Johnnie Moore's comment on my Co-Creating With Your Customers post got me thinking...mostly about our propensity to want to 'control the message'.
I'm still musing here and have more questions than answers. I'd love to hear what you think a co-creative "book" or co-creative "conference" would look and feel like. Maybe blogs (and other collaborative microcontent tools) will usurp the role of both of these as a communication means.
Or is the entire intent behind a book and/or a conference to disseminate an idea, a meme, a message out in a broadcast fashion? Is a feedback loop desirable? Who's an idea-producer and who's the idea-consumer? Do the producer-consumer roles get a chance to exchange and trade roles? Are we missing out on the real value?
He says:
I think the point that "that the experience of co-creating value itself is part of the value" gets to the heart of it. So many businesses frame "creating customer experiences" as something they do TO customers. This leads to an obsession with control that often undermines success.I have to say that I'm not sure I'm going to buy Prahalad's book though! It's tone sounds highly prescriptive and I suspect that it is, itself, an example of an old, expert pardigm. Whereas this blog, where I comment, is more co-creative!
I think anyone (everyone has their own two cents) deserves a platform to get their idea/concept fully expressed and out on the table first...but then wouldn't it be nice to have a dialogue about it, collaborate around it, delve into it deeper, bounce ideas off each other, extend it? As a potential author, I wonder about the best way to get my message out. I don't think about it as a book per se. I'm not saying books are dead. But the question is: When is the book format the right delivery vehicle? (Not to mention that at least I find book writing to be a lonely process devoid of much feedback (outside of writing group, editor, agent, etc.) I myself crave interaction. Does a blog or a wiki or some collaborative workspace have the potential to be a 'co-creative' book? Or what about a traditional book to be followed by a blog later (i.e. SmartMobs, Creating Customer Evangelists, Ageless Marketing)? (Yes, I'm aware of the create-a-book wiki's (just can't find any links handy and Google isn't helpful on terms like "book" and "wiki")...but the intent is to create an end-product that is book..which you can't ultimately interact with.) And is a blog co-creative enough?
And then I see this post (via Marc Canter) questioning the one-way 'talking heads' nature of most conferences. Even the ones that purportedly are addressing massive shifts in society (usually through technology) tend to stick to the tried-and-true in conference formats. But rather than lack of innovation, could the real issue be a strong desire to control the message (at least that of the sponsors, if not necessarily the organizers)?
The infusion of new material, different speakers, or dissenting opinions is dangerous to the ideas of events with an agenda. A controlled message requires controlled ideas.
I have my own personal experiences putting on conferences (and am all to familiar with the pros and cons of corporate sponsorship and how it affects the 'editorial' content) and have experimented with workgroup-oriented interactivity, but perhaps a co-creative conference looks more like an Open Space gathering?
What are your questions, thoughts?
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