Citizen-Driven Innovation
Read this guidebook, which explores smart cities through a lens that promotes citizens as the driving force of urban innovation. It presents different models of smart cities that show how citizen-centric methods can mobilize resources to respond innovatively to challenges in governance. The living lab approach encourages agile development and the rapid prototyping of ideas in a decentralized and user-centric manner.
How can mayors and public administrators create partnerships that drive value in their communities through citizen-driven innovation?
How can sustainability be integrated into municipal strategies and solutions?
How can city leaders join forces to learn and network globally?
Starter Pack
Methodology - Co-Design
Description
Co-design methods are those that engage all stakeholders – city government, ICT developers and providers, and local citizens and businesses – on an equal footing in some stage of the development of a new product or service. Co-design goes beyond so-called 'user-centered design' and similar approaches to define processes where citizens and end users take an active role in design processes.Use
The principles of co-design are at the heart of citizen-driven innovation, as this guidebook has intended to show throughout, so co-design can and should be a part of every Smart City initiative. Evidence across the Living Lab movement demonstrates how co-design leads to reductions in both cost and time for the implementation of services, since the end users themselves have contributed to defining them.Typologies
Co-design approaches can rely on face-to-face interaction or use appropriately structured internet based services, which offer the possibility to engage a global audience and network with other communities in a more open format. On-line co-design environments are often structured through 'Challenges', a way of defining innovation needs and then inviting a community of innovators to create new solutions to meet that need. The approach can also vary according to the setting, i.e. industry-led product design, community-led initiatives, etc. For instance, the Electronic Town Meeting as carried out by the eToscana Living Lab specifically supports policy co-design.Issues
The main issue for co-design is that it is easier said than done; lip-service is often paid to user engagement when in fact a top-down or technology-driven approach is actually defining the process. It is thus important to ensure that co-design extends as far as possible to all of the steps in the decision making process, from agenda-setting onwards.Implementation
For the early adoption or implementation of a given co-design method, it is a good idea to ask an expert familiar with the technique, drawn for instance from any partnering ENoLL Living Lab, to assist in animating the process. You will then be able to gradually build a local team of co-design support staff.Methodology - Co-Design
Cases
Many ENoLL Living Labs have been active in the experimentation of structured co-design methodologies. The FormIT model, developed at the CDT Botnia Living Lab, is one of the earlier formalizations of the Living Lab approach; its on-line toolbox includes a broad range of useful tools and techniques.The CKIR at Helsinki's Aalto University and the iMinds-iLab.o support service are good examples of the 'lead user' method, where the people engaged in co-design are selected from a pool of users according to specific criteria.
Service Design approaches also use specific co-design tools that aim to capture the end user's viewpoint. Methods developed in the Guarantee and VEP projects include: Affinity diagrams (clustering interview responses), Persona development (narratives for fictional profiles), Scenario building (innovation concepts for own goals), and Blueprinting (symbolic representation of service actors and activities).
The MyNeighbourhood service introduces competitive 'gamification' techniques to stimulate user engagement. Oulu instead uses an on-line "One Stop Shop" for the co-design of remote city services.