There is a world of difference between abdication and collaboration. I’ll bet German has some very long and interesting words to make this point even clearer.

There is going to be a lot of learning going forward as idealism around co-creation runs into human nature - the one thing that seems to change very little.

I sense that brand owners will want to think very clearly about the balance between consumer defined relevance and the unique creative difference they plan to offer the market.

Like you Ralf, I am not so very big on focus groups. The assumption that people know and can articulate what they want or need is one I think should be challenged.

Keep creating, Mike

thanks for your comment. Well, I’m not really a fan of focus groups since they might switch their preferences with the same pace than our business world has accelerated within the last couple of years.

In contrast you might be interested in Empathic Design coined by HBS Professor Dorothy Leonard -> see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathic_design

Talk to you soon, Ralf.

Thats one of the reason why my company does not actually conduct “participatory design” or focus group as we see our selves as leaders in our field.

Listening to consumers only make us optmizers, not leaders, to lead we need to tell consumers what to like.

One disclaimer is actually, depending on your marketing strategy. Design leaderships works for products with powerful brands when innovation plays a part. I have learnt however in mass-market design, like say for Dell computers, consumer experience and focus groups are extremly important as they make a commoordity product a lot better!

Wow this comment is becomming a worthy blog entry on my part! I shall link to it!