I’ve been looking into what changes in technology, and society have come together to make dispersed, global co-creation a huge trend in business and market strategies. Dr Sudhanshu Rai has posted a great historical analysis of the history of collaborative ways of working internationally with Indian partners at http://barha.asiaportal.info/blogs/in-focus/2010/june/be-reminded-it-co-creation-we-should-understand. He outlines four phases: ‘Y2K,’ ‘Bodyshopping,’ ‘Outsourcing,’ and ‘Co-creation’ as the final, and next stage. The first stage, Y2K, sent India into an international arena at a speed that had not been seen before, it must have been stunning from the front lines.
Along with many other Americans, I remember vividly the ‘Y2Y’ phase from another perspective – The news hype leading up to the date had suggested that pandemonium would break loose as everything from security systems to the phone system failed, and there had been a rush in the years leading up to 2000 that required the global pool of programmers. We sat at the edges of our couches at the stroke of midnight wondering which major government or utility services would go down because they had not been reprogrammed in time. At 12:10, there was a collective, national sigh of relief as the US toasted the world’s software engineers, our new friends.
That, as Dr. Rai points out, was a very simple method of collaborating internationally that resembles co-creation very little – it was just about assigning a pre-determined task as broadly as possible. It set us down a path however. Internationalization is just one aspect of co-creation. Democratization is another.
For the second aspect, democratization, it seems somehow fitting that Copenhagen is becoming a center for discussion about co-creation http://copenhagencocreation.com/), since the roots can be traced back to pre-international stage that started right here in Scandinavia. The notion that end users should collaborate to design products, systems and spaces has historical roots in the Participatory Design movement of the 70′s. Back then, end user participation was enforced on organizations through the political machine of scandinavian trade unions. In the interest of protecting workers from the perceived threat that introducing computer systems to their workplace created, the trade unions demanded that workers have the right to co-design the systems which threatened at best to redefine their jobs, at worst to make them redundant. The motivation was democracy and end user empowerment.
Obviously, the approach did not spread to more private market-oriented environments such as the US. There, participation in the design process as an approach to development was taken up much later by private industry as a form of enhanced consumer research. This time it was outwardly focused, involving not employees but consumers. In this version, representative market segments or ‘lead’ users are paid to contribute to improving the design or contributing ideas within defined area or stage of design. This remains the predominant approach to user involvement.
Now participation as a deep engagement is back, and in a form that in some ways is reminiscent of the original Participatory Design movement. Once again people are participating for reasons that are in their own interests, and they have a real stake in the outcome. Except now the motivation for involvement is no longer fear, but opportunity. And now it is not (just) workers, but also consumers who have a choice about what they choose to get involved in. Micro-entrepreneurs are selling their designs on Threadless and Zazzle, self-organizing teams are collaborating to develop products on Quirky, LEGO fans are designing the kits they want to be produced, countless firms are creating infrastructure to encourage their employees to contribute ideas. In the new collaboration, the organizing company profits from faster product development. The contributing public and workforce reap rewards of social capital and empowerment that, while less measurable, are no less valuable. Some of them even go into business for themselves. Has the capitalist machine co-opted the people, or have the workers seized the factory?
-Gitte
Tags: co-creation, Lead User, Participatory Design
