Exploring the Role of Virtual Worlds in the Evolution of a Co-Creation Design Culture

Judith Molka-Danielsen Molde University College Molde Norway [email protected]

SCIS 2011- Turku Finland

This Presentation

1. Introduce concepts 2. Emergence of a co-creation design culture 3. What is value in an experienced based economy?

4. What is co-creation design?

5. Evidence of co-creation design culture 6. Limited evidence of co-creation in virtual worlds such as Second Life 7. Enabling activities and a Design Science approach 8. Future opportunities for Co-creation Design in virtual worlds SCIS 2011- Turku Finland

1. Introduce concepts: Co-creation

Co-creation is a design process where individual members of communities engage in and contribute to products and services creation, along with organizational members. An example of a social media platform that supports co-creation design is Facebook™ where organizational members and individual members both contribute to and benefit from content creation.

SCIS 2011- Turku Finland

1. Introduce concepts: Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds (VW) are information communication technology (ICT) based environments that are a type of social media that has the features to: – – – support member representation, persistent presence allow members to interact with each other and software agents.

Minecraft Second Life

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2. Emergence of a co-creation design culture

Network individualism - Formally individuals’ interests were established by geographic boundaries. Through social media individuals can follow interests that can extend beyond physical boundaries, in multiple digital locations. This leads to more choices and opportunities for how they can act within society (Wellman, 2001). SCIS 2011- Turku Finland

People change- Research points out that younger generation users of Internet are more involved in content creation activities than those of older generations (Hempel, 2007).

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Business environments change – there has been a historical progression of our economy, from agricultural (commodities), industrial (goods production), service economy, to the emergence of an experience based economy that has the goal to differentiate services into experiences (Pine and Gilmore, 1999).

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3. What is value in an experienced based economy?

• • Value is derived from a “product or service” that is intangible and is “in the moment” experienced content.

Value is realised in the consumption of the experience. SCIS 2011- Turku Finland (Pine and Gilmore, 1999)

4. What is co-creation design?

• • • • • Co-creation - is as a systematic way for organizations to identify lead users and involve them in the creation process (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004). Co-creation used in the design process - is the idea of individuals contributing to innovation processes began with concepts of user innovation, where users that experience needs in the market can identify new trends and new needs (von Hippel, 2005). The output of this process is better market insight, brand awareness and idea generation. Older business models have focused on the organization gaining value through the creation of products and services and customers. (Proof after sale.)

sales

to In the co-creation design process end individual customers are engaged in the design process and these derive value from the

experience in the process

. (Proof at creation.) SCIS 2011- Turku Finland

5. Evidence of a Co-creation design culture

• The co-creation design process is therefore interrelated to the experienced based economy. If value is not generated on a continual basis, the value disappears. • The organization in such economy must involve customers in design, and needs to encourage a constant flow of experiences and create incentives for use and participation in the community and shared experiences.

SCIS 2011- Turku Finland

5. First Social Movie – Inside

• • • • • • •

Crowd Sourced thriller 'Inside' issues online casting call

(By Rob Quinn , Newser Staff, Posted Jul 14, 2011 4:30 AM CDT ) http://www.newser.com/story/123401/social-movie-inside-casting-facebookers.html

Stars Emily Rossum, and directed by D.J. Caruso. Plot - Emily wakes up in a locked room with no way to communicate with the outside world except a laptop, which she uses to communicate with her social network—played by real users of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The film's website invites users to audition via YouTube, reports the Guardian.

Process - After filming begins on July 25 segments of the movie will be released every couple of days across different social media platforms, with users invited to respond and help create the next installment. After three weeks, the entire project, including user content, will be edited into a single movie.

“Her only way out will be to bring you in.” Trailer - http://youtu.be/kVmb4Z1NDGw SCIS 2011- Turku Finland

• • •

Virtual Worlds as Social Media

Real time interaction with others in a seemingly personal (although not identical to real life) “face-to face” format.

Create customized virtual

self - represented through characters called “avatars”. Flexible representation allowing the avatar to appear quite like the member or very different. Sharing of virtual elements collaboration support ing three dimensional sharing of virtual elements.

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6. Limited evidence of co-creation in virtual worlds such as Second Life: Ideation Design • • • In 2008 Philips designed a co creative experience Island in Second Life to allow people to co create new futures. The ”Ideation Quest” invited people to participate exploring the topic of sustainable living in the future. Participants followed a route inspired by the design concept - Off the Grid: Sustainable Habitat 2020. This concept looks at possible solutions for energy and housing issues predicted in the year 2020. (Ref.: http://philips-design.livejournal.com/ ) http://slurl.com/secondlife/Philips/72/127/27/ SCIS 2011- Turku Finland

6. Limited evidence: Research Project on Co-creation Ideation Design in Second Life The Nordic Virtual Worlds Network (NVWN) project is a pan-Nordic, inter disciplinary project focused on investigating entrepreneurship and innovation in relation to virtual worlds. One of the project activities is “TRAVEL FOR CHANGE” workshop in Second Life. This activity links travelers from around the world to hosting communities in need of solutions in social, health, and environmental problems. For the first travels of 2011, the platform sought project ideas around the broad theme of water. ( http://nordicworlds.net

) NVWN Partners: • Stockholm School of Economics • Uppsala University • Silver • Island Academy of Arts • University of Turku • Roskilde University • University of Agder • Minidark • Tekes • Interactive City SCIS 2011- Turku Finland

7. Enabling Activities in Co-Creation Design

Virtual World Affordances--



Co-Creation Challenges Communication in real time: •co-presence of avatars •multimodal •group interactions Flexibility in design: •Anonymity •Rich mediation •Mediated feedback objects •Embodiment Collaboration: •Share in creation & mods of content •Avatars move in novel ways •Virtual economies Support individual-to organizational relationship

Make use of VW voice, text chat, and aspect of the VW to support one-to-one or group communications

Create incentive for individual investment

Create exhibition areas to show collaborative work; create expert users group with extra rights; Create a rating system on shared designs.

Provide support for members growth & skills acquisition

Provide a VW toolkit: joint authored text (GoogleDocs on a prim), shared whiteboards and streaming video boards Provide guides, interactive assistance, links to firm web pages; allow individual to choose level of anonymity Make use of virtual workshops to unleash creativity, apply games, word associations, brainstorming Create objects based on history or real world places - create immersive and inspiring environments Make known that Linden Lab grants copyright ownership of creation to consumers. Provide instructional videos or role-play to instruct organization related projects .

Provide stimulating or compelling experiences (e.g. play virtual football )

7. Design Science Research general steps as applied to Co-creation design in virtual worlds

(Vaishnavi & Keuchler, 2004)

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• •

8. Future opportunities for Co-creation Design in virtual worlds

We have selected examples of co-creation design with the platform of Second Life. However, other platforms may in time prove to be more supportive of a co-creation design culture. For example, OpenSim an open source server platform for hosting virtual worlds already involves hundreds of vendors that provide virtual grids, and OpenSim adopts the protocol set of SL for allowing end-user’s to design and build in-world. • In summery we think the supportive environment for a co-creation design culture should have the following features: – Allow customers to experience and contribute to the design and sharing of products through rich media context –

Adopt knowledge sharing approaches that are successful in open

source communities (support social capital – e.g. social rewards for engagement ) – Platform should support trust building in relationships between inviduals and organizations contributing to innovative designs (address privacy and security) SCIS 2011- Turku Finland