The Co-creation Roadmap

G Sankaranarayanan
 The
Co-creation
Roadmap

G.Sankaranarayanan

Aazhi Port
(A division of Aazhi Publishers)
First Edition: December 2011
Book Price: INR 195

Copyright © 2011 by G Sankaranarayanan

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be re-

produced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without
the prior written permission of the publisher.

Aazhi Port
(Aazhi Port is a division of Aazhi Publishers)
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Balaji Nagar
Ayyappan Thangal
Chennai 600077

[email protected]
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ISBN: 978-93-80244-99-0
 Dedication
Dell Inc, for its “power to do more” with
social co-creation
 Contents

Foreword 9
Preface 13
Why Co-creation? 20
The P6 Framework 28
Priority 36
Participation 52
Problem 68
Project 78
Platform 94
Promotion 108
Afterword 125
 Foreword
Mr Gaurav Bhalla
Author
Collaboration and Co-Creation: New Platforms
for Marketing and Innovation

Co-creation as a concept, as an idea is not new to the world.

It has existed for as long as we humans have. Hunters, gather-
ers, bakers, and shoemakers could not have existed without
co-creation, nor could the development and growth of formal
economies, as we know them today.
Don’t want to go that far back in time? Try The Oxford
English Dictionary (OED). Not quite 200 years old, it is a
living proof of the power of co-creation. Seventy years in the
making, it was not written by a single man or a small group. It
was co-created; a product of global collaboration between the
English-speaking people of the late 18th and the early 19th centu-
ries. Till today, the OED continues to grow and evolve, thanks
to co-creation. Yes, it has editors and a formal staff. However,
the resources and knowledge of the editorial staff, no matter
how vast, will always lag the pace at which the English language
is evolving. The world is far more complex today. There was one
English when the OED was first developed, there are several
English-es today; Hinglish, Chinglish, and Spanglish, just to name

The Co-creation Roadmap 9

a few! Without co-creation, and the collaborative contribution
of thousands of interested English speaking people around
the world, it would have been difficult to keep the OED alive.
What is new in co-creation, however, is the introduction of
social media technology which is enabling businesses to adopt
it rapidly as a formal business practice. Scarcely does a day go
by that we don’t hear of how companies like Dell, Nike, P&G,
and GE excel at creating new value for their customers through
co-creation. But, as is the case with all fast growing manage-
ment practices, for every one company that has figured out a
way of incorporating co-creation in its portfolio of skills and
competencies, there are at least a dozen others wondering where
to get started and how best to jump in. It is here that Sankar’s
book The Co-creation Roadmap makes a valuable contribution.
Whenever a new, formal business practice, whether it is cus-
tomer focused, like Customer Life-time Value, or operations
focused, like Six Sigma, begins to be adopted rapidly, it is tempt-
ing to assume that the fog of uncertainty concerning what the
new practice is, how it works, why it is better than incumbent
alternatives, and how best to adopt and implement it, lifts as
fast as the talk and reporting surrounding it. That assumption
is usually false, which is why we need a steady flow of educa-
tion and informed conversations to constantly illuminate and
educate. Here again Sankar’s book makes a contribution; it adds
a different voice to the ongoing conversations on co-creation
by approaching the subject from a different perspective, a
social perspective.
Take for example issues related to problem broadcast and
corporate social participation, two of the six steps discussed
in the book. As a rule, companies are reluctant to broadcast
what problems they are wrestling with to the world at large.
That may be acceptable if businesses operate in distinctly
separate and disconnected spaces from the communities they
operate in. But they don’t. The rules of engagement change
The Co-creation Roadmap 10
dramatically when problems confronting businesses overlap
significantly with the problems facing the communities in
which they operate. A case in point is the recent BP oil spill.
Was it just BP’s problem, or was it a social problem as well?
At times like this, a willingness to collaborate and to be more
open results in greater shared-value creation than when either
company or community operate on their own.
The book also does well by drawing attention to the need to
be social on the inside as well, and on the role and importance
of employees. The openness that is being advocated on the
outside is also vital on the inside. No company can successfully
collaborate with key stakeholders on the outside by ignoring
key stakeholders on the inside – their employees. Silo busting
– getting employees across the entire organization, regardless
of their departmental affiliation and allegiance, to embrace
and liberate the Voice of the Customer within the organiza-
tion – is non-negotiable, if co-creation is to succeed and result
in meaningful customer value creation.
Finally, we live in a world obsessed with technology, and
lately with social media. Both technology and social media
are important enablers of co-creation; they are necessary, but
they are not sufficient. More important than which technology
is used and which social networking site is leveraged, is what
customer value is created. This is especially important when
it comes to customers living at the bottom of the pyramid.
Which is why we applaud and celebrate examples that leverage
technology and social media that result in incremental value
for customers; programs like the $300 house, Godrej’s ChotuKool
refrigerator, Philips Chulha, and the role played by every day citi-
zens in mobilizing large scale relief when tragedy struck Haiti
a few years ago, and Japan more recently.
Genuine co-creation, as Sankar’s book gently reminds us,
should always result in incremental customer value. Ideally, it
should also result in shared value creation, a better life for the
The Co-creation Roadmap 11
other 2 or 4 billion, depending on how you count. That ideal is
still a few years away, but the journey has already begun. Books
like the one you have in your hand, dear reader, remind us that
dreaming is just as important as achieving.

Wishing you happy co-creation journeys!

Mr Gaurav Bhalla
New Jersey, USA
23rd August

The Co-creation Roadmap 12

 Preface

The hyphenated word, ‘co-creation’ is yet to be accepted by

dictionaries. But it has already become an indelible part of the
business and spiritual lexicon. Both the seekers of wealth and
health find the word conveying the highest forms of ideals
their fields could ever come up with.
There are many definitions of co-creation in these two fields.
However, the underlying emphasis appears to be the same: going
beyond the illusory existence of ‘self-interest’. Clearly, co-creation in
business is possible only when businesses put society’s interest
first - ultimately, a business is never a stand-alone entity, cut
off from the society. The enlightened way of management sees
that the interests of business and society are one and the same.
There is an interesting story from the spiritual lore, which has
a message for managers too. Once, there was a guru, Ribhu,
and a disciple, Nidhaaga. One day, Nidhaaga was watching a
royal procession at his village. His guru, in the disguise of a
rustic old man, manages to cut a conversation with Nidhaaga.
“Young man, what are you so intently looking at there?” Ribhu

The Co-creation Roadmap 13

asked. Nidhaaga could not realise that the questioner was none
other than his guru. He replied that he was watching the king
visiting the city on his elephant.
“Oh I see! A king and an elephant! But who is the king
and who is elephant?” came the next question. Nidhaaga was
bewildered. “What is the use of talking to a person like you,
who does not even know the difference between a man and an
animal,” he wondered, but he still replied patiently: “The one
who is above is the king and below is the elephant.”
Ribhu pestered, “Above and below?! I can’t understand what
is above and what is below. Pray, please explain.” Nidhaaga,
naturally, lost his temper. He determined to teach a lesson to the
old man, who he thought, was making fun of him. Nidhaaga
got on top of the old man. “Now you understand, I am above
and you are below”.
The old man was excited! He thanked Nidhaaga. “Great,
I now understand what you meant by above and below. But
young man, what do you mean by “I” and “you”? Confronted
thus with this ultimate philosophic question, Nidhaaga sud-
denly realised that the old villager could not be an ordinary
man. Within no time, Nidhaaga found that he was his guru,
Ribhu, who had come to teach him the Truth of non-duality.
He payed respect to his guru and returned with him to continue
his spiritual practice of self enquiry.
With co-creation, managers too are being confronted with
the question of non-duality of ‘I’ - the producer, and ‘you’ - the
consumer or society. The distinction between them is increas-
ingly getting blurred. Co-creation results in the coming together
of producer and conumer as prosumer. It helps businesses go
beyond the dichotomy of business goals and society’s goals,
and focus on what is the common good.
Co-creation, therefore, calls for not just the mastery of social
media technologies but the realization that the interests of
business and society can co-exist.
The Co-creation Roadmap 14
 Today, we can find that a number of businesses being pow-
ered by social media, the fans and followers of Facebook and
Twitter. In a way, co-creation is re-introducing the practices
of personalisation and customization that existed in the pre-
Mass market era or age of Industrialisation. The partnership
with ‘people without titles’ is put to use to source ideas that go
into governing the entire life-cycle of a business, from wealth
creation to distribution.
Many global organizations clearly understand that including
the aspirations of society is necessary for success in the social
media age. They view that social support (‘social license’) is
inevitable for businesses is gaining momentum. A McKinsey
Survey of global business leaders, conducted in 2010, reveals
that over 67% of the respondents expect the influence of the
external stakeholders – from governments to media - will grow
in the future. They say that already “about 50% of the credit to
corporate decisions goes to the governments, 10% to NGOs
and 20% to media.”
The growing influence of society in business signals “the
democratization of industry”, to quote Prof C K Prahalad,
who envisaged an economy, “by people, for people and of
people”, as companies embrace co-creation.
This book proposes P6 Framework to help businesses evolve
a road map for transforming their digitized business into a
democratized business. It can guide companies in establishing
a wide social presence using social media and partner with
society to co-create ‘common good’ products, services, and
even organizations.
The Framework is designed keeping in mind the use of social
media tools like Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter. But the
ideas can be applied in projects that use no social media or
Internet/mobile technologies at all. The underlying philosophy
of co-creation is the same. We need to create a wide social
presence; share our problems; motivate people to contribute.
The Co-creation Roadmap 15
 The P6 Framework stands for:
Priority
Coming up with a common goal - ‘co-creation hot
spots’ - that meet the needs of business and society
Participation
Forming and engaging internal teams - ‘co-creation
board’, in social media conversations and collaborations
Problem
Creating digital spaces - ‘Problem Wall’ - for stakeholders
to post business problems
Project
Initiating co-creation projects such as idea contests and
developer challenges
Platforms
Creating the right mix of platforms - a ‘Platform
Bazaar’, to engage different stakeholder groups
Promotion
Offering right incentives and motivations for the
participants to take right actions

The Framework can function as an ideation platform for

managers to think through the ways of tapping the “wisdom
of crowds”. Hopefully, the book would serve as a source of
inspiration for entrepreneurs who are in search of a good and
sound base to build their co-creation strategies on.
I welcome you to try out the relevance of this framework,
and share with me your views at [email protected]. Let
us co-create!

Author
December 2011

The Co-creation Roadmap 16

 Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I thank Mr Gaurav Bhalla, Author,

“Collaboration and Co-Creation: New Platforms for Marketing and
Innovation”and CEO, Knowledge Kinetics, a consulting firm,
for his foreword. Such is his passion for the subject that he
favourably responded to the request of a first time author for
a foreword. Despite his busy traveling schedule, he took his
off time to pen down his views on co-creation and the ideas
presented in the book.
I thank Mr Ram S Ramanathan, CEO Coach, for his after-
word, and for his authoring tips and guidance. He is someone
who can share his time and knowledge instantly for others
without thinking for a moment about his own benefits.
My profound thanks to the co-creation experts and enthusi-
asts: Mr Andy Smith, Co-Author, The Dragonfly Effect, Mr
Bill Fischer, Professor of Management Technology, IMD,
Switzerland, Mr Brian Millar, Director - Strategy, Sense
Worldwide, Mr Dave Sloan, Treehouse Logic, Mr Frank
Piller, Chair Professor of Management at the Technology &
Innovation Management Group of RWTH Aachen University,
Germany, Mr Jim Brown, President, Tech-Clarity, Mr John
Fox, Vice President, Velocity Series, Siemens PLM Software,
Mr Peter Ryder, President (North America), Jovoto, and Mr
Simon Holloway, Principal - Processes & RFID, Bloor Re-
search, and Mr Soren Petersen, CEO of Ingomar & Ingomar.

The Co-creation Roadmap 17

They gave me the opportunity to exclusively interview them
on many aspects of co-creation. I thank them for allowing me
to present their valuable views in this book.
I take this opportunity to thank my good friend,
Mr S Senthilnathan, CEO, Aazhi Port, for publishing the
book. He helped me publish my first news article on informa-
tion technology in an English weekly about twelve years ago.
Now he has made me an author too. I thank Mr A J Balasu-
bramanian, my mentor for his valuable inputs for the book.
I thank Mr R Shivakumar, Deputy Director, Confederation
of Indian Industry - Southern Region, Mr Kiruba Shankar,
CEO, Business Blogging Pvt Limited, and Mr Ramkumar
Singaram, Director, Catalyst PR for their support.
Friends like Mr Ramachandra Raja, Mr Sakthivel Raja,
Mr Gopikumar, and Mr Koyambedu V Ramsingh Raja
even offered their offices where I can spend time working on
this book. My heartfelt thanks to them.
I thank Mr Johannes Fuchs, a visual communication student
from Germany, whose photo I have used for the cover, and
Rajasekar, my layout artist friend who designed the cover.
The core ideas of the book had been published, republished
many times in my blogs and I had the benefit of listening to
the opinions, and feedback of many experts. I thank them all.
Let me also thank the publishers of cartoon and presentation
tools such as ToonDoo, Creately, and Weebly that I used to
create content for this book.
I thank my family members and my friends, Saravanan,
Anand, Kaushik, Srividhya, and Ramnath for their encour-
agement. Last but not the least, I express my sincere thanks to
my lovely customers for their patience - for, I found myself
working on the book when actually I should be working for
their projects.
G Sankaranarayanan
Chennai
The Co-creation Roadmap 18
 Co-Creation

The Co-creation Roadmap 19

 Chapter 1

Why Co-Creation?

Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man

you have seen, and ask yourself if this step you
contemplate is going to be of any use to him
Mahatma Gandhi

Product failures.
Poor customer satisfaction.
Corporate scandals.
Social unrest.
Environmental damage.
What such issues have to do with co-creation? Usually, what
pops up to our mind, when we talk about social media or
co-creation are phrases like open innovation, social product
development, crowd sourcing, etc. However, the essence of
co-creation is about creating ‘a shared future’. A future that
represents a win-win for business and society.
Essentially, co-creation is about establishing a wide social
presence for companies to know and include the interests
of all stakeholders - from customers to common man to co-
create products, services and organizations that represent a
The Co-creation Roadmap 20
shared future. When Professor C K Prahalad and Professor
Venkat Ramaswamy introduced the concept of co-creation in
their Harvard Business Review article, “Co-Opting Customer
Competence”, in 2000, it gained immediate currency in the
business world. Companies found a holistic approach in it
to solve macro challenges arising out of major phenomena
like globalization and threats like global warming, as well as
enterprise level challenges in the functional areas of product
development or marketing.
Business Week rates co-creation as the second most important
global phenomena, next only to sustainability. However, they
both go hand in hand. Says Mr Solomon Darwin, Associate
Director of the Center for Open Innovation at UC Berkeley,
“the key to developing a green approach to managing global
resources and mitigating pollution lies in open innovation”,
which is a popular type of co-creation.
Is it an ideology?
Co-creation does not have to be an ideology. It is just “common
sense”, to quote Mr Jake Nickell, Co-Founder, Threadless, a
marvellous success story in the social co-creation space.
Threadless offers a classic example of how engaging custom-
ers in business has irresistible benefits such as: zero product
failures, high customer engagement, and enhanced corporate
governance. To quote an Inc Magazine report : “Because com-
munity members told them precisely which shirts to make
- every product eventually sold out. Nickell’s company had
never produced a flop.” Threadless also sells 100% of its stock.
Nickell held his first contest, titled Threadless, in 2000, asking
his designer friends to submit their best works and or pick their
favorites and win two free T shirts. The first contest received
just about 100 submissions, and they printed two dozen copies
The Co-creation Roadmap 21
of five T shirts. Instantly, all their products sold out. Today,
thousands of designs compete in any given week, but the basic
business model remains the same. Each week, the staff selects
about ten designs. Each designer selected receives $2,000 in
cash, a $500 gift certificate, as well as an additional $500 for
every reprint.
Only when a particular design receives a good number of
votes, does Threadless take it for production. It sells millions
of T-shirts every year. However, since, Threadless designs are
picked only by the community, there are no product failures.
Is it about vision?
In co-creation, every business process - right from conceiv-
ing an organizational goal to developing a new product - is
carried out based on the real needs of producers, consumers,
and society - and, not out of what Mr Peter Drucker called
“managerial ego” generated by lop-sided ideologies. It actually
means that a company does not have to create a proprietary
‘vision’, which might come in conflict with the changing market
realities or society’s needs.
This book extensively emphasizes the need for companies to
be wary of taking an unilateral approach to setting business
goals. It insists on co-defining goals, by engaging stakeholders
in the process of defining.
Is it technology?
No doubt, social media networking sites and social media
monitoring tools can be great enablers for companies in creat-
ing the social presence, and analysing the areas of concerns of
stakeholders, respectively. At the same breadth, it should be said
that social media does not equal social presence. Just because
a company has a big following in Facebook or Twitter, it does

The Co-creation Roadmap 22

not mean that it has a wide social presence. Ultimately, we can
gauge the social presence of a company better by seeing the
“common good” that emerges out of its business practices
or products, rather than by the number of Facebook fans or
Twitter followers it has.
The Ramco Way
There can be any number of examples of how such basic
tenets of co-creation are applied by old economy companies
in traditional ways without formal strategies and adoption of
social media technologies.
I would like to cite the case of Ramco Group, which owns
India’s fifth largest cement manufacturing company, Madras
Cements. Founded in 1935, Ramco is one of enormously suc-
cessful business groups in India with a turnover of about US$
one billion. The company does not have a formulated frame-
work for co-creation or social media, but it is a co-creator par
excellence. The group can be observed following some of the
basic tenets of co-creation: putting the stakeholders’ interest
first in decision making, co-defining goals, having genuine social
presence, active social participation, and so on.
Larger than business goals
The group registered impressive business growth and has also
made some unique contributions to external stakeholders. The
annual capacity of its cement company rose from 66,000 tonnes
in 1962 to 12 Million tonnes in 2010. Its textile division was
started in 1938 with 6,800 spindles.
Today, it boasts of a combined capacity of 4.5 lakh spindles.
The group’s turnover had increased from about four crores in
1940s to close to about Rs 4,000 crores today. Ramco’s textile
and cement units have not suffered product failures. In fact,

The Co-creation Roadmap 23

Ramco’s yarns have been the market leaders in Japan’s premium
yarn markets. At no point in time its cement plants had over
capacity - in contrast, many major Indian cement players, dur-
ing the infrastructure boom in the late Nineties, were on an
acquisition spree and had to suffer not only over capacity but
also closure of production units, when the bubble burst.
There were no major labour issues. And, Ramco’s Rajapalayam
Mills, its textile division, is perhaps the only company in India
that has been giving dividend to its shareholders for the past
seventy five years - without a single year’s break.
Co-defining goals
Ramco takes a collective approach to goal setting. To quote Mr
P R Ramasubrahmaneya Rajha, Chairman, Ramco Group, the
company does not set “artificial business goals” to expand its
production or increase its turnover.
“When we put our first cement plant with few thousand tonnes,
we did not set expansion targets to make it big just for the sake
of it. Because, when you set targets internally, you might have
to compromise [on the interests of external stakeholders]. But,
just because we did not set goals, it doesn’t mean we have not
grown. Where is 66,000 tonnes and where is 12 million!,” he
asks referring to the capacity expansion of his cement units.
Social presence
Ramco does not have a co-creation board or social media team
but it does not miss out on identifying the interests of external
stakeholders. The company simply encourages its top executives
to be knowledgeable and sensitive to the aspirations of people
from all walks of life - and not just customers or distributors.
Ramco’s managers - right from its group chairman Mr Rajha,
maintain direct interactions with the people of local communi-
The Co-creation Roadmap 24
ties, though there are no rules to make their social participation
mandatory.
In the case of Ramco, social participation is just a way of life.
Despite being one among the top three highest paid CEOs
of India for many years, Mr Rajha meets and spends time
with people from ordinary backgrounds. His walking friends
are labourers, local traders. He is perhaps one of the very few
CEOs in India who can tell you what is the current price of
onion in the local market!
“When I take a decision, I think not once or twice, but hundred
times. Because if I take a wrong decision, it may not affect me
or my family immediately, but it would affect the families of my
employees, distributors, and local community,” says Mr Rajha,
emphasizing the need for putting the stakeholders’ interests
first, before personal ambitions.
Identifying unique social needs
So wide and deep is its social presence that Ramco runs a trust
for the welfare of Adivasis, aborigines, treated as untouchables
and a residential Vedic school for Brahmin students, who belong
to the upper class.
Even today, a large section of Adivasi community of Tamil
Nadu, an Indian state, live in Western Ghats, totally cut off
from the modern world. Ramco constructs cement houses for
adivasis at suitable locations in the State. It runs a world class
hostel that provides formal school education, special training
for English and computer science, for adivasi children for free
and takes care of their basic requirements: food, clothes, and
healthcare.
Ramco’s Vedapatasala, the residential Vedic school, teaches
the ‘upper class’ Brahmin students, who do not have the op-

The Co-creation Roadmap 25

portunity to learn Vedic scriptures in a formal school setup.
Addressing the area of Vedic education is addressing a social
need in India, because from cradle to grave, all major events
in the life of a Hindu are guided by Vedic scriptures. However,
since there are not enough Vedic schools, there is huge shortage
of Vedic priests to perform such religious practices. Ramco is
the only corporate in India to run a Vedic school.
The significance of having identified the needs of two dif-
ferent sections of the society can be attributed to Ramco’s
pursuit for the “common-good” value. Such unusual examples
of co-creation is right now happening in thousands of ways
across the corporate world. And mostly, they are being driven
by “common man” CEOs like Mr Rajha.

The Co-creation Roadmap 26

 Framework

The Co-creation Roadmap 27

 Chapter 2

The P6 Framework

“Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need
ideas in order to conceive”
Napoleon Hill

Co-creation is as ‘organized’ or ‘unorganized’ as the people’s

revolution of Egypt. The country’s political history shows that
in the past, there were many attempts from different ideological
fronts to overthrow President Mubarak’s government. How-
ever, the revolution which finally ousted the monarch in April,
2011, is regarded, by and large, as the people’s movement. It
was vastly enabled by social media. There were no strategies,
and formal organizations. Yet, the events that unfolded marked
the coming together of “people without titles” - the praja, the
citizens. They came at the right time for the common good:
to find solutions to issues such as unemployment, food infla-
tion, corruption, lack of freedom of speech, and poor living
conditions that were plaguing the country. It is nothing less
than a co-created revolution.
Even in the domain of business, co-creation is truly ‘user gen-
erated’. It is not accomplished solely by companies or NGOs
or customers, but largely by society. It may sound philosophical
but the “co” in co-creation implies that there are two parties

The Co-creation Roadmap 28

involved in co-creation: producer and consumer. And there
are any number of attempts to define, redefine who the two
parties are. Often times, labeling one party as a mere consumer,
for instance, may not be suffice. Some would like to use the
phrase “lead users”, instead of consumers.
Similarly, the producer is not a typical producer, who uni-
laterally decides what the market wants. The producer looks
like a host or infrastructure provider, offering all the necessary
components, configurable pieces, a broader framework of co-
creation, and so on.
Even when we define the roles of the two parties, the re-
lationship between the two and the roles and responsibilities
of the two in the process of value creation, cannot be set in
a mould. They themselves are co-created, and not organized.
So, if co-creation cannot be “organised” what purpose does
a framework serve? The answer: companies need to generate
ideas from its own teams for a co-creation project. Here, a
framework can be used as an ideation platform. The team
should thoroughly understand the essential steps or stages
involved in a typical co-creation process. In this context, a
framework can be used to evolve a road map.
Today, many companies are dabbling with social co-creation:
starting a blog, and running a contest, but without having a
strategy, a roadmap.
Kalypso, a consulting firm, which surveyed over 90 manufac-
turing and service companies in 2011, found that companies are
not able to use social media for co-creation in a straight forward
manner because “there are no time-tested industry practices
to turn to as a guide”. Companies admitted that they lack the
understanding of social co-creation within their organizations.
“Almost half (46%) of surveyed companies with active initia-
tives or plans admit that they are not sure which approaches
work. Over one-third (36%) say they are challenged by a lack
of internal expertise or best practices to follow.” To cite a 2010
The Co-creation Roadmap 29
survey – this one by Digital Brand Expressions, “only 41% of
the companies are using social media, as part of a strategy”,
(and among those that actually have a plan, only 69% were
measuring the results)”.
Many companies simply want to “engage” with external
stakeholders and create conversations without aiming for a
particular business outcome. Companies are not sure as to how
to co-create a business value. Engagement is only a means to
The Co-creation Roadmap 30
an end. We should ask engagement “with” whom? and engage-
ment “for” what?

Framework for business value

Companies interested in co-creating business value on an

ongoing basis, should have a deep understanding of co-creation
and invest in planning. With sufficient preparation, companies
can engage stakeholders in their core competence business
areas such as: research, production, and not just marketing or
public relations. Even if it is a blog or employing a customer
relations executive to status update and respond to Facebook
queries, it still should be done as part of a strategy. Without a
strategy, tweeting is just typing.

Why P6?

The landscape of social media-enabled co-creation is new.

Hence, it is all the more important for companies to think
about an end-to-end strategy, a knowledge blueprint that gives
everyone a perfect picture of what is required to be done and
when. What is needed is the exposure to the art and science of
co-creation: the steps involved in the process of co-creation,
and approaches that could make co-creation a success. The
central theme of this book is the P6 Framework, which stands
for Priority, Participation, Problem, Project, Platform, and Pro-
motion. The P6 Framework proposes six steps/action items
for successful social co-creation. The Framework is intended
to serve as a guide for businesses to create a great social pres-
ence that result in a truly shared future.
We need ideation frameworks like P6 Framework to better
understand the stages involved in the social co-creation process
and to come up with a road map. Practically, having a frame-
The Co-creation Roadmap 31
work can help managers brainstorm, ask the right questions,
involve the right people and conduct focused discussions to
evolve strategies on open innovation, social media adoption,
social co-creation, etc.
The Framework can help organizations find co-creation in
a new light. With P6, companies can make almost all their
business functions or processes ready for internal as well as
external social co-creation.
Another aspect of the P6 Framework is that it advocates a
project-based approach to co-creation. It encourages compa-
nies to consider co-creation as a project with a timeframe and
set business goals. P6 forces companies to identify specific
project requirements, come up with incentives, partner with
right people, and aim for results.

What P6 is not?

P6 covers all crucial steps and stages involved in a typical

social co-creation process - the process of the coming together
of the right kind of people with right type of inputs at the
right time for a right purpose.
But P6 does not propose a ready made solution. The steps
and stages outlined in the Framework are going to be standard.
After all, companies have to find the business priorities and the
market priorities, for instance. They have to take active part in
social interactions around their strategic areas. They need to
identify the best problems that could be put out for social co-
creation. They need to select a number of platforms where the
interactions, actions, collaborations and partnerships could take
shape. They need to promote their projects. P6 just points to
the six important aspects of co-creation that companies have
to pay close attention to.

The Co-creation Roadmap 32

 But what are not standard are the ways to achieve the desired
outcome during each of these stages. P6 is an ideation platform
for companies to evolve their own co-creation strategies. If you
are convening an initial level meeting on how to make sense of
social media-enabled co-creation, you could just use P6 Frame-
work as a basis for brainstorming in a more organized way.
With the clearly defined topics, examples, business cases,
and data, the chapters in the book also provide the suggested
action item. For the first step of co-creation, identifying the
priorities of businesses, and that of customers, the chapter
suggests that companies should create “co-creation hot spots”,
the areas where the interests of the two parties meet. This is
the action item. There is a section at the end of each chapter
that gives suggestions on the points to ponder while creating
the action items.
To sum up, companies can use P6 Framework as an ideation
platform, and evolve your own social media-enabled co-cre-
ation strategies that are best suited for your industry, people,
and capabilities.

Expert Take

On evolving a management framework for social

media enabled co-creation:

Prof Bill Fischer: Social media and technology-enabled

co-creation have the potential to profoundly change the
way in which we innovate, and the sources of ideas that
we innovate with. At the moment, open-innovation is
more typically associated with B2C endeavors, but we
are seeing a rapidly growing interest in B2B applications
as well.

The Co-creation Roadmap 33

 I have no doubt that the future will be characterized by
a much greater acceptance of collaborative innovation
in most industries, and will become an “accepted
management practice.” My MIT colleague, Eric
von Hippel, who is on the faculty members of the
IMD-MIT partnership program, Driving Strategic
Innovation, has authored a book entitled Democratizing
Innovation which I believe really captures the essence of
open innovation.

What we are really doing is opening-up participation in

the innovation process to a variety of non-traditional
partners who can bring new ideas and insights to the
task at hand. I suspect that as the “Facebook generation”
kids become assimilated into the industrial workforce,
reliance upon collaborative innovation will become
second-nature and we will never really experience the
sort of formalization process that accompanied “lean,”
or Just In Time. Truly “democratic innovation” should
benefit us all.

The Co-creation Roadmap 34

 Priority

The Co-creation Roadmap 35

 Chapter 3

Priority

The purpose of the corporation must be redefined as creating

shared value, not just profit per se. Realizing it (shared
value) will require leaders and managers to develop new
skills and knowledge—such as a far deeper appreciation
of societal needs.
Michael Porter, Management Guru

Professor C K Prahalad often pointed out that companies

dramatically fail to understand what external stakeholders – say,
customers – consider as value, especially when they themselves
decide what is good for the “outsiders”. “Co-creation is all
about sharing and empowering. People are not empowered if
they have no way of influencing how we can work together
towards a common goal,” he emphasized.
Co-creation, like mass production, concerns with generating
value - economical, social, environmental, and so on. In the
context of business, co-creation does not have its own agenda.
However, in co-creation, the value that is to be co-created gets
co-defined by all stakeholders, as opposed to the unilateral
definition of business goal just by a CEO or board members.
Co-creation is a business imperative because co-definition
is. The first Copenhagen Co-creation Summit, organized by
The Co-creation Roadmap 36
Danish Design Association in 2009, to kick start a proactive
dialogue on co-creation, produced a list of challenges busi-
nesses currently face. Among them, the most important and
fundamental challenge, one can argue, pertains to: “How can
we know, what is the common good?” In other words, what is
good for internal as well as external stakeholders?

From desired to desirable

The competitiveness of a business comes primarily from

its ability to understand the unique needs of the market, the
external stakeholders. Everything starts from a need. However,
co-creation urges companies to identify and produce the “com-
mon good” value – value for all. This aspect is what differenti-
ates co-creation from other forms of unilateral approaches to
conception or production.
When companies engage society in defining the value, it
can convert the ‘internally-desired’ objectives into ‘socially-
desirable’ goals – the common good. The co-defined goals,
naturally gain ‘the social license’ – that is, the implicit and in-
formal support from all informal quarters of the society, and
enlist maximum participation from the fans and followers of
social media platforms. In contrast, when the objective – the
end value - is defined solely by, of, and for internal stakehold-
ers, ignoring the common good, the project fails.
The business priorities and social priorities should - and can
- meet to make co-creation effective. Such meeting grounds –
the areas of mutual interest of both business and society, can
be termed as ‘co-creation hot spots’. They are the cerebral and
emotional spaces for business and society to meet, converse,
and jointly define the common good value.
One of the most famous social co-creation stories of recent
times, the Betacup Challenge, sponsored by Starbucks, found
‘environment-friendliness’ as one of its co-creation hot spots.
The Co-creation Roadmap 37
Because it addressed the business interests of Starbucks as
well as the priorities of its stakeholders. Annually, over three
billion Starbucks paper cups go to the dumps in the US, and
therefore, the company was in a need to find a sustainable
dispensing solution. The company also identified that “from
our customers’ standpoint, the cup is our No. 1 environmen-
tal liability,” says Mr Jim Hanna, Director of Environmental
Impact, Starbucks. (In reality, the supply chain of Starbucks is
causing more damage to environment.)
Since eliminating or reducing the use of paper cup was identi-
fied as a common good value, meeting the priorities of both
the business as well as the community, Starbucks launched
International Betacup Contest on April 1, 2010 (which ended
on June 15, 2010). It became a huge success.
The campaign allowed business and society jointly explore
the scope for new value creation in terms of new products,
and service practices. The betacup challenge succeeded in
“generating 430 ideas along with over 5,000 comments and a
further 10,000,000 media impressions as people discussed the
ideas over a two month period”.
Identifying the co-creation hot spots would lead to the de-
velopment of specific co-creation projects. For instance, if a
logistics company identifies “environmental protection” as one
of its co-creation hot spots, it could follow what internal and
external stakeholders say are the specific areas of improvement.
They could be reducing the packaging material or usage of
battery operated vehicles at the distribution end.
Specific problems can be identified by listening to the con-
versations of the crowd and to address which specific projects
can be designed, at a later stage.

The Co-creation Roadmap 38

 Step 1: Identify Co-Creation Hot Spots

Business priority

“What we learned: social media starts with brand priorities…

It is all about what makes sense for each brand. What are the
priorities, and what are the tools that support their goals?”
succinctly puts Mr Brian Snyder, Senior Manager, Interactive
Communications, Whirlpool, the world’s largest manufacturer
of home appliances. Whirlpool monitors customer interac-
tions, trends, discussions, suggestions, opinions, and of course,
complaints around its brands such as Maytag, Jenn-Air, Amana,
KitchenAid, Bauknecht, Brastemp, and Consul.
Each of Whirlpool’s brands has a community manager, and
a brand manager. While, the community managers engage
with fans and followers online, the company lets the brand
managers to set brand priorities that act as an anchor for the
conversations and collaborations around brands.
Successful social media-enabled co-creation projects are
initiated with one or more business priorities in mind. Nike’s
NikeID, Dell’s Ideastorm, Starbucks’ Mystarbucks, Puma’s,
Peace.Puma, GE’s Ecomagination, and Apple Inc’s portals for
The Co-creation Roadmap 39
co-creation of iPad or iPhone Apps, all have different business
and brand priorities.
For one company, the priority could be about enhancing its
product’s functionality. Therefore it could initiate co-creation
projects to source more product ideas. And for another, the
priority could be enhancing its corporate social responsibility
- it could try to co-create a social or environmental value. One
co-creation project can aim at one or more benefits. (You could
find how companies can give comprehensive “briefs” - outlin-
ing, the desired functional, economical, environmental, and
love/human value - to the crowd at the chapter on Project).
It is also possible that the business priorities of the same
company can be different at different stages of its growth. At
the startup stage, generating ideas for new products or enhanc-
ing the functionalities of products could be more important,
than revenue generation.
Writes, Nike’s CEO, Mark Parker, in his 2010 CEO letter, “In
the early days, our “systems” consisted of only those things
that helped us build better shoes and shirts, and ads and events.
We are, after all, a consumer products company. It took us a
while, but we finally figured out that we could apply these two
core competencies — design and innovation — to bring about
environmental, labor and social change. We opened the aper-
ture of our lens and discovered our potential to have a positive
influence on waste reduction, climate change, managing natural
resources, renewable energy and factory conditions.”
Mr Parker talks about bringing Nike’s peoples and assets to
solve social issues, as a way of discharging its social contract.
However, such a CSR ambition may not be feasible for a just
born business unit, trying to find customers for its new product.
Therefore, having revenue generation as an objective of a
co-creation project is more advisable for a company walking at
such a junture. Social media is not a ‘nice to have’ investment
or a public relation activity. It demands huge time, money and
The Co-creation Roadmap 40
skills. Also, it is a long-term, community-driven process. Hence,
companies should focus on the areas that are strategically im-
portant for the business, in the long run.

The RISE of Co-creation

Broadly, the business or brand priorities can be brought under

the R.I.S.E category: revenue generation, innovation, support
to stakeholders, and evangelism.
Revenue generation: NikeID, for instance, helps Nike
generate revenue by engaging customers in co-creating unique
product variants, using product configurators. The company
had announced that for the fiscal year 2010, its web sales in-
creased by 25% to about US $ 260 million, and sales from the
product configurator alone surpassed US $ 100 million.
Innovation: Dell’s IdeaStorm, launched in 2007, as a co-
creation initiative on generating innovative ideas for new
products, has so far (till mid-2011) brought over 15,000 ideas
for the company. It has implemented over 400 of them.
Starbucks’ Mystarbucks Idea, a platform that enables the
customers and other stakeholders submit, view and rate busi-
ness ideas. The project is generating hundreds of ideas every
week for Starbucks. The company also lists the actions taken
on the submitted ideas.
Support to stakeholders: Hyundai’s After Market is an of-
ficial forum and community site that provides support for the
car owners. The customers post suggestions, issues and bugs,
and get solutions from other users, company representatives,
OEM vendors. After Market receives “over 30,000 unique hits
per month, and has mobilised over 500,000 posts”.
Generating support to stakeholders with the help of com-
munities of existing customers has always been one among the
successful goals of co-creation and crowd sourcing projects.
Evangelism: GE’s Ecomagination and Puma’s Peace.Puma
The Co-creation Roadmap 41
play the role of promoting or evangelising the cause of green
power and global peace respectively. Billionheartsbeating is a
social platform of India’s Apollo Hospitals group that raise
awareness about cardiac health among the public. And,

Stakeholders’ Priorities

Companies can map stakeholder groups who might be the

potential co-creation participants for the identified business
or brand prirorities. For instance, if revenue generation is the
internal priority of a company, then its customers could be
one among the relevant or critical stakeholder groups. Because
customers might be currently experiencing some pain points
in the areas of product usage and they might be keen to en-
gage with the company in bettering the products. And better
products means more sales revenue.
South Korea’s LG Electronics identifies its business priorities,
and also the critical stakeholder groups for each of its priorities
in the following fashion:

Customers
- Increase customer satisfaction
- Supply safe products and services
- Fair marketing, provide accurate information
- Protect customer privacy
Shareholders and investors
- Publish transparent management information
- Enhance investment value through increased
efficiency of management
- Improve corporate value through CSR activities
Business Partners
- Fair trade
- Prompt Payments
- Support partner activities related to CSR
The Co-creation Roadmap 42
Community
- Minimize workplace impact on the immediate
environment and its vicinity
- Respect local cultures and customs Promote notion
of giving back to the community
- Hire local residents and contribute to local
economies
Employees
- Protect human rights and respect diversity
- Fair evaluation and rewards
- Continuous career development opportunities
- Secure safe and healthy work environments
Federal/Local Governments
- Comply with all regulations
- Pay taxes
Civic Groups/International Organizations
- Reduce greenhouse gas emissions
- Participate in and support efforts to address global
social issues
Companies can understand the priorities of stakeholder
groups, by listening to them, and interacting with them. Listen-
ing to conversations helps companies source ideas, and take re-
sponsible decisions. Naturally, companies that enjoy real social
presence, that is, companies that are actively listening and are
genuinely sensitive to the societal needs, can effectively figure
out the co-creation hot spots, where the business priorities and
societal priorities shake hand.

Companies are investing in social media search tools like

Radian6, and extensively use Google Search, Twitter Search,
to know the high priority areas – the ‘trending’ topics of the
target audience.
The instance of the stakeholder engagement of Symantec,
a software company, offers great insights into the process
The Co-creation Roadmap 43
of identifying co-creation hot spots. Symantec identifies the
co-creation hot spots or what it calls the ‘high priority areas’
through various engagement exercises such as collecting feed-
back via online and offline means. The company, then, compiled
a comprehensive list of economic, environmental, social, and
governance issues, such as “carbon footprint”, “international
activities”, “supply chain accountability”, and “diversity per-
formance” as the areas its stakeholders want the company to
address more directly.
Symantec had reviewed a range of documents and sources
reflecting aggregate stakeholder interests and concerns to
assign a stakeholder “score” to each issue. “For example,
we considered questions posed in sustainability ratings and
rankings questionnaires, responses to customer and employee
satisfaction surveys, media coverage, peer reports, and industry
and trade association documents, among other materials. At
the same time, we evaluated each issue from the perspective
of its potential impact on Symantec, taking into account pos-
sible effects on sales, brand and reputation, employees, risk
management, cost savings, and ability to deliver products and
services. Upon compiling an initial matrix, we sought external
stakeholder input by engaging our stake holder advisory council
to review the draft results and provide their feedback. We final-
ized the ranking of the issues based on their input and recom-
mendations from Symantec’s cross-functional reporting team”.
The company comes up with the following co-creation hot
spots for the immediate future: climate & energy; customer sat-
isfaction; securing information (comprising online safety, data
protection and privacy, and cybercrime prevention); diversity
& inclusion; human rights (inclusive of responsible sourcing as
well as privacy and freedom of expression); and talent retention.
It should also be noted that the list of co-creation hot spots
is not static. It may change from time to time. In the case of
Symantec, the ratings of its stakeholders changed in twelve
The Co-creation Roadmap 44
months. Governance issues such as board structure and ex-
ecutive compensation, though certainly still on stakeholders’
lists of critical corporate responsibility attributes, figured less
prominently in 2009 than they did in 2008. And human rights
concerns, both generally with regard to supply chain account-
ability and, specifically for the IT sector, freedom of expression
and privacy, rose much higher in 2009.
Having identified the hot spots, Symantec has a clear road
map for co-creation and the value it should aim for with its
stakeholders. The company’s co-creation initiative, Norton
Online Family, was based on the hot spots of “online security”
of the children. The Norton Online Family is an online safety
service that encourages forthright and open communication
between parents and children about responsible Internet usage.
This community has won several prestigious awards including
the Gold Recipient in the Online Resources category for the
2010 Mom’s Choice Awards, which honor excellence in family-
friendly media, products and services available in the US.

Initial Steps in identifying the co-creation hot spots

Co-creation hot spots are the meeting points of your internal

priorities and society’s priorities. Come up with a list of your
business or brand priorities. Map the stakeholder groups whose
participation would be critical for co-creating solutions in your
priority areas. Listen to them and engage them to know their
own priorities, and identify the mutual interest areas, the co-
creation hot spots.
Companies use a number of tools to listen to what their
customers are talking about the brand. Raidan6, a prominent
social listening tool, enables companies to monitor the social
media space to find conversations that are happening around
the brand. You could scan through media reports, conduct
surveys, setup social media monitoring tools to know the areas
The Co-creation Roadmap 45
that are very important for the customers, suppliers or any
other critical stakeholder groups.
But as suggested, it is important that you first identify your
own business or brand priorities. Mostly, your business priori-
ties could be brought under the R.I.S.E category that features
revenue generation, idea generation, support generation to
stakeholders or evangelism for a strategic cause.
Once you are clear with business priorities, it becomes easy
for you to identify the stakeholders whose participation is go-
ing to be critical to make the co-creation work.
Encourage your staff to engage with the stakeholders in
conversations with the members of critical stakeholder groups
using social media platforms. Your team could blog, tweet on
the co-creation hot spots and network with them.
It is better to begin with top most co-creation hot spots and
enage with a particular stakeholder group. For instance, Nokia
India chose to co-create new product design ideas with student
groups. It partnered with a Bengaluru-based design institute,
and set up a design studio exclusively for the students. Nokia’s
design engineers mentored the students to create prototypes
of about sixteen design product concepts. The students co-
created several design concepts.

Expert Take

On the factors that drive co-creation:

Prof Bill Fischer: There are three driving forces that

strike me as being central to all of this:

1. an imperative of speed: the clock speed of industrial

change is accelerating to a level where it has become
obvious that “we can’t do it all by ourselves,” and/or “we
can’t do it fast enough if we rely only upon ourselves.”
The Co-creation Roadmap 46
 And, with a morphing of industry boundaries, change is
not only happening faster but it is coming at us from all
directions. In many instances, the sources of challenges
are from so far outside of our traditional ways of working
that they might as well be “invisible.”

2. the acceleration of technologies (particularly

information technology) that have both created both an
awareness of the vibrancy of other people’s ideas and a
means of accessing them.

3. globalization: which has profoundly changed our

map of the world. The very fact that we are having
this conversation is a testament to the power of
globalization to put people into a position where they
can geographically enlarge their conversational space in
the pursuit of new ideas.

I believe that great innovators have always had a curiosity

about other people’s ideas and a talent for finding them.
Thomas Edison, for example, was a relentless “idea
hunter;” Charles Darwin and Joseph Priestly [one of the
discoverers of oxygen], typified the very active informal
collaboration that characterized much of 18th and 19th
century discovery. Both belonged to highly interactive
scientific communities where ideas moved rapidly from
correspondent to correspondent, being improved at
every step. When corporations became the source of
much of our contemporary innovation, a reliance upon
internal teams of innovators, a natural preoccupation
with making the right R&D investment decisions, a desire
to move products from concept to cash faster, and a
concern for the protection of “intellectual property”, all
conspired, probably unintentionally, to recast the vision
The Co-creation Roadmap 47
 of corporate innovators from outside of the organization
to inside.

Obviously, if you believe in “the idea hunt,” any sort

of inward refocusing is unfortunate, because it limits
the idea-pool that innovators can draw from. I think,
given the evidence of enormous technological progress
during the 20th century, it would be presumptuous to say
that “companies underachieved by accepting a focus on
closed-door innovation,” but, in fact, it’s probably true.

Prof Frank Piller: Customer co-creation has been

defined as an active, creative and social process, based
on collaboration between producers (retailers) and
customers (users) (Piller and Ihl 2009). Customers are
actively involved and are taking part in the design of
new products or services. Their co-creation activities are
performed in an act of company-to-customer interaction
which is facilitated by the company. The objective is to
utilize the information and capabilities of customers and
users for the innovation process.

The main benefit is to enlarge the base of information

about needs, applications, and solution technologies that
resides in the domain of the customers and users of a
product or service. Examples for methods to achieve
this objective include: user idea contests, consumer
opinion platforms, toolkits for user innovation, mass
customization toolkits, and communities for customer
co-creation.

On open innovation

Prof Frank Piller: I would say truly that closed

innovation is not possible anyway. All innovation is built 48
The Co-creation Roadmap
 on existing knowledge and some form of networking.
But the term: open innovation suggests the building
up of dedicated practices to make the connection with
the best external knowledge for a given innovation task
better and more efficient. So for me, open innovation
is not a business imperative, but a set of practices and
organizational capabilities to connect with a firm’s
periphery for innovation.

On co-creation hot spots

Andy Smith: The key point in any community is a

common cause or rallying point. In Dragonfly Effect
terms: a focused, singular clear goal. There should be no
doubt why people are there. If a business is to sponsor a
community, they first have to identify that rallying point
that is meaningful not just to the company, but to their
constituents as well. Further, each party should bring
something to the community that adds to its value, and
continually renews itself. In investment communities
such as StockTwits for example, the company brings
the core framework for a discussion about stocks, and
real-time access to financial information. The individual
members bring their experiences and opinions and the
value of the community grows as a result.
Cause-related communities can be great, but they need
to ensure that the goal is clear and that there are measur-
able elements that indicate progress so that the commu-
nity members can retain their direction and motivation.
World peace is a wonderful, aspirational goal, but it’s
achieved one step at a time, one region at a time and that’s
how a community’s micro-goals should be established
to keep participants engaged.

The Co-creation Roadmap 49

 On identifying customers’ priorities while taking
management decisions

Andy Smith: Transparency plays a key role in success

in the social space, whether you are a company or an
individual. It’s also important for companies to listen
to customers and employees when prioritizing what
(transparency) ratings to go after.

Standards that matter broadly to external stakeholders

(as well as internal rank and file stakeholders) are
generally the ones that contribute significantly to the
company’s main source of revenue. For example,
purchasing only certified free trade beans is important
if you are in the business of serving coffee, such as
Starbucks, but less relevant if you are a tool and die
manufacturer. Similarly, becoming ISO9000 certified
is important for the tool and die company, but is not a
burning question on the mind of Starbucks customer
waiting in line for their latte.

The Co-creation Roadmap 50

 Participation

The Co-creation Roadmap 51

 Chapter 4

Participation

When we truly grasp the ability to define action and measure

it, we can expand the impact of new media beyond P&L.
We can adapt business processes, inspire ingenuity, and
more effectively compete for the future
Brian Solis, Author, Engage

In his book: “Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny”,

Amartya Sen says that identities offer “a sense of belonging
to a community” and is “a resource, like capital”. Companies
can mobilize the ‘social capital’ by promoting communities
around people’s identities as ‘citizens’, ‘customers’, ‘profession-
als’, ‘environmentalists’, ‘social activists’, ‘creative commons’,
‘students’, ‘artists’, etc for strategic business value.
Social capital is getting figured in the integrated ‘one report’
balance sheets of corporates because of its contributions to
business valuation. Today, companies are being viewed primar-
ily as a portfolio of co-creation platforms and communities
that produce value.
Millward Brown Optimor (MBO), a consulting firm, has
put Apple first, ahead of Google, in its list of world’s valuable
brands of 2011. In MBO’s estimate, the value of Apple is over
The Co-creation Roadmap 52
US$ 150 billion as the firm includes Apple’s community in its
valuation. MBO reasons that Apple is not just a company “it is a
trinity of platform, content, and device”. MBO also points out
that “Apple’s co-creation approach resulted in roughly 350,000
Apple apps, and it added value to the product and the brand...”

The Question of ROI

A 2010 McKinsey Report identifies: “Since, co-creation is

a two-way process, companies must also provide feedback to
stimulate continuing participation and commitment”.
Companies should give equal weightage to their own social
media participation: how many ideas do they submit to a third
party idea contest? how many comments do they leave to a
relevant blog post? how many surveys do they take part? In
short, what is their contribution as co-creators?
However, the return on investment of the executive time on
social media is the most debated aspect of corporate social
strategy. The currently popular social media ROI metrics such
as the number of page views, comments, retweets or the fans
and followers make sense only to silos: marketing or corporate
communication departments. By default, companies engage the
marketing or the corporate communication team to manage
the social media show. This shows that social media is largely
understood as a tool meant for generating business leads and
PR buzz.
At the other extreme are companies that consider social
media participation as a type of corporate social responsibil-
ity - “giving back to society”. However, in reality, social media
participation is about “going back to society” to seek ideas to
run every aspect of wealth creation and distribution.
However, in the absence of metrics on business benefits
of social media, companies do not allocate funds and do not
generally allow their staff to participate in social media.
The Co-creation Roadmap 53
 Despite growing adoption of social media by customers
and other key stakeholders, even big corporate houses are not
completely ready for social media participation. Companies do
not have a system in place that would explore the benefits and
threats of social media participation. Many companies choose
to discourage the participation of their employees and execu-
tives in social media, instead of guiding and governing their
social media participation.
In this context, forming an exclusive high level team to har-
ness the power of social media is an important indicator of
social co-creation readiness of a company.
It is high time companies created executive positions with
co-creation/open innovation mandates. An example comes
from Adobe. The company has set up an exclusive department
for open innovation, and created a leadership position, “Idea
Mentor” to take full responsibility for its co-creation initiatives.
The job of the Idea Mentor is to create an idea platform and
champion innovation at all levels within and without the orga-
nization. The Idea Mentor directly reports to Adobe’s Chief
Technology Officer.

Step 2: Setup a Co-creation Board

As the recent business valuation trends prove, the function

of listening to, and participating in, social media conversations
is too strategic and central to all business operations to leave
it to the purview of any one particular department. Therefore
companies need to form a multi-disciplinary team.

To tap the wisdom of crowds, companies should establish a

social media/co-creation team, “co-creation board”, headed,
advisably by the Chief Executive Officer, and represented by
people from across the organization. The multi-disciplinary
co-creation board can collectively address some of these chal-
The Co-creation Roadmap 54
lenges:
How to let the people who make up the corporation respond
to people who make up the market?
How to define ROI?
How to evolve corporate social strategies?
How to create policies and systems of social participation?
How to provide training for people to make use of the tools?
How to prevent social media from bankrupting employee’s
managerial bandwidth?
Today, the rate of participation of C-suite executives in
corporate social interactions is almost negligible. Going by a
2011 study by Altimeter, a business consulting company, only
The Co-creation Roadmap 55
7% of the positions of “corporate social strategists” are held
by Vice Presidents. In many organizations, the managers of
marketing or communication departments also double up as
corporate social strategists, who provide “leadership, road map
definition, and governance” and directly influence “the spend-
ing on technology vendors and service agencies”.

Organizational Models

In terms of organization of the board, it could be hub and

spoke or decentralized. Mr Jeremiah Owing of Altimeter Group
cites that there can be as many as five organizational types,
including: organic, where “Social efforts bubble up from the
edges of the company, much like Sun Micrososystems, which
encourages a blogging culture for all employees”; Centralized,
where “one department (usually corporate communications)
controls all social efforts”; Coordinated, wherein “a cross-
functional team sits in centralized position and helps various
nodes such as business units, product teams, or geographies
be successful through training, education, support,”; Multiple
Hub & Spoke, where ‘companies within companies’ act nearly
autonomously from each other under a common brand”, and
Holistic, where “everyone is in customer service and support
and anyone who wants to be social is enabled.”
Though there are pros and cons attached to each of this
model, the objective is to encourage both internal and external
participation that would result in meaningful conversations
and collaborations. Let us consider how different organiza-
tions have different organizational models for social media
and co-creation.
Intel: Intel has a social media centre of excellence to provide
guidance, policies, and company-wide tools to help Intel em-
ployees interact using social media. The centre of excellence
created a comprehensive set of social media policies that are
The Co-creation Roadmap 56
available in over 35 languages designed to help everyone use
social media in a responsible way. It also developed a curriculum
and certification program for employees: Digital IQ. If an Intel
employee wants to know how to blog on behalf of Intel, he or
she has just to watch a 30-minute training video developed by
Intel’s social media team. Out of Intel’s 80,000-odd employees,
over 1,000 employees have undergone the training, and they
tweet using more than 250 accounts.
Intel’s centre of excellence had played a key role forging
relationships with all functional departments, apart from legal,
public relations, and marketing. According to Mr Bryan Rhoads,
the Digital Strategist of Intel, the objective of the centre, is
“getting as many voices as possible involved in the company’s
social media efforts.”

Dell: Dell has created a social media support team with about
26 employees spread across the U.S., China and Latin America.
Using various monitoring tools, the social media support team
listens to the conversations that take place across Twitter,
Facebook, and other social media networking sites and forums.
Dell has a Social Media Listening Command Center, which
monitors “more than 25,000 Dell-related topic posts every
day”. Dell used to support its customers in Twitter through
individuals like @ChrisBatDell, @BillatDell and many others
but recently, the company formalised and rolled out centralized
accounts: @DellCares and @DellOutlet. @DellOutlet enjoys
a whooping 1.5 million followers (March 2011).
P&G: P&G has an External Business Development team
that ensures that the ideas and solutions submitted to PGcon-
nectdevelop.com, its open innovation portal, are shared with
individuals within the company who are best suited to evaluate
them. The company designates a representative, who serves
as a contact or an interface between the company and each
innovator. The executives assign the submissions to the right
The Co-creation Roadmap 57
person or team within P&G, and responds to the innovators.
The representative is trained to judge who within the organiza-
tion would be best suited to review solutions. The portal itself
is designed in such a way that all of the business units within
P&G can access the innovations that are received through the
portal.
Ebay has created a Center of Excellence that provides
resources to business functions like HR, strategy, corporate
communicaiton, and also to production. They provide social
strategy, alignment of roadmaps and plans, and analytics.
Ford: Ford formed a social media and co-creation team:
Social Media Action & Response Team (SMART) in 2008 to
monitor the online space for opportunities to help customers.
The core team has six people across the company dedicated to
social media, while another 20 executives and managers take
part in social media as part of their wider roles. Ford is active
on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Scribd, etc.
JetBlue: JetBlue constituted a working group of subject
matter experts from a variety of departments spanning com-
munications, marketing, customer relations, and operations
who engage directly with customers. JetBlue has a presence
on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and runs Blue Tales, a
branded blog.
Whirlpool: Whirlpool employs three full time staff and
engages about 300-400 people - its total head count is 71,000
- representing many departments such as customer care, public
relations, digital marketing, manufacturing, etc, to monitor cus-
tomer interactions, trends, discussions, suggestions, opinions,
and of course, complaints. The staff who monitor social media
are known as “digital detectives”, who measure its social media
participation: number of responses, number of consumers
contacted, time elapsed between complaint of comment and
contacting the customer, length of interaction, the size of the
online general conversation about appliances, etc.
The Co-creation Roadmap 58
 The company adds product managers to the feedback loop so
that they could see suggestions and incorporate them in their
next products and to make improvements to existing products.

Co-creation Champions

In all of the organizational models, the linchpins are the

co-creation champions, internal staffs or outside experts, who
facilitate conversations and collaborations on behalf of either
the organization or the community. Intel calls its champions
Intel Insiders, IBM, “jammers”, while Starbucks titles them
“Idea Partners”.
The primary role of the co-creation champions is to engage
the participants, spending time for them, understanding them,
coming up with right type of incentives for them. The cham-
pions could represent a particular interest group, cause, or
domain. They could be individuals or organizations, who can
facilitate the conversation between people within the organi-
zation and people outside the organization. To be successful
champions should have a collaborative attitude, communication
skills, and product expertise.

Prof Venkat Ramaswamy in his blog writes about the key role
played by the co-creation champions - who serve as a bridge
between internal members of a company and its fans - in the
co-creation success, citing the case of Starbucks. Starbucks
launched My Starbucks Idea, a co-creation platform in 2008.
The company’s champions: ‘Idea Partners’, build communities,
by responding to blog comments, Facebook queries, submis-
sion of ideas by customers at MyStarbucks Idea, the flagship
co-creation platform of the company. The Idea Partners en-
gage with customers directly, and regularly. They take part in
conversations not only with external participants but also with
the internal team on behalf of the community.
The Co-creation Roadmap 59
 Prof Ramaswamy writes:

“Starbucks has been successful because it has dedicated

employees called Idea Partners who carry and champion
the reviewed and chosen ideas inside the organization,
providing “feedback on feedback” (i.e. replying to and
discussing suggestions) and having a continuous conver-
sation with customers.
For example, a Starbucks Idea Partner, Katie Thom-
son, a registered dietician and senior nutritionist at Star-
bucks, engaged in dialogue not only with the customer
community on the new food offerings they wanted,
but also with the company’s supply chain on ingredient
changes that were not only about healthier options but
also “aroma reducing”, so as not to interfere with the
smell of coffee and detract from the Starbucks brand’s
core “coffeehouse experience” which it was trying to
reinvigorate at the same time.
By also using the same platform to spur dialogue inter-
nally (just like on the supplier side), Starbucks has been
able to engage other “functions” inside the organization,
connecting them with external customer insights, as well
as those from baristas in its stores who are also encour-
aged to participate in problem solving implementation
challenges.”

Initial steps in setting up a Co-creation Board

Before trying to streamline, structure, and manage co-creation

formally, companies need to be strongly committed to social
co-creation. We see companies like Dell and Nike demonstrat-
ing excellence in social media-enabled co-creation. They have
senior people heading their social media operations. They have
The Co-creation Roadmap 60
dedicated infrastructure, equipped with robust social media
monitoring tools, analysis, social intelligence software, well
defined policies, trained man power, and customer empower-
ing web features.
However, the key drivers of these initiatives are the genuine
commitment of people at the top to explore new ways of
democratising business and creating a win-win for all.
Get the participation of chief and senior executives and
establish a co-creation board with the participation of people
from multiple disciplines: from manufacturing to marketing.
Define the roles and goals of co-creation board. Make sure
that things like social media training, designing of socia media
guidelines, and mentoring are going to be the important tasks
of the co-creation board.
In the absence of a drive from the ranks of the chief execu-
tives, it would be difficult to form even a mailing list that costs
almost nothing. And the participation will be zero if there are
no consistent effort in the forms of workshops, orientation
programs to internally market the idea of co-creation and how
it can help them solve their day-to-day problems. You could
consider creating an exclusive position within the organization
with the mandate to drive the participation of senior executives
and staff in the activities, discussions of the co-creation board.
The co-creation board should be headed not by the manager
of a particular department but desirably by the chief executive.
Organizations can also engage external experts in evolving
the social media goals, co-creation projects, and importantly
in formulating the desirable goals of the co-creation board.
Companies can engage experts, celebrities and influencers
to act as champions, and represent them in the social media
space. The sports brand, Puma launched PUMA.Peace, a cor-
porate social responsibility initiative, and partners with Jeremy
Gilley, a film maker, who runs Peace One Day, a not-for profit
organisation to raise awareness of UN International Day of
The Co-creation Roadmap 61
Peace (21st September), an annual day of global ceasefire and
non-violence.
PUMA.Peace and Peace One Day launched ‘One day One
goal’ to conduct goodwill football matches all over the world on
the international peace day. In 2010, over 3,000 One Day One
Goal commemorative football matches were played around the
globe on or around Peace Day in every UN Member State. And
this would not have been possible without Puma partnering
with Jeremy, the co-creation champion, who has a passion, and
influence in the particular community.
When the co-creation champions are not full time employees,
but lead users, external experts, consultants, their presence can
naturally add more credibility to the co-creation projects.

Expert Take

On setting up co-creation boards with representa-

tions from multiple functional heads

Prof Frank Piller: There are still very few companies

that have a co-creation team in place, many don’t
even have one functional manager taking care of the
initiative. But this will change, and I that the first (mover)
companies are building interdisciplinary teams.

On engaging lead users

Prof Frank Piller: I would like to quote Eric von Hippel,

who is the originator of the “Lead User” concept, which
I believe is at the very essence of open-innovation. “Lead
Users” are non-traditional partners who are struggling
with the very issues that an innovating firm will likely
face in the future, even if they are not yet aware of it.
The Co-creation Roadmap 62
 “Lead Users” are before early adopters, and may never
actually become customers, but they can contribute to
the innovating firm’s insights and projects, if they are
allowed to, out of a love for the game and a need to
overcome frustrations with existing offerings.

Research, originating by the path-breaking work by

Eric von Hippel at the MIT has shown that many
commercially important products or processes are
initially thought of by innovative users rather than by
manufactures. Especially when markets are fast-paced
or turbulent, the lead users face specific needs ahead of
the general market participants.

Lead users are characterized as users who (1) face the

needs that will become general in a marketplace, much
earlier before the bulk of that marketplace encounters
them; and (2) are positioned to benefit significantly by
obtaining a solution for those needs.

But lead users are no average customers or users. There

are only very few lead users. Average customers are in
general neither innovative nor do they want to engage
in innovation.Hence, it is the task of a company to
identify these lead users by specific search and screening
methods. There is not enough space here to describe
these methods, but they are very well documented (look
atEric von Hippel’s MIT homepage for some examples).

Brian Millar: Sci Fi writer William Gibson said that

the future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed.
Co-creation means going out and looking for it, finding
the people who are using products - or abusing them,
or rejecting them - in a way which the rest of us one day
The Co-creation Roadmap 63
 might adopt.

We’ve spent over ten years building up an online

global network of creative thinkers and doers. Classic
market researchers look for the people in the middle
of the bell curve - your typical customer. We look for
extremists. Sense Worldwide has recruited a pagan witch,
a newspaper editor, an airline pilot, a TV mogul, and a
prescription drug addict.

Case Example on
Corporate Social Media Readiness

Today, Dell is widely appreciated for its excellence in

creating a social presence and pushing the frontiers
of co-creation. It listens to 25,000 daily conversations
that mention the brand. For some of these pioneering
initiatives, Dell won the Open Leadership Award of
Altimeter Group, a business consultancy promoted by
Charlene Li, author of Open Leadership. The citation reads
that Dell is “continually pushing the boundaries of social
business by pushing engagement into all areas of their
business practice.” Cumulatively, Dell had received more
than 170,000 customer ratings and reviews on various
online platforms across 62 countries, while its main
Facebook Page has more than 360,000 fans.
However till 2005, Dell was a laggard in social media.
Its social media policy used to be, in the words of one
its spokespersons, “look, don’t touch”. Jeff Jarvis, an
ordinary Dell customer became famous for his series
of Dell Hell blog posts that were about the company’s
poor customer service. In one of his posts, Jarvis gave
“some friendly and free advice about these blog things”
The Co-creation Roadmap 64
 to Dell, which is relevant to all companies, even today,
and word for word. He wrote:
“1. Read blogs. Go to Technorati, Icerocket, Google,
Bloglines, Pubsub, and search for Dell and read what
they’re saying about you. Get it out of your head that
these are “bloggers,” just strange beasts blathering. These
are consumers, your marketplace, your customers — if
you’re lucky. They are just people. You surely spend a
fortune on consumer research, on surveys and focus
groups and think tanks to find out what people are
thinking. On blogs, they will tell you for free. All you have
to do is read them. All you have to do is listen.
2. Talk with your consumers. One of your executives said
you have a look-don’t-touch policy regarding blogs. How
insulting that is: You ignore your consumers? You act
as if we’re not here? How would you like it if you gave
someone thousands of dollars and they ignored you?
You’re not used to being treated that way. Neither are we.
It’s just rude. These bloggers care enough to talk about
your products and service and brands. The least you can
do is engage them and join the conversation. You will
learn more than any think tank can ever tell you about
what the market thinks of your products. But go to the
next step: Ask ask your consumers what they think you
should do. You’ll end up with better products and you’ll
do a better job selling them to more satisfied customers
who can even help each other, if you’ll let them. It’s good
business, gentlemen.
3. Blog. If Microsoft and Sun and even GM,
fercapitalismsake, can have their smartest blogging. So
why shouldn’t you? Or the better question: Why should
you? Because it’s a fad? No. Because it will make you
cool with your kids? No. Blog because it shows that you
are open and unafraid — no, eager — to engage your
The Co-creation Roadmap 65
 consumers, eye-to-eye.
4. Listen to all your bad press and bad blog PR and
consumer dissatisfaction and falling stock price and to
the failure of your low-price strategy and use that blog
to admit that you have a problem. Then show us how
you are going to improve quality and let us help. Make
better computers and hire customer service people who
serve customers.
.

The Co-creation Roadmap 66

 Problem

The Co-creation Roadmap 67

 Chapter 5

Problem

From my perspective, “problem places” are a core element

of open innovation.
Prof Frank Piller,
RWTH Aachen University, Germany

Companies in Quebec, a province in East-Central Canada,

went ahead hosting what is perhaps the world’s first “Problem
Conference” in 2010. The Problem Conference had asked busi-
nesses to talk about the problems they were facing, instead of
their expertise, capabilities, know-hows, track records, etc. The
participants were representatives from about 50 companies and
institutions in Quebec.
The problems submitted by the companies ranged from
innovation problems (of economic, organizational, social, or
political in nature), industrial problems (new technology de-
velopment or in product design or improvement), large scale
problems (an international organization facing a number of
complex innovation issues).
The Conference featured “information walls” (problem walls)
that were used to post technical data sheets, graphics and other
The Co-creation Roadmap 68
materials that described the problems. The participants dis-
cussed with people from companies to understand the broader
or micro aspects of their problems. After gaining a thorough
understanding, they offered solutions.
Prof Frank Piller, who was instrumental in organizing the
Problem Conference, was thrilled to find the enthusiastic par-
ticipation of “society” in solving business problems. He writes
that the companies that participated in the Conference gained:

Many new contacts

Networked outside the “normal” network
Generated new ideas for applications
Gained a better understanding of the problem
Initiated research contracts
Identified more cost effective solutions
(not better, but much cheaper)

“On a higher level, this conference is part of a much larger

general trend: The development of problem places – commu-
nities and platforms where problems are being posted looking
for potential seekers, enabling un-obvious connections in many
perspectives,” Piller observes.

Benefits of Problem Broadcast

The ability to understand and willingness to be open about

the problems are the key managerial traits that are needed for
co-creation. It is not the ‘know-how’ but “tell how” attitude
that is the hallmark of co-creation because it is all about seek-
ing solutions, and not selling expertise. Only ‘fools’ can truely
co-create. The ‘know-how’ companies, on the other hand,
would end up reducing a co-creation project into a PR stunt.
Social media offers the opportunity to ask for help. But most
companies are not used to asking. They fear of losing the cor-
The Co-creation Roadmap 69
porate identity that is so strongly built around “know-how”
expertise. One of the recent examples, is British Petroleum,
the world’s fifth largest company. The oil spill led 4,900,000
barrels of crude oil flow for three months in 2010 in the Gulf
of Mexico. Before the leak was stopped, the company was
spilling over 50,000 barrels into the ocean every single day.
Alarmed at the enormity of the crisis, people wrote e-mails,
offered their suggestions through open innovation platforms
like InnoCentive - there were about 5000 suggestions per day
on average from “outsiders” who wanted to help the company
stop the leak and protect the environment.
However, BP was busy engaging its public relations team to
‘save’ its brand. It had spent more than $90 million on PR in
the first three months of the spill, putting out advertisements
in print media about its cleaning up initiatives. Meanwhile, the
press kept reporting that BP was not honest in its communica-
tions. BP’s PR team used social media - Twitter, as push-media.
It tweeted but not responded to tweets.
“BP would not answer technical questions from our Solv-
ers and would not agree to review proposed solutions,” said
Dwayne Spradlin, Head, InnoCentive, which sought ideas from
its community of solvers to stop the spill. “BP did eventually
open up its own call for ideas and proposals. But their approach
was far too broad, unfocused, and lacked sufficient transpar-
ency (particularly related to accurate technical data at the spill
site) to elicit truly valuable submissions. Some argued they were
simply responding to media pressure. Regardless, it was likely
too little and too late to be make any real difference.”
BP episode showed how corporates are unprepared for open
innovation and lack corporate social strategy of sharing prob-
lems as challenges, and seeking solutions from society, from
peers, from regulators, from academia, from media, and from
local communities.

The Co-creation Roadmap 70

 Open Corporate

Innumerable studies say that knowledge and business in-

sights are widely but unevenly distributed in society. There is
no guarantee that a company can easily identify who will bring
the next big idea to your business. Hence, companies should
be open to engaging with the crowd - in addition to employees
and customers, in co-defining, and co-creating value.
Mr Steven Johnson, author of Where Good Ideas Come From,
says many significant inventions in the world of business and
science in the past had come from “open-source/academic,
collaborative networks” and “idea-sharing amateurs” than
from the competitive sphere of the marketplace: the “private
corporation or solo entrepreneur”, and “market place of in-
terconnected private firms”
Mr Johnson had analyzed 300 of the most influential innova-
tions in science, commerce and technology — from the dis-
covery of vacuums to the vacuum tube to the vacuum cleaner,
and concludes: “The conventional wisdom, of course, is that
market forces drive innovation, with businesses propelled to
new ideas by the promise of financial reward. And yet even
in the heyday of industrial and consumer capitalism over the
last two centuries, the fourth quadrant (amateurs) turns out to
have generated more world-changing ideas than the competi-
tive sphere of the marketplace,” he concludes.
A comprehensive study titled, The Value of Openness in Scientific
Problem Solving, finds that the broadcast of problem informa-
tion to outside scientists results in about 30% resolution rate
for scientific problems that had previously remained unsolved
inside the R & D laboratories of well-known science-driven
firms. The authors analysed that the data about disclosing of
problem information of about 166 discrete scientific prob-
lems to a large group of outside solvers - 80,000 independent
scientists from over 150 countries. “The approach solved one-
The Co-creation Roadmap 71
third of a sample of problems that large and well-known R &
D-intensive firms had been unsuccessful in solving internally,”
they realized.
Only open corporates can solicit the participation of the
crowd. However, with the emergence of co-creation communi-
ties, promoted by companies like Innocentive, the culture of
broadcasting problem is proving to be effective for business
in putting social media into innovative use.

Step 3: Create a Problem Wall

Companies can now turn to online customer forums or social

media sites to know the problems in connection with their
products or business behaviour. Facebook and Twitter, often,
serve as spaces for the public to post the problems. However,
proactively, companies can create an exclusive Problem Wall -
an external website to encourage the stakeholders to come up
with the problems and engage with the company in a dialogue.
Shell, a global giant in energy and petrochemical, with opera-
tions in about 90 countries, was the very first global conglom-
erate to solicit information on the problems from the public.
In 1998, it launched Tell Shell, which has now become Shell
Dialogues, to encourage open debate. Shell Dialogue has a
‘debating chamber’ where the external stakeholders can have
their say on Shell’s operations.
Recommendedly, companies can create a micro site or a
web page in the existing corporate site to inform the public
the problems related to the particular business. Having such a
page can drive home the point that the company is culturally
ready for open innovation.
When the US President Mr Barack Obama announced the
Open Government Initiative in 2009, he made sure that White
House.gov and the websites of all other government depart-
ments had a open government dashboard that can be located
The Co-creation Roadmap 72
by the public by adding “/open” to the web address.
Extending the logic, companies can have a “/problems” sec-
tion to their website and list the problems they believe can be
solved by applying co-creation principles. It should encourage
dialogues on the problems. Creating the problem wall could
mark a new shift in internal and corporate social engagement.
It would create a culture based on “problem broadcast” and
collaboration.
Communicating problems can soon become a norm of the
day. One of the best examples of how problem walls can be
converted into co-creation platforms comes from The Procter
& Gambles’ Pgconnectdevelop.com. It is an open innovation
portal, which publishes the descriptions of the problems the
company faces, chiefly, in its research and product develop-
ment domain. P&G claims that over 50 percent of its product
initiatives at the company involve significant collaboration with
outside innovators.
The Co-creation Roadmap 73
 Anyone can browse P&G’s current needs. The company
describes its problems in terms of technology, production,
research, etc and crowd sources ideas that address a big, un-
met consumer need. The portal offers new benefits to existing
P&G products. Mr Bruce Brown, Chief Technology Officer,
says that the P&G’s co-creation strategy already has resulted
in more than 1,000 active agreements. “Types of innovations
vary widely, as do the sources and business models. Inbound
or out, know-how or new products, examples of our success
are as diverse as our product categories. We are interested in
all types of high-quality, on-strategy business partners, from
individual inventors or entrepreneurs to smaller companies and
those listed in the Fortune 500 — even competitors.”

Initial Steps in Creating a Problem Wall

The Problem Wall is a company designated space - a digital

platform like a website or portal - that is used by companies
and stakeholders to post problems. This dedicated public web-
site to provide descriptions about its problems, to encourage
stakeholders to raise issues. Companies can talk about what it
is doing to solve them, and what ways people can participate
in the problem solving process.
Before going public with the problem wall, companies can
open one for internal co-creation. An Intranet problem wall
can encourage employees to post, for instance, the bugs or
defects of the products or services.
Organizations can let its people choose the problems in
their respective functions or roles that could be put out for
social co-creation. Ms Gisela Jönsson, a participant of an idea
contest site, Management Innovation Exchange, proposes:
“Instead of organizing people into “functions” we may take
a cue from some of the greatest games, and organize around
“quests”. That may sound very designed, but what it means
The Co-creation Roadmap 74
is ad hoc, problem centric organization in which people are
allowed to organize themselves around what they perceive to
be meaningful, important problems in need of solving.”

Expert Take

On corporates not being open about problems

Prof Frank Piller: This [not being open about problems]

indeed is one of the largest challenges we see in the field
today. Many companies know about the tools or methods
to co-create, but they are not ready internally, to exploit
the knowledge generation with their customers and users.

This is a field where I believe we also need more research.

Firms need more information and better guidance on
how to assess whether their organization and branch
is suited for customer co-creation. This information
is crucial in order to build specific competences that
aid firms in identifying opportunities and ultimately in
using the right method. Managers need a clear picture
of their own organizational settings and capabilities
before being able to answer important questions during
the implementation of one’s own customer integration
initiative. This could include answers to questions like:
How do innovation projects have to be reorganized?
Which kinds of projects are suited for customer
integration? and so on.

On the key aspects of the “managerial readiness”

of companies to tap the wisdom of crowds

Soren Petersen: Need for approval and control are the

limiting factors of management’s readiness to engage in
The Co-creation Roadmap 75
 crowdsourcing. By it’s very nature, product develop-
ment is ideally suited to leverage crowdsourcing.
Every human interaction is a form of business and
only a small number of these interactions involve an
exchange of money to facilitate transactions. Money is
the storage of reciprocity. Crowdsourcing super charges
interactions by rapidly and economically tapping into
the wisdom of the crowd, supporting exponential
progress, as well as demise. One’s ability to frame, guide,
sustain and interpret the online conversation on a large
scale can translate into their competitive advantage.

The Co-creation Roadmap 76

 Project

The Co-creation Roadmap 77

 Chapter 6

Project
“At root, the logic of open innovation is based on a
landscape of abundant knowledge, which must be used
readily if it is to provide value to the company”
Henry William Chesbrough, author,
Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating
and Profiting from Technology

In the P6 roadmap of co-creation, companies begin the

journey with identifying co-creation hot spots. They actively
participate in social media conversations and collaborations
with their customers, suppliers, media, and other external
stakeholders. Internally or externally, they set up problem walls
for stakeholders to post the problems for co-creation.
However, the step that formally initiates co-creation is de-
signing of a co-creation project: an idea contest, developer
challenge, etc. In short, companies should prompt the stake-
holders to take action.
One can find hundreds of examples of how companies
tried co-creation and crowd sourcing for centuries. All along
companies have realized the benefit of enlisting the support
of key external stakeholders such as customers in several ways,
involving a variety of partnerships.
In 1936, Toyota received 27,000 contributions from which
their corporate logo was designed. The US$ 1 billion MRF,
India’s largest tyre manufacturer, had crowd-sourced its muscle
man logo, though in a traditional way. The MRF’s advertising
The Co-creation Roadmap 78
agency interviewed truck drivers on Indian roads before com-
ing up with the muscle man symbol.
However, co-creation is more than crowd sourcing logos.
There is a need to introduce co-creation in the areas beyond
marketing. Co-creation can be used to define business practices,
corporate governance, etc. People want to engage themselves
in co-creation concerning not just slogan contests of products
but also about what goes into the making of the products and
even making of the company itself. Companies can partner
with them to co-create managerial ideas that govern everything
from the boardroom to the shop floor.

Idea Contests versus Configuration Challenges

Generally, idea contest is the popular choice for companies

seeking new value (new product development, for instance),
while configuration challenges are used for co-creating value
addition to existing products and services.
For instance, a mobile phone company can ask its fans and
followers to submit new product features. Co-creation of new
value is almost always a separate, and standalone exercise, not
connected with the existing consumption process.
In contrast, configuration challenges are examples of co-
creation of value addition, using existing components, under
fixed product frameworks. LEGO is highly successful in pro-
viding the co-creation experience for its customers. It hands
over the building bricks to the customers to create their own
structures and objects.
LEGO was a pioneer in mass customization. In 2004, it
selected four ‘master builders’ and asked them to develop its
next generation robots. Later LEGO formalized its co-creation
as an ongoing project, called LEGO Mindstorms, that invite
thousands of individual builders and even business entities to
help LEGO introduce new product concepts. Many design
The Co-creation Roadmap 79
contests follow LEGO’s way of giving the base components
online to co-create new product variants.

Configuration Challenges for Value Addition

Co-creation projecs that aim for value-addition to a product

extensively use the concept of “configuration”, letting the cus-
tomers arrange components to create their own forms, figures
or combinations. Online product configurators help compa-
nies and customers co-create new product variants and, in the
process, unique experience of production and consumption.
Companies only provide a non-configurable base for customers
to play around with new combinations of components, colors,
etc. The non-configurable base is used by the participants to
build their ideas upon.
Linux, an open source operating system, can be said as a well
known case of co-creation of value addition. In 1991, Linus
Torvalds, a Finnish software engineer, wrote codes for an oper-
ating system. He put out his codes and invited other developers
to contribute and build upon. Torvalds’ codes - Linux kernel,
served as a non-configurable base or a framework, for other
programmers to develop the software into a full-fledged op-
erating system. The Linux co-creation project is credited with
launching the open source movement in the software industry,
to a large extent.
“It (co-creation) is really all about having a non-configurable
base,” says Mr Simon Holloway of Bloor Research, one of
Europe’s leading IT research, analysis and consultancy organ-
isations. Holloway cites various cases of configuration from
different industries - from automotive industry, defence sector,
pottery, to prove that all of them offered a non-configurable
base product for the stakeholders.
“In the automotive industry, customers are already able to
choose options to add to the base models – so this is configura-
The Co-creation Roadmap 80
tion. In the aerospace industry, airlines and defence ministries
are able to choose options such as engines, seats, weapon
systems – this is configuration. Recently I was visiting a small
pottery in England and they offered people the chance to
come in on a particular day and put their design on a teapot –
this is configuration. If you notice all of these examples, the
configuration starts from there being a non-configurable base
solution – a car model, an aeroplane or a teapot,” he says.
The configuration wave is catching up with a wide range
of industries. There are custom clothing companies that use
configurators to let their customers enter their measurement,
design their own clothes, and place the order.
There are a number of pure-play co-creation startups that
have created new business models around the concept of
configuration of products like chocolate, jewelry, T-shirts,
etc using a non-configurable base. But established brands like
The Co-creation Roadmap 81
Hallmark, M&Ms, and Wrigley too have become popular in
the social co-creation space.
At www.MyExtraGum.com, a co-creation site of Wrigley,
consumers begin the ordering process by choosing a specific
theme and template and personalize the pack by adding a
message and photo of their choice. Consumers visit www.My-
ExtraGum.com and upload photos and messages to celebrate
and remember a variety of occasions such as weddings, baby
showers, birthdays and vacations among others.
The US-based Local Motors, an automotive player, provides
its standard car chassis and sources car design ideas that would
go on top of that. Local Motors specifies the target segment
that fits the price point, and asks the community of car enthu-
siasts to design new car models. The company puts the winning
design on the common chassis and markets them.
Apple engages its users to co-create mobile applications for
iPhone and iPAD. The Apple engineers offer tools like interface
builders that enable the participants produce user interface
designs using drag and drop features.
Pepsi India’s Your Lays Flavour, a crowd sourcing campaign,
aimed to collect the choices of customers in terms of flavours
to its products. It attracted about 1.3 million votes for differ-
ent flavour entries. In India, Lays contest is perhaps the largest
crowd sourcing campaign till date.

Idea Contests for New Value Creation

In the case of co-creation of new value, there is no product

or solution base. Participants have to conceive a new value –
product idea or solution.
Here are the descriptions of some of the successful idea and
design contests carried out by companies in the recent times:
Pepsi launched a marketing campaign in early 2007 which al-
lowed consumers to design the look of a Pepsi can. The win-
The Co-creation Roadmap 82
ners received a $10,000 prize, and their artwork was featured
on 500 million Pepsi cans around the United States.
In 2008, Cisco Systems launched I-Prize contest and sought
the participation of the crowd to create innovative business
plans using collaborative technologies. The contest attracted
the participation of about 2,500 people from over 104 coun-
tries. The winning submission was about a business plan that
demonstrated how IP technology could be used to increase
energy efficiency effectively.
General Electric is running Ecomagination, a multi-million
dollar challenge, to find new, breakthrough ideas to create
cleaner, more efficient and economically viable grid technolo-
gies, and to accelerate the adoption of smart grids.
Adobe conducted Adobe Idol campaign to find new product
ideas. The competition generated over 750 participants, and
almost 100 idea submissions, 3 of which were actually submit-
ted by Adobe’s Co-Founder.
In 2010, the BMW Group launched the Idea Contest titled
“Tomorrow’s Urban Mobility Services” that sought new ideas
for mobility services in tomorrow‘s urban areas. BMW asked its
fans to submit creative ideas pertaining to innovative services
in the area of automotive mobility in cities and metropolitan
areas of the future.
Threadless conducts Love Threadless challenges in asso-
ciation with not-for profit organizations to promote various
causes. Yahoo! and Edison Nation organised a Make-It-Green
contest that sought green product ideas to improve people’s
lives and the planet’s environment.
Google conducts Google Code Jam, an annual, global coding
contest to write programs to solve tough algorithmic problems.
The Code Jam lets the participants use the programming lan-
guage of their choice. The winner – Code Jam Champion – wins
home the $10,000 top prize.
IBM’ Smarter Planet initiative, launched in 2008, is an idea
The Co-creation Roadmap 83
contest project that aims to solve business and societal chal-
lenges. It is also one of the largest co-creation initiatives.

Step 5: Design a Co-Creation Project

Depending on the need companies can design co-creation

contests: configuration/developer challenges (for value addi-
tion) or idea contests (for new value creation). The co-creation
projects can be run using their own or third-party portals.
Co-creation communities such as Jovoto, Innocentive, etc.,
invite companies to publish the project descriptions, the type
of solutions they seek, benefits of the desirable solution, the
methods of taking part in the co-creation contest, the incen-
tives, rules, and etc.
Companies should provide the judging criteria of the expect-
ed solution, the problem description, contacts for co-creators.
They should also describe the limitations that the co-creation
contributors should take into consideration, and offer manu-
als or guides to the participants on how to use the specific
co-creation platforms or product configurators.
Microsoft’s Imagine Cup helps organisations that are grap-
pling with global problems to co-create solutions, especially
with students. The Imagine Cup asks the organizations that
initiate co-creation solutions to provide the following details
to the students:
Description of their organization
Description of the focus area of the organization
Overview of problem
How the solution to be submitted by the contributors
should work
Technical requirements/restrictions
Intended beneficiaries of the solution
The Co-creation Roadmap 84
 Number of people who are likely to benefit from the
solution
Number of people who will use the solution
Skill level of the people who will use this solution
Links to additional information on this problem
Additional Notes

Judgement Criteria: FEEL Values

Companies can provide an overview of the type of value – it

could be about creating an economic value or environmental
value – the project is trying to co-create. Broadly there could
be four types of value addition or value creation:
Functional value (adding a functional feature to its
products),
Economic value (saving cost, for instance),
Environmental value (how environmental friendly
the solution should be), and
Love/human value (the experience part). The
co-creators should provide the description of the
weightage they give to these value types (FEEL
factors, in short) of the proposed solution.
A co-creation project may seek to generate any one or all
these types of value. The famous Betacup Challenge sponsored
by Starbucks sought the creation of an environment friendly
cup, an environment value. Starbucks did not offer any base
product. It did not offer any solution base - no specs!
Starbucks sought new value creation. The Betacup Challenge
aimed at generating new ideas and innovations. But the com-
pany had to communicate what type of solutions and value
it seeks. It provided the prevailing conditions, limitations, and
environments in which the proposed solution would be used.
The Betacup Challenge was targeting environmental value, but
the Challenge asked the participants to make sure that their
The Co-creation Roadmap 85
solution should not overlook the aspects of cost effectiveness
(economic value), quality of experience of the customers (love/
human value).
Hence, the ‘co-creation invite’ of Starbucks provided details
about the type of other desirable values the solution could have.
The Challenge asked the participants to co-create a solution
that addresses these concerns:
Reducing waste – how does your idea reduce the number of
non-recycled coffee cups thrown away each year?
Resources required – what resources will it take to implement
your idea? (money, energy, water, materials, time, etc)
New or Existing Capabilities – does your idea use existing
technologies or approaches? If not, what must be created or
invented to implement your idea?
The whole experience – Alternatives to paper cups are avail-
able today but they are not being widely used. How effective
is your idea likely to be in achieving its goal.
The Co-creation Roadmap 86
 The “Toyota Ideas for Good Challenge”, a challenge in which
participants are asked to submit an idea using Toyota’s auto-
motive technology for a purpose unrelated to automobiles or
Toyota’s business. The Challenge seeks solutions that represent:
best re-purposing of Toyota technology, creativity/originality,
social relevance and benefit, viability of idea for prototyping,
overall presentation, etc. Toyota publishes the weightage points
given to all of these aspects.
It is also important for the co-creation project to detail the
rules, concerning all aspects of participation. A dedicated
website, created for the challenge as a co-creation platform,
should mention the rights of challenge entities, general terms
and conditions, use of intellectual property, etc.

Input Formats

Companies should detail the formats the co-creators can

use to present their ideas. As technology stands today, social
or digital media support idea exchanges in the following four
content formats:

Information (textual or visual – audio and video)

Design files
Engineering drawings & configurations
Applications (software)

Information in multimedia: Most co-creation projects

seek to source ideas from the participants in the form of text,
images, audio, video or any other multimedia formats.
Designs (creative inputs): 2D and 3D designs are popular
in the co-creation of creative contests such as advertisements,
interior designs, product designs, etc. For instance, Threadless.
com collects new T-shirt ideas in the form of design files from
its community.
The Co-creation Roadmap 87
 Engineering drawings: In social product development,
submission of ideas happens usually in the form of engineering
drawings. The participants can create and submit their ideas
for a new component, prototype as Computer Aided Design
files. Google’s Sketchup, for instance, enables the creation of
engineering drawings using simple CAD tools. Many CAD and
Product Lifecycle Management companies are incorporating
social media features in their product design platforms to en-
able co-creation within and without the enterprise. Product
configurators let customers do product engineering, even if
the customers do not have skills to create and exchange engi-
neering drawing tools.
Applications: The developer challenges run by software,
mobile and other communication product companies, crowd
source applications or Web/Mobile apps. The platforms, in this
case, also provide interface builders, development tools, and
online databases for customers to co-create apps.
The co-creation should provide descriptions about these
forms and formats of idea submissions such as the number
of characters in the case of seeking ideas in textual form, the
file formats and sizes of photos, sketches and renderings, and
videos, etc. Thus, the type of challenges varies in terms of skills
and complexity involved in the presentation of ideas.

Initial Steps in Designing a Co-creation Project

The wisdom of crowds can co-create more than “consumer

experience” at the retail shop. It can also co-create “managerial
experience” and democratize business.
A co-creation project involves cost. Thorough planning of
the processes, technology & tools, knowledge of users of
third-party co-creation communities, are essential for designing
a co-creation project. Also, the complexity of contests widely
The Co-creation Roadmap 88
varies. The idea contests for crowd sourcing a marketing slogan
is easier than partnering with the people to co-create, say, a
new management practice, from the perspective of technology.
You could start with idea contests for the marketing of your
existing product, and based on your experience, you could try
to bring out contests and challenges that seek new managerial
value creation or new product development, for instance.
It is also a good idea to conduct quests internally, enlisting
the participation of employees, suppliers, and investors, be-
fore launching an idea contest that seeks the participation of
external stakeholders.
Have the co-creation team assigned to analyse the need for
investment in terms of technology, team skills, and evaluation
of third-party co-creation communities. Involve the legal de-
partment, while deciding the rights of use of solutions gener-
ated through co-creation, general terms and conditions, and
use of intellectual property.
The co-creation project would backfire if the engagement of
the participants is going to be partial. The debacle of one of the
crowd sourcing campaigns of Kraft Foods, the world’s second
largest food and beverage company, which aimed to co-create
an alternative name for its Vegmite bread spread, shows the
risks involved in partial engagement. Kraft’s Vegemite bread
spread is a rage among Australian customers. The company
ran a competition for two months online, sourced customers’
suggestions, but the customers and other stakeholders were
not involved in the selection of the name.
Obviously, Kraft unilaterally selected ‘iSnack2.0’, as its choice.
However, the loyal customers felt it inappropriate. When the
name was announced in 2009, the customers, who were left
out in the name selection process, tweeted, blogged and ‘you-
tubed’ with a rage, against Kraft’s choice, forcing Kraft to drop
‘iSnack2.0’ within few days of its official launch!

The Co-creation Roadmap 89

 Expert Take

On the benefits of co-creation projects

Peter Ryder: Quality: reduced risk of moving an

idea to production based on collaboration during idea
creation; insight: based on thousands of comments
about a brand during the ideation phase focused on a
challenge; visibility: massive traditional and social media
exposure during the ideation phase. These are huge ROI
opportunities.

On the need for deploying social computing tools

for co-creation projects

Jim Brown: The business imperative for these companies

is developing and launching profitable products. Social
computing is a new tool that manufacturers are using to
improve their ability to innovate, design, and develop
products. The big reason for companies to embrace social
computing is that product development is inherently a
team activity. It takes people from multiple disciplines
(marketing, engineering, accounting, manufacturing, etc.)
to work together. Social computing helps these internal
resources work together, and also extends the ability
for better communication and collaboration with others
outside the organisational boundaries.

The benefits can be in any part of the product life

cycle and can improve a number of aspects of product
development. If used in the front end of innovation
to gather and prioritize product ideas, then it will help
the company source better product ideas that will drive
higher market share and revenue.
The Co-creation Roadmap 90
 But social computing techniques can also be used later
in the product life cycle. For example, communities
can provide feedback that could help companies
identify common product problems in the field. Then,
a community of experts could share ideas on how to
address the issue. This can improve customer satisfaction
and reduce warranty costs. Then, engineers could mine
the social interaction to find the more important issues
and close the loop to design better products.

I see possibilities to improve the entire product life

cycle through social computing. I believe most efforts
will start with collaboration internally via innovation
portals, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Social
computing is changing the way we interact personally and
will fundamentally enhance teamwork and information
sharing in the business of product development.

John Fox: True co-creation of the kind that’s being

delivered by companies like Local Motors [a US based
automotive company that co-creates cars] requires that
participants have access to real professional-grade CAD.

The co-creation model as envisioned by Local Motors

is much deeper than simply configuring a product after
it’s been developed. The Local Motor’s community
is collaborating on concepts, and designing products,
subassemblies and components. We [Siemens PLM) are
excited to be an early PLM leader here, by providing tools
that will enable this and help advance this new frontier
of product development.

Design1 [a CAD platform from Siemens PLM product]

The Co-creation Roadmap 91
 fills this gap in the market and provides the level of
functionality that the community has been asking for. In
this way, Design1 will help further integrate the activities
of the core design team at Local Motors and the extended
members of their community. That’s a big part of the
“co” in co-creation.

The Co-creation Roadmap 92

 Platform

The Co-creation Roadmap 93

 Chapter 7

Platform

Social media is not a media. The key is to listen, engage,

and build relationships.
David Alston,
Vice President (Marketing), Radian6

“What we are really talking about (co-creation) is empower-

ing people”, said C K Prahalad. Business should allow people
to have their say on, and take part in, value creation. Since
the empowerment happens through platforms, platforms are
central to co-creation. After all, according to the dictionary
definitions, a platform is also “an opportunity for people to
voice their views and initiate actions”.
The agenda for companies in the social media age should be
to transform themselves as democratized businesses. The idea
of a democratized business may sound utopian. But technol-
ogy is making many things democratic possible. Thanks to the
acceptance of co-creation as an effective managerial discipline
and the explosion of social media, the business case of democ-
ratization is gaining acceptance.
As the influence of “you”, the external stakeholder, continues
The Co-creation Roadmap 94
to increase in business, democratized business becomes “an ac-
tionable agenda” and in the cases of many innovation-oriented
businesses, a basic ingredient for success.
The co-creation platforms enable the process of democra-
tization of business as they allow stakeholders to vote, rate,
comment on product ideas and management decisions. Not
only democracy is becoming a business term, even, vote, the
means of democracy has already become a business tool.
Vote is a standard feature of many co-creation projects. Using
‘thumbs up’ and ‘thumbs down’ icons, many sites dedicated to
engage co-creators, let the stakeholders vote for their choice
of products or policies.
Dell’s IdeaStorm is a great example of companies directly
seeking votes from their customers to decide what to produce.
At Ideastorm, the users can contribute new product ideas and
also review and vote the product ideas submitted by others.
And Dell takes the most voted product idea to production.
There are many innovative applications of vote leadership
in business. Companies enable stakeholders to vote for their
choice of managerial decisions too as they know that democ-
racy not only better products, but also policies. People can
be your co-managers, when they engage with you to evolve
a design guideline, and they can be your co-regulators, when
they engage with you to prepare corporate code of conduct.
For instance, Target Corporation, a US chain of retailing
stores, engages the community in the management of its corpo-
rate social responsibility. Since 1946, Target has been donating
five percent of its income through community grants and pro-
grams - today, that giving equals more than $3 million a week.
Through its, “Bullseye Gives” campaign, Target encourages its
stakeholders to vote for one of 10 charities the company had
selected. The stakeholders can vote via the company’s Facebook
page. The company commits its $3 million donation only to
the most voted charity.
The Co-creation Roadmap 95
Tale of two Platforms

Platforms such as Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter play

an important role in helping companies create a social pres-
ence, enable social participation and of course, source solu-
tions. However, platforms do not mean social media alone.
To illustrate how companies can make co-creation successful
using social media and real world events, let us consider the
tale of two co-creation projects, undertaken by two different
companies: IBM and NEC Japan, to co-create corporate values.
In 2003, IBM used Jam Platform, its own proprietary co-
creation platform, to re-examine the company’s core values
that was set during the inception of the company, nearly 100
years ago. They named the platform, ‘Values Jam’, a special
purpose Jam platform, to bring over thousands of IBMers,
who are spread across 30 countries, together to redefine the
corporate values. The Values Jam co-creation event was held as
a 60-hour virtual meeting, involving multiple sessions. At the
end of the event, IBMers created corporate values for IBMers,
which “now shape everything” IBMers do and “every choice”
IBMers “make on behalf of the company and our clients”. This
participatory exercise to create none other than the corporate
value greatly inspired employees. IBM says that over 220,000
employees downloaded the “values manifesto” created as a
result of the ValuesJam.
In 2008, NEC, Japan, embarked on a similar mission: to co-
create the corporate value with employees. However, NEC
made the interaction through face to face meetings. NEC
clarified the significance of the vision and core values for each
division through “dialogue sessions” and “town meetings” at
every workplace. All NEC Group companies recognized the
importance of the exercise as the President of NEC and top
executives were present in these meetings.
The Co-creation Roadmap 96
 Throughout fiscal 2010, the company organized 24 dialogue
sessions at over 13 places worldwide, mobilizing the participa-
tion of about 2,700 people. Finally, NEC co-created the Group
Vision 2017 and Core Values, with employees. And in addition,
the company sourced over 500 new business ideas from its
employees, in one month, that reflect the new corporate values
and vision. The beauty of the whole exercise is that even the
selection of business ideas for implementation was done by
employees. The best ideas chosen by employees were developed
into new businesses for the future.
These two successful co-creation exercises that used two
different platforms could explain enough why companies
should be free of bias towards either Facebook or face-to-face
interactions. Each platform has its own strengths and obvious
limitations and, the strengths and limitations of platforms
impact the co-creation process for good or bad.
Depending on the need, the platforms can include a combi-
nation of platforms. For instance, Tata’s Tetley puts a mix of
diverse media platforms to let its consumers directly interact
with the farmers of the tea they consume. The project: Farm-
ers First Hand, “which is all about connecting you, with the
people that pick your tea”. The project uses mobile phone and
Facebook, and engages an executive to assist farmers in the
social participation process. The farmers, who have access only
to mobile phones at farms, send their updates to one of the
company’s executives, via short text messages. The executive
posts the updates onto the Facebook wall. When the custom-
ers respond at Facebook, the executive SMSes the content to
the farmers!
Companies have to look at creating multiple platforms to
engage multiple stakeholders and to facilitate multiple actions
that would make the co-creation process more inclusive, ef-
fective and participatory.

The Co-creation Roadmap 97

Step 5: Create a Platform Bazaar

Platforms of the great virtual social media bazaar are more

than the top sites like Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, Linke-
dIn, and Youtube. Even a corporate newsletter or a website
can provide the opportunity for the stakeholders to express
their views and initiate actions. Publishing platforms like wikis,
blogs, and secure networks like custom portals, electronic white
boards can be co-creation platforms too.
There are many proprietary software applications such as
IBM’s Jam that companies are using for specific co-creation
projects. There are also on-demand platforms like Innocentive,
NineSigma, Yet2, YourEncore, etc that come with all commu-
nity action tools. They also come with “built-in” communities.
The community members actively participate in problem solv-
ing challenges of different companies for monetary rewards
and recognitions. There are thematic platforms like Quora that
are used only for the purpose of questions and answers. There
are industry-specific co-creation platforms too – for instance,
Jovoto and Ponoko are co-creation communities that are made
primarily of, for, and by design engineers.
Companies have to look at creating multiple platforms to
engage multiple stakeholders and to facilitate multiple actions
that would make the co-creation process more inclusive, ef-
fective and participatory. .
Companies can leverage the content distribution platforms
like scribd.com, slideshare.net to share content like press re-
leases, case studies, articles, and build a following.
Enterprise social networking platforms like Yammer are
designed to provide a secure co-creation envrionment for the
purpose of safeguarding the competitive interests of compa-
nies. Launched in September 2008, Yammer is today used by
over one lakh companies for engaging employees in co-creation.
Proprietary systems like Brightidea’s WebStorm, one of the
The Co-creation Roadmap 98
leading online co-creation platforms, are patroned by compa-
nies like GE, Toyota, and Adobe, for internal co-creation. The
capabilities of the Brightidea software include: Idea submission
by individuals or teams, voting and collaboration, public and
private submission fields, and data visualization applications.
These tools provide features like blogs, micro-blogging, status
update feeds, and user profiles.

Community Building and Community Sourcing

Platforms

From the community point of view, the multitude of plat-

forms could be classified in two ways: community-building
platforms and community-sourcing platforms. Community
building platforms are sites like Facebook, and Google Plus
that allow companies to build their own community of fans
and followers. They function like an ‘operating platform’ that
The Co-creation Roadmap 99
can be the base to support any number of community tools
for brands. In contrast, the community-sourcing platforms are
meant for brands to source ideas from existing communities
of open innovators on-demand - they do not have to build
communities right from the scratch. There could be platforms
that serve both as community building and sourcing platforms.

Choosing the right platforms:

When it comes to selecting the platform, companies should

understand the user-base of the platform and the types of
user activities popular in those platforms. The portfolio of
platforms should ensure that stakeholders of different social,
economical, skill, educational backgrounds are empowered.
Hence, companies should know:
1) “What is the choice of platforms of my
stakeholders?”
2) “What are the types of exchanges, and co-creation
activities that the platform can support?”
The first question concerns with demography of a social
media platform, while the second, with the technological
ability of the platform. The demography of Facebook is dif-
ferent from the demography of Twitter. People choose social
networking sites depending on how open, suitable, accessible
and secure the platforms are. It is not unusual for people to
suggest LinkedIn for professional networking, and Facebook
for social interactions.
Companies should understand, test and experiment with
different platforms – whether they are community building or
community sourcing platforms – from the demographic point
of view. The analysis can even aim to find the link between the
participation rate and time of postings.
The demographic data of platforms such as: gender, age,
income level, education level, interests, and employment
The Co-creation Roadmap 100
should be obtained. Quantcast, and Groundwell’s Consumer
Profile Tool are some of the tools that help companies gather
the demographic profile of the stakeholders in popular social
media platforms like Facebook. Plus, the behaviour of the
web participants can be assessed using metrics and intelligence
provided by the platforms.
Companies should find where the external stakeholders like
customers, and suppliers, are present. Currently, tools like
Flowtown and Rapleaf let companies understand the social
media hangouts of their target audience, if companies can
provide their email addresses.
Platforms enable actions using publishing and participatory
tools. The publishing tools enable users to post their views,
comment to the views of authors or simply share the views.
While, the participatory tools let you take part in a co-creation
process. Examples include tools that allow users to vote, rate,
configure, and co-create products.
Co-creation is possible only when we take the technology
out of the way - in the sense that we should make technology
invisible, affordable, reliable and usable. Ultimately, the success
The Co-creation Roadmap 101
of co-creation depends on the opportunities the companies
create for people to engage and exchange ideas using technol-
ogy platforms.
If at all, co-creation demands a new managerial skill or ap-
proach, without doubt, it would be something that is rooted in
social and anthropological disciplines. Because the anthropo-
logical understanding of the participants in social media can
go a long way in helping companies understand the “ways” of
the participants and how it can be best used for enhancing the
participation effectively.

Initial steps in building the platform bazaar

Choosing the right mix of platform depends on the profile

of stakeholders and the type of co-creation activities. If all a
co-creation project needs is the textual input from the stake-
holders, then the company can select a platform – probably a
simple website with interactive and Wiki features.
The platform choice is very important for creating a wide
social presence and soliciting ideas in the right media formats.
To begin with, you will need the following online media plat-
forms to share your ideas: 1) a website, 2) a blog and 3) your
own space at social media/networking sites such as Facebook.
You can go for product configurators, rating systems, voting
features later, when they are necessary.
Initially, it would be better for you to start with platforms
that have simple publishing and participatory tools such as:
micro blogging, comments software, tagging, sharing, creating
profiles, mailing lists, forums, features to upload and share files,
links, and images, polls, surveys, etc. You can always include
more community featurs like direct messaging, search of di-
rectories and databases, administrative tools, voting, and enable
users to install and run applications, configuring products, and
virtual assembling, and so on, at later stages.
The Co-creation Roadmap 102
 When you really want to custom build a platform to suit your
own, unique needs, you can hire developers who specialise in
this area. Vendors of creation platforms can either build or
customize solutions for you.

Expert Take

On creating platforms for social product develop-

ment

Jim Brown: There is definitely scope to open up design

tools like CAD to social interaction. I think there can be
bigger value if we add social computing capabilities into
Product Lifecycle Management, the management layer
of engineering software.
There are manufacturers who use generalized
technologies for social product development, and
enable the participation of society particularly in “front
end of innovation” processes. But the real value, in my
opinion, will come from more integrated solutions that
connect the social interaction to the product information.
This also opens up the opportunity to store the social
interaction as new corporate knowledge and link it back
to the product for future reference and reuse.

On third party product development communities:

Jim Brown: This is another great way that people are

leveraging social computing. Most companies will stay
within their business model and simply improve existing
processes. For example, they may replace focus groups
with community-based processes using Facebook or
The Co-creation Roadmap 103
 other applications. Others will invent (or reinvent)
business models that are much more innovative. These
kinds of businesses are born out of social product
development and will be fascinating to watch.

On the success of product configurators

Dave Sloan: The configurator is a great bundling tool.

Indeed “guided selling” increases the size of the cart.
We had a group of online shoppers use a Treehouse
Logic configurator and tell us what features were most
important to them. The answer was

a) Performance - fast and fun

b) Visualization - accurate visual of the custom product
c) Guided and social, ie community based feedback from
the vendor, experts and other customers
From an implementation perspective, companies
should look for speed of development, ROI, ease
of maintenance, and ease of integration to common
shopping cart solutions. There is no reason to custom
code a product configurator anymore.

On the future of configurators and idea contests:

Dave: Online product customization used to be

very nichey. Only highly specialized products were
customizable, and the configurator itself only served
technical sales people or a very small power-user
customer base. New tools like ours our opening up the
market to the mainstream. We’re seeing a few key trends
in visual configuration:

The Co-creation Roadmap 104

 a) All shopping sites will include customization

“Customization” is becoming more transparent, it’s just

part of a great search and purchase experience. Users
expect some level of functional and style customization
before they check out. The most common example is a
t-shirt. After select a t-shirt design, shoppers select size
and color. This is the most basic form of customization,
and customers expect a level of control that they didn’t
used to have. The shopping interface is becoming more
visual and more interactive. Originally, online shopping
was all about a database search of static products. The
next generation online storefront will include a product
visualizer that is driven by attribute selections rather than
a soulless search box.

Beyond ratings and recommendations, shoppers will see

peer-generated designs that inspire. Customization will
be an integral part of an end-to-end marketing strategy.

b) Design contests

Online shopping is much more than just searching and

purchasing. Users will engage with their favorite brands
by designing products, posting them to a custom wall,
and voting on their favorite peer-generated creations.
Product configurators drive creativity which in turn
drives brand engagement and word of mouth marketing.
Visual customizers need to be fun, fast, and social.
The next generation of ecommerce will highlight
entertainment and gaming.

c) Designer-facing tools

The Co-creation Roadmap 105

 In the past, product configurator adoption stalled
because end-users became overwhelmed with choice.
A blank slate can be intimidating. We’re seeing a next
generation of designer-facing visual configurators that
help designers reach new shoppers. Examples are the
reverse auction business model of Bespokeable, as well
as designer portals like Fabricly and Garmz. These sites
allow entrepreneurs to create their designs and have
access to market. These design portals enable crowd-
sourced design, ala Zazzle, CafePress, and Threadless,
that create network effects like eBay and Etsy.

The Co-creation Roadmap 106

 Promotion

The Co-creation Roadmap 107

 Chapter 8

Promotion

Most organizations spend their time marketing to the crowd.

Smart organizations assemble the tribe.
Seth Godin, Author

In search of common men

Co-creation is a pursuit of engaging with a diversified stake-

holder groups and building deeper, meaningful relationships
with them. The popular perception of co-creation is that it
is about business to customer engagement. It makes sense
for companies to focus on lead users and customers, when it
comes to generating ideas for improving products or service
offerings. However, the real benefits of co-creation lie in mak-
ing the co-creation process open for the participation of all
stakeholder groups or ‘crowds’, the unidentified participants
or people without profiles.
The ‘crowds’ or ‘creative mobs’ are not customers or em-
ployees. They may or may not hold a title in your organization.
They may or may not belong to your region of operation. But
The Co-creation Roadmap 108
still they are willing co-creators, who are open to engage with
you to co-create common good value.
The annual “learning journeys”, organised by Mr Tex Gun-
ning, a globally renowned manager, when he was with Unilever
as the President of Unilever BestFoods, aimed at connecting
senior managers with the common man. Tex would take hun-
dreds of his top managers every year on learning journeys to
countries such as China, India, Sri Lanka to get inspiration to
find solutions to business problems. But Tex and his team did
not meet corporate gurus or customers there. They were im-
mersed in community service, interacted with monks, students,
visited local markets, and homes, stayed at orphanages, monas-
tries, ashrams, observed the functioning of microenterprises,
and charities. This helped them reflect on the role of leaders,
businesses, products, and life.
Tex writes, “Over the last 15 years significant shareholder’s
value have been destroyed by “insightful and creative” market-
ers resulting in the shocking statistic that more than 90% of
launches and re-launches do fail.” The product failures in their
own way reveal the failure of business leaders to connect with
market, social realities.
Tex saw that the “average companies take care of themselves
and their families – their direct stakeholders, such as employees,
directors, shareholders, and suppliers.” But good companies
take care of, and engage with, not only their direct stakeholders,
“but also others in the community.”
Mapping the stakeholders with business priorities does not
mean co-creation can and should happen only with those
mapped groups. The co-creation initiator – the company –
should respect the fact that co-creation spans boundaries of
all sorts – intellectual, demographical, geographical
The Financial Times’ Lexicon emphasizes the ‘boundary less’
nature of co-creation, in its definition of co-creation as “the
process by which groups of people from across boundaries
The Co-creation Roadmap 109
come together with a shared purpose to create value through
improving or developing services and products”.
The essential aspect of tapping the wisdom of crowds
obviously is in making co-creation “boundary-less” - instead
of restricting the participation only to people, who belong to
certain hierarchy or technical background.
In their own ways, businesses have been engaging with people
of different strata of society, in the right belief that truly inspir-
ing insights can come only from common man, who is outside
the corporate circle. The common man can see things differ-
ently than a consumer or an investor because he does not have
any stake in the business, and hence have no vested interest
in the success or failure of a particular product or technology.
Their unbiased temper often times bring fresh insights into
the table. Several research works of Dr Read Montague, a
leading expert on neuroscience, demonstrate how the bias
– “emotional connection”, “irrationality” – of stakeholders
like customers result in self-fulfilling prophecies. One of Dr
Montague’s study asked the participants to tell the artworks they
like the most. The participants were told that their participation
in the study was sponsored by a particular art gallery. And the
participants, by now identified themselves as the beneficiaries
of the art gallery, rated the art works of their sponsoring gal-
lery the best.
Thats why companies like Sense Worldwide build a co-
creation community of diverse people. Its community has
about 2000 members but it took the company over ten years
to build. The Sense Network comprises not just creative people
or consumers but also “a pagan witch, a newspaper editor, an
airline pilot, a TV mogul, and a prescription drug addict”, and
thus represent a wide cross section of society and people from
all social, intellectual, and business backgrounds.
As is the case with many co-creation projects, the sheer
diversity of participants produces cross pollination of ideas
The Co-creation Roadmap 110
and “strange bedfellows” - a partnership between research
& development team and a state regulator; a regulator and
a consumer, and sometimes, a competitor and a competitor.

A 1000 True Co-creators

Mr Kevin Kelly, co-founder, Wired Magazine, conceived a

“1000 True Fans” formula, which says that an artist (singer,
dancer, writer, etc) would need about 1000 true fans to make
a descent living. He tells who the true fans are. They are those,
“who are willing to spend at least their one day earnings on
their favorite artist’s products once a year”.
Here, the emphasis is on commitment, dedication and deeper
levels of engagement of a certain number of people, the criti-
cal mass. In the context of the world of social co-creation,
a company can aim at creating certain number of true fans
and followers with high levels of participation. One of the
primary tasks of co-creation boards is the identification of
potential participants of different levels of contribution and
commitment.
Not all fans are equal. The level of participation – the con-
tribution in terms of time, and skill, for instance – varies from
one participant group to another at any point of time.
If companies do not know who they want to have as partici-
pants, they cannot create any strategy to attract and incentivize
them. McKinsey emphasizes that companies should not neglect
“the up-front research needed to identify potential participants
who have the right skill-sets and will be motivated to participate
over the longer term”.
Hence evolving methods for the identification of various
levels of participation is the starting point in creating various
opportunities for all levels of participation of community
members. There could be fans who have the maximum level of
time, skill and other resources, and importantly, the enthusiasm
The Co-creation Roadmap 111
to share them across. And there could be some fans who may
have them all but for one reason or the other, are not going to
share them for a co-creation project.

Hence, companies should break a co-creation project into

several stages or ‘micro’ co-creation tasks so that people from
all skill and commitment levels can contribute to. This way, a
co-creation project becomes ‘easy-to-engage-with’.
In the context of an idea contest, for instance, fans can fall
under one of the following four levels:

Level 1: Followers People who follow what you do

through social networking sites as fans, subscribers to
your blogs, etc. They know what you do.

Level 2: Evangelists People, who are more than

followers. They take their time off to talk about the
project and spread the word around. They promote your
cause or interest.

Level 3: Disciples People, who contribute and add value

in terms of taking part in surveys, commented on ideas,
etc. They add value to what you do.

Level 4: Co-creators People, who are willing to dedicate

a certain time, money or effort and fulfil the co-creation
goals. They do your job on your behalf.

The level of participation of a follower is minimal when

compared to the level of participation of an evangelist, who
spreads the idea, or the disciple, who submits an idea.
Let us take the example of The Betacup Challenge (the one
sponsored by Starbucks, to find environment friendly ways to
dispense coffee): the level 1 participants were people who fol-
The Co-creation Roadmap 112
lowed the Challenge, by going through the ideas submitted by
others. The level 2 participants were those who spread the word
around by blogging about it, social updating with backlinks.
The level 3 participants were those who contributed comments,
ratings, and feedbacks. Betacup received 13,000 comments. And
the level 4 participants - the co-creators - were those who took
part completely: they submitted ideas. The Betacup Challenge
had received about 430 fans submitting their ideas - which
marked the highest level of participation.
However, we have to remember that the level 1-4 categori-
zation is not a rigid one, and fans are not going to remain in
any one category permanently. Because their involvement can
change from time to time.

Step 6: Incorporate motivating factors

Social media-led co-creation happens around values, and not

money. It does not happen with stick and carrot, even if it is
Intranet-based, and employee-oriented. Whether it is blog-
sphere or Facebooksphere, people need a reason or motivation
to engage with a brand.

It is worth quoting some of the outcomes of BlogSweden,

which is supposed to be “the longest running annual blog sur-
vey in the world”, conducted by Mr Hans Kullin, a Sweedish
PR practitioner. In 2010 survey, his survey gathered inputs from
a total of 2,251 blog readers. Of the respondents, 94% had at
least one blog. His survey results on “Why people choose to
follow brands on Twitter and become a fan, or like, brands on
Facebook?” reveal that the number one reason is “To show
other people that I like the brand”. In other words, people
become fans of brands when they are very proud of them.

The chief motivators of social media include:

The Co-creation Roadmap 113
 Visibility: People tweet, blog to be seen in the conversation
space, to be identified with a brand, group, theme, etc.
Incentives: Cash prize, certificates, mementos, credits, cash
awards are some forms of incentives. The incentive could be
about providing exclusive information, sneak preview about
survey results, forthcoming products, etc.
Socialising opportunities: In other words, networking.
Participants take part in co-creation also to connect with the
like minded peoples, experts, friends.
Altruism: People also participate for the sake of a cause -
and not for cash prize or fame.

VISA Power in Action

To see how social media stars are making use of the VISA
power, let us consider few social co-creation initiatives.

Visibility: When people told BlogSweden that they want to

“show other people” they were talking about the visibility fac-
tor - who they want to be seen with. Many companies recognize
visibility needs of fans and followers.
For instance, NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car
Auto Racing), a business venture that sanctions and governs
multiple auto racing sports in the US, set up “Fan Council”,
a pre-qualified online community of about 12,000 fans, who
take part in its competition, business and marketing decisions.
NASCAR engages its fans to generate inputs specific to all
industry stakeholders.
Fans consider being part of the NASCAR’s Fans Council
itself an honor. To be an Intel Insider, the fans recognized for
their contributions or influence by Intel, itself is a matter of
pride for Intel’s fans.

Ford, for its Fiesta promotion, identified about “100 agents”,

The Co-creation Roadmap 114
the digital influencers it chose from 4000 applicants to test
drive their new Fiesta for 6 months. The level of commitment
of these agents – disciples – is so high that they regularly post
videos on their Ford experience.
Symantec, the security software company, terms its highly
satisfied fans, “Advocates of Norton”.

Incentive (cash prize): Mojo Yogurt, a yogurt ice cream

seller in the US, has a simple and successful social media
strategy. It tweets a secret word every Tuesday, and if a cus-
tomer says the word to the cashier in the store, he or she gets
50% discount. PhotoBox creates “Insider Community”. The
customers who made more than four orders in the previous
12 months can become a member of the Insider Community.
The insiders get 15% discount on future orders. The insiders
provide profitable new product ideas.
Before launching Innovation Jam, a co-creation project, in
2006, IBM committed US$100 million to fund the best ideas.
In the first phase, the Innovation Jam attracted about 1,50,000
participants from over 100 countries. The 72-hour jam gen-
erated over 40,000 posts. At the end 30 winning ideas were
selected, out of which 10 ideas were taken by IBM to create
new businesses for the company.
With over 70,000 participants from over 150 countries, the
GE Ecomagination Challenge is the world’s largest open inno-
vation contest to date and marks a quantum leap in collabora-
tive innovation. In just 90 days, the initiative collected almost
4,000 ideas and connected GE with the brightest entrepreneurs
worldwide to find and fund the best new smart grid technolo-
gies with $200 million of investment capital.
At the launch event in 2010, GE announced the Ecomagina-
tion Challenge, a global open contest that called for updates
to the existing power grid through 21st century technologies.
Together with top venture capital firms GE committed $200
The Co-creation Roadmap 115
million to help entrepreneurs from anywhere in the world de-
velop their ideas and bring them to market. $100,000 awards
were offered for each of five winning ideas along with the
potential to partner with GE or its VC partners. In addition,
the contest’s most voted on submission received a $50,000
award. GE also went beyond the $200 million already pledged
by granting $100,000 each for five promising products ideas in
the early-concept development phase. And as 15% of submis-
sions in the challenge came from students, GE promised to
invest $10 million a year in academic partnerships to promote
technological advancement through education.
The result:
3,800+ ideas, 81,000+ comments, 120,000+ votes
70,000 participants from around the globe
12 projects funded with $55 million
Collaborate with small businesses around the world

The Co-creation Roadmap 116

 Socializing: The other popular reason is “To be a part of
a group of people with similar interests” - the socialising part.
Companies realise that it’s just as important to connect the
participants with each other as it is to connect them with their
own employees.
The BMW Co-creation Lab cites that it could attract more
participants for its contest because the participants are very
thrilled to connect with BMW’s expert engineers.
Altruism: And finally, altruism - the selfless concern for
the welfare of others. Flooding of environmental restoration
ideas at the wake of BP oil crisis is one example. Altruism is
the biggest motivator of social media successes of all times.
Wikipedia is co-created primarily out of altruistic factors.
Wikipedia “is written collaboratively by largely anonymous
Internet volunteers who write without pay”. Since its creation
in 2001, Wikipedia has grown rapidly into one of the largest
reference websites, attracing over 70 million visitors monthly.
As on January, 2010, there are more than 91,000 active contribu-
tors working on more than 15,000,000 articles in more than
270 languages. There are over 3,257,920 articles in English.
Every day, hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the
world collectively make tens of thousands of edits and create
thousands of new articles to augment the knowledge held by
Wikipedia encyclopedia. There are 91,000 active contributors.
What is the driving force? Without doubt, the credit goes to
altruistic attitude of the contributors, who were excited by the
vision, “Imagine a world in which every single person on the
planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.”
Hyundai’s Assurance Program was another success story in
this space. The company integrated its customer relationship
management strategy with corporate social strategy. The As-
surance program was launched in 2009, when the economic
conditions were bad and the unemployment was on the rise in
countries like Japan. The job security became a question and
The Co-creation Roadmap 117
employees were reluctant to buy cars. Assurance promised the
customers that if they lost their jobs, they could return the car
and did not have to worry about paying the due.
Hyundai began promoting the idea on Facebook and Twitter.
Customers blogged and tweeted about it and people responded
with enthusiasm. Hyundai sales went up 6.2 percent through
November 2009.
Almost all of the VISA aspects are effectively used by SAP.
The company identifies and provides special status to excep-
tional and high-value users. SAP Mentors are the top commu-
nity influencers of the SAP Ecosystem. It currently has about
100 plus mentors who mostly work for customers or partners
of SAP. All of them are hands-on experts of an SAP product or
service, as well as excellent champions of community projects.
SAP Mentors are offered unique opportunities for access
to SAP senior management, early access to information on
products and programs and greater visibility in the online
communities as well as at SAP events such as SAP Tech Ed.
The benefits for SAP Mentors include:

Recognition as an SAP credited expert

Icon ! next to their name in the forums and
Business Card
Invitation to SAP events
VIP Access to SAP Information
Private SAP Mentor Forum
Private SAP Network Wiki Space
SAP Mentor only webinars with SAP subject matter
experts
VIP Seating (TechEd, Sapphire, etc.)

The Co-creation Roadmap 118

Trust, the vital link

In social co-creation, companies should aim to create more

number of co-creators: more focused and committed fans.
They should recognize and reward them. How to do that?
The single most important criterion is: trust. Companies need
to earn the trust of the people by showing how committed
they are to the cause, in the interest of which they seek public
participation. The trust flowers with corporate performance
and transparency in communication.
When Starbucks introduced the Betacup Challenge to co-
create an environmental friendly dispensing solution, it could
motivate people to take part in the project, largely because
the company made known it’s commitment to environmental
protection. In its website and through other media channels,
it published its track record: in 1997, it developed a recycled-
content cup sleeve as a way to protect customers from hot
beverages and avoid the waste of “double cupping.” In 2006,
it launched the industry’s first hot beverage paper cup with
10% post-consumer recycled fiber. In 2008, it rolled out a new
plastic cup that has less of an environmental impact than its
original plastic cups. And in 2009, it hosted a Cup Summit in
Seattle, bringing together all facets of its paper and plastic cup
value chain to find agreement on criteria for a comprehensive
recyclable cup solution.
Web participants - co-creators - will be more willing to par-
ticipate in the contests or challenges posted by companies who
have already been doing their part in solving them. In other
words, solvers would take co-creation initiatives seriously when
the corporate shows commitment.
Nestle publishes its performances: the actions it is taking
on its part to address the problems in the areas of nutrition,
women empowerment, and water conservation, its “shared
value” areas. These are Nestle’s co-creation hot spots - in
The Co-creation Roadmap 119
Nestle’s own words, these are areas where the “value can best
be created both for society and shareholders”.
Nestle publishes its key performance indicators (KPIS) in
these hot spot areas, and it seeks suggestions from the stake-
holders how to better modify or create new KPIs.
Patagonia, a clothing company in the US, has a big commu-
nity of customers and environmental activists. The company,
through Footprint Chronicles, a forum dedicated to improv-
ing the sustainability of its products, allows user to track the
impact of any Patagonia product on environment, from design
through delivery.
Patagonia publishes the distance a product travelled, energy
consumption, carbon dioxide emission, waste generated, and
water consumption of its products, and the steps it is taking
to make each of their product more environment friendly.
Patagonia invites the community to take part in the conversa-
tion in improving its performance and finding environmental
friendly raw materials, for better responsible manufacturing,
consumption, etc.

Initial steps in incorporating motivating factors

Motivating factors are something that are more to do with

the corporate identity and trust than with the factors like prize
money. However, you should not understimate the power of
cash incentives or the other items in the V.I.S.A group. Try to
include all the four elements of motivations.
Co-creators are people and in social media we are building
people relations. Simple things like responding to their queries
genuinely and speedily would go a long way in establishing the
relations in an organic way.
Social media is not a number game. Says Mr Mack Collier, a
social media strategist: “One of the examples was how I have
almost 22,000 followers on Twitter, and yet I rarely get 1-2%
The Co-creation Roadmap 120
of them to click on any link I share on Twitter”. According
to him, the level of engagement is going to be low, and will
likely be inversely proportional to the size of the group. That
means, “If you only have your 10 closest friends following
you, obviously you will have a high level of engagement with
that core group. But as you grow to 1,000 followers, obviously
you can’t be closely connected to all of those people, and their
level of interaction and engagement with you will fall.” There-
fore, instead of just looking at increasing the number of fans,
companies should try to see the level of commitment it has
generated for its co-creation programmes.

Never ever resort to inorganic methods of growing the

number of Facebook fans. No business value is going to be
generated when your fan base increases by 100% as a result
of a social media campaign or search engine optimization
techniques. Have the perseverance of a farmer!

Expert Take

On investing in social media tools and fans

Andy Smith: I think there can be few things more

worth investing in than in tools – digital or otherwise
that create meaningful interactions between a company
and its customers.The evolution of the social web has
provided an opportunity for brands to engage with their
customers in a way that involves very little effort on the
part of the customer.

All other things being equal this should translate into

the opportunity to develop a wealth of extremely broad
customer insights that in turn lead to better products and
The Co-creation Roadmap 121
 services. So the trade-off between investing in product
and in interacting with customers is only encountered by
companies who see the opportunity to engage merely as
a means to promote their offerings.

The social web is not just a new place for companies to

put ads. Those that view it that way are not only wasting
their money, they are possibly missing an unprecedented
chance to learn a huge amount about their customer and
how to fulfill their current and future needs. One last
point, here, when it comes to the number of customers
to listen to, beyond a certain point size doesn’t matter. It’s
a great deal more important to direct effort toward really
listening to the relatively few highly engaged customers
who say they can’t live without your product than to the
many more weak-tie participants that encounter your
company solely for a contest entry and a chance to win
a trip to Disneyland.

On sharing business benefits that come out of co-

creation:

Andy Smith: From what I have observed, for the most

part crowdsourcing is not a replacement for employees.
Participants tend to participate for the opportunity to
contribute to something they care about, and for the
potential recognition of supplying something that is
useful and stands out.

Companies tend to share the benefit through the recogni-

tion process that may also include a prize of some sort,
as well as through the development of better products,
faster. Stakeholders who participate actively enough to
matter to companies are often those that benefit from
The Co-creation Roadmap 122
 satisfaction and from improving a product that they use.

On what motivates participation:

Peter Ryder: Money, love and glory. Prize money and

the opportunity to sell ideas is one. Love entails building
a network with creatives globally or working on problems
that are important (e.g. sustainability, greenpeace, unicef,
etc.). Glory is the opportunity to work on interesting
brands, get exposure and build a portfolio. Jovoto also
tracks great creative work on our platform and awards
“karma” points.

Creatives who demonsrate great creative capability enter

into our best creative category and can work in our “labs”
model (see presentation) which is non-spec work. Open,
transparent, fair environment is critical for this and our
philosophy and platform provide for it.

One of the advantages of running an online or realtime

community is that you can co-create with superusers
while keeping the IP under control. The important thing
is to reward your key participants. Money and free prod-
uct is good - praise and creative credit is great. Share the
glory, keep the IP.

On community building:

Peter Ryder: Open, transparent and fair treatment of

creatives.Building a community that collaborates and
evaluates in an open manner (not just submitting ideas
but collaborating and curating competitions). Providing
community managers that engage the creative commu-
nity during all competitions and on an ongoing basis.
The Co-creation Roadmap 123
The Co-creation Roadmap 124
 Afterword

Ram S Ramanathan,
Learner, Teacher, Manager,
Author and Coach

I am hugely impressed with Sankar’s roadmap to co-creation.

It is very well written on an excellent structure of wisdom,
research, and scholarly opinion. It is of value not merely for
students or practitioners of management, but also to every one
of us. We can all enhance our lives by putting these principles
into practice in our business and social life.
The very definition of cocreation implies two distinct entities
or concepts that come together to form a whole or to spawn
a third. Whether it is a physical creation or a non-physical
intellectual or emotional creation, different elements need to
come in to create something that sustains and energizes. In
music, traditional Indian music, there is a constant interplay
of raga and tala, melody and beat. One is emotional, perhaps
feminine and the other physical time based, perhaps masculine.
In writing, it is the interplay of the emotional content and
The Co-creation Roadmap 125
the structure. Even in management, a male bastion, success
depends on the balance between soft and hard qualities. In
everything that we do there is a cocreation of at least two ele-
ments of diverse nature. We take this for granted.
Evolution of species rests on co-creation. Hindu mythology
is replete with this duality, especially in exploring the realms of
our desires. Interestingly, it also has a concept that brings the
two energies together into a cocreative singularity.
Ardhanarishwara is a unique Hindu concept of the duality
of male and female energies merging into a singularity, as the
most visible form of cocreation. Half man half woman, half
Shiva half Devi, Iswara appears singular, split in duality. I see it
as Tao, the cocreation of the masculine and feminine energies
into a singular entity.
Krishna says in the Gita that that which is perishable is not
real. That which is real does not die. One who has seen the
boundary between these two has known all. When Arjuna
questions Krishna how such a man behaves, Krishna simply
says: Such a person sees himself in all beings and all beings in
himself. This state of Self-Realization is the ultimate in cocre-
ation. Everything that one thinks about, talks about and does
in this state is not about oneself or for oneself. It is for the
entire world, all humanity and all living beings.

Lifestyle of Co-creation

Cocreation is a process that I have practised intuitively for

decades. I did not learn it consciously to start with. I trusted
people and believed in their capability. As I rose in the manage-
ment ladder, I built teams as this seemed to be the ideal way to
bring together and synergize human potential. I was successful
because the team members made me successful.
Over time, I came across branded management processes
that built upon the strengths of cocreation. They aligned with
The Co-creation Roadmap 126
my philosophy and ideals. They helped me enhance my effec-
tiveness. In my forty years of corporate experience there have
been a few processes that have become trendsetters. Perhaps
coincidentally, each has been a cocreative process. I share some
of these with you.

Toyota System of Management

The first that I encountered a few decades ago was the Toyota
System of Management, popularly known as the Toyota Pro-
duction System or TPS. The acronym TPS does little justice
to the power of this process, as it encompasses all aspects of
management as well as business, not just production. So power-
ful was its impact that a seminal book by Womack & Jones with
the startling title ‘The Machine that changed the world’ led a
new conceptual revolution called Lean Thinking. Lean Think-
ing in turn led to Six Sigma and such other quality revolutions.
The power of Toyota’s system lay in its focus on people
and people power. It was the first time that a profit motivated
entity unabashedly acknowledged the need for collaborative
management and co-creative decision making. This philosophy
underlying the Toyota 4 P system led to a company practically
unknown in the seventies to rule the global automotive market
since the eighties.
In their classic book Womack & Jones say:
In General Motors, only the Plant Manager can stop the as-
sembly line. In Toyota, any line operator can bring the assembly
line to a halt if he finds a defect.
In GM, the assembly line rarely runs continuously. In Toyota the as-
sembly line rarely stops.
There can be no greater tribute to the collaborative power
of co-creation than the authority given to the lowest worker
on the shop floor to stop a line causing the loss of a million
dollars. The Toyota belief is that the man on the shop floor
The Co-creation Roadmap 127
knows best than someone in the boardroom.
The Toyota System displaced the techniques established by
Frederick Taylor and his tribe of industrial engineers in early
1900s, who went around clocking furiously every movement
a worker made, convinced that unless the worker was tightly
controlled nothing can work.
Ford and GM who built their machine centric empires based
on these principles, many anti-human, conceded to the power
of human creation that Toyota espoused.
Americans can claim part of the credit through excellent
work done by Deming and Juran in these fields, especially in
quality in Japan, though Toyota began its experiments much
before these quality gurus arrived in Japan.
I have been exposed to the Toyota system for many years now
and it has guided my thinking in ways far beyond management.
While it is lauded for its quality and waste reduction, the system
at its core is about human potential. It is about unlocking that
potential by allowing participation and co-creation. I have been
a Toyota customer for more than twenty years now and a very
satisfied one! As I love to say, with my first Toyota that I used
for over 10 years, the only repair the car needed other than
routine servicing was a fan belt change, once! My other cars,
(no names, please), went to a mechanic at least once a month
for some defect or another.

From Toyota to Coaching

The Toyota belief in the potential of people and its phi-

losophy of focusing on unlocking that potential is reflected in
another process that I embraced a decade or so later.
Coaching, in the way an outsider perceives it, has nothing to
do with Toyota. As a coach interested in learning and scholar-
ship, I found many parallels.
A Coach needs to be aware, both of himself and the client. A
The Co-creation Roadmap 128
coach needs to be observant and listen. He has to be respect-
ful of his client and gain respect and trust in return. A coach’s
only focus is his customer, the client. A coach relies on human
potential. His job is to unlock the potential.
A Coach is a co-creator, along with his client, of the fulfill-
ment of the dreams, visions, goals and plans of the client. He
walks with his client on a journey to success.
A coach is not a mentor. A mentor shares his experience
with a younger or inexperienced person. Unfortunately, my
experiences can never be yours. You need to experience truths
yourself. Only then will they work. A good coach would never
try to share his experiences with you. At best, he may help you
learn through them indirectly, if they suit your needs.
A coach is not a consultant. He does not solve your problems.
You and only you can solve your problems. At best you can
use the coach as a sounding board and an intelligent mirror.
A coach does not borrow your watch to tell you the time. He
lets you look at it and find the time.
A coach is not a counselor or therapist. The past has little to
do with coaching. Coaching is about the present moment. It
is about NOW. The future is relevant as a direction. But, the
future can become reality only if it is acted upon NOW. The
past is history. Try as we may, we never learn from the past.
So, the coach helps the client focus on current challenges and
overcome mental blocks the client has in the present moment,
wherever their origin may be in time and space.
A coach is a co-creator, who helps the client unlock his or
her inner potential. We all have vast potential. This potential is
hidden and hindered by conditioned negative beliefs we grow
with. The coach’s function is to help the client become aware
of these bocks. Often, the mere awareness of these bocks is
sufficient to dispel them. Sometimes, one may need to lead the
client through deeper insights.
In his excellent series of Inner Game books, Timothy Gall-
The Co-creation Roadmap 129
wey, talks about interference played by an inner voice, stopping
us from reaching our potential. A good coach helps modify
that voice into an understanding, and supportive one.
A coach is never a trainer, teacher, mentor, counselor or
consultant. He is a cocreator. The beauty of the cocreative
coaching process is that any of these skills, such as training,
teaching, mentoring, counseling or consulting, can be enhanced
through the coaching approach.
Involving the stakeholder deeply into the transformation
process is not merely desirable but essential for sustainability.

Open Space Interactive Processes

A process that has gained popularity in recent times, and one

that I have been engaged in with great learning is Open Space
or Large Scale Interactive Process.
OSIP or LSIP as it is referred to helps converge inputs from
large groups of people in any kind of situation, not necessarily
in a formal conference or classroom situation, into actionable
conclusions. It’s an extremely powerful cocreative process, in
which even a group of a thousand or more people can share
their views and lead the discussion to good conclusions.
OSIP is not a voting, polling or any such yes, no, may be or
ranking process. These do not allow discussions. They do not
allow sharing of opinions. They are not interactive. They are
not cocreative. They are not value enhancing.
OSIP can range from two or three day processes to a few
hours processes, from a few dozen people to a few thousand
people. Over time, technology may help expand boundaries
of numbers and shrink time needed.
An OSIP process I am currently working on involves about
1500 people, who within 2 hours will cocreate solutions for a
community in facing challenges over the next few years. Given
the time constraint, participants will start with themes they have
The Co-creation Roadmap 130
already decided upon. They will analyze the opportunities and
challenges and finally converge on to a few SMART action
plans, measurable and implementable.
In other groups, where more time is available, participants
may start with a clean slate and cocreate themes relevant to
them. They can then proceed to analyze these themes and then
synthesize cocreatively actionable solutions.
Potential for such processes is limitless. From simple market
research to product and process developments in diverse fields,
from the merely commercial to national governance, OSIP can
help enhance decision making through collective, collaborative,
consensual and cocreative approaches.
As I see it, as a learner, teacher, manager, and family person,
co-creation in actions by involving everyone around us is a life
style that we all need to cultivate.

The Co-creation Roadmap 131

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The Co-creation Roadmap 132

 Expert Take
Contributors

Following are the brief introductions to the experts, who had

given the author exclusive interviews on co-creation:

Mr Andy Smith, co-author of The Drag-

onfly Effect: Andy Smith is an experienced
tech marketer and a Principal of Vonavona
Ventures where he advises and bootstraps
technical and social ventures with guid-
ance in marketing, customer strategy and
operations. He earned his MBA at UCLA’s
Anderson School and holds an Economics
degree from Pomona College.

Professor Bill Fischer: Bill Fischer is

Professor of Technology Management at
IMD Business School, Switzerland. He is the
co-author of The Idea Hunter: How to Find
the Best Ideas and Make them Happen. His
areas of special interest include: Manage-
ment of technology, including management
of the creative processes within research and
development.
The Co-creation Roadmap 133
 Mr Brian Millar: Brian Millar is the
Strategy Director at Sense Worldwide, a
co-creation agency that helps companies
implement co-creation strategies for brand-
ing, product/process design, etc. Millar is
a advertising, media industry veteran. He
has worked for Saatchi and Saatchi, and
Ogilvy. He had built two agencies, and a
computer games company, before joining
Sense Worldwide.

Mr Dave Sloan: Dave Sloan is the CEO

of Treehouse Logic, which offers a hosted
design tool solution that enables customer
co-creation. The Treehouse Logic platform
enables a user experience that is high perfor-
mance, guided to aid the decision process,
and connected to social networks.

Prof Frank Piller: Frank Piller is the

Chair Professor of Management at the
Technology & Innovation Management
Group of RWTH Aachen University, Ger-
many, one of Europe’s leading institutes of
technology. Before joining Aachen in March
2007, he worked at the MIT Sloan School
of Management (BPS, Innovation Group,
2004-2007).

The Co-creation Roadmap 134

 Mr Jim Brown: Jim Brown is the found-
er and President of Tech-Clarity, which is an
independent research and consulting firm
that specializes in analyzing the true business
value of software technology and services.
Jim has 20 years of experience in applica-
tion software, management consulting and
research focused on the manufacturing
industries.

Mr Peter Ryder: Peter Ryder is the

President, Americas, Jovoto, a community
of creatives and a platform that enables col-
laboration and conversation. Peter is based
out of the company’s headquarters in New
York’s Flatiron District. He was earlier with
Deloitte Consulting, where he was director
in the company’s high tech group.

Mr Simon Holloway: Simon Holloway

is the Practice Leader for Process Manage-
ment and RFID, Bloor Research, UK. His
IT background spans some 20 years as an
IT consultant specialising in IS/IT strat-
egy planning, information management,
corporate data and process modelling, and
business process re-engineering.

T h e f u l l i n t e r v i e w s o f e x p e r t s a r e ava i l a b l e a t
http://www.younomy.com/guruspeak.html

The Co-creation Roadmap 135

 References

2010 McKinsey Survey of global business leaders on the

influence of external stakeholders in business
Surveys of Kalypso and Digital Brand Expressions on so-
cial media in 2010 -2011
Harvard Business Review article, “Co-Opting Customer Compe-
tence”
June, 2008 issue of Inc Magazine report on Threadless.com
Reports on Copenhagen Co-creation Summit organised by
Danish Design Association in 2009
Reports on Starbucks sponsored International Betacup
Contest, 2010
The CEO letter of Mr Mark Parker, CEO, Nike in the 2010
Annual Report
Symantec’s Materiality Analysis Report
Millward Brown Optimor (MBO) listing of world’s valuable
brands (2011)
“Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny”, authored by
Prof Amartya Sen, Economist

The Co-creation Roadmap 136

2011 Altimeter study on the participation of C-suite execu-
tives in corporate social media teams
A blog post by Mr Jeremiah Owing of Altimeter Group on
five social media organizational types
Citation of Open Leadership Award to Dell
Dell Hell blog posts by Jeff Jarvis
Report of “Problem Conference” of Quebec, 2010 by Prof
Frank Piller
Where Good Ideas Come From, authored by Mr Steven Johnson
Study titled, The Value of Openness in Scientific Problem Solving,
published by Innocentive
BlogSweden Report on the motivations for social media
participation

The Co-creation Roadmap 137

 Index
A
Altimeter Group 56, 64, 137
Altruism 114, 117
Andy 17, 48, 49, 121, 122, 133
Apple 39, 52, 53, 82

B
Betacup Challenge 37, 85, 112, 113, 119
Bill Fischer 17, 32, 45, 133
Brian Millar 17, 63, 134
building platforms 99

C
Champions 59
C K Prahalad 15, 21, 36, 94
co-creation board 16, 24, 54, 61
co-creators 111, 112, 120
common good 26
community sourcing 99, 100
configuration 79, 80, 81, 84, 104

D
Dave Sloan 17, 104, 134
Dell 5, 10, 39, 40, 57, 60, 64, 65, 95, 137
developer challenges 16, 84, 88

E
Ecomagination 39, 40, 83, 115
Evangelism 40

F
Facebook 15, 22, 23, 30, 33, 57, 58, 59, 64, 72, 95-
103, 113, 118, 121
The Co-creation Roadmap 138
 FEEL 85
followers 112
Frank Piller 17, 47, 62, 68, 69, 75, 134, 137

G
GE 10, 39, 40, 99, 115, 116
Google Plus 15, 96, 98, 99, 143

I
IBM 59, 83, 96, 98, 115
idea contests 16, 47, 84, 89, 104
Incentive 115
Intel 56, 57, 59, 114

J
Jim Brown 17, 90, 103, 135

L
LEGO 79, 80
LG 41
Linux 80

N
NEC 96, 97
Nestle 119, 120
new value 10, 38, 79, 82, 84, 85
Nike 10, 39, 40, 60, 136

P
P6 7, 15, 16, 28, 31, 32, 78
Peter Ryder 17, 90, 123, 135
P&G 10, 57, 58, 73, 74
priorities 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 49, 109
problem broadcast 69
Problem Wall 16, 72, 74

The Co-creation Roadmap 139

 Promotion 7, 16, 31, 107, 108

Q
Quebec 68, 137

R
Ramco 23, 24, 25, 26

S
Simon Holloway 17, 80, 135
Socializing 117
social presence 15, 20, 22, 23, 25, 31, 42, 64, 96, 102
Starbucks 37, 38, 39, 40, 49, 59, 60, 85, 86, 112, 119, 136
Symantec 42, 43, 44, 115, 136

T
Target 95
Tex Gunning 109
Threadless 21, 22, 83, 87, 106, 136
Toyota 78, 87, 99, 127, 128

V
value-addition 80
VISA 114, 118
Visibility 114

W
Whirlpool 38, 58

The Co-creation Roadmap 140