A lot of citizen dialogues are perhaps more consultation and less dialogue. When it comes to service innovation logic it becomes interesting when a citizen dialogue is taken one step further and actually becomes co-creation. The users role changes in a fundamental way when the citizens and other stakeholders are involved in developing new projects or ideas.
In co-creation the role of the citizen is changed. Now the citizens are actually given part of the power to design the questions and even decide on the final plan or project.
The good kitchen project from Denmark is an interesting example of co-creation with relevant stakeholders. A consultant firm got the assignment to improve the meals for elderly people bacause they were malnourished. Instead of just focusing on more nutrition in the food they involved all relevant stakeholders in a design thinking process. They found out that the problem was so much larger than just the nutrition in the food.
The problem of malnourished elderly was not really about the food itself, it was about the setting, presentation, not being able to choose food and feelings about eating alone. A deep understanding of the need of the customer led to a successful result. The employees that made the food also participated and their role has changed fundamentaly. They decided to look at the service as a restaurant. Then they became the chiefs, the elderly were guests and the delivery servants. The employees could now make a menu with different choices and use their expertice of cooking in a profound way
The role of the customer has changed from just being a passive receiver of food to be able to choose what to eat from a menu. For the user, the elderly people, there were a great deal of value integration. Not only did they get more nutrition in the food, thay also became empowered and happy! This also applied for the staff preparing the food.
I hope I'm not too brave to argue that this is a good example of service-logic innovation in public sector.
http://www.servicedesigntoolkit.org/cases-good-kitchen.html
http://www.dienstleistungsmarketing.ch/documents/michel2008cmrinnovatecustomersnotproducts.pdf
Hi, I think it's a very good example what you have described. I think it's rather typical in many sectors that experts delimit the issue from its context and therefore try to solve the issue with "more of the same". I am a true believer of the need for deeper understanding of the users value-creation process especially in the public sector.
SvaraRaderaMarie
I too agree - a very refreshing example! It seams they not only specified the outcome of the service innovation, they also come to specify every meal every time. I think the crucial part here is the first: to be able to participate in the innovation process. This way you are the co-creator, but also co-owner of the specification (that is the description of the innovated process). With this you may still fail, but without it you will.
SvaraRaderaNice, but sad example you given us. I keep thinking that we have a debate of the importance of pre-school teacher eating lunch with the kids, but we cant imagine that other "customers" in public sector have the same needs. What do you think about the learning process in this case?
SvaraRaderaWonderful example! I was involved in a project where we wanted to improve municipal services to citizens. What we did was based on a questionnaire survey in which citizens were unhappy with the service from the municipality and we tried to find solutions through discussions with staff to improve services.
SvaraRadera