The Co-creation Spectrum

by: Matt Rhodes

Over the past few days we have posted five types of co-creation. From those which involve only the customer and their own product to those which don’t involve the brand at all. These types can be seen as on a spectrum of co-creation with the following characteristics and variables:

1. Who controls the process – brand or customer?
2. Who is involved – only customers or a range of external stakeholders?
3. Who benefits – does the co-creation impact upon the customer’s personal experience or the broader experience of all customers?
4. What is the legacy – does the co-creation impact upon the customer’s version of the product alone or does it change the ultimate design?

This allows us to understand the five main types of co-creation highlighted in the series:

This is a typology we will be working on, but is one we use to analyse and understand innovation and co-creation in the social media and online community sites we see and work on.

A full list of the case studies for the five types we have show are below:

• Co-creation 1: Mass customisation
• Co-creation 2: Real-time self-service
• Co-creation 3: Service redesign
• Co-creation 4: New product co-creation
• Co-creation 5: Community product design

Some more reading

• Co-creation and Innovation – the ‘We’ Experience
  

Original Post: http://blog.freshnetworks.com/2008/08/the-co-creation-spectrum/