July 28, 2009
Coca-cola has developed new dispensing machines that contain up to thirty flavors that can produce up to 100 different types of soda. The machines can be reset realtime and communicate so that coke can introduce a new soft drink and observe sales results immediately.
This is “rapid protoyping,” “probe and learn,” and “effectuation” for sweetened drinks — strategies usually associated with high tech products. Read the details in the Information Week article:
http://tinyurl.com/qrddol
The next step?
Why not employ the technology in vending machines and allow users to create their own drinks? COLA CO-CREATION
Leave a Comment » | 
Co-creation or User collaboration, Customer Research Methods, Experiment, Internet effects, Process Innovation, communication, experiential innovation | Tagged: Co-creation, coca cola, Coke, cola co-creation, effectuation, probe and learn, rapid prototyping | 
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Posted by gschirr
June 22, 2009
A great article on innovation in todays WSJ:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204830304574133562888635626.html
Look away from the lampost
I suppose a cynic might claim that “great” means that it agrees with the recurring themes and principles discussed in this blog. Specifically:
- Storytelling,
- Involving users
- Lead Users
- Deep customer information (ethnography)
- Probe and Learn
as well as other ideas.
Take the time to read it!
Leave a Comment » | Co-creation or User collaboration, Customer Research Methods, Experiment, Ideation, experiential innovation | Tagged: crummy trials beat deep thinking, Ethnography, Ideation, lead users, probe and learn, Storytelling, wall street journal | Permalink
Posted by gschirr
March 6, 2009
I generally don’t post PR puff pieces on my blogs, but this announced research joint venture between Babson College and Venkat Ramaswamy’s consulting firm sounds important for service innovation.
Next Practices in Value Creation aims to “demonstrate how organizations can co-create innovation…
The research will investigate how organizations are co-creating value with customers through compelling experiences… interaction with customers is the new locus of value creation, and… co-creation is the new competency for firms… core competences are no longer located in the value chain of the company, but at the point of interaction between the customer and the firm.”
To see the full release:
http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/03-06-2009/0004984339&EDATE=
1 Comment | Co-creation or User collaboration, experiential innovation | Tagged: Babson College, Co-creation, collaboration, locus of value creation, Venkat Ramaswamy | Permalink
Posted by gschirr
January 27, 2009
SDL or Service Science: establishing standards or branding?
IBM has been fostering “service science” as an approach to understand service and service innovation. Two academics who wrote the well known Journal of Marketing article have been promoting the “Service Dominant Logic” (“SDL”) of marketing in books, special issues and conferences from Australia to Hawaii to Naples.
Is this a branding competition or an effort to establish standards like Beta vs VHS and Blue Ray vs. HD DVD?
Four IBM researchers prepared a paper for the Otago Forum, comparing the ten foundational principles of service science to the ten foundational principles of SDL. Not surprisingly they find a lot of overlap — enough that I might argue that it is more of a branding issue than a standards one. Their paper is available here:
http://marketing.otago.ac.nz/events/OtagoForum/Final%20forum%20papers/Otago%20Forum%20Paper%202_Spohrer.pdf
Leave a Comment » | Co-creation or User collaboration | Tagged: IBM, Vargo and Lusch, service dominant logic, Service Science, Otago Forum, SDL | Permalink
Posted by gschirr
December 16, 2008
A recurring theme of postings on customer involvement methods is that traditional market research methods such as focus groups and brainstorming kill ideas and creativity; there is a need for better ideation techniques that truly engage users.
J. Scott Armstrong has suggested using Delphi techniques to access the wisdom of crowds without suffering from idea truncation common to group efforts. Some researchers have suggested online groups to loosen the group effect.
Another blog takes a look at the benefits and dangers of using online communities in new service development:
http://www.mycustomer.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=133916
1 Comment | Co-creation or User collaboration, Customer Research Methods, Ideation | Tagged: Brainstorming, Delphi, focus groups, group ideation, J. Scott Armstrong, market research, online communities, von Hippel, wisdom of crowds | Permalink
Posted by gschirr
October 22, 2008
Wired magazine has an interesting article about how the internet has affected the career of Weird Al Yankovic. Weird Al is impacted by two trends from the internet:
- Fragmenting of the market into small segments (Long Tail?)
- A surplus of amateur parodies on You Tube
as well as the fact that the few mass acts that exist seem to be self-parodies (e.g. Jessica Simpson, Brittany, Kevin F.).
Read it here:
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/16-10/ff_weirdal
A blogger suggests ways that Weird Al could use the Internet’s potential for crowdsourcing to stay ahead of trends: http://blog.ogilvypr.com/?p=452
Weird Al has embraced the new media, releasing his first parody on iTunes two weeks ago. Digital release allows him to parody a song while it is still topping the charts…
Leave a Comment » | Co-creation or User collaboration, Customer Research Methods | Tagged: Al Yankovic, collaboration, crowdsourcing, fragmenting markets, The Long Tail, Weird Al | Permalink
Posted by gschirr
October 15, 2008
Every firm has an IP unit that is looking to protect and harvest the ideas generated within the organization.
Patent Trolls are infamous in software and other high tech areas.
Why then are users willing to collaborate with firms and allow them to have the IP?
In his discussion of Lead users and in several articles, Eric von Hippel has suggested that the most demanding users stand to benefit by supplier advances so much that they are willing to effectively grant them free IP.
A recent blog addresses this issue with breakfast cereal:
http://blog.openinnovation.net/2008/10/open-innovation-on-cheap.html
The issue is not quite as stark in the world of free and open source software (“FOSS”), as no one is reaping the tolls, although participants are again giving up potentially valuable IP.
The following article in Linux.com discusses von Hippel’s contribution to our understanding of FOSS:
http://www.linux.com/feature/149403
For a short time I was head of NSD at a software firm and was amazed at extensive customer contributions by secretive firms who otherwise carefully guarded their IP. Collaboration happens!
Leave a Comment » | Co-creation or User collaboration, Customer Research Methods, NSD Process | Tagged: crowdsourcing, Eric von Hippel, FOSS, free and open software, kellogg, Lead User, linux, software development, user collaboration, von Hippel | Permalink
Posted by gschirr
October 6, 2008
The first step towards understanding a phenomena is often to categorize it.
FreshNetworks Blog attempts to categorize NPD co-creation into 5 groupings:
- Mass customization
- Real-time self-service
- Service redesign
- New product co-creation
- Community product design
See the full posting:
http://blog.freshnetworks.com/category/series/co-creation-series/
Leave a Comment » | Co-creation or User collaboration | Tagged: categories of co-creation, Co-creation | Permalink
Posted by gschirr
