How can existing Living Lab infrastructures take up social software for co-creation? In the SociaLL WP3 this has been the key reseach question. On basis of the cases run in the SociaLL project, in particular three cases conduced by Halmstad Living Lab, a set of challenges and lessons learnt has been formulated.

In the report from the work you can learn about a criteria model that can aid Living Lab personnel when assessing or evaluating social software to be used to support co-creation in collaboration with users in a Living Lab. Furthermore, a social technology mesh method is proposed to aid the setup and facilitation of concept evaluations supported by social software.

You can download the report here

In the SociaLL we have tried to answer these questions by formulating requirements for social software to be used in co-creation, by getting an overview of existing solutions, and by developing new solutions for co-creation in Living Labs.

In a report from the project work package on requirements and design, we first present different types of social software designed to support user involvement and co-creation at different phases of the innovation process. In particular, we go into detail on a social software solutions developed within the SociaLL project to support user feedback on design.

We also present our experiences and lessons learnt from using this social software in cases of user involvement in innovation. Our experiences are based on the results from the user involvement, as well as post factum reports from clients and participants. In particular, we discuss challenges and findings concerning participant interaction.

Want to know more? See the full report

Living Labs are arenas for involving users in innovation processes. However, to recruit and maintain groups or communitie of user participants in a Living Lab is challenging.

As part of the SociaLL project, Marco Bertoni and Anna Ståhlbröst at Luleå Technical University have reported on their work to study how social media can be used to support user recruitment and commitment for online Living Lab studies.

They take as their starting point seven challenges for the implementation of social software in Living Labs, then present findings from an analysis of existing social networking platforms, a user study in the RECORD online Living Lab, and focus groups on participation online innovation activities.

The end result is a framework for user recruitement and commitment in Living Labs, particularly concerning online Living Lab studies. Their findings have also been used to orient the development of Collaboration Network @ LTU, a Drupal-based platform to be used to support Living Lab initiatives.

Interested? Download the report here.

• Do you want to know more about how to involve users in innovation?
• Learn about social software for user involvement?
• Share experiences with fellow practitioners?

More than 50 participants at the seminar arranged by the Nordic research projects SociaLL and SmartIES. Invited speakers: Morten Falch / Lene Tolstrup Sørensen (Aalborg University Copenhagen), Martin Bekkelund (Posten/Norway Post), and Bengt Lerpold (Visma).

• Place: SINTEF, Forskningsveien 3B, Oslo
• Date/time: December 4, 0900-1630.

Click here to see the seminar program.

The seminar was for industry and public sector professionals who work to involve users in innovation and development processes.

On Wednesday the 14th of November between 9.00-12.00 Halmstad University, Centre for Health Technology Halland, and the Region of Halland arranges an open industrial dissemination seminar about user involvement in innovation processes with the help of social software.

The seminar is a part of the dissemination activates done within the SociaLL project. Three researchers will be presenting and discussing the following three themes:

• Jesper Svensson, Halmstad University: Openness and IP – How to successfully involve multiple actors and user groups in digital innovation processes
• Anna Ståhlbröst, Luleå University: Recruitment and motivation of users/consumers in development processes
• Esbjörn Ebbesson, Halmstad University: Opportunities and challenges with social software in digital innovation processes

Interested to know more? Please contact seminar organizer Jesper Svensson, jesper.svensson(at)hh.se

Master student Lill Francis M. Reyes worked with the SociaLL project when doing her thesis on translating the participatory design method Future workshops for use on Facebook. The future workshop is a renowned method for engaging users in design, where user participants are taken through three phases of critique, fantasy and implementation, where they respectively criticize the current way and suggest their dream way of solving the design challenge, before working out how to translate the dream solution to real-world implementation.

In this Facebook version of the future workshop, potential users, designers, and to some degree the project owner cooperated for three weeks to explore new designs for an online photo heritage service. The result is an engaging journey into both how such an online service journey could be, but more importantly how a social networking service such as Facebook can be used to facilitate participatory design.

You find the thesis here. Recommended reading.

The SociaLL project supports ISM 2012, the international workshop on social media, where practitioners and researchers are invited to share and build knowledge. The workshop will be held December 3 in Oslo, Norway.

The call for workshop papers is out now. Deadline for submissions is September 20. All accepted papers will be published in the ISBN-numbered workshop proceedings and also made available online as open access.

Participation is free of charge. Read more at the ISM 2012 website.

Update:
At the ICE-conference in Münich in June 2012, the SociaLL project and the Smarties project (both financed by Nordforsk) collaboratively arranged an international Living Lab workshop. The aim of this workshop was to contribute to research on Living lab activities and illuminate the opportunities the Living Lab Key Principles offers to Living Lab Practices. In the workshop we also discussed how to implement and use social software to support Living Lab practices. At the workshop, lively group discussions and presentations contributed to the concept of Living Labs.

Curious about the Scandinavian approach to Living Labs? Want to join in on the The European Conference in Technology and Innovation Management – ICE-2012, arranged in Munich, June 18-20?

The SociaLL project, by Anna Ståhlbröst of Botnia Living Lab, is co-organizer of an international workshop with the aim to explore the value of the Scandinavian Living Lab approach in innovation processes. In particular, the workshop takes as a starting point the following key principles: openness, influence, sustainability, realism and value.

The workshop should explicate the opportunities these five key-principles offer to Living Lab practices. Also, discussions will be conducted on how to implement social software to support the Living Lab practices.

Want to know more? See the workshop description and the conference programme