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Fronteer Presents: Co-creation Crash Course 2010

Fronteer Presents: An introduction to the theory and practice of co-creation in business

Co-creation is currently one of the hottest topics in innovation and management theory, but the benefits, risks, best practices and repercussions are less than clear to many managers.

Each session will include a presentation & discussion of a recent case by one of our clients and end with informal drinks, during which you will have the opportunity to share thoughts & experiences with colleagues from other companies & industries. Register now - a limited number of seats are available per session. Mail us at events@fronteerstrategy.com

When? March 24th & 31st or April 7th
What time? 12.30 - 18.00
Where: Amsterdam centre, The Netherlands
EUR 125,-            Download the flyer here

We definitely hope to see you there.

2010 - The Year of Empathy?

2009 Has been a great year. It was the year that we were able to support our clients in many different ways. Co-creation has been one of the major project pillars in 2009 and definitely something that we will continue to work on/with in the future. Our Co-creation’ 5 Guiding Principles white paper has been downloaded tens of thousands of times already. Expert co-creation has proven to be a tool for clients to tackle the toughest strategic challenges and work with the smartest people around.

What’s next? Empathy. We at Fronteer feel that brands that are interested in the world that they’re in and understand another’s situation, feelings, and motives are the ones that will thrive in the future. I was able to deliver a presentation in december 2009 in Amsterdam on empathy. What struck me was the honest and happy reactions of the people around. It seemed to be spot on. Also, our research on the relationship between open-ness of brands and attractiveness was an eye-opener to people (as it was for us last year).

So what will we do? We will focus part of this year’s efforts on developing our knowledge on empathy.

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The Copenhagen Co-creation Manifesto

I have seldomly experienced such a rich event as the Copenhagen Co-creation summit a few weeks ago. The level of discussions and participants was fantastic. I needed weeks to digest all the information. I am back now. What was going on? The Danish Design Association had decided to take a bold step. Why not writing a Co-creation manifesto rather than beating around the bush all the time? Let’s nail it! But we didn’t. Of course not. When you have 30 people co-creating, the answer never comes immediately. It will take some time. Some more thinking. But: I was very happy with the definition my group came up with after the sessions:

- Co-creation unlocks collectivy creativity of people to create deeply relevant solutions -

It might sounds a bit dreamy, but so then the event was. We dreamt about a future world where co-creation would tap into the unlimited resource of collective global brainpower. New solutions would create far better worlds and would end the one-way consumption currently going on.

My conclusion after the event was: yes, co-creation is very difficult - and especially because of how organisations are structured right now - but it is a movement that cannot be stopped. There is no way back. We are all opening up and will refuse to close again.

Read the Manifesto and watch the great video.

The 1% rule in mass-customisation

I was quoted the other day in Dutch newspaper ‘De Pers’. I argued that the 1% principle (1% of each community is a ‘creator’) also holds for mass-customisation. Only the real affecionados are interested in tweaking and personalising their favourite products and brands. However, the generated buzz affects all consumers. The other 99%.

Here is what I said:

“Volgens merkenexpert Martijn Pater van Fronteer Strategy is de groep consumenten die ‘customizet’ relatief klein, maar gaat er een gigantisch marketingeffect van uit. ‘Wij hebben onderzoek gedaan naar het effect van personaliseren op het merk. Daaruit blijkt dat het merk er een open en toegankelijk imago van krijgt, als innovatief wordt gezien en daardoor populairder wordt. Het effect slaat dus over op het hele merk.’ Hij wijst op een slimme actie van Nike ID dat vorig jaar voor de wedstrijd Arsenal-Manchester United bezoekers van zijn website de schoenen van spelers als Wayne Rooney en Cesc Fabregas liet ontwerpen.”

Co-creation Dialogue Sessions in Los Angeles and Amsterdam

The last weeks we have been working on a project in Los Angeles and Amsterdam. The project aim was to find the right positioning of new products to be introduced by our client. Instead of creating products from scratch or building on client’s concepts - as we normally do in co-creation sessions - this time we needed to figure out the reason for being of a portfolio of products. Since such a task is not to be done with an average set of consumers, we recruited heavily on creative, outspoken, constructive, critical and passionate users of our client’s products. We found them. The differences between LA and Dutch consumers were abundent, but both worlds were not too far apart though. People from LA are VERY talkative though and like to share what they love (photo: Apple, Prius and Obama).

A few things I would like mention about Los Angeles’ and Amsterdam’ sessions:

- People feel truly honoured to be part of a strategic product development process
- When clients open up, consumers open up (we do not use one-way mirrors..)
- You get the best results when you invite the best people
- You need brand advocates and competitors’ fans in the mix
- Consumers can be far more passionate about a brand than clients could ever imagine…

These findings are in line with what we have experienced in recent other projects. We stick to our own rules: inspire, select, connect, share and continue.

How did P&G do it? Hear it from A.G. Lafley himself

If there is one company that leads the way in Open Innovation and co-creation it is P&G. It’s former CEO calls himself the Chief Innovation Officer, inspires its employees, sits in innovation reviews and even wrote a book about it. P&G tells people that many products have been ‘proudly developed elsewhere’ and sets its target to 50% for innovations coming from outside the P&G business units. Connect & Develop is their program and it has been running since 2002. I find this pretty OK.

Much has been written and said about P&G, but hearing it from the horse’s mouth is powerful. Watch the interview with Lafley here or read my exerpt below. Or do both. Read the rest of this entry »

Very succesful co-creation of a Business Modeling book

Here comes an inspiring story.

When researcher Alex Osterwalder was looking for a model for making business models, he could not find it. Or he could not find one he liked. None of them he found he could use across mutiple industries. So he decided to makes his own model together with a few other people. Enter Patrick. When Patrick van der Peijl found out about Alex’s project, he joined in and suggested to set up a community to make the book and model even stronger. The Hub was born.

What was so inspiring? When coming up with the idea to co-create abook on business modeling, they invented a new businss model with it. It was done before, but not with people actually paying for contributing. 400 People paid an average of 50 euros for being part of it, being able to suggest content, get the book first and be mentioned in the book. I thought it was a great examples of our 5 guiding principles of co-creation and presented my toughts on the official launch of the beta version of the book a few weeks ago in Amsterdam. 60 People showed up for a very well organised and inspiring day. The drawing is our model summarised by Paul den Dulk. The book launches later this year.

Anyone else with a new co-creation business model that works?

Select the Very Best - or how social are the Swedes really?

I recently enjoyed being part of a great conference in Malmö, Sweden, called Business to Buttons. It was organised by a company called Inuse. The congress was mostly on usability and interaction design. I was invited to talk about co-creation. Something else for a change I guess. It was very interesting, especially from a cultural perspective.

We at Fronteer talk about co-creation strategies all the time, and the 5 guiding principles of it. The second principle is ‘Select the Very Best’, meaning selecting the best people to co-create with (the 1%) or being able to select the best ideas from many. When presenting the principles in a workshop I was confronted with the 12-strong crowd feedback. They found the second principle shocking, undemocratic and radical. But also they found it being liberating and daring. I touched a nerve there. In the land of almost socialism, how could you exclude people? Not listening to the masses? Not weighing everyones opinion? Even in Sweden you can, believe me. Everybody likes to work with the smartest people.

This anecdote illustrates the impact of our rigid selection process when it comes to finding people to co-create with. We at Fronteer spend much time and effort on it and it’s essential to the success of our work. When our clients venture out in social networking (who doesn’t?) we find them the experts and entrepeneurs. When our clients want to dig into old artisan industries, we find them the people that understand the tension fiueld between old and new industries.

For any challenge there is a 1% to crack it.

Research shows: Open brands are most populair

“The more accessible a brand, the more it is perceived as attractive and innovative.” This is the result of a research amongst 500 Dutch consumers, performed by market research bureau Ruigrok | Netpanel in cooperation with strategic consultancy firm Fronteer Strategy.

The research looked on the impact of openness of a company on brand value in different sectors, among which supermarkets, banks and electronics. Coffee brand Douwe Egberts, supermarket chain Albert Heijn and Rabobank are considered to be the most accessible brands and in line with that also the most attractive and innovative. Beer brands Heineken and Grolsch are performing on similar, but mediocre levels. Nokia is performing best in the electronic sector, leaving Samsung and Apple behind.

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