KETONENOKSI.COM

A week ago, on my way home from IFKAD, the International Forum on Knowledge Assets and Dynamics, I was really excited. Besides having fun, I had many great discussions with people from different backgrounds, with different positions in academia (and industry).

This week, I attended Futures of a Complex World in Turku, and I could not have enjoyed it more! Even more variety among the participants, this time ranging from university students and staff to entrepreneurs and to highly distinguished members of the Club of Rome – referring to a group of high-level politicians and government officials, diplomats, scientists, economists and business leaders from around the globe.

When I think of my presentations at those two conferences, the first being about different communication styles at Twitter (see here), and the other one representing a cross-section of my PhD studies on value concretion in service ecosystems (see here), they had quite different aims and scopes. Yet, they had an important thing in common: In both presentations, I talked about understanding human behaviour as a process where different mindsets, logics, opinions and values are continuously evolving. 

The amount and positive nature of feedback I received after my talk at Futures conference truly surprised me. That is, for many years, I have been working across disciplines without really attaching myself to any of them, thus seeing myself as the representative of rather idealistic and marginal views on how things should be. Yet, there I was, talking to a room full of smart, futures oriented people, about the systems view on value cocreation. About the need to enlargen our understanding of different world-views. About curiosity and engagement as the key elements for succeeding in value cocreation in practice.

According to the findings of a literature review I conducted earlier this spring, to be presented in a poster session at ICSERV2017 conference in July, it seems that we talk a lot about value cocreation, but without a common understanding of it. How I see it, value cocreation is not a method, but more of a process and an attitude. In order to cocreate value, we first need to create a common language. It is not about random encounters or about a bunch of like-minded people getting together around shared research or development topics. It is about building a bridge between the idealistic and the real life perspectives on things.

In other words, value cocreation is about becoming aware of our anticipatory assumptions on how things are or how they should be. It is about valuing the diversity and complexity around us and about building on it. It is about enhancing the quality and depth of our interactions, without limiting ourselves to what we see on the surface of things. That is, value cocreation is about being connected to other humans, about sharing your values and ideas with them. Once we embrace the diversity around us, our differences are no longer a reason for separation, but for unification. That is when value cocreation happens.

Do you agree?