methods of articulation have been the
traditional mode of communication between a company and its
consumers, especially in the areas where market research is meant
to drive innovation. These modes of communication are not very
effective in capturing the tacit dimensions of human experience,
such as emotions, cognitive structures, cultural influences, and
interpersonal relationships. These dimensions of human experience
have critical bearing on the success of an idea. On the other hand,
tools such as collage making, cognitive mapping, storytelling,
Velcro modeling, etc., allow people to reflect over those aspects of
their everyday experiences that are important to them. Therefore,
the co-creation process engages multiple modes of communication
between multiple stakeholders in the value chain.

Figure 4: The data collected from the fieldwork activity is organized to find
patterns in user behaviors, needs, and aspirations.

7. Translation of market information into innovative, actionable, and

meaningful ideas is more effective when the information is
presented to the innovation team in a visual, immersive, and
inspiring format. Reports, bar charts, and statistics do not inspire
innovative ideas.

Figure 5: (L) Developing frameworks, use scenarios of the future, and tangible
product and service ideas is the final phase of the co-creation process. (R) Individual
members of the co-creation team are encouraged to draw quick visual
representations of patterns they see in the information. These visual patterns help us
arrive at a shared understanding of the findings.
1.4 Application of co-creation

The co-creation process can be used in a variety of situations. For

example:
1. Developing new products, brands, retail environments,
services, user interfaces, or marketing messages.
2. Identifying emerging cultural, technological, behavioral, or
transactional trends.
3. Educating an innovation team to innovate for new and
emerging markets.
4. Educating an innovation team to innovate for new and
emerging consumer profiles within familiar markets.
5. Developing a shared vision and a commitment for setting
consumer-focused goals for delivering value within
multidisciplinary teams within a company.
6. Identifying product diversification plans based on the perceived
competence of the company amongst the consumers.
7. Extending the brand to new business opportunities.
8. Establishing shared goals for innovation between collaborating
companies based on their respective competencies, aspirations,
and brand equities.
9. Defining persona: An actionable description of target
consumers and their archetypal behaviors and aspirations.
10. Creating relationships between product manufacturers and
channel partners based on a shared understanding of the
consumer, the point-of-purchase experience, and opportunities
for adding value through innovation.
11. “Jouneys into the heartland of Consumer Experience”:
Exposing senior management to the realities of the market and
engaging them in in-field ideation.

In the following sections I will provide a few examples of using co-

creation for inspiring people-centered innovation in an organization:

1.5 Co-creation in action: Connecticut History Society

A few years ago, The Connecticut History Society (CHS) approached

SonicRim with a request for helping the organization develop a vision
of how to develop a new history museum that takes into account the
aspirations of the people of Connecticut, and what history and a history
museum means to them.
SonicRim was selected by the museum because of its reputation in
participatory design and for its reputation in co-creating actionable
design directions.

CHS had earlier hired Frank Gehry and Bruce Mau Design to
collaboratively develop a vision for the design of a new museum
complex. The board of the museum, while appreciating the vision
presented by these two world-renowned designers, felt compelled to
elicit the input of the local community. The idea was to integrate the
vision of great designers with the aspirations of the local community.

SonicRim recruited a small group of participants from the Hartford

area for this project. The participants were asked to visit the museum
and document (in a scrapbook) their impressions of their current
experience at the museum.

Later we met with representatives of the community in groups of six.

Each group was comprised of people of similar age. (We conducted
this exercise with people between the ages of 6 and 50.) During the
group sessions, we engaged the participants in developing a collage
that depicted their past experiences at museums, including their re-visit
to the CHS museum, and their future aspirations for what experience
the future CHS museum should offer. The focus was on the experience
as opposed to the physical characteristics of the museum. The
information collected from the workshop was analyzed to identify
common patterns in what the museum meant to these people and what
experience they desired for a museum that represents their state.
SonicRim then presented the findings at a workshop conducted with
the senior members of the CHS management, where we discussed and
developed criteria for design.
Outcome: It was noticed that the vision of the local population was
different (there were some overlaps) from the vision suggested by the
design team earlier. While both visions were considered very exciting
and worth pursuing, general opinion was in favor of implementing the
vision that came out of the co-creation exercise.

1.6 Co-creation in action: Corporate Journeys into the Heartland

of Consumer Experience

Recently, a global technology company, requested SonicRim’s help in

helping the senior members of their Emerging Markets team to
understand the innovation opportunities in India.

The project comprised three phases: 1. Immersion in the field;

2. In-field synthesis of observations; and 3. Co-creation workshops in
the United States.

We scheduled a visit with 20 senior executives from the company to

one large city, one medium-size city, and one village in India. The
team was split into smaller groups; each group had the opportunity to
meet with local families and discuss their lives, routines, and
aspirations for the future. We also conducted visits to local markets
and led group discussions in each of the places visited. The immersion
exercise occurred over 10 days.

Figure 6: (L) Preparing for an interview with a village milkman in (R) A designer
from the client company riding a camel in an Indian village as a part of a
“journey into the heartland of consumer experience.”
The morning after every visit, the team met at a makeshift war room
set up at the hotel in Delhi. There we discussed our observations and
implications, wrote down the observations on index cards, and then
organized them based on themes and aspirations.

On the last day, a full-day workshop was conducted where the themes
and aspirations were organized into finer categories, and a preliminary
brainstorming session was conducted to identify implications and
opportunities.

Later, the SonicRim team spent two weeks organizing the information
collected from the field visit and the daily synthesis workshops. Then
various stakeholders from the client organization met for a two-day co-
creation workshop. During this workshop, SonicRim set up large panel
displays that depicted visual information about the lifestyles, needs,
and aspirations of the people we visited. On the first day of the
workshop, the team deliberated over the observations from the field,
and identified specific persona and their significant goals that were
relevant to the client business. On the second day, the team developed
unique scenarios of how, through the use of technology, each of these
persona could fulfill their goals. These scenarios were then analyzed to
develop a refined matrix of persona and their associated goals. Finally,
the team participated in a brainstorming exercise where specific
solutions (products, services, and marketing messages) were
conceptualized based on which goals were relevant to which persona.

Outcome: A multidisciplinary team of this client was able to commit

to a framework for innovation that helped them relate their innovation
targets to the goals of specific persona. Additionally, the immersive
experience in the field and a collective co-creation exercise helped
them build a shared memory of the user experience—past, present, and
future. Overall, the client organization was very pleased that the co-
creation exercises helped to conserve investment in innovation.
1.7 Takeaways

Organizations that believe that innovation is one of the important ways

of thriving in competitive and uncertain economic times should follow
a co-creation-based model of innovation. By involving the
stakeholders in the creation of the ideas, you conserve resources that
are typically wasted in pursuing the vision of a single individual or of
teams that are removed from the realities of the stakeholders in the
value chain. Indigenous ideas (ideas germinated within your
organization) stand a better chance of reaching and succeeding in the
market. By involving the creativity of the stakeholders and by using
co-creation tools and methods, you stand a better chance of delivering
value to your consumers and being rewarded for offering them what
they need, rather than trying to convince them that they need a great
idea from a great innovator.

References:

Dandavate, Uday, and Nancy Lefforty-Wellot. 2003. Designing with

Indegenious Ideas, Business World, India, June 30

Greenbaum, Joan, and Morten Kyng, eds. 1991. Design at Work:

Cooperative Design of Computer Systems. Hillsdale: Erlbaum

Kuhn, Sarah, and Michael Muller. 1993. Special issue: Participatory

Design. Communications of the ACM, 36 (4)

Prahalad, C.K., and Venkat Ramaswamy (2004) The Future of

Competition: Co-Creating Unique Value with Customers. Boston
Harvard Business School Press, 2004

Sanders, Elizabeth. (2006) Design Research in 2006. Design Research

Quarterly V.I. 1 September 2006. Designer Research Society.
www.designresearchsociety.org
Sanders, E.B.-N., and Dandavate, U., Design for Experiencing: New
Tools. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Design
and Emotion, edited by C.J. Overbeeke and P. Hekkert, 1999, TU Delft

Sanders, E. B.-N., Generative Tools for Co-Designing. Collaborative

Design, 2000 (Springer-Verlag: London)

Schuler, Douglas, and Aki Namioka, eds. 1993. Participatory Design:

Principles and Practices. Hillsdale: Erlbaum

Trigg, Randall H., and Susan Irwin Anderson. 1996. Special issue:
Current Perspectives on Participatory Design. Human-Computer
Interaction 11
_________________________________________________________
Written for Muotoilun Johtaminen (Design Management handbook)
Q1- 2007, published by Kauppalehti, Finland. Original is printed in
Finnish language.
_________________________________________________________

Author: Uday Dandavate

Founder and CEO, SonicRim Ltd., Global Design Research,
USA

Uday Dandavate is a founder and CEO of SonicRim, a Global

Design Research company. A relentless globetrotter, Uday
brings over 28 years of experience in design and innovation to
SonicRim. Uday leads a multidisciplinary team at SonicRim,
where he studies people, cultures, and trends around the world
in order to drive design and innovation strategies for his clients.
A firm believer in the participatory approach to design, Uday has
helped many Fortune 500 companies gain empathy for the
experience of everyday people as they design products, brands,
and new technologies. He has also worked with many public
organizations to help them understand how to best deliver value
to their audience through design and innovation. Uday is often
invited to speak at international conferences and universities to
share his ideas and experiences as an evangelist of everyday
people in the world of business and technology.

www.sonicrim.com