One of the more recent terms to surface in
the social sector is ‘co-creation’, sometimes used interchangeably with
‘co-production’. Organisations like Nesta use the terms to describe the process
of designing products or services with the people who are going to use them.
Only occasionally are the term and techniques used for communications.
What
is co-creation?
Co-creation basically means collaborative
creation. At Poached Creative and we define co-creation as
designing creative assets alongside the people we are trying to reach.
This could be:
This could be:
·
young people producing
anti-crime campaigns for their peers
·
people with learning
disabilities building an accessible website
·
homeless and unemployed people
creating a blog about their experiences.
More
than a focus group
Traditional focus groups get people
together, test some ideas and usually leave it up to the creatives to accept or
ignore the feedback. In co-creation the ideas and content are generated, tested
and approved by the group. They retain collective oversight of the product or
service through the development process.
Top creatives will be involved with the
process so they can hear from the audience first-hand and bring in the professional view..
In addition to creating something that they
care about, participants will also gain or practice skills in communication,
team work and pitching/presentation.
The
process
1. Meet with audience members. Often this
will be a mixed group of different audience members, including staff and
stakeholders. The workshop looks for consensus on the following questions:
·
What do we know about the issue
and audience?
·
Why does it matter to us and
what matters most?
2. Find the message,
media and channel. Planning is the key to any successful communications project
and this stage provides the foundation for PR and distribution plans. The group
explores the following questions:
· Where will our audience be, how do we reach
them?
· What’s it about? How would you say it to a
friend?
· What does success look like? How will we know
when it’s good?
3. Get creative. Often
this stage will take place with creative professionals – eg. writers,
designers, filmmakers or photographers in the room. It will:
· Look at what’s already out there, research
content
· Design/write/film/create social media
4. Critical feedback.
This is the point where the creative is tested with different audience members. Participants will ask the
following questions:
· Does this work? What do other people think? Are
we missing something?
· Feedback and input from stakeholders/experts
· Amend and seek sign off
5. Launch and promote.
This stage is all about getting the product out to the right people through the
right channels and enlisting the help and contacts of everyone in the group.
6. Evaluate and feed back.
Involving the group in evaluating the success, based on criteria agreed in
stage 2, is crucial for the learning process and also to improve future
products.
Co-creation techniques
Co-creation from Poached Creative starts
with an audience group and a brief or theme. We facilitate groups using a range
of techniques to engage them in the creative process over anything from two to
twelve sessions.
Some of these techniques include:
Some of these techniques include:
· open discussion, brainstorming and mood
boarding
· creating audience personas
· future basing
· SWOT and PEST analysis
· distribution and PR planning
· action planning, assigning roles and tasks
· presentation/pitching and critical review
· documenting progress and building networks
through social media
“Co-creation isn’t
about happy-clapper brainstorms and blank sheets of paper, it’s about
well-channelled creative energy and structured tasks that meet a business
challenge.”
Sense Worldwide (2009) The Spirit of Co-Creation: Risk-Managed Creativity for Business
Sense Worldwide (2009) The Spirit of Co-Creation: Risk-Managed Creativity for Business
For more information
visit:
Poached Creative's co-creation pagewww.staying-safe.com
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