Launching our Call for Papers on the role of users in socio-technical innovation has been similar to throwing a bottle with a message into the sea. Who would find it, and how many researchers, in the vast shores of social studies on the Information Society, would answer it? What would be the "catch", in terms of research results, of understanding about the routes in which individuals and groups appropriate and turn information and communication technology into something useful for their own specific practices? The Call for Papers itself turned into a kind of practical research on how users are relevant regarding socio-technical innovation.
A number of colleagues have answered this Call, indicating the deep interest which exists in the Community Informatics world concerning an analysis of the processes through which specialists observe innovations carried on by communities or individuals and how these are then able to integrate them into new products.
In the last decades studies and experience have shown that users matter in regards to technological innovation. Books such as "The Co-Construction of Users and Technology" 1 analyse the creative capacity of users to shape technology in all phases, from design to implementation. Lately, citizens´ labs are also trying to integrate individuals and communities to technological innovation. These latter try to combine the old "collaboratory" concept launched in the 1990s in academic environments, or virtual laboratories, where scientists collaborate though networking, with the newer concepts of citizens´ networks, in which citizens collaborate in a digital environment for various uses, and that have become freshly popular through social networks such as Facebook or Twitter.
Individuals, groups and communities have actively participated in the process of technological innovation and are increasingly aware of their capacity for making and changing technologies. Internet - based social networks, open source software, content creation, redesign by use, citizens ´participation in living labs, are just a few examples of people actively enlarging the original uses of information and communication technologies (ICT).
The goal of this special issue is to examine, using a variety of multidisciplinary approaches, the mutual interaction between ICT and users. The authors have reflected on the hypothesis that any understanding of users must take into consideration the multiplicity of roles they play, and that the conventional distinction between users and producers is largely formal and artificial.
Contributing knowledge about the process in which individuals and communities appropriate and makes information and communication technology functional for their own specific purposes is the goal of this special issue of JoCI. The objective is to advance our understanding of how communities utilize technology, meanwhile as they are creating innovative technology uses. The papers published in this issue consider how users consume, modify, domesticate, design, reconfigure, and resist technological development, as well as the ways users are changed by ICT.
The papers may be classified into three main categories: social and technological networks, technological and organizational tools for innovation, and experiences with Living Labs. Some of the key issues that are reflected upon are:
In his paper "Collaborative knowledge creation in development networks: lessons learnt from a transnational programme", Fabio Nascimbeni reflects on how knowledge is collaboratively created and documented in social networks within International Development Cooperation (IDC) settings, and on the importance of collaborative knowledge production and exploitation within these networks. He argues that knowledge exchange and creation is one of the main added values of networking activities of IDC in the network society, and he advocates for networking to be considered a fundamental component of IDC interventions. A specific case study shows the impact of collaborative knowledge building on a Europe-Latin America cooperation programme of the European Commission. Nascimbeni argues that the importance of networking activities in IDC starts from the fact that in current societies the value of a productive connection no longer rests on either labour or capital, but rather in the collaboration of an exchange process among individuals involved in the creation of knowledge, goods or services. The traditional concepts of reciprocity and exchange currently appear once again to be acquiring a fundamental value in social innovation and dynamics. In other words, value creation is deeply embedded in extended social relations. Moreover, due to the fact that knowledge is a non-exclusive good, knowledge networks are capable of multiplying the knowledge of individual agents by enabling information sharing and dialogue.
Cecilia Loureiro-Koechlin and Tim Butcher study 80 social network users with a mixed ethnographic approach combining interviews with online participant observation via the Twitter public timeline. Based on this study they developed a conceptual framework that illustrates how different kinds of relationships can co-exist within Twitter through three layers of participation. They present social practices such as the "tweet-up", a face to face users' meeting. The authors assert that online communities and their boundaries on Twitter can have different configurations as created by their members. These members appropriate the service and co-create new uses for it, as conventions for their communication, e.g. the use of hashtags. Participation occurs in three layers: the first concerns broadcasting; the users are not interested in engaging with others (the Individual is "interest driven"); layer two is about topic-focused posting (interest-driven communities); and layer three consists of focusing on people, not topic; these are more social (friendship-driven groups). Participants can be part of more than one, so the participation is multidimensional.
In the article "Appropriation of ICTs by informal communities in metropolitan cities. The case of the "La Salada" market in the Latin American context," Schiavo, Rodriguez and Vera analyse cities and their ICT development presenting different perspectives on who or what motivates innovation mechanisms: citizens, communities, social practices or/and the spread of information and communication technology. The paper presents the concept of informality in the Latin American context and its consequences in terms of ICT appropriation and development. The case study described is "La Salada" sales market located on the outskirts of the city of Buenos Aires. Social practices and the uses of ICT by the community in the market are scrutinized. Through the case study, the authors aimed to answer the question concerning what are the dynamics that characterise the process of co-creation of technology in informal communities. The appropriation of ICT increased in the year previous to the study through a series of social networks and web sites that relate to commercial activity, the development of e-commerce, organization and promotion of the market. This appropriation happened slowly and in a disarticulated manner in part because of the clandestinity of the market in its beginnings. Other reasons for La Salada's late access to the "space of flows" are the relatively recent incorporation in Argentine of public policies and education initiatives supporting the ICT material infrastructure. Two portals are maintained for the community and they show the process of appropriation of ICTs and expand the logic of a productive and commercial system based on informality. The case shows how this aspect of informality can open issues of trust and community identity up to discussion. These special characteristics in turn spark processes of co-creation of technologies in the context of a metropolitan city.
In their paper "Facilitating community innovation: The Outils-Réseaux Way", authors Lorna Heaton, Florence Millerand, and Serge Proulx, describe the work of Outils-Réseaux, a French group whose mission is to encourage the development and use of collaborative tools by associative movements. Outils-Réseaux's approach to software development focuses on accompanying the groups work rather than simply providing technical solutions. Use of collaborative tools by a group is viewed as secondary, and subsequent, to a group's experience with cooperation. The article focuses in particular on a recent experiment in community-building among a group of citizens in Brest, France. Their analysis is based on interviews with the staff of Outils-Réseaux as well as with one of the initiators of the project in Brest, France. It also draws on an analysis of activity in the wikis developed in the context of this project. The paper specifically focuses on an experiment among a group of citizens in Brest. Drawing on interviews and an analysis of the content of the project's wiki pages, the authors reflect on the how a training program for group facilitators is in itself an innovative process, where the community becomes an essential element of the innovation. The paper explores the co-evolution of both the technical infrastructure (tools for collaboration) and the community, and demonstrates how Outils-Réseaux mediates between the (social) world of users and the technical world of software developers.
Rocio Gomez, in "The ecology of linking technologies: toward a non-instrumental look at new technological repertoires", focuses on the follow-up and examination of the framework of technological relationships between human and non-human agents. The study allowed the research team to advance the understanding of new technological repertoires (mobile telephone, chat, Internet) not as isolated instruments added to the social life of the subjects, but as technological mediations for the construction of social links, that is, as linking machines. Gomez states that people do not relate with discrete and individualized technologies, but with authentic technological settings in which both convergent and divergent relationships are generated. She calls this set of technologies the ecology of technologies. The paper suggests eight techno-mediation linking systems which are useful for analyzing the variations of the techno-linking settings of urban young people, that is, the variation in ways in which young people operate different technologies to build and strengthen their social links. The paper further questions some of the frequently overly simplifying conceptions concerning "the young users of new technologies".
Azi Lev -On, in his paper "Communities, Crowds and Focal Sites: Fine-Tuning the Theoretical Grounding of Collaboration Online" contributes a bird's eye view of theories that address collaboration in communities on the Internet. Theories of collaboration in offline communities focus on local dynamics and institutions that produce social control. Some pre-conditions for social control that are highlighted in the literature, such as limited exit options, the multiplexity of the community experience as well as clear group boundaries, are identified. It is argued that such theories are of limited value for explaining collaboration in online communities. Two alternative routes that are more appropriate for explaining why communities ground collaboration online are presented. The author states that communities seem well situated to support collective actions, in that they enable ongoing communication between members, and introduce exit costs as well as embeddedness in a social network. The paper addresses the questions: can the unique benefits of communities for collective action be reproduced in online environments, and if so where and why? How might online associations facilitate collective action and whether, and to what extent, they can reproduce the strategic capabilities of some offline communities in circumventing the "logic of collective action"?
In the paper "RLabs a South African perspective on a community-driven approach to Community Informatics", Parker, Wills and Wills dare to ask a key question: who are the stakeholders in community projects? There is nothing more powerful than a simple question to frame a paper and a proper context: Living Labs in South Africa (Rlabs). This lab developed a mobile instant messenger aggregator that can be used to manage multiple mobile chat conversations, providing real-time support as a counselling medium. The three support channels relate to the vital concerns: Debt Breaker, Drug Advise Support and National AIDS Helpline. In addition Rlabs worked with initiatives related to educating mothers and elders in the use of social media and unemployment.
After doing content analysis of several Living labs, the authors conclude that not all the projects in Living labs have the communities as the main stakeholders, even though the European Living Lab model requires it. Co-creation in this context is an ambition, instead of a realized goal. Communities themselves are the main stakeholders in community projects, however, the empowerment of the community to produce a product that is transferable to other markets needs collaboration with the other stakeholders in the Living Labs. This can only be possible in a social context where governments, business and academic stakeholders are ready to work with communities to support them in a long-term, sustainable, educational and capacity-building relationship. The authors identify a need for further work to transfer the good practice of Living Labs to other Community Informatics contexts. RLabs has demonstrated that it is important that key stakeholders come from the community in need. Sustainable empowerment through the use of innovative technology needs to be community driven, designed and owned.
Susana Finquelievich 's paper "The Emergence and Development of a Regional Living Lab: The Case of San Luis, Argentina" describes the results of two field research works on the characteristics and reach of the Digital San Luis Program (San Luis Digital, SLD) promoted by the provincial government and in which local governments have been actively involved. The paper focuses on the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in the social innovation processes as promoted by the Provincial Government through agreements with other social actors. Finquelievich argues that the Digital San Luis paradigm (which she refers to as the Quadruple Helix) articulates multidirectional interaction among the following social actors: the Province´s government, as the policy´s designer and executor; academia, as the producer of knowledge and provider of technology and trained human resources; IT enterprises, as technology providers, but also as technology producers; and the community, not only as users of technological goods and services, but also as co-producers of them.
After analyzing the characteristics of the San Luis Digital paradigm, the paper describes its achievements, and analyzes its limitations. The author develops the hypothesis that the whole Province is an actual living lab, because its conceptual frame is based on the following goals: placing the Province of San Luis as a reliable producer of ICT goods and services at the national and international levels; reinforcing the relationship of users to the technology; re-formulating the Province´s educational system; and mediating between technology production and consumption.
Mariana Salgado, in her paper "Museums as Living Labs. Challenge, Fad or Opportunity?" based on her resaarch on Finland museums, describes and analyzes how the museum community has designed, integrated and implemented ICT in its organizations. The museum community has participated in the development of a conceptual framework for ICT services as well as the resources required to put them to use. Due to the similarity between this sort of work and the tasks performed at Living Labs, the authors believe that museums could benefit from dialoguing with Living Labs about their methods, networks and new technologies, indeed their entire ecosystems.
Museums create and use products and services to further their mission of conserving, researching and communicating our common cultural heritage. This paper addresses how museums can make use of and benefit from Living Labs in their attempts to open their institutions to new audiences and enhance audience participation. This paper also discusses how communities can actively participate in the creation of museum programs and activities.
The concept underlying Living Labs could be useful to the museum community as it attempts to develop research tools that enable active participation in the development of technology and in innovation by means of products and services tailored to their own needs. Museums today are constantly changing and assessing their role in society and, as a result, their possible partnerships. They must take a proactive approach to financial and social challenges, and thus ensure that a museum visit continues to be a favorite outing for youth. If museums begin to consider their audiences as major players in experimentation with products and services, a new generation of tailored solutions for the cultural sector will appear. Once museums become partners with Living Labs or position themselves in Living Lab ecosystems, they will become creative spaces of social and technological innovation.
Finally, Kari-Hans Kommonen and Andrea Botero´s paper "Are the Users Driving, and How Open is Open? Experiences from Living Lab and User Driven Innovation projects" reflects on the experiences of projects in Helsinki, Finland, aimed at developing organic connections between technology development and local communities. Over the past years, their research group has carried on a number of projects to find ways to facilitate people to influence the development of tools, systems and services for their own digital practices. They have also participated in several initiatives that aimed to develop the Living Lab approach in Helsinki. While both their own research agenda and the Living Lab approach share many aims and characteristics, the approaches also have some differences. In this field note the authors discuss, evaluate and summarize three of the experiences in light of the role that communities play and could eventually play in innovation processes and the co-creation of technology. Although these projects have different goals, they share a basic premise: they all envision that new technology could and should be developed in close collaboration with people. Furthermore they also have a relationship with the ideas of Living Labs and User Driven Innovation.
1 http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10755