[p2p-research] special issue on living labs

[Michel Bauwens]

Ramon Sanguesa:

"Open innovation has many forms and facets. Living Labs, have received a lot
of attention lately. More or less, they are connected with user involvement
in innovation. However, there is a whole world of possibilities under these
two umbrellas and their intersection: users and labs.

The European Journal of Virtual Organizations <http://www.ejov.org/> has
published a special issue on Living
Labs<http://ve-forum.org/apps/pub.asp?Q=2993&T=eJOV%20Issues&B=1>that
helps in getting a clearer perspective on Living Labs.


I found two articles specially interesting.

In the first one Asbjørn Følstad reviews current literature in order to
classify the different types of Living Labs applied in ICT innovation.

In the second one, Esteve Almirall and Jonathan Wareham explore the role of
Living Labs in the general process of Open Innovation. I'll go through it in
a future post.

Let's go with the first one.

Følstad divides living labs into three general classes:


1. Living Labs as platforms to expose users to new applications, i.e.,
Living Labs as "testbeds".

2. Living Labs to experience and experiement about the consequences and
unexpected uses of a new technology. For example, the Living Lab set up by
Georgia Tech for R+D in ubiquitous computing.

3. Living Labs as true open innovation platforms for co-design and
co-creation with users. The author cites, for example, the European Network
of Open Living Labs and he stresses the fact that Living Labs are connected
with a given context, which most of the time, is a geographical one. He
cites as an example Arabianranta, the Helsinki Living Lab.


>From my point of view, this classification seems to define a scale of
"Livingness" related to the degree and type of user involvement. You would
have R+D Living Labs that are closer to the linear mode of innovation with
the twist that the research is being done not just on products or services
but also on the relationship of the users and this services. However, my
feeling is that users act more as "testers" or "guinea pigs" than
co-designers in this type of Labs. This would just be the first level of
Living Labs, let's call them, Level 1 Living Labs.

Then you would have "Level 2" Living Labs where the focus is more on goals
and methods derived from the User Experience area.

Finally, "Level 3 Living Labs" would require are more intense involvement of
users not just on the final products or services created by research labs or
shown by marketing departments but truly participating in the ideation,
design and actual creation of experiences, services, products and
technologies.

So, we go from the concept of innovation as something related to the closed
R+D department to a type of process and organization that shares some
characteristics of cooperation and involvement with Open Source initiatives.


In comparison to other innovation methods, Level 3 Living Labs are the ones
that embody the most distinct characteristics of the Living Lab approach. To
set them up there is a host of methods and processes that have to be in
place in order for the Living Lab to be successful. The paper reviews a lot
of them." (
http://fluxchange.typepad.com/en/2008/10/what-do-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-living-labs.html)



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