Jennifer, great definition of co-creation! I really like the way the meaning of co-creation is being refined. It is really evolving through the participation of so many great minds in this co-creation process. I wanted add to the dialogue providing some context for the struggle I have had over the past 18 months or so, trying to get my own arms around the subject. Last year, when I was writing Beyond the Brand, I struggled with developing a meaning for co-creation. Originally, the purpose of the book was to de-bunk the $1.2 billion focus group business and offer an alternative. While writing, I realized that there was something much bigger going on at the fringes of the way companies and customers were interacting. In this search, I took a great deal of inspiration from the alternative sports market that includes skateboarding and snowboarding. Here, everyone actively participates in a chaotic dance of co-creation between manufacturers, consumers, pro-athletes and retailers. After this exploration, I got so turned on by the concept that I wanted the title of the book to be, “How to Co-Create from the Bottom-Up.” Alas, my publisher didn’t get it and won’t go for it. So, in an effort to add to the dialogue, I wanted to share with you some of the thoughts I wrote last year. Here are some quotes from Chapter 4 of Beyond the Brand:
“Many companies focus their strategic thinking around current market needs by getting into a conference room and divining the future (or attempting to). It’s a very inside-out or top-down approach. In a reversal of this traditional process, exceptional companies use an outside-in approach, or bottom-up strategy, to focus their thinking on engaging in a dialogue with the other members of their community, allowing them to co-create innovations with their customers. This holistic, organic strategy allows companies to continually recontextualize and reframe their brand, making necessary adjustments as the community and customers evolve.”
“A bottom-up strategy of co-creation takes the open source philosophy a step further. First, it’s about loosening the control over the strategic process and focusing on guiding it instead of owning it. It’s about inviting the right customers, suppliers, and employees to participate in an open, informed process based on solid guiding principles. To do this well, companies must focus their strategic energies on building consensus and communities. The strategy has to be human. The focus has to be on the quality of the input into the strategy and the communications of those ideas to the community. Companies must focus on being evolutionary.”
“Disruptive innovation fueled by bottom-up (co-creative) learning means companies must participate in an open way within their community. This requires true corporate transparency, in everything from marketing to manufacturing, and a more long-term, sustainable outlook of the community in which they participate.
Companies that are able to make the transition to providing honest, original, culturally relevant materials and products will win. People will carefully weed out and broadcast to their peers those companies and brands that they do not trust. Many companies have discovered that being deeply connected to their community is good for their brands. In this new era, brands will have to become good, creative citizens of the community in order to survive.”
I hope this helps the dialogue evolve further. I think we are on to some thing big here. The more great minds we can get involved in this evolutionary process, the more fun it will be!
Lastly, did anybody see the February 14th cover of Forbes with the title of “Why Companies Need Your Ideas?” While I think the article, “Have It Your Way,” is an example of “shallow” co-creation, the ideas we are riffing is bubbling up in places like the cover of Forbes, nonetheless.
Jennifer Rice
Andy Lark
Johnnie Moore
John Winsor
1. Stephen Macklin on February 13, 2005 10:03 PM writes...
I think that in a very real way one of the clearest models of co-creation is sitting right in front of our noses. The weblog and the "blogosphere" is co-creation on a sometimes enormous scale.
Whether it is this debate on the meaning of co-creation or a group of blogs feeding off each others work to expose the fraud of Rathergate blogging is at its essence a co-creative process.
Yes there are bloggers who put a good deal of effort into the generation of original content, but in the end they serve as sources for other bloggers to elaborate, develop or critique.
On the other hand, the most successful blog, in terms of traffic, usually contains no more that a sentence or two of the authors own words in any individual post.
Permalink to Comment2. john winsor on February 13, 2005 11:37 PM writes...
Here's to being on the sharp end of the co-creation process!
Permalink to Comment3. Wendy on February 13, 2005 11:44 PM writes...
I think learning is the key. I think marketing is a learning model. I believe marketing is its truest form is about helping people improve the quality of their lives. I belived marketing is about demonstrating to people what is possible and then giving them the power to choose the right thing...and they will. What if as Robert Schank says, traditional marketing programs were replaced by [for example] Internet-based curricula that tell stories. The "story-centered curriculum" (SCC) tells a story in which the consumer "plays one or more roles that he or she might actually do in real life or need to know about, based on the consumer's product goals. See..Do...Hear. Learn. Co-Create. ...just an example. just a start.
Permalink to Comment4. Constantinos D. on February 14, 2005 12:00 AM writes...
Great post John.
My background is in the "underground"/subcultural music scene, which has always been dominated by the kind of bottom-up approach you drew inspiration from in researching your book. The communities and culture in which I've been immersed in have never stopped the organic conversations that guide the companies and brands that operate in these arenas. So it's a very interesting to see these developments in the wider, mainstream world. Of course, what makes that possible, I think, are the technologies that so effortlessly weave thousands of people together, increasingly in real-time.
Two applications of co-creation that I find particularly interesting, mainly because I've seen them at the grassroots subculture level so often.
first, the literal, lets-get-input-on-the-product level. in the right context, for the right brand, this can be very effective. The Lego example comes to mind.
the other bottom-up co-creation application that deserves as much attention is on the strategic level. brands need to know the culture in which they exist. of course, this requires proper planning. but technology, while empowering the communities watching over the brand for missteps also provides companies the opportunity to get off their butt and participate in the real world ;)
the recent launch of tide's cold water detergent (the cold water challenge) and the cause of energy conservation is one example. but there are many examples from event marketing, sponsoring user-created ads...a whole range is out there.
On Johnnie Moore's blog, he cites a forthcoming book that i'm really looking forward to, it looks like it will be very much about this concept of co-creation: Communities Dominate Brands.
Let's get the authors in here :)
Permalink to Comment5. john winsor on February 14, 2005 12:10 AM writes...
Wendy, great point on storytelling. Stories are the conduit of co-creation. They are what bring us together and make us more human.
Constantinos, good suggestion on getting the authors of Communities Dominate Brands to participate at BrandShift. I'll bet Johnnie can make that happen.
Permalink to Comment6. Wendy on February 14, 2005 09:13 AM writes...
A brand..a consumer advocate...an emotional warrior. An identity = the ability to co-create. There is a difference between presenting a choice and the ability to choose. A choice is "What would you like to wear?" The ability to choose is "What would you like to wear today?" A choice has options, the ability to choose is open-ended, difficult for the brain to process, frustrating. Consumers need clear direction, a specific criteria of satisfaction and importantly they need to know their brand is in control. Consumers want to know their brand has a firm belief in their legitimacy and authority, has an attitude of confidence and certainity in their purpose and identity. A consumer's sense of security is fundamentally based on the knowledge that his brand (1) accepts her unconditionally and (2) is capable of protecting and providing for her under any circumstances. Co-creation.
Permalink to Comment7. jennifer rice on February 14, 2005 10:35 AM writes...
Wendy, my personal belief is that customers don't give 'their brands' the time of day. I don't think anyone really thinks about brands 'accepting them' or 'providing for them'... products and services are simply a means to an end, and strong brands (ie. those companies with a reputation for delivering what she wants) are the brands she chooses. Often unconsciously.
By joining customer communities and conversations that are already happening, brands of the future develop reputations for "being one of us." And we tend to do business with who we know. Instead of brand as provider, I think it's more about brand as joiner.
Permalink to Comment8. john winsor on February 14, 2005 04:42 PM writes...
Jennifer, I agree with you. I can't tell you how many brand managers are shocked to find out that their customers don't really care that much about the products that they have sweated over for several months or years. It's all about context. Instead of thinking about a product in the context of the company, brand portfolio or channel, more brand managers need to get out and explore how their product fits in the context of the community of customers.
Permalink to Comment9. Dustin on February 15, 2005 06:15 PM writes...
Build-A-Bear Workshop is another great example of co-creation.
Jennifer, in your previous thread, you discussed service companies do something the customer doesn't want to do. I'm not sure that is true. They do something the customer doesn't want/know how to do ON THEIR OWN.
Coming from an art/design/marketing background, I don't want to program the backend of an elaborate website. I would LOVE to be involved in the collaborative process of that programming though. I would love to pick the brains of the programmers to find out what is truly possible and have some hand in shaping the functionality of the website.
Back to Build-A-Bear. How many adults/kids would want to do that on their own? Yet the store thrives by FACILITATING the experience.
Service companies need to facilitate the experience in a way that makes it enjoyable for the client.
Permalink to Comment10. Bruce DeBoer on February 16, 2005 11:55 AM writes...
When I first saw "Build a Bear" it blew me away. It was a strong "ah-ha" moment for me.
Brands are about experiences. Co-creation of any form imbeds that experience. If our co-creativity experience is a pleasurable one, we become advocates quicker since part of us is part of the brand.
I agree with others: We don't really care where the good experiences come from but if we have one we'll try to repeat it by buying a brand we know.
Permalink to Comment11. George Reavis on February 16, 2005 02:43 PM writes...
I like the bottom up approach, being human, and paying attention to experiences. Another important element in sustaining co-creation is a true "customer dialogue". Where customers are the focus of attention/communications not only between associates and customers but also among associates themselves as well as with partners or support groups both internal and external to the enterprise.
Permalink to Comment12. Tomi T Ahonen on February 23, 2005 09:01 AM writes...
Thank you Constantinos! We - as in authors of the upcoming book Communities Dominate Brands - are here, let me read the thread and comment. A brief few self-serving comments on our book first, ha-ha.
Communities Dominate Brands, a 250 page hardcover book published by futuretext in march 2005, talks about the emerging digitally connected communities such as bloggers, MMOG gamers, mobile phone "swarmers", etc. We made it a very robust business book, imaging Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs but now with over 50 real business examples and over a dozen case studies.
We will have excerpts from the book at the futuretext.com website and both Alan Moore at smlxtralarge.com and I at tomiahonen.com will include exec summaries, early reviews etc to help you decide if this book is for you. We will also have Amazon do the look inside the book with a sample chapter.
Ok, now I'll join in the thread :-)
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Permalink to Comment13. Tomi T Ahonen on February 23, 2005 09:10 AM writes...
Preaching to the choir ha-ha...
I loved reading what you have here. This whole thread fits exactly with the theme of our book. Yes, we as in worldwide business/marketing needs to move from "I know it best" to "my customers know best". It is very easy to give lip service to customer insights, which is what industry has done over the past two decades. Ie to go interview some customers, digest what they said, and then have those thoughts influence what WE KNOW BEST...
Starting now, and increasingly in the future, any successful brand/product/service/company will be one that allows customers to honestly, truly, transparently influence what is going on. Not that we filter what customers said, but that we incorporate what they really want.
In our book in the Engagement Marketing chapter Alan Moore and I discuss the dilemma this poses specifically to the employed experts in the marketing profession. Most of current advertising, branding and marketing success was built with interruptive tools, and often on a bold brave belief in one's own gut feelings, with award-winning projects and campaigns often the result of some people bravely against the mainstream within their employers.
Now, in the future, these brave "cowboys" or "prairie sheriffs" will need to suddenly switch into humble servants, always willing to subdue their own ideas to those coming from the community. As Alan Moore is so used to saying, nobody is as clever as everybody. In the Connected Age the real power comes to those who are early to understand how to harness community power, to be willing to adjust and constantly incorporate improvement ideas from the community.
I'll ask Alan to join us here, I'm sure you'll love this thoughs as well. Cheers,
Tomi Ahonen :-)
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