Co-creation, the process by which multiple people create (or develop) ideas together, is an idea that has been spreading rapidly in recent years. Although the term (co-creation) originated in the business world – to designate the development of new concepts, products, or services in conjunction with a company's stakeholders – its understanding and application have already transcended the corporate realm.
Co-creation is said to be interactive (or networked) when it has open input and themes, an open outcome, a free process (without a predetermined methodology imposed on everyone, although any group is free to adopt whatever methodology they wish), a distributed structure, and, of course, an interactive dynamic. It happens like this. People go to a certain place (physical or virtual) and there they start talking to each other about their ideas. William Irwin Thompson (1987), in Gaia: A Theory of Knowledge, wrote that “ideas, like grapes, grow in clusters.” One idea pulls another, each idea flirts with others (in the plural, hehe), and various ideas are pollinated by others, forming clusters of congruent ideas. If it connects, then projects can emerge that will be designed and implemented collectively. Done. It’s over (or rather: it’s just begun!). Too simple. It’s hard to believe that this can work. But such simplicity hides a high complexity. Interactive co-creation depends on an extremely complex process that we call conversation, in which different ideas combine and recombine, from our ability to fork and to carve our own paths to create new ideas from the ideas that interacted and mutually pollinated each other in the conversation.
Some people, no matter how hard they try, cannot see the point of interactive (or networked) co-creation. But this is the central issue. Either this process happens in a more centralized manner than distributed (under a hierarchy) or it happens in a more distributed manner than centralized (in a network). In the upcoming posts, we will delve deeper into this subject, as understanding networked co-creation still requires recognizing the differences between concepts such as fields of reproduction and fields of creation. Until then!
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Adapted from FRANCO Augusto (2012) Co-creation Reinventing the concept.
