Comments on: Facilitating Collaboration: Five Potential Models http://facilitationprocess.com/facilitating-collaboration-five-potential-models Productive meetings. Smart strategies. Lasting impact Thu, 10 May 2012 17:02:36 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Craig Ragland http://facilitationprocess.com/facilitating-collaboration-five-potential-models/comment-page-1#comment-144 Craig Ragland Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:02:04 +0000 http://facilitationprocess.com/?p=414#comment-144 Interesting blog posting! Another aspect of how the Cohousing model might be applied to other endeavors is the partnership between community and private interests. Many cohousing communities in the United States originated with a group of people who decided they wanted to live together in community. Typically, these people then seek the services of professionals who are creating housing for them. In some cases, the community hires the professionals, who just deliver various housing development and design services. In other cases, an authentic partnership develops between the producers (those who actually produce the housing) and the consumers (those who will pay for and occupy the housing). This is an emerging model in the private sector which is sometimes called "co-creation" - whereby the producer partners with the consider. Because the consumers actively care about the end product, they help the producer better meet their needs. The consumer participates in the creation of the product, rather than acting as a more passive recipient of the producer's work. A real world example of a massively successful co-creator is Google. Many of the Google products are improved by the acts of their consumers. The big idea that first made Google Search so powerful was their use of the human-crafted links from one site to another when ranking the search results. Since then, Google has found numerous other methods of improving search results and their other products, some of which wouldn't exist without the active creative work of the consumers, e.g. Google Blogs, etc.. Cohousing is a bit different, in that the producer-consumer partnership typically is just one phase of the development process, rather than an ongoing relationship whereby the consumer helps craft. In any case, many can learn from cohousing as you're exploring ways to facilitate creative work groups, who actively participate in creating the future for themselves and their families. Craig Ragland Cohousing Association of the United States Interesting blog posting! Another aspect of how the Cohousing model might be applied to other endeavors is the partnership between community and private interests. Many cohousing communities in the United States originated with a group of people who decided they wanted to live together in community. Typically, these people then seek the services of professionals who are creating housing for them. In some cases, the community hires the professionals, who just deliver various housing development and design services. In other cases, an authentic partnership develops between the producers (those who actually produce the housing) and the consumers (those who will pay for and occupy the housing).
This is an emerging model in the private sector which is sometimes called “co-creation” – whereby the producer partners with the consider. Because the consumers actively care about the end product, they help the producer better meet their needs. The consumer participates in the creation of the product, rather than acting as a more passive recipient of the producer’s work.
A real world example of a massively successful co-creator is Google. Many of the Google products are improved by the acts of their consumers. The big idea that first made Google Search so powerful was their use of the human-crafted links from one site to another when ranking the search results. Since then, Google has found numerous other methods of improving search results and their other products, some of which wouldn’t exist without the active creative work of the consumers, e.g. Google Blogs, etc..
Cohousing is a bit different, in that the producer-consumer partnership typically is just one phase of the development process, rather than an ongoing relationship whereby the consumer helps craft. In any case, many can learn from cohousing as you’re exploring ways to facilitate creative work groups, who actively participate in creating the future for themselves and their families.

Craig Ragland
Cohousing Association of the United States

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