With the Danone Research team we had the pleasure of being invited to speak at the prestigious Sensory Science Symposium Pangborn, which was held in Minneapolis in August.
On this occasion, Michel Rogeaux and I had the opportunity of presenting the Home Use Blog to the scientific community involved in the field of sensory studies and consumer tests.
As a reminder, the Home Use Blog is a protocol by which consumers test an innovation and exchange impressions in a community blog during the entire experience. This dual immersion of the product experienced by each respondent and within a community proves to be an extremely rich source of information and insight. At the same time, the possibility for the project team of monitoring the test day by day allows for a great deal of adaptability and is very motivating.

This approach is also highly flexible: Since November 2006, when we presented the methodology for the first time at SEMO with Danone Research, we have had the opportunity of using Home Use Blog (for Danone and for other manufacturers) in a great variety of configurations:
. in different countries, over varying periods of time (with a project in the very short term for a HUB during 3 months).
. by combining the Home Use Blog with other approaches, for example by organising at the end of the blog a Focus Group with the participants face-to-face to work in a more creative manner on the elements of the product mix.

In a nutshell, we are convinced that this method will become firmly established as part of marketing research practises in product development processes. The enthusiastic response on the part of the participants at the Pangborn conference backed us up in our conviction.

You will find here the slides of the Home Use Blog presentation at Pangborn.

Joshua Culdesac and Piper Pitney are the winners of the competition "Call for collective design for the Jardin des Halles" initiated by the association Accomplir, the agency Pourquoitucours and Repères. The jury found the creative approach in the design of the Garden of Islands proposed by Joshua Piper especially appealing.

The garden proposed by Yaox Bruner awarded the “public prize” following the votes of the Repères Second Life panel:


















Lastly we would like acknowledge the quality of the proposals of all the participants, which may be seen during the whole summer on the Repères Second Life Islandor on video youtube.

This competition was principally aimed at accompanying the Accomplir Association in its fight against the project selected by the Paris City Hall. The objective was not to create the future Jardin des Halles but to prove that other designs were possible which associated creativity and compliance with certain spécifications. The final objective of the members – volunteers – of the association Accomplir being to convince the Paris City Hall to abandon the project and to launch an official competition for the garden.

We do not yet know what will be the outcome of this process but it is clear that Accomplir has made a clear statement in favour of its case thanks to Second Life; the association has benefited from wide media coverage enabling it to express its views (articles in Le Parisien, Paris Obs, Matin Plus, Lemonde.fr, lexpress.fr , BBCnews) ...And has effectively countered any criticism as to its alleged support of the status quo or rejection of innovation.

As for Repères, our action as a sponsor of this competition has enabled us to validate once again the relevance of Second Life as a platform for co-design, even for Real Life uses.

Repères Second Life and Pourquoi tu cours are partners of the association Accomplir which has decided to organise a design competition in Second Life for the re-development of the Jardin des Halles in Paris.

This is an extremely interesting example of the application of the principle of socially aware co-creation. This is how Accomplir qualifies its motivation in initiating this approach.

Why are we launching this virtual contest?
Because we love the Halles district, and want to live there pleasantly, in harmony with those who frequent it.
Because the project we are presented with does not satisfy our expectations, which have been clearly expressed, nor does it take into account the surveys previously carried out.
Because we refuse to disavow the official consultation, or challenge the power of the Paris Town Hall, which holds the final decision.
Because it is essential to break the deadlock we have been in for months, and re-establish the urge to demonstrate creativity in les Halles.

We are impatiently looking forward to receiving the projects! (the deadline is 1st June 2007)

The detailed specifications of the competition, the plan of the site and the rules may be consulted on the Repères Second Life site.

Following is the entire press communiqué.

Among the types of studies that may be conducted in Second Life, one area that seems particularly promising to us is that of co-creation: Businesses today are aware that they cannot innovate inside laboratories behind closed doors and that innovation will be successful if it is partly conducted by calling on collective creativity (see the book “Fabriquer le Futur 2” (Creating the Future 2, co-written by Pierre Musso, Laurent Ponthou and Eric Seuillet, who is the president of Fabrique du Futur).

These approaches will develop and are precisely a part of the societal trend of the “Participation generation” described by Thierry Maillet in his latest book “la Génération Participation”. Citizen/consumers are increasingly seeking direct dialogue with the brands and expect them to take into account their proposals.

We believe that Second Life is an ideal platform for this process of co-creation, namely because it allows those who wish to do so to provide their creative input to the brands and to present their designs under the form of 3D prototypes. Prototypes that may then be evaluated by other residents…

To activate this co-creative process, the organisation of a competition is amusing, stimulating and well-adapted to Second Life.

Our first experiments in this direction have been very positive. The first competition we launched, a building competition for a Repères showroom, was initially intended to propose an event for our panellists and to test the principle of competitions. The result is exceptional and I invite you to admire the design, presented in the next two snapshots, by Joshua Culdesac and Piper Pitney on the Repères Second Life island.










You will also find more information on this design and its creators on the Repères Second Life site.

The other competitions we have organised so far, have also been conducted experimentally by our panel, and we have found it more interesting and of greater impact to conduct this work for the benefit of partners who do not necessarily have the means to benefit from our services normally.

We are therefore moving towards two types of co-creation processes in SL:
. Operations for the brands, invoiced according to our usual conditions,
. and, for the purposes of communication and events organisation, joint operations with associations whose projects we support, with a sharing of the costs.