As I was reading the article, "Building the Co-Creative Enterprise" by Venkat Ramaswamy and Francis Gouillart I found myself being slowly persuaded to agree with the notion that everyone needs to put their 2 bobs worth in to build the best marketing approach, to succeed in business and get the ultimate win-win scenario happening.
It makes the company out to be a do-gooder, ticking all the boxes of customer satisfaction, job satisfaction, getting different levels within an organisation to engage with each other to produce a terrific result that everyone is happy with. We are told that co-creation allows outsiders to contribute perhaps the most innovative, unprejudiced ideas that are likely to lead to increasing the pie and keeping things fresh. Throwing away conventional thinking about business design and strategy takes our focus off ourselves (the company), ignoring the obvious courses of action, and to look elsewhere for differentiation that will last. So we should end up with a new business model (throw away the SWOT & Maslow hey!?) that has a competitive edge which cannot be easily duplicated. It sounds too good to be true...
Unfortunately it was the wording of the final paragraphs that brought me back to reality and stopped me from totally embracing this theory. According to this same article, the New Paradigm of co-creation requires a 'new humility' and 'a democratic approach'. So, does it all boil down to Politics? Is democracy the perfect 'one-size-fits-all'? So what's wrong with taking the communist, socialist, autocratic or capitalist approach? Who could imagine their Boss as a Dictator? Should we be ruled by minority groups - the ones who speak the loudest, and spend most of their time and energy lobbying the Government. The democratic framework still needs boundaries.
I am also reminded of a time when I was about 21 years old. I was invited to attend an Advertising brainstorm for an unknown marketing campaign. Everyone was given $20 for their thoughts. The product was probably something like Nivea skincare, but they wouldn't say. We were all asked our opinion on fancy packaging versus recycled eco-friendly plain wraps. I couldn't believe what I was hearing as one-by-one the questions were queued to suggest that we should all go with the environmentally friendly packaging. Everyone played the game except me. I was the only one who had the guts to honestly say that I love to receive things wrapped up in fancy packaging. It was a wonderful experience that the rest of them were denying. I felt that peer pressure had definitely moulded the politically correct response to this marketing problem.
How can there be no influence in creative thinking? I also read about this type of corruption in the Case Study "Blogging the Way to Victory" by Dr Steve Goodman (2006) where we learn that enterprises such as McDonalds used fake blogs ('flogs') to position themselves in the marketplace.
Maybe the 'humility' they are talking about is the replacement of one's own individual value system - your gut feeling - with someone else's. But this might be the driving force of a non-democratic society. Maybe it is the Boss's leadership style that attracts customers. Maybe he is the vision personified. If that is the case, who can replicate that?
(By the way I was intrigued by entreprenneur Sir Richard Branson's recent comments which questioned why it still takes so long for students to qualify at University in this modern age, suggesting that it was a waste of time)
