John Steinbeck once said that ‘nothing was ever created by two men.’ Yet according to some, co-creation – the production of something new by a group – is one of the most successful outcomes of the internet age. Indeed, it was quite heavily championed at this year’s MRS conference. Charles Leadbeater defended the benefits of co-creation; we were invited to a Wiki Workshop; and even explored co-creation from the fashion perspective.
But to me the somewhat evangelical reverence with which co-creation is sometimes revered is slightly worrying. Mainly because, let’s be honest, there is no such thing as co-creation. Rather, there is only a refinement of one person’s idea. As Steinbeck suggested, ‘the group can build and extend something, but the group never invents anything.’ This is exemplified by Wikipedia, Linux and Firefox. Erroneously heralded as products of co-creation, each had a single inventor who built them into impressive, but nonetheless, ordered communities, where each individual conforms to an underlying structure of the creator.
At the heart of co-creation there is a hope that if enough minds come together then success will result. This begs the question: is co-creation successful? Quite probably not. In the sphere of Market Research, at least, co-creation is bounded by the demands of the client. The emphasis is less on co-creating something original or brilliant, but rather co-refining: developing an updated or altered product that still fits within the business model. So it becomes difficult to champion the liberating power of co-creation when one has to temper the potential productivity of the group in line with the demands of the client.
Furthermore, while Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds and Leadbeater’s We Think have helped to endorse the idea of co-creation, these efforts seem to ignore its ‘darker side’: the psychological and sociological biases that creep into any form of group work – group think, social loafing, and group polarisation to name but a few. In short, groups are rarely that successful. In the words of Ralph Cordiner, the former chairman of General Electric, ‘if you can name for me one great discovery or decision made by a committee, I will find you the one man in that committee who had the lonely insight…that solved the problem that was the basis for the decision.’
The chief concern with co-creation is that it creates a false dichotomy that because groups are the bright future, the efforts of the individual are clearly inferior. Increasingly, it seems, the worth of the individual is being devalued. No longer is Steinbeck’s ‘lonely mind of a man’ considered all that precious. Worse, this thought is slowly and erroneously permeating market research – perhaps best exemplified with the growing endorsement of online discussion groups in which, purportedly, respondents can collectively create something new.
Not only does this trend undermine the individual, but it also undermines the researcher. Traditional research techniques of focus groups and in-depth interviews, in which the role of the researcher is key, are increasingly seen as outmoded and ineffective. This, however, removes the rigour and experience of the researcher, meaning balanced and accurate insights are less likely – something I’m sure all parties want to avoid.
This is not to say that group work and collaborative efforts do not have a place in research, but this should not be at the detriment of individual creativity. In the words of Dr. Ester Buchholz, the late psychoanalyst and author of The Call of Solitude, ‘creative solutions require alone time. Solitude is required for the unconscious to process and unravel problems and to unearth original answers.’ Surely now, in the heat of the current recession when out-of-the-box, creative thinking is so clearly in demand, we shouldn’t be so quick to leave this behind.
Patrick Young
Tags: Charles Leadbeater, co-creation, conformity, creativity, Dr. Ester Buchholz, DVL Smith Ltd, Firefox, General Electric, group think, individuality, John Steinbeck, Linux, Market Research, MRS, Patrick Young, Ralph Cordiner, The Wisdom of Crowds, We Think, Wikipedia
Hi Patrick,
Really interesting perspective, but i have a few issues with it.
To me this piece sounds like a record label boss lamenting MySpace for it’s lack of consistency, or the editor of the encyclopedia Britannica dismissing Wikipedia for factual inaccuracies. In hiding from the encroaching wood, you turn to the trees.
‘there is no such thing as co-creation. there is only a refinement of one person’s idea’
i’m not quite sure how this squares: think of a wikipedia article. the benefit of co-creation is that ‘an idea’ – if you can truly bottle such a thing – exists in the holistic knowledge of the whole, independent of any one individual. it is interrogated from all sides, refined and re-negotiated. whoever initiated the ’stub’ is irrelevant – they were merely uploading an idea someone else shared with them.
as you say, the key is in managing this process of co-creation within parameters which deliver meaningful results to the client – but that is something quite independent of ‘the idea’ itself. if granular preferences are lost in this process of negotiation, then that is not generally to the detriment of the client, who likely want representative insights which they can base business-wide decisions on.
moreover the idea that an ‘experienced researcher’ is somehow more objective than hundreds of people developing an insight from multiple perspectives is a little difficult to believe, and rests in more in the self-perception of ‘the professional’ – replete with its own language and bias – than in social reality. the fallacy of the ‘eureka moment’ – of individual genius – is something which is being challenged across the board as knowledge and voices disperse, and it is up to researchers to adapt to this challenge, just as other industries are having to
Look forward to reading more from your blog
Best regards,
Tom