Experience Co-Creation Partnership

Experience co-creation (ECC) is a major re-think on how businesses create value. It involves redefining the way organizations engage individuals in value creation, especially employees and internal stakeholders, but also customers, suppliers, and related external stakeholders and communities. It is about organizations unleashing the creative energy of people by inviting and enabling them to interact with them differently. More

The Experience Co-Creation Partnership provides workshops, executive education and consulting services to disseminate experience co-creation concepts and support their practitioners. We are committed to the global application of ECC practice and travel extensively all over the world. Typical engagements with companies start with an introductory workshop and evolve into a combination of cascading workshops, coaching and consulting interventions. Our primary role is to coach members of the organization in the application of the experience co-creation concepts and help companies migrate to the next practices of value creation. More

Francis Gouillart's blog on co-creation

Monday, August 16, 2010

Pharmaceutical scientists show the way

A frequent objection to co-creation in pharmaceutical research – which we will define here as the sharing of research data and cost in the hope of discovering new therapies for major human conditions – runs something like this: “co-creation is fine and dandy, but it runs so orthogonal to the commercial interests of large pharmaceutical firms that it will never work.” My timid encouragement toward co-creation across private and public entities in the healthcare sector has usually been dismissed as a sign of my ignorance of how the industry really works, probably coupled with some Marxist-Leninist drift attributable to my European ancestry.

Fortunately, a few pharmaceutical scientists decided to take the matter into their own hands for research on Alzheimer’s disease. A recent article in the New York Times describes how back in 2003, a group of scientists decided they needed to build a common database and research protocol to identify biomarkers that may lead to Alzheimer’s. As a result, they sweet-talked their respective employers into this co-creative approach – from the very public National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration to very private players in the pharmaceuticals and medical imaging industries. More

Monday, August 9, 2010

The sirens of government are calling me

I don’t know much about government. I’ve been a private sector person all my life and I find it difficult enough to solve corporate problems without attempting to tackle public sector issues. I’m naturally intimidated by the thought of formulating recommendations for education, healthcare, or national security when I already struggle to corral a corporation toward a common goal.

Lately though, I ‘ve felt the pull. It’s a mixture of personal and professional things. My daughter just started as a young policy analyst working in Washington, DC, and I’m slowly discovering through her enthusiasm how the US government works. I’m also increasingly drawn to public issues through my partner consulting firm PRTM, which has a strong government practice. After all, government is quintessentially about engaging a wide set of constituencies in the co-creation of a common agenda, and this happens to be what I teach and write about.

As if the pull were not strong enough already, a colleague of mine recently attracted my attention to an interview given to the Japanese Asahi Shimbun newspaper by Anne-Marie Slaughter, director of policy planning at the U.S. State Department, and I fell in love. More

Thursday, July 15, 2010

LeBron James co-creates

I always love it when someone like LeBron James creatively bends the rules of a traditional marketing-run organization like the National Basketball Association. The place is full of league-centric rules aimed at packaging the experience of the fan around its self-defined view of “the brand,” using a ’60s view of marketing management where logos and TV ads are viewed as more important than the creation of an authentic fan experience. Those of you who want your kids to emulate the behavior of NBA stars at home, please raise your hand.

The same “I’m in charge of your experience” philosophy applies to the relationship the NBA has with its players. The player’s experience is regimented by rules such as the salary cap – a team’s payroll shall not exceed $58 million for the 2010-2011 season – and the interaction between players, agents, and teams – players shall not negotiate with soon-to-be free agents before July 1. These rules proceed from a league-first paradigm where the league defines acceptable behavior and players are passive recipients of an employment product defined by the NBA.

Fortunately, LeBron James just exploded all of that. More

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Visit the newly launched website for our forthcoming book and contribute to the conversation on co-creation:
PowerofCoCreation.com

Pre-order your copy now of
The Power of Co-Creation:
Build It With Them to Boost
Growth, Productivity, and Profits
By Venkat Ramaswamy and
Francis Gouillart (Simon & Schuster Free Press, October 5)

Selected publications

"Becoming a Co-Creative Enterprise, Harvard Business Review, by Venkat Ramaswamy and Francis Gouillart, Nov. 2010.

This upcoming article demonstrates how co-creation puts the human experience at the center of the enterprise's design.

The Power of Co-Creation by Venkat Ramaswamy and Francis Gouillart (Simon & Schuster Free Press)

This forthcoming book, due to be released in October, presents co-creation as the new re-engineering. The book provides a framework for managers and case studies on how leading businesses are using co-creation platforms to supercharge marketing, sales, R&D, product development, and management.

"Co-Creating Strategy with Experience Co-Creation" by Venkat Ramaswamy and Francis Gouillart, Balanced Scorecard Report, Jul-Aug. 2008

Three principles of the experience co-creation (ECC) paradigm of strategy innovation.

Upcoming events

Sustainability Innovators Working Group, Esty Environmental Partners, Sept. 23, Washington, D.C. – Francis Gouillart will speak on the application of co-creation to corporate sustainability issues. (Invitation-only event.)

Enterprise Co-Creation Executive Breakfast, Oct. 1, New York – Francis Gouillart and our strategic partner PRTM will present the principles of co-creation in action. (Invitation-only event.)

Solar Power International Conference, Oct. 12-14, Los Angeles – Francis Gouillart will speak on the application of co-creation to B2B environmental issues.

Enterprise Co-Creation Executive Breakfast, Oct. 15, Washington, D.C. – Francis Gouillart and our strategic partner PRTM will present the principles of co-creation in action. (Invitation-only event.)

Technology Services World, Oct. 19-20, Las Vegas – Francis Gouillart will give a keynote speech titled "Are Service Processes Dead?"

Enterprise Co-Creation Executive Breakfast, Oct. 22, Mountain View, CA – Francis Gouillart and our strategic partner PRTM will present the principles of co-creation in action. (Invitation-only event.)

Enterprise Co-Creation Executive Breakfast, Oct. 29, Chicago – Francis Gouillart and our strategic partner PRTM will present the principles of co-creation in action. (Invitation-only event.)

Enterprise Co-Creation Executive Breakfast, Nov. 5, Dallas – Francis Gouillart and our strategic partner PRTM will present the principles of co-creation in action. (Invitation-only event.)

HSM Expo Management, Nov. 9, Sao Paulo – Francis Gouillart will speak on customer engagement at this leading business conference in Brazil.

Enterprise Co-Creation Executive Breakfast, Nov. 17, Paris – Francis Gouillart and our strategic partner PRTM will present the principles of co-creation in action. (Invitation-only event.)

Enterprise Co-Creation Executive Breakfast, Nov. 19, London – Francis Gouillart and our strategic partner PRTM will present the principles of co-creation in action. (Invitation-only event.)

Enterprise Co-Creation Executive Breakfast, Dec. 3, Munich – Francis Gouillart and our strategic partner PRTM will present the principles of co-creation in action. (Invitation-only event.)

Selected research

Co-Creation Trends Report: Online Healthcare

Healthcare reform is always in the news, and never more so today. In fact, many websites have appeared in recent years that make healthcare information more transparent, create dialogue between practitioners and patients (and even among patients), improve access, and reduce the risk of a bad transaction. Collectively, these websites shift both control of and responsibility for healthcare from the experts to the consumer.

This co-creation report details seven trends that tip power toward the patient.