actors by designing a value co-creation space
Elsa Mäki-Reinikka
2020 Laurea
Activating the network of cultural tourism actors by designing a value co-creation space
Elsa Mäki-Reinikka
Service Innovation and Design Master’s Thesis
December, 2020
Elsa Mäki-Reinikka
Arvon yhteiskehittämisalusta kulttuurimatkailuverkoston aktivoimiseksi
Vuosi 2020 Sivumäärä 79
Tämän opinnäytetyön tarkoituksena oli suunnitella skaalautuva kehittäjäfoorumikonsepti, jolla mahdollistetaan eri alojen toimijoiden välistä yhteistyötä. Ensisijaisena
tutkimustavoitteena oli suunnitella kulttuurimatkailun kehittäjäfoorumi -konsepti. Tämän opinnäytetyön tilaajana oli Cultural Tourism for City Breakers -hanke. Kulttuurimatkailun kehittäjäfoorumin suunnittelussa noudatettiin British Councilin tuplatimantti (Double- Diamond Model) -prosessia (2011).
Kulttuurimatkailun kehittäjäfoorumit järjestettiin Helsingissä, Lahdessa ja Jyväskylässä ja pilotoitiin tammi-toukokuussa 2019. Tapahtumat suunniteltiin arvon
yhteiskehittämisalustoiksi, jossa osallistujat saivat tietoa kulttuurimatkailusta. Tapahtuma kasvatti verkostoitumismahdollisuuksia ja antoi alustan oppimiselle ja dialogin
rakentamiselle. Ammattikorkeakoulujen rooli verkoston integraattoreina korostui konseptissa.
Konsepti heijasti vahvasti myös kulttuurimatkailutoimijoiden alueellisia tarpeita.
Teoriaosuus keskittyy avaamaan tapahtumien palvelunnäkökulmaa, tapahtumien arvoa verkostoitumisen ja oppimisen kannalta, sekä tapahtumia arvon yhteiskehittämisen alustoina.
Opinnäytetyö avaa tärkeimpiä elementtejä, jotka on otettava huomioon suunniteltaessa konseptia. Asiakaslähtöisyys ja arvon rakentaminen olivat konseptin keskiössä, ja konseptin suunnittelussa hyödynnettiin palvelumuotoilun menetelmiä kuten työpöytätutkimusta, työpajoja, prototypointia ja pilotointia, palautekyselylomakkeita, tapahtumien
dokumentoimista videona, ja viiden kulttuurimatkailun toimijan haastattelua. Lopputuloksena oli valmis visualisoitu konsepti.
Tulokset osoittavat, että kulttuurimatkailun kehittäjäfoorumit tuottivat lisäarvoa kolmella eri tasolla: toimijatasolla, alueellisella- ja kansallisella tasolla. Opinnäytetyössä kuvaillaan, ketkä toimijat osallistuivat tapahtumiin ja keskustellaan heidän identiteetistään
kulttuurimatkailutoimijoina. Opinnäytetyössä kuvataan myös verkoston aktivoinnin
edellytyksiä, mahdollistavia tekijöitä ja esteitä. Onnistuneen konseptin edellytyksenä on, että toimijat sekä kulttuuri- että matkailusektorilta osallistuvat tapahtumaan. Verkoston
integraattori toimii sen sijaan toiminnan mahdollistajina koordinoimalla prosessia.
Ammattikorkeakoulujen tulisi useammin nähdä itsensä verkoston integraattoreina ja hyödyntää yhteiskunnallista rooliaan eri alojen välisen yhteistyön kehittämiseksi. Tutkija antaa myös ehdotuksia mahdollisista muista verkoston integraattoreista ja niiden vahvuuksista ja heikkouksista. Viestinnälliset haasteet, identiteettikysymykset, vähäiset resurssit,
henkilökohtaiset syyt ja kaupunkien kapea brändi kulttuurimatkailun osalta, sekä negatiiviset kokemukset muista toimijoista, on koettu verkoston aktivoimisen esteiksi.
Kehittäjäfoorumeiden on tulevaisuudessa vastattava eri toimijoiden tarpeisiin alueellisella ja valtakunnallisella tasolla. Foorumit voivat olla joko virtuaalisia tai fyysisiä tapahtumia.
Foorumeiden jatkuvuus on välttämätöntä, jotta kulttuurimatkailutoimijat pääsevät jatkossa kohtaamaan toisiaan tapahtuma-alustalla. Hankerahoituksen sijasta, olisi tärkeää löytää pysyvämpi rahoitusmuoto, jatkuvuuden takaamiseksi. Tämä varmistaisi konseptin kestävyyden pidemmällä tähtäimellä.
Avainsanat: kulttuurimatkailu, arvon yhteiskehittämisalusta, verkoston aktivointi, kehittäjäfoorumi
Master of Business Administration Elsa Mäki-Reinikka
Activating the Network of Cultural Tourism Actors by Designing a Value Co-creation Space
Year 2020 Number of pages 79
The purpose of this thesis was to design a scalable co-development forum concept to enhance value co-creation between actors from different fields. The primary research objective was to design a co-development forum concept for cultural tourism. The Culture Tourism for City Breakers (CTCB) -project was the commissioner of this thesis. Designing a co-development concept event for Cultural Tourism followed the British Council’s Double-Diamond Model process (2011).
The co-development forum events in Helsinki, Lahti and Jyväskylä were piloted in January- May 2019. The events included keynote speeches and workshops that allowed participants to gain knowledge on cultural tourism, ideate new services, and network with interesting stakeholders. There was a strong focus on learning, as Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS) coordinated the project. The UAS role was as a network integrator. The designed concept also strongly reflected the needs of the cultural tourism actors.
The theoretical base opens up aspects such as an event as a service, the value of events as a space for networking and learning, as well as events as a value co-creation space. The thesis describes the main elements to consider when designing a co-development forum concept.
The main elements included design thinking tools and methods, and the concept of value. The process involved desk research, a team workshop, prototyping and piloting the co-
development forum events, feedback questionnaires, documenting the events by video, five interviews of cultural tourism actors, a persona workshop, and finally designing the co- development concept for cultural tourism using concept visualization tools.
The results show that the co-development forum events produced value on three different levels: the actor, regional and national level. The thesis opens up who the cultural tourism actors are and connects the discussion to questions of identity and identification. The thesis describes the prerequisites, enablers, and barriers for activating networks. Activation of the network was reliant on two aspects: the active actors and the co-development forum event.
Having actors from two fields actively participate in the event days is thus a prerequisite for the forums to become value co-creation spaces. The network integrators have a role as enablers of value co-creation. Universities of Applies Sciences should more often see themselves as network integrators and utilize their role in society to increase cooperation opportunities between students for networking to occur naturally in the early stages of career identity formation. Suggestions on the strengths and weaknesses of the different possible network integrators are also described. Barriers included communication challenges, identity issues, low resources, personal issues, and the narrow brand of cities, as well as negative experiences with actors and past network integrators.
The co-development forums will in the future need to fit different actor, regional and national needs. The events could be either virtual or live. The continuity of co-development forums is essential to provide an annual meeting place for the network of cultural tourism actors. Instead of project funding, it would be important to find a more permanent form of funding to ensure the maintenance of the network. This would ensure the sustainability of the concept.
Keywords: cultural tourism, value co-creation, network activation, co-development forum
1 Introduction ... 1
1.1 The ever-evolving field of cultural tourism ... 1
1.2 Current operational environment of cultural tourism in Finland ... 3
1.3 Research and development objectives ... 6
1.4 Culture Tourism for City Breakers -project ... 7
1.5 Key concepts ... 9
1.6 Structure of the thesis ... 10
2 Different aspects of events as a service for value co-creation... 11
2.1 An Event as a Service ... 11
2.2 The value of events as a space for networking ... 12
2.3 Events as a value co-creation space ... 15
2.4 Events as a space for learning ... 18
3 Methods for designing a value co-creation space for cultural tourism actors ... 19
3.1 Discovering cultural tourism development needs ... 23
3.2 Defining the design task ... 24
3.3 Developing of the co-development forums in Helsinki, Lahti and Jyväskylä ... 30
3.4 Delivering the co-development forum concept for cultural tourism ... 36
4 Activating the cultural tourism network ... 36
4.1 Who are the cultural tourism actors? ... 37
4.2 The value of the co-development forum events ... 44
4.3 Network integrators as enablers of value co-creation ... 47
4.4 Barriers ... 49
4.5 The co-development forum concept for Cultural Tourism... 51
4.6 Development ideas for network activation ... 56
5 Conclusions and discussion... 60
References ... 65
Figures ... 69
Tables ... 69
Appendices ... 70
1 Introduction
Cultural tourism in the year 2020 looks very different to when the researcher started this thesis project in 2018. What has not changed is the need to co-create services. In order for cultural and tourism actors to be able to achieve a state of value co-creation, they need a space for this to occur.
With the ever-evolving world, new challenges will arise for actors working in the field. The COVID-19 outbreak has been the largest challenge to hit the industry to date. This means that the actors will need to find new ways of working and co-creating value in the uncertain times ahead. Understanding global cultural tourism trends is significant when developing new services, and finding strategic partners for co-creation. Global challenges concern actors working in the field of cultural tourism, as the field is dependent on the flight and transport industry that is currently on hold due to the pandemic.
The first chapter describes the ever-evolving field of cultural tourism, and opens up the Cultural Tourism for City Breakers -project. The current operational environment for cultural tourism in Finland is in chapter 1. In addition, the research and development objectives, key concepts, and structure of the thesis are in chapter 1.
1.1 The ever-evolving field of cultural tourism
There is a strong link between culture and tourism. People are motivated to explore and travel to different corners of the world for different reasons. One important motivation to travel is to experience culture through “sights, attractions, and events” (Richards 2018, 2).
Historically, travel helped to increase cultural understanding after the Second World War and had a large part to play in the reconstruction of shattered economies (Richards 2018, 2).
As people starting consuming more in the 1960’s and 70’s, international travel became increasingly accessible to the middle class. By the 1980’s “cultural tourism” became more acknowledged as a term to describe the “niche” market (Richards 2018, 10). Before the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, tourism was one of the largest and fastest growing sectors in the world economy. According to the OECD, it directly contributes, on average, 4.2% of GDP, 6.9% of employment and 21.7% of service exports in OECD countries (OECD 2018).
International tourist arrivals increased to over 1.2 billion in 2016. According to statistics, the sector employed about 137 800 people in 2015, equivalent to 5.5% of the population in working life in Finland (OECD 2018).
The OECD has identified the most important megatrends concerning the tourism sector. These include changing demographics, evolving demand, digitalization, and climate change, which present new opportunities and challenges for actors working in the tourism sector (OECD
2018). Developing services in today’s economy means that service developers and designers need to be aware of global megatrends. According to Finnish research on trends, there is an increasing need to be able to anticipate future customer needs (Puhakka 2011). Puhakka argues that tourists today are interested in such things as communal services and “snacking”.
Communality comes from experiencing attractions together, while snacking involves having many short or small experiences, rather than one long vacation (Puhakka 2011, 6). The tourists that consume services in this way are called “city-breakers” (Culture Tourism for City Breakers -project proposal 2017). Sustainability is also leading trend that is significant in the field of cultural tourism today (OECD 2018).
One of the challenges facing Finnish Cultural Tourism services is that the culture, and the tourism fields, do not have enough cooperation and do not develop services together (Luova Matka -project report 2018). According to Prahalad & Ramaswamy (2004), services need to be co-created for new innovative ideas to flourish. This means that not all ideas and knowledge are not at the moment optimally used to create new cultural tourism services for ever- developing customer needs.
1.2 Current operational environment of cultural tourism in Finland
It is important to understand the operational environment when studying cultural tourism.
Below, you can see the organizational chart of tourism bodies in Finland (Figure 1).
Organizational chart of tourism bodies in Finland National Level
--- Regional Level
--- Local Level
Figure 1: Organizational chart of tourism bodies in Finland (OECD 2018, Adapted from the Ministry of Economic Affairs 2018)
Public Authorities
Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment
Inter-Ministerial Working Group on Tourism
Tourism Organizations
Visit Finland/ Business Finland
Tourism industry, Trade and Labour Market Associations
Public Authorities
Municipalities
Tourism Organizations Local Tourist Information Offices
Tourist Destinations and Offices
Public Authorities
Regional State Administrative Agencies
Centres for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment
Regional Councils
Tourism Organizations
Regional Tourist and Destination Management Authorities
The operational environment is divided into public authorities and tourism organizations on a national, regional and local level. The actors were important in the scope of this thesis, since they were invited to attend the co-development forum events as participants. Their role is opened up in Table 2.
The current tourism strategy in Finland is the Roadmap for Growth and Renewal in Finnish Tourism for 2015-2025 (TEM 2015). The strategic focus areas for Finnish cultural tourism (TEM 2015) are in Table 1. The aim is to make Finland the number-one tourist destination in Northern Europe by 2025 (OECD 2018). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic however, it is difficult to say what the future holds for travel and the tourism industry.
The theme for the roadmap is “Achieving more together” (TEM 2015) and its strategic focus areas are in the Table 1 below.
Table 1: Strategic focus areas for Finnish cultural tourism (TEM 2015)
1. Strengthening the theme-based collaboration of tourism centers and networks of tourism related companies, as well as new openings in product development, sales, and marketing,
2. Developing competitive and diverse offerings from the interfaces of tourism and other fields,
3. Increasing the effectiveness of marketing activities and making travel services easier to buy,
4. Providing a competitive operational environment for tourism that supports growth and renewal,
5. Improving accessibility and functioning supply chains to support tourism growth.
This thesis will focus on developing a service that strengthens collaboration between cultural and tourism actors (point 1), and through this collaboration increases opportunities for co- creation of diverse offerings and new service development in the field of cultural tourism (point 2).
Table 2: The cultural tourism network actors (Visit Finland 2014)
The Cultural Tourism network actors and roles as listed in the Development Strategy in table 2. One of the key objectives mentioned in the Development Strategy for Cultural Tourism 2014-2018 is to increase networks and network cooperation between these actors. (Visit Finland 2014).
The Culture Finland Program
• national coordination and regional coordination network administrator, tools The Culture Finland regional coordination network
• regional coordination between the tourism and culture actors, development and implementation
Regional organizations
• communication, project activation, product and service build-up, quality monitoring, service development support, highlighting regional uniqueness, coordination and promotion of different measures and procedures.
Projects
• (no specific role, different projects have different roles) Tourism entrepreneurs
• Service development, sales, marketing Culture actors and organizations etc.
• development, implementation, communications, project activation, service build- up, quality monitoring, service development
Cultural producers
• responsible for service development and connecting services to the tourism sector services. Producers are responsible for the quality of their own services
Visit Finland
• policies, coordination, research, marketing
• Visit Finland supports development work on a national level, while regional organisations support development work on a regional level
Universities, Universities of Applied Sciences and other research organizations
• research and knowledge Ministries (OKM; UM; TEM; YM)
• Funding, policies
Table 3: Number of tourism establishments in Finland in 2015 (OECD, 2018)
Number of establishments 2015
Total na
Tourism industries 31616
Accomodation services for visitors na
Hotels and similar establishments 2097
Food and beverage serving industry 9066
Passenger transport 81
Air passanger transport 76
Railways passenger transport 76
Road passenger transport 8792
Water passenger transport 207
Passenger transport supporting services na
Transport equipment rental 318
Travel agencies and other reservation services industry 1568
Cultural industry 3174
Sports and recreation industry 3503
Retail trade of country-specific tourism characteristic goods na Other country-specific tourism industries na
In Table 3, you can see the number of enterprises working in the field of tourism in Finland in 2015 (OECD, 2018). In this table, you can see that there were 3174 establishments in the field of tourism within cultural industry. This is a considerable amount.
The current need to develop services for the increasing number or tourists is a challenge.
Industries from all the sectors that have establishments connected to tourism should tackle the challenge together. In this thesis however, I will restrict my research to the cultural industry working in the field of tourism, i.e. the cultural tourism actors.
1.3 Research and development objectives
The research and development objectives in this thesis are to design and pilot the co- development forum concept for cultural tourism. The researcher worked as the project producer of the co-development forums from November 2018 to May 2019. As the producer, the researcher had the possibility to design and collect insights from the co-development forum pilots.
The purpose is to design a scalable co-development forum concept to enhance value co- creation between actors from different fields.
The primary research objective of this thesis is to design a co-development forum concept for cultural tourism.
Research questions
1. What are the main elements to consider when designing a co-development forum concept for cultural tourism?
2. What are the prerequisites, enablers, and barriers for activating networks?
3. What are the development ideas for upscaling the sustainable solution?
The project team went forward to design a joint co-development forum that acts in series of co-creation and co-developing “think tank’s” in each partner city (Helsinki, Lahti and Jyväskylä). Think-tank agendas were local and national depending on specific tourism and cultural aspects of each city reflected at the think tank. This development project aimed at designing a multidisciplinary-piloted co-development forum concept that brings together cultural and tourism actors and future practitioners with education practitioners. (Culture Tourism for City Breakers -project proposal 2017.)
1.4 Culture Tourism for City Breakers -project
The Culture Tourism for City Breakers (CTCB) -project is the commissioner of this thesis. The researcher accepted the topic of designing a multidisciplinary-piloted co-development forum concept for cultural tourism while she was working as a producer for the CTCB -project. The topic interested the researcher for several reasons. The researcher saw an opportunity to combine her knowledge in cultural tourism with that of service innovation and design.
The European Social Fund funded the CTCB project. The project period was 1.8.2018- 31.8.2020. Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences, Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences and Lahti University of Applied Sciences coordinated the project.
The project aims at bringing together cultural and tourism actors and students by designing a co-development forum in Helsinki, Lahti and Jyväskylä. The aim of the project is to develop Finnish cultural tourism services for international tourists. In cities, the aim is to create more opportunities for cultural and tourism businesses and communities to co-create. The aim is also to develop cultural tourism education. The ethical aspects in the project proposal take into account ecological, financial, social, and cultural sustainability related issues. (Cultural Tourism for City Breakers -project proposal 2017.)
The CTCB project aims at bringing the culture and tourism sector closer together, and increasing opportunities for co-creation and learning (Cultural Tourism for City Breakers - project proposal 2017.) Professionals working in the field of tourism would benefit from the
creative services of the culture side, while culture professionals would in turn stand to gain from the tourism branch’s insights on knowledge in tourism services. The problem is that there are not enough resources for networking, skills sharing and co-creation. Many of the actors in the cultural tourism field are freelancer-based, or one man/woman companies. On the other side of the curve, we find the larger national organizations promoting arts, culture, and tourism. The largest organization promoting cultural tourism in Finland is Visit
Finland/Culture Finland. (Luova Matka -Project Report 2018.)
The Culture Tourism for City Breakers -project focuses on building city-based international cultural tourism. It brings fields of cultural production, tourism management and business together to build a multidisciplinary co-development forum for cultural tourism actors with strong connection to educational institutions. Key co-developers and actors in the project are cultural practitioners, third sector actors, artists, art institutions, and cultural
intermediaries, students of tourism and cultural productions and regional tourism actors. The project team worked together with the Business Finland unit called Culture Finland to strengthen national influence of the project. The project aims at boosting cultural
management and tourism education via specialized knowledge on building cultural tourism in city surroundings. The practices of this new educational focus benefits from the multi-actor and multidisciplinary network of co-developers. (The Culture Tourism for City Breakers - project proposal 2017.) The CTCB project board accepted the research project and the members received information on a regular basis on how the research was moving along.
The researcher has both a personal as well as professional relationship with the topic at hand.
As a former guide at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Suomenlinna, and ex-museum and festival worker, she has been a producer of cultural tourism services for many years. She has recognized a need for stronger co-creation, as knowledge gaps exist as skills; ideas and expertise are not shared optimally. Personally, she is also a keen customer of cultural tourism services, especially while traveling. As a customer, she has noticed that there is a need to develop services.
The researchers background of being the producer of the CTCB project, allowed her to gain insights into the field from a project point of view. Design thinking tools were to be used to design the event. This made working on the co-development forums a service design project.
The researcher decided to follow the British Council’s Double-Diamond Model (Figure 3) as the key process model.
The co-development forum events in Helsinki, Lahti and Jyväskylä were piloted in January- May 2019. The events included keynote speeches and workshops that allowed participants to gain knowledge on cultural tourism and ideate new services, as well as network with
interesting stakeholders. There was a strong focus on learning and dialogue building, as
Universities of Applied Sciences coordinated the project. The designed concept also strongly reflected the needs of the cultural tourism actors.
In this thesis, the researcher will analyze what value the co-development forum events produced to the cultural tourism actors. In the Culture Tourism for City Breakers -project, the customers are the actors working in the field of culture and tourism, not the end-users i.e.
the tourists themselves.
1.5 Key concepts
The key concepts discussed in this thesis are cultural tourism, co-development forum,
service, value co-creation space, design thinking and service concept. The key concepts are in the list below.
Cultural Tourism
Cultural tourism received a new operational definition from the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) at the 22nd Session of the General Assembly held in Chengdu, China (UNWTO 2017, 18):
Cultural tourism is a type of tourism activity in which the visitor’s essential
motivation is to learn, discover, experience and consume the tangible and intangible cultural attractions/products in a tourism destination.
Co-development forum
The co-development forum for cultural tourism is a term used throughout the research to explain the name of the event. The term co-development serves as a term to explain that the aim is to increase learning opportunities in the network of cultural tourism actors and co- developers. The forum is a space where value co-creation occurs between actors.
Value co-creation space
This concept of the “value co-creation space” means that interactions between the event and the network of connections generate value (Lundberg, Ambrecht, Andersson 2017, 73-74).
Service
Service-dominant logic states that service is the “fundamental basis of exchange”. Lusch and Vargo (2014) define service as “the application of operant resources (knowledge and skills) for the benefit of another actor”. In service-dominant logic, the “service rather than goods”
are being exchanged. It is important to note that: (1) goods are appliances for service
provision, (2) all businesses are service businesses, and (3) all economies are service economies (Lusch & Vargo 2014, 15).
Design Thinking
Empathy is a key part of design thinking - knowing and understanding your customers and designing solutions to fit their needs. Design thinking is also an iterative process. It is a process of experimentation and innovation using design tools, where customer-centric services are tested and validated. Design thinking tools such as concept visualization,
customer co-creation and rapid prototyping help to make the service customer-centric. Rapid prototyping is a tool to quickly experiment on a set solution, and iterate on it. Customer co- creation is a tool to engage the customer in the design process. Concept visualization in turn helps make sense of the concept and helps it come to life (Liedtka & Ogilvie 2011, 1-49).
Service concept
Service concept development is a critical stage in service design and development
(Edvardsson & Olsson 1996). According to Edvardsson & Olsson (1996) the service concept is the prototype for service. They define it as the “detailed description of what is to be done for the customer (what needs and wishes are to be satisfied) and how this is to be achieved”
(Edvardsson & Olsson 1996, 149).
1.6 Structure of the thesis
The structure of the thesis starts with an introduction to the topic and development project.
The current operational environment in the first chapter explains what cultural tourism is and who the actors are. The first chapter also includes the research and development objectives, key concepts and the structure of the thesis.
The second chapter of the thesis opens up the different aspects of events as a service, and is the theoretical background chapter. It includes subchapters: An event as a service, the value of events as a space for networking, events as a value co-creation space, and events as a space for learning.
The third chapter includes the methods for designing a value co-creation space for cultural tourism. This chapter includes discovering cultural tourism needs, defining the design task, developing the co-development forums in Helsinki, Lahti and Jyväskylä, and delivering the co- development forum concept for cultural tourism.
The fourth chapter describes the results of the development project of activating the cultural tourism network. The chapter explains whom the cultural tourism actors are that participated
in the events, the value of the co-development forum events, and the network integrators as enablers in the value co-creation space, barriers, and development ideas for network
activation. The final visualization of the co-development forum concept for cultural tourism and development ideas for network activation are in this chapter.
The final chapter includes the conclusions and discussions part of the thesis.
2 Different aspects of events as a service for value co-creation
Events provide value to actors in many ways. In the following section, I will discuss an event as a service, implementing theoretical aspects of service-dominant logic. The value of events as a space for networking, events as a value co-creation space and events as a space for learning are also in chapter 2.
2.1 An Event as a Service
According to service-dominant logic, “all economies are service economies” where value is co-created, and thus cannot be individually created by firms (Lusch & Vargo 2014, 18-21).
Goods-dominant logic in turn argues that there is a “new service economy” that tries to produce more value by increasing the amount of services. Service-dominant logic (Lusch &
Vargo 2014) states that the actor-to-actor perspective is useful for many reasons compared to the goods-dominant logic ideas of consumers and producers. In service-dominant logic, all actors have the same purpose: value co-creation through resource integration and service-for- service exchange. The actors do not have specific roles such as “producer” or “consumer”, making their roles much more flexible (Lusch & Vargo 2014, 10). In goods-dominant logic, there are only producers and consumers (Lusch & Vargo 2014, 9).
According to Lusch and Vargo (2014), “services” is goods-dominant logic term, and one should consider using the term “service” instead. The definition of service in service-dominant logic is “the application of competences (knowledge and skills) for the benefit of another entity or the entity itself. Service implies a process of an actor doing something for another actor (the beneficiary). Goods-dominant logic in turn focuses on goods instead of services. (Lusch &
Vargo 2014, 12.)
According to service-dominant logic, all social and economic actors are resource integrators.
Resource integration may occur in exchange or more indirectly with the “resources and actors that provide these resources in a network of other resource-integrating actors” (Lusch &
Vargo 2014, 16). The idea of the market, according to service-dominant logic however, is that markets are not somewhere “out there”, but actually, like value, are continuously co-created
by actors. New markets can also be created by companies (Lusch & Vargo 2014, 22), such as what has happened with companies such as Airbnb and Uber.
The resources can be operant or operand resources. Operand resources are generally “static resources” while operant resources are resources that create value through use (e.g.
knowledge and skills) as explained by Lusch and Vargo (2014, 13). These resources can include
“competencies, knowledge, infrastructure, and investment capacity” (Prahalad &
Ramaswamy 2004, 196). The attendees of events become co-creators of value and are thus operant resources, rather than operand resources i.e. the target. The target would in this case be much more passive.
Events work as “resource integrators” and work as a platform for resources to be realized (Crowther & Donlan 2011, 1457). There has been a paradigm shift, as practitioners have started understanding that events are not only places where stakeholders come together and mingle, but are actually very powerful spaces for value co-creation. Designing events as services allows them to match the needs of the actors within the value co-creation space.
(Crowther & Donlan 2011). More information on events as value co-creation spaces is in section 2.3.
2.2 The value of events as a space for networking
During the past couple of decades, there has been an increase in the use of the concept of networks when describing the “organization of economic and social activity across actors”
(Lusch & Vargo 2014, 159). According to Ronald Burt (1992) there is something about the amount of contacts that one has that allows them to have a competitive advantage in the market. This means, that having a wide network allows you to have larger social capital, compared to the rest of the actors in the market. Social capital is “the social networks that serve as resources for individuals” (Kivisto 2004, 116-117).
Events have value in the sociological sense, since they “facilitate and catalyze social interaction and social networks among individuals as well as groups of people” (Lundberg 2017, 5). Throsby (2001, 29) states that this social value is “the sense of connection with others”. Certain sociologists regard the number of contacts to be the most significant, while others find that the strength of the ties is most crucial (Granovetter 1983; Lin 2011).
According to service-dominant logic, weak ties are important, because they allow actors to have contact with actors that might not be obvious connections for collaboration. This means that weak ties become “pathways to innovation” through open collaboration between actors (Lusch & Vargo 2014, 160).
According to John Stuart Mill (1909, 122) one should network with people who are very different to oneself.
“It is hardly possible to overrate the value of placing human beings in contact with persons dissimilar to themselves. Such communication is one of the primary sources of progress."
In this thesis, I will use the term network instead of ecosystem. This is since according to service-dominant logic, a service ecosystem is “a service ecosystem is a relatively self- contained, self-adjusting system of resource-integrating actors that are connected by shared institutional logics and mutual value creation through service exchange.” (Lusch & Vargo 2014, 161.)
In this thesis, term “network” is preferred to the term “ecosystem”. A network nowadays is almost a synonym for cooperation (Jyrämä & Mattelmäki 2015, 137). For there to be a functioning network there needs to be trust between the actors. There should be a concrete need or reason for the actors to come together. The actor’s own organizational background also needs to support networking, and thus participating in the network activities. There should be proper attention paid to the correct conditions that effectively push the actors towards being active in the network (Jyrämä & Mattelmäki 2015, 137-140).
This thesis focuses more on the event itself as a service for building "ties between actors” i.e.
a network. The author is not planning to research the larger cultural tourism ecosystem in the scope of this thesis project.
Crowther and Donlan (2011, 1448) have analyzed the advantages of events as value-creation spaces. They are “experiential, interactive, targeted, and relational”. Events can also increase opportunities for dialogue and networking (Jyrämä & Mattelmäki 2015, 137-145). An interesting advantage is the fact that events are voluntary, and attendees are their due to some internal motivational aspect. This means that they are active actors to begin with when they are in the event space. The active and voluntary aspect of the attendees allows for more opportunities toward “intimate dialogue” opposed to cases where the attendee is passive (Crowther & Donlan 2011, 1449). This aspect of volunteering makes the participants active in their role of value co-creation. (Crowther and Donlan 2011, 1448).
Networks are important in service development, as they allow people to meet new people, with new ideas and experiences. According to service-dominant logic, “all networks are created by dyads and triads of actors that are linked together, through vertical or horizontal chains”. A triad exists when “actor A exchanges with actor B and actor B exchanges with actor C, but C may also exchange with actor A” (Lusch & Vargo 2014, 159).
Working in networks can be challenging, and service design can in turn help overcome these challenges. Networks are set up with actors working together or instruments that enhance possibilities for actors to work together (Järvensivu & Nykänen 2008). Key preconditions for networks to work, is that they contain “trust, commitment, a common goal, a reciprocal relationship, a dependence on each other, and an investment on the relationship” (Jyrämä &
Mattelmäki 2015, 55).
The sense of community is important when considering the value of events (Gertz, 2007).
Events allow ties to be strengthened (Crowther & Donlan 2011). Through the events, there are possibilities to “consult, engage and build fruitful relationships” with different
participants (Christopher, Payne & Ballantyne, 1991). Gertz (2007) discusses that events can be a source of “escapism”. Events can become spaces where attendees feel “more relaxed, uninhibited, and open to new ideas” (Gertz 2007, 241).
Events provide an opportunity to gather ideas in dialogue with other actors in the network.
Events provide an opportunity for companies and organizations to show “value in use” of different services (Crowther & Donlan 2011, 1449). Pre-planned events are value-creation places, where risks and opportunities arise. All actors are operant resources in the value- creation space (Crowther & Donlan 2011, 1451).
The network integrator’s role
The network needs a network integrator that connects the actors in the network and
increases opportunities for networking. The network integrator is can have several roles and tasks in the network (Table 4). The network needs a coordinator in a sense, to organize events and opportunities for the network actors to develop their services.
Table 4: Roles and tasks of network integrators (Valkokari et al. 2014, 28)
• Knowledge of the actors • Seeking out new network
partners
• Connecting and developing know-how • Activity and actor evaluation
• Informing network actors and reporting on new network actors
• Open forum for development
• Ensuring actors development and scaling • Defining rules and regulations
• Bringing corrective measures to the network • Allowing flexible roles of actors
It is also important to understand that there is network value in events. Network value in this context is the “value that can be created through the linkages provided by a network, above the value created by the links available and the individual network members alone”
(Lundberg et al. 2017, 74). Network value is one of the most important benefits that events can generate. The different forms of value can include the traditional definitions (economic, social, and cultural) and new origins of value that are important in the “knowledge economy”
or “network society” (Lundberg et al. 2017, 73). Events provide a setting for actors to interact. This means that events are a “space” for co-creating value through “trust, learning and adaptation” (Crowther & Donlan 2011, 1457). This concept of the “value-creation space”
means that interactions between the event and the network of connections generate value (Lundberg et al. 2017, 73-74).
2.3 Events as a value co-creation space
Events are increasingly becoming relevant, as they provide value to actors using the service.
They are a great way to communicate messages to stakeholders and build relationships with them. However, this is an outdated way of looking at events. Crowther and Donlan (2011) argue that events have more value to organizations, than marketing and event managers realize. Live events are “engagement platforms”, and are means for internal and external
actors to interact (Ramaswamy 2011, 195). Events have a crucial role in the co-creation of value.
Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004, 31) state that the building blocks of co-creation are
“dialogue, access, risk assessment and transparency” (DART), and managers can combine them in different ways. Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) open key aspects of the future of competition: the co-creating of unique value with customers. There has been a shift in the system, and the traditional company-centric way of working has changed. The new
alternative is the customer-centric and includes co-creation of value. The role of the consumer has shifted, as the consumer has now changed from being “isolated to connected, from unaware to informed, from passive to active” (Prahalad & Ramaswamy 2004, 2).
Events are a place where several actors come together to co-create value. The producers of events are the people that have the overall responsibility for the event (Gertz 2007, 27). The participants of events are the actors who attend the event. Participants are crucial for the events to exist (Gertz 2007, 60).
The value-creation potential of events is an interesting aspect of events. Events can have several advantages in value co-creation, but also challenges exist. Events can activate network actors through smaller events, workshops, or seminars. The value-creation space is the “intersection between the exchange processes of network actors” (Crowther & Donlan 2011, 1448-1449). The core determinants of the value-creation space is in table 5.
Table 5: The core determinants of a value-creation space (Crowther and Donlan 2011)
1. Pre-planned time and physical space
2. Congregation and/or coalescence of internal and/or external network actors
3. A program, distinct from day-to-day operations and processes, embracing learning, social and entertainment elements.
The advantage of events as value-creation spaces is that they foster co-creation, but this is not always the case. Plé and Chumpitaz Cácares (2010) state that according to service- dominant logic the co-destruction is an equally possible result. Events are a service that provide high opportunities as well as risks for the participants and organizers. This is
especially the case if one or both parties of an interaction do not see interaction in a positive manner. Thus, the unsuitable use of resources and unanswered expectations could result in co-destruction. Due to the argument that events are multifaceted, co-destruction through
“accidental misuse” (Plé and Chumpitaz Cácares 2010, 432) is imaginable. “Misuse” as a term to describe the “failure to integrate or apply resources in a manner that is appropriate” (Plé and Chumpitaz Cásares 2010, 432). Figure 2 below describes events as value-creation spaces.
Figure 2: Events as value-creation spaces (Crowther & Donlan 2011, 18)
Collaboration as strategy is also a key part of the co-creation paradigm (Prahalad &
Ramaswamy 2004, 197). Organizations should see collaboration as an important aspect
towards value co-creation. The paradigm acknowledges that tensions may arise from this collaboration. However, the issues of today’s business environment require collaboration in order for the development of successful resolutions. (Prahalad & Ramaswamy 2004, 196).
As organizations move to see collaboration as co-creation of value, it will allow them to have a strategic advantage. Information sharing is key to true collaboration. Trust between
collaborators is crucial. There are both risks and costs related to true collaboration. Increased collaboration offers higher chances for discovering and creating new opportunities. This is the
“new opportunity space” (Prahalad & Ramaswamy 2004, 237). The risks may make managers afraid that competitors will somehow utilize important information for their own benefit.
Managers worry about thoughts about who owns the co-created intellectual property. The advantages of collaboration are more profound than the disadvantages, according to the paradigm, and are important in the strategic management of organizations. (Prahalad &
Ramaswamy 2004).
There is a place for companies and organizations to provide leadership for networks so that the firm can be a nodal firm (central firm in the network). The nodal firm should have the right type of “leadership and agenda” to make other firms want to be part of that network.
The firm should also have the “right infrastructure”. This means that managers should keep a very broad network of connections even with “non-active players”, because in the ever- changing environment needs can change overnight. (Prahalad & Ramaswamy 2004, 109-112) The knowledge environment (Prahalad & Ramaswamy 2004, 182) is important because it facilitates “rapid experimentation, debriefing, scaling and moving forward”, as well as allows for “actionable insights” which will allow for “fresh nuances” that will co-create new value for consumers. The event as a knowledge-environment has a role in increasing opportunities for insights. There should be continuous discovery present in the company, and the
environment should boost opportunities for active learning and adaptation within the organization. Instability is a good thing, according to the co-creation paradigm. Continuous adaptation is a critical strategic tool. A constantly innovating firm will have the opportunity to react faster to change. (Prahalad & Ramaswamy 2004, 201-204).
2.4 Events as a space for learning
Events are also very much a space for learning. Wenger (2010) defines social learning systems as communities of practice (CoPs). CoPs are ‘groups of people informally bound together by shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise’ (Wenger 2000, 139). Communities of practice are different to other types of social groups in the organizational context. CoPs objective is educational in a sense that they aim to develop members’ skills and help
members cultivate and exchange knowledge. Table 6 below show the difference between COPs and other types of social groups.
Table 6: Differences between CoPs, formal groups and informal networks (Wenger, 2000) Adapted from Cai et al. (2019)
Communities of practice Formal group or project team
Informal network
• Learning systems.
• Aim to develop members’ skills and help members cultivate and transfer
knowledge.
• Members individually determine their level of dedication, and identification with the group, which ultimately holds the CoP together.
Aim to deliver a specific product or accomplish specific tasks.
Aim is only to transfer knowledge.
Many people come to events to learn. The way in which we learn has ultimately changed. We are currently moving from a Cartesian view of learning to a concept of social learning. This means, that the old way of learning from books and written texts, is moving towards learning in networks. Challenges may arise, when people identifying themselves as a member or a certain community attempt to solve a problem together with a member from another
community. Communication becomes difficult since ways of problem solving differ. A solution that is good for one person may be horrible to another. (Brown. J. S. 2012.).
Events have value in the sense that they benefit actors educationally (Lundberg et al. 2018, 5). Events increasingly have to consider how to operate within networks of stakeholders, and how they can create value through these networks (Lundberg et al. 2018, 74).
3 Methods for designing a value co-creation space for cultural tourism actors
The primary research objective of this thesis is to design a co-development forum concept for cultural tourism actors. The co-development forum was designed using design methods and tools and prototyped and piloted as an event. The service aimed at increasing opportunities to learn, get inspired and create dialogue between culture and tourism actors. The co-
development forum events kick started the establishment of a network around Cultural Tourism and created a value co-creation space for the actors.
One important aspect of the co-development forum concept was that it needed to be scalable to fit different regional needs. The co-development forums were organized in three different regional locations, Helsinki, Lahti and Jyväskylä. Designing a co-development concept event for Cultural Tourism followed the British Council’s Double-Diamond Model process (2011) (Figure 3). The methods are in the following section.
Figure 3: The British Design Council’s Double-Diamond Model (2011)
The thesis researcher utilized the British Design Council’s Double-Diamond Model (2011) as a framework for this thesis (Figure 3). The researcher chose this process model due to the iterative nature and the possibilities it allows for innovation.
Figure 4: Timeline of the development process Discover
•November 2018
Define
•December 2018
Develop
•January- May 2019
•August- December 2019
Deliver
•January- August 2020
Figure 4 represents the timeline of the process. As the researcher got onboard the project team after the Discover phase was already completed, the researcher will place more emphasis on the Define, Develop and Deliver phases of the framework.
Design Thinking was used throughout the process. Prototyping is an essential aspect and tool of Design Thinking (Tschimmel 2012, 4). Rapid prototyping is valuable early in the design process since it provides information on the chosen model or concept. Design thinking, as a method for this development project, allows for a clear human-centered approach.
The team consisted of experts from the fields of culture and tourism. The project manager, Maija Sydänmaanlakka, was a key sparring partner throughout the process, with key insights on customer needs and a strong interest to develop the network of cultural tourism actors by bringing the actors together. The Culture Tourism for City Breakers -project that was the commissioner of the thesis, wished to use the co-development forum as a testbed for the activation of the cultural tourism network. There was a strong need for a human-centered approach to create and design a service that provided value to the users. The prototyped service was validated together with the actors through semi-structured interviews after the events, and in the final project seminar held in 2020.
Figure 5 introduces the methods used in the development process. The main elements of designing the co-development forum concept are in chapter 3 of the thesis. This chapter will answer go through the chosen methods and elements used in the design process. The element of value produced by the final concept are in chapter 4 of the thesis.
Figure 5: Methods used in the development process
The Discover phase will open the steps concerning design research choices in the form of desk research. The Define phase consisted of a team workshop that aimed at identifying the goals and objectives of the co-development forum events. The Develop phase included the
prototyping and piloting of three regional co-development forum events in Helsinki, Jyväskylä and Lahti, the documentation of the events, sending out feedback questionnaire forms, conducting the participant interviews and creating personas in the workshops. The event series consisted of four events held in Spring 2019 in the three regional locations. The Deliver phase was a process of visualizing and designing a co-development forum concept for cultural tourism, and presenting the final concept in the final project seminar on 21.8.2020 and validating project results with the project team.
Discover
•Desk research
Define
•Team workshop
Develop
•Prototyping and piloting the co- development forum events
•Documenting the events by video
•Feedback questionnaires
•5 interviews of cultural tourism actors
•persona workshop (3 personas)
Deliver
•Designing the co- development concept for cultural tourism using concept visualisation
3.1 Discovering cultural tourism development needs
The Discover phase of the Double-Diamond Model aimed at understanding the cultural tourism development needs. The Culture Tourism for City Breakers team conducted desk research in 2018. Stickdorn et al. (2018) state that design research is where the design process begins.
Understanding and empathizing with the people that the design team is designing for, is crucial to be able to look at the situation in a new and fresh way (Stickdorn 2018, 96-97).
Desk research aimed at understanding what the background was for the current operational environment. The project team already completed the collection of desk research material when the researcher was onboarded to the project. The researcher independently
familiarized herself with the material in November-December 2018.
Understanding the state of cultural tourism and the development needs of the network was crucial. Previous projects such as the Luova Matka -project provided insights to what would be the next steps in activating the network through a co-development forum.
The three-year Luova Matka -project developed international cultural tourism by bringing the contents and actors of the creative industries into tourism products and Finnish destination marketing. The measures of the project promoted the employment of actors in the culture industries in the tourism sector, as well as co-operation between individual actors, both regionally and nationally, through co-operation in cultural exports. The Luova Matka -project report (2018) served as a point of reference for the researcher throughout the thesis process.
This is because the Culture Tourism for City Breakers -project builds on the findings and insights of the Luova Matka -project. The Luova Matka -project piloted a training program for cultural tourism producers. The Cultural Tourism Producers training program was piloted in 2016, and lessons learnt from this pilot can be read from the Luova Matka -project report (2018). The cultural tourism producers work middlemen or mediators between the two fields.
Producers generally also have the needed people and leadership skills that are needed to bring two different fields together (Saksala, 2015).
In addition, Visit Finland’s database (2020) served as an important source of information on cultural tourism. The Finnish Ministry for Education and the Culture Finland umbrella program maintain the online “Kulmat” database service. The site provides information for actors in the tourism, culture and creative industries. The site contains e.g. research information, expert contacts, and training options, results of development projects, funding links and tools for developing your own business (e.g. e-learning packages and Quality Tester). (Visit Finland 2020.)
The desk research phase was conducted in Autumn 2018 by the project team. The team collected research articles into a file on the cloud server. The articles and links that were collected concerned issues such as trends in tourism, cultural tourism in Finland, past
projects related to culture tourism, and thesis’ written by students in the field of culture and tourism. The thesis researcher familiarized herself with this material as she began her job as the project producer in November 2018. These sources assisted in building a picture of the current operational environment of cultural tourism and the field in general found in section 1.1 and 1.2 of this thesis.
The team discovered key problems of the cultural tourism sector during the desk research phase. Firstly, Finland has interesting arts and culture services that are not utilized in the tourism sector enough. For example, the potential of festivals and other events services are not at the moment developed to match tourist needs. Secondly, the opportunities for cooperation in the culture and tourism sectors are not currently identified. Thirdly, tourism services that stem from the creative sectors (such as art and culture) are limited in Finland.
Fourthly, as international tourist flows increase in Finland, there is a need to develop interesting cultural tourism services. Finally, cities need to lift their profile as the producers of interesting and internationally attractive cultural tourism services. (Luova Matka -project report 2018.)
Main insights from desk research show that there is a need for a network integrator or producer that could coordinate networking events and organize opportunities for culture and tourism actors to meet and co-create. The business model for a cultural tourism network integrator can vary, and is not established enough yet, causing few cultural tourism producers to be interested in actively taking up this role in the network. Taking up this role requires resources, commitment to the cause, as well as an interest towards risk-taking. The process of forming lasting relationships, co-creating cultural tourism services and validating them, takes years. The forming of regional service development teams has also been difficult in the past. (Luova Matka -Project Report 2018).
In order for the process of development to be more attractive to both actors from the culture and tourism sectors, there is a need to develop the content of e.g. networking events, to match the needs of both sectors. Students are often open to new encounters. Therefore, opportunities for cooperation between students of culture and tourism sectors should be increased. (CTCB project proposal 2017.)
3.2 Defining the design task
The CTCB -team met up in 2018 to plan the co-development forum pilot together. There was a need to define the design task of piloting the co-development forum events. The workshop was held on Metropolia UAS Arabia Campus on Hämeentie 135, in the “Tuottamo” room. The thesis researcher facilitated the workshop. Five project participants from Helsinki
participated in the workshop.
The aim was to identify the goals and objectives of the co-development forum through an ideation workshop. It was a workshop would help the team design the co-development forum events as a value co-creation space. The results found from the pilots would provide insights to the final co-development forum concept.
The workshop was a 2-hour team workshop, held on 20.12.2018 in Metropolia Arabia Campus.
Background and context
The project team needed a meeting to clarify event and workshops aims. The researcher suggested organising a workshop to clarify issues concerning the event aims, and methods of the Speed Meeting workshop.
The facilitator’s role
A facilitator helps everyone in thinking and encourages full participation. The facilitator’s role is to choose suitable methods and tools that would enable participatory decision-making.
The workshop aimed at full participation. (Kaner 2014, 24.)
It was the first time that the researcher had to take on the role of a “neutral” facilitator, in order to achieve participation from the group. As a facilitator, the researcher wanted to experiment with different techniques and methods that would support the event team in reaching their goals. The researcher hoped to encourage everyone to speak their mind and participate in a way that created insights and supported new ways of thinking. Since the team had been a bit stuck, facilitation tools would help the team move forward with the project.
The group members had been confused with what the expectations and aim of the event would be, since everyone was thinking about the aims in relation to their own background and skills. The researcher wanted the end-result of the workshop to support an understanding of what the common goals and aims actually are, and help in better communication of these aspects between the team. The researcher’s role as a facilitator would thus be to enable the process of defining the goals and aims for the event.
The plan was to facilitate the workshop in a way that allows inclusive discussion and co- creation with the event team. The team consisted of the project manager, and three experts from the culture and tourism sector. The researcher’s role in the team was normally that of a producer. The role was thus now different, as the researcher was to step into the shoes of a facilitator. The participants were informed that, as a facilitator, the researcher would not share personal opinions for their ideas. The facilitator’s purpose was to allow them to
exchange ideas and develop a clearer structure for the event. The team respected this role as a neutral facilitator, and did not mention the researcher’s position as a producer during the workshop session. The clarification of the facilitator’s role made it easier for the team to participate in the workshop that was led by their team member. (Nummi 2007.)
There was keen discussion during the session, and the researcher felt that there was a lot of positive energy in the room. The team had already been working together for a month, so they all knew one another. The team had minimal knowledge of the tools in advance. The facilitator introduced the team to the process and agenda for the day, making it clear to them of what they were going to accomplish. This clarified the workshop for the team, and they felt at ease with moving on with a process.
The workshop plan and execution
The researcher discussed and reflected upon the workshop plan in advance with the project manager. The project manager approved of the plan. A list of the needed tools were prepared.
There were some canvases that were prepared for the team, that were not used due to time constraints and prioritising of the participant’s needs. A stakeholder map was prepared but not used due to time restraints. A list of questions for the team to answer in a “facilitated discussion” (Nummi 2007) was also disregarded. The facilitated discussion was a backup plan, if it would have seemed that there was a true lack of energy in the room and no one was participating in the process. Luckily, this did not happen.
Table 7: Workshop plan
Total time for workshop (2 hours)
1. Warm-up: Establishing team expectations (5 min) 2. Ideation of aims and affinity wall exercise (15 min) 3. Aims hierarchy (10 min)
This was repeated 3 times in order for us to gain clear aims for each event workshop (1,5h)
4. Speed Meeting execution ideation and affinity wall (15 min) 5. Impact-Feasibility Matrix (10 min)
6. Wrap-up (5 min)
The workshop plan is in the table 7 above. The schedule was very tight, but in the end effective.
Table 8: Canvases that were prepared for the ideation workshop Ideation flip-chart x 3
Affinity wall x 3 Aims Hierarchy x 3
Stakeholder Map (not used)
Facilitated discussion questions canvas (not used) Impact-Feasibility Matrix x 1
The boundary objects, in other words, the canvas templates, helped facilitate the process.
The canvases that were prepared for the ideation workshop are in table 8. They created an opportunity for the team to co-create solutions to the issues at hand and find a common language that they could use in the future. Out of the team, only one person had some service design experience, so the boundary objects were also a tool to establish a knowledge sharing environment and an opportunity for co-creation and event design. (Carlile 2004.) We began the workshop session in the time of the day where most of the workshop
participants had already been in a meeting and had been sitting down the whole day. This led the facilitator to have the participants stand up and move around the room. The team
instantly gained a bit more enthusiasm as they were free to move their bodies and create a flow. The space worked relatively well for a small workshop, but would have been
problematic if the team would have been any larger.
We began the workshop by going through what the team wanted to accomplish. Once the baseline had been set, the facilitator had a clearer idea of prioritising. As the previous meeting was running late, the warm-up session was much shorter than planned. The facilitator had to quickly move forward with the actual schedule of the workshop. The workshop began by thinking out of the box, with an ideation session. Firstly, the facilitator allowed the participants to quietly think and list ideas for the aims of event workshop number 1 on post-it notes. Then, the participants shared their ideas with the group and after the discussion, we moved on to another round of ideation. The participants then clustered the ideas on an affinity wall and created headlines for the different clusters. These ideation methods allowed the group to express their ideas and discuss them. (Stickdorn 2018.) It was essential to prioritise the different headlines and the facilitator decided to use a tool called the “hierarchy of aims” (Figure 11). The hierarchy of the aims (tavoitehierarkia) would help rank the aims in a triangle hierarchy. Ranking tools help make decisions together with the team (Stickdorn 2018, 184-185). This allowed the participants to think about what aims were actually most crucial in the event itself. The ideation, affinity wall and forming of the triangle hierarchy was effective to reflect on the aims of each workshop. Professionals hired from outside the project would facilitate some of workshops, and it was important that the team was able to brief the workshop facilitators on the aims in advance.
There had been a suggestion from the team members, that we would also have a chance to focus on one of the workshops, since the facilitator of that workshop (Speed Meeting) would be present during the ideation session. The methods of the Speed Meeting were not clear and needed to be clarified. A non-professional facilitator would hold the Speed Meeting in
Helsinki, and needed sparring.
The participants went on to ideate on the ways that this particular workshop (Speed Meeting) could be organised. The concrete execution of the Speed Meeting was something that led to a lot more excitement, than the ideation of the aims for the event and workshops themselves.
During the session where we planned the Speed Meeting, true insights and innovation occurred much more than in the previous phases. People started spontaneously showing drama (these are people from the culture scene) and even throwing very out of the box ideas.
The facilitator had prepared an Impact-Feasibility Matrix (Stickdorn 2018, 184-185) for the team to have a chance to analyse how realistic these ideas would be to execute. The
participants lay down the ideas on the matrix and each member moved one post-it to another location. Then, in the end, we had a look at the result and the team was pleased to see which ideas showed to be most feasible in the matrix. This tool helped the team decide on the Speed Meeting method in a very inclusive manner.
Finally, the facilitator finished with a quick round of how the participants felt after the workshop. This was a good way to end the session, as people clearly stated what they felt that they had accomplished. Everyone left the workshop smiling, which was for the facilitator the most rewarding part.
Takeaways
As a facilitator, the researcher hopes to be able to develop her skills in time management.
She could not expect such heated discussions, even though they were all very useful to the project itself. The researcher felt as if the workshop allowed the participants to speak their minds more than in the usual meetings. The team did not know how much of the canvases were not used in the real situation. This is something the researcher learned during the facilitation course (Laurea SID program 2019), that the facilitator should always be in control.
3.3 Developing of the co-development forums in Helsinki, Lahti and Jyväskylä
The co-development forum pilot tested if the concept had potential to fit different regions.
The first part of the Develop phase included rapidly prototyping the co-development forum events in three different locations and the collection of feedback forms. The second part of the Develop phase was building three personas in a co-creative workshop based on five interviews and the team members own experiences as cultural tourism actors. The service concept was prototyped and delivered as a concept visualization.
The co-development forum events matched the specific needs of each regional location.
Regional teams executed each event in each location. The layout is in Table 9. The project team consisted of professionals from the culture and tourism sector. This allowed the team to have insight into the specific needs of the culture and tourism actors, as well as understand to the unique nature of cultural tourism sector in each regional location.
Table 9: The layout of the co-development forums (2019)
• Keynote themes:
o Community-based urban culture o Festivals, Events & Tourism o Performing Arts & Tourism
o Culture and Arts in Wellbeing tourism o Future Trends in Cultural Tourism field
• Workshops themes:
o Sparring ideas o Productization o Digital Platforms
o Speedmeeting between cultural and tourism professionals
The Universities of Applied Sciences coordinated the project, and the team consisted of cultural tourism experts from the Metropolia UAS and the project partners Haaga-Helia UAS, Lahti UAS, Jyväskylä UAS.
According to Stickdorn et al. (2018), service prototypes are “staged experiences and
processes that replicate any chosen part of a service”. They can be in the form of rehearsals, walkthroughs, simulations or pilots (Stickdorn 2018, 62-65). The idea was to test a concept and learn from the process and results, thus the forum events held in spring 2019 were prototypes. The term ‘prototype” derives from Greek, and literally means “first or early form” of something (Stickdorn 2018, 65) This means that study is an early form of the co- development forum concept. Prototypes are used to “explore, evaluate and communicate”
