2007_eChallenges_Mulderetal2007

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is obvious that not all components of a standardization framework necessarily need to beinteroperable from organizational, technical or contextual points of view. Standardization isimperative in order to support collaboration in each of these dimensions. Based on the workcarried out in CoreLabs, guiding principles for harmonized methods and tools have beendeveloped, which have been made operational by means of a workshop with Living Labsexperts. This workshop was conducted together with over 70 Living Labs experts, includingthe CoreLabs team, members from the related IPs and the European Commission, andadditional Living Labs representatives from across Europe. The aim of this Living Labworkshop was to gather rich input to define the level of interoperability for organizational,technical and contextual issues. Moreover, we aimed to identify challenges, how to avoidfailures and mistakes in setting up a Living Lab, how to establish effective forms of user-centeredness, and determine effective operational instruments. Some of these workshopimpressions are summarized below. Then we continue with a model for harmonizingexisting and emerging Living Labs based on the work in the CoreLabs project including theworkshop. The paper ends by short conclusions, implications and future work.

2. Workshop ImpressionsParticipants of the workshop prepared a mini-questionnaire in advance, which was used asinput for setting the scene of the workshop. Prior to the event, participants were asked toaddress the following questions and e-mail the answers to the organizing team. Questionswere, for example, what is the most valuable asset of your Living Lab? What were the mostdifficult issues you faced regarding organizational, technical and contextual aspects? Whatis your main advice for the future of ENoLL? How do you see your position in ENoLL?What can your project bring to the party for the benefit of all? In addition to preparingthese questions, participants were asked to bring images along to be used during the event,which illustrate their Living Labs most valuable asset and their lessons learned.

As a start of the workshop we used speed-dating to facilitate the networking of people.Participants exchanged information about their Living Labs and their ambitions, and whatthey feel they can offer each other professionally. The person networking was consideredimportant. The interaction with each other adds value. Explicit requests for sharing not onlyinvolved sharing knowledge, best practices and lessons learned, but also the sharing of labfacilities. Next, Living Lab experts were clustered into four groups corresponding tocategories they were asked to share their Living Labs experiences in relation to:

- Clubs : the importance of involving stakeholders and networks.- Diamonds : best practices and lessons learned.- Spades : the hardest work in setting up and running a Living Lab.- Hearts : the importance of passion as the driver of people.

Initial observations indicated that people are keen to exchange methods and tools and best practices in order to enable a shared reference for the harmonization we aimed for. Wevividly discussed what Living Labs want to share with each other and what ENoLL mightoffer individual Living Labs. There were many explicit requests for advice and each othersexperience in setting up new Living Labs. Most participants was of the opinion that in orderto be part of ENoLL, Living Labs should have a mature status. Furthermore, the network ofLiving Lab should itself beliving , i.e, self-organizing, sustainable, and community driven.

Another suggestion for further development of ENoLL was to identify the assetswithin the Living Labs network, which represent potential sources of synergies that could be exploited. The question remains how we may exploit these synergies and, in doing so,

how we could establish a viable business model of product and service provision in thedomain of ICT-based innovation. We therefore propose the model presented below as a


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source for shared reference to exploit synergies of individual Living Labs including itscontribution to the ENoLL.

3. Harmonization of Existing and Emerging Living LabsIn order to define a shared reference towards a harmonization of methods and tools for usein a European Network of Living Labs an interoperability cube for harmonizing LivingLabs has been developed (Figure 1). The interoperability cube builds on the assumption thatthe focus on synergies and those elements that Living Labs want to exchange with eachother forms an appropriate basis for the harmonization of methods and tools. The cubeidentifies these exchange possibilities and explicitly defines interoperability elements fromorganizational, technical and contextual perspectives in which different standards arerelevant.

organisationalissues

setup

scalability

sustainability

contextualissues

technologicalissues


setup

scalability

sustainability

contextualissues

technologicalissues


setup

scalability

sustainability

contextualissues

technologicalissues

Figure 1. Interoperability Cube for Harmonizing Living Labs

The process of setting up refers to the hardest work in setting up and running a Living Lab.Sustainability comes after this, when a Living Lab is kept operational and becomes permanent, or put differently: self-sustainable. A next step could be that all practices arescalable, useful in other contexts, more extended etc. As said before, it is obvious that notall components of the standardization framework need necessarily be interoperable fromorganizational, technical or contextual points of view. Evaluations within Living Labs areusually done in a real world context and this includes some complications such as thecontexts influence on the evaluation results. Standardization is imperative in order tosupport seamless collaboration in each of these dimensions. The more elements that match,the better Living Labs are harmonised. Best practices, lessons learned and other topics thatwere wishful to be exchanged could be clustered in the following topics: user involvement,service creation, infrastructure, governance, innovation outcomes, and methods & tools.Besides dealing with harmonization of methods and tools, the cube can be used as a way to

structure and access the repository and other online resources resulting from the CoreLabs project. For that reason, we propose the topics included on the sides of the cube to be focusof ENoLL and the open innovation community. Maybe even a reason for a Living Lab to become part of ENoLL or member of the Open Innovation Community. In the remainder,the topics are described and elaborated upon.3.1 User Involvement

User involvement is one of the key elements of a Living Lab, and as such should be a focal point of mature Living Labs. In creating usable systems it is generally accepted that theyshould be designed according to an iterative approach, and that user involvement is crucial,see e.g., [3]. The focus is on finding out what the relevant experiences, methods, tools that

Living Labs benefit from are. Users are important to define context-aware services, thinkfor example of cultural differences. Organisational issues include questions like How toorganize user involvement? How to find the right users? What about the validity? How to


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motivate the users? From a technological point of view: How to get access to large usergroups? How to analyse large amounts of data? In order to enable scalability, the use ofgrid technology can be seen as a possible solution, as the volume of data generated withinthe Living Lab could become extremely large. Analysing social context data, applicationusage data and user experience data collected in real-life settings presents new challenges -its not clear a priori which data is relevant. Therefore, new analysis and reporting modulesmight be needed along with scalable, flexible storage and computing resources to cope withlarge amount.3.2 Service Creation

Service creation with relevance to the Living Labs describes the value added componentsthat Living Labs can bring to innovation and validation. Value-added implies we arebringing something new and needed to the table. Historically, the development of LivingLabs has been stimulated by the cross-regional need to improve innovation andcompetitiveness. Service creation within ENoLL should have pan-European relevance asopposed to that national or regional relevance. The resultant objectives of such anenvironment provide us with three underlying categories of required services [1]: servicessupporting collaborative innovation, services supporting validation and demonstration, andservices specific to stakeholder requirements.

On a more operational level of Living Labs and ENoLL, three types of horizontalservices structure the service matrix [1]: technical services communication, collaboration,demonstration, prototyping, validation, product deployment etc., customer services innovation, idea generation, community services, training, specific service needs, businesssupport, market customisation, and thirdly, intra-network services (within ENoLL) governance, management, training.3.3 Infrastructure

Within this context, a simple definition of infrastructure can be given as the basic facilities,services, and installations, or underlying framework or features required for the operation ofa Living Lab. In order to harmonise the infrastructures used and/or developed in thedifferent Living Labs, infrastructures can be categorised by their use during the entire lifecycle of the Living Lab. The first set of criteria determines which infrastructures are chosento be used at the establishment of the Living Lab. Infrastructures will be chosen dependingon the environment in which the Living Lab is to be deployed and the objectives which areto be achieved. The second category includes criteria defining which infrastructures arecandidates to achieve the Living Labs self-sustainability. The key ones in each Living Labwill be shared within the network. The third set of criteria will determine infrastructures aremore apt to evolve and adapt than others. These are the ones that will be considered with ahigher level of scalability.

Central to this categorisation is to describe the evolution performed in the differentinfrastructures used in the establishment of the Living Lab in order to achieve sustainabilityor in order to be scalable. This means that the most important added value to be detailed inthe scalability and sustainability phases is the transformation or improvement of theinfrastructures established in the first phase (setup). The cross-cutting categorisation ismade in terms of the use of infrastructure. The aim is to describe the use of infrastructuresin each of the three phases of life of a Living Lab, from three different perspectives. Theorganisational perspective describes the infrastructures used in each Living Lab with the purpose of supporting the organisation of the Living Lab. The contextual perspective

describes the infrastructures used in each Living Lab in the context of the Living Lab.Finally, the technological perspective describes the infrastructures used in each Living Labas the technology backbone of the Living Lab.


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Some Living Lab infrastructures might be considered in the three perspectives defined,however it is foreseen that some others may be dedicated to a subset. Again, it is not soimportant to mention the infrastructure used, but the real added value is mentioning thedifferent important aspects of the use of each infrastructure in these perspectives.3.4 Governance

The governance structure of a Living Lab describes the way it is organised and managed atdifferent levels such as the operational or strategic ones. These (organisational, contextualor technological) aspects are related to the life cycle of the Living Lab. The strategic leveldeals with issues like: the way Intellectual Property Rights and exploitation of results aredealt with; the way stakeholders are involved (financial contributions, commitment,responsibility, influence), financing: public-private-partnership, commercial; ownership ofthe Living Lab, i.e. its services, infrastructure, and the responsible entity for Living Lab(dedicated organisation or consortium); the management structure, e.g. director, steering board, (technical) program committee, user committee; driver and nature of the Living Lab,e.g. community-driven, research driven, business/industry driven, technology driven,open/closeness: sharing resources/network; Living Lab development: consortium dynamics(e.g. additional partners, user groups), subsidy/funding policy and the definition andadjustment of the agenda. The operational level includes aspects like: working practices forthe day to day management; execution & monitoring of the living lab goals regarding thesynergy, quality and progress monitoring, internal communication; the way new softwareand services are introduced and validated, responsibilities and liabilities; the definition ofuser group/ awareness of being part of Living Lab; dissemination and externalcommunication: national and international consolidation; the way projects are organizedand funded.3.5 Innovation Outcomes

Per Eriksson, Director at the Swedish Agency for Innovation systems stated research ismaking knowledge out of money innovation is making money out of knowledge. Thisimplies a relation between research and innovation. The problem is that the processes ofresearch and innovation dont simply appear automatically. Current research presents aview of a sociological perspective of innovation and a change from a linear process fromresearch to innovation to a user centric approach where technological research andsociological aspects are equally addressed. Innovation is the process by which new ideasare put into practice and can be seen as a learning/knowledge process within a community.

Independent of innovation type, a Living Lab needs to be set up from an organisational point of view to guarantee specific Innovation Outcomes. One of the major factors is theinvolvement of qualified personnel to guide and assist the innovation process. Additionally,the Living Lab should be able to involve all necessary stakeholders in the innovation chain,specifically in the area of user centricity and user knowledge. As such institutions arescarce[1] this can be identified as a primary focus of ENoLL synergy.

From a contextual point of view, considerations regarding Living Labs strategic market position need to be taken into account. This can be guided by the consideration which is thetarget market for innovation outcomes examples are creating value for industry, specificindustry sectors, SMEs, society, etc. The degree of flexibility the Living Lab can handlewith regards to these target markets also signify its scalability in this area. Here, synergiescan be created utilising the ENoLL network effect to expand or focus innovationcontextuality. Technological systems, mainly ICT, need to be set up to facilitate the

innovation processes. These necessarily support interaction and communication whichempower creativity. These technologies can range from simple conferencing tools viatelepresence to virtual, game-like environments. Virtual marketplaces can be employed for


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example for the brokerage of ideas and patents. Organisationally speaking, a suitableapproach to IPR must be adopted to guarantee the financial sustainability of the LivingLabs innovation outcomes.

The outcome, a successful innovation, depends on the input given in the beginning ofthe innovation process, the idea. This early phase of innovation processes is also calledIdeation. Ideation is the process of forming and relating ideas. It is described to be the process of discovering what to make, for whom, understand why to make it and define thesuccess attributes including the development of insights for answering these strategicquestions [4]. This definition shows the relevance of the early-stage of the innovation process for the product. The knowledge regarding the product and its features/definitionsmay be limited in the early phase but the product definition is strongly influenced in this period. During this phase it is easy and inexpensive to change the product and productfeatures meanwhile it gets more expensive the later changes during the phase ofdevelopment and production are done. From a contextual point of view, an optimaldegree of interaction is necessary for the Living Lab to sustainably produce innovations[1]. This also extends to the technologies employed to facilitate such interaction.3.6 Methods and Tools for the User as Co-creator Approach

The CoreLabs project has investigated methods and tools for Living Labs and established arespective taxonomy. The current Living Labs are using a diversity of technologies,infrastructures and applications and some host specialist technology providers and researchinstitutes. Best Practices have been analyzed in order to ensure interoperability by eitherdefining the use of de-facto standards or suggesting extensions to existing ones whereapplicable. The methods & tools category within the interoperability cube describesdifferent methods and tools used within the existing European Living Lab at all stages.

Integration of the project in the Living Lab infrastructure. A full Living Lab serviceoffering not only requires product and service development and evaluation methodologies but also a mechanism for the integration of the customers product or service into a LivingLab to provide it to the users. The efficient, transparent and smooth integrationaccomplished by the Living Lab provider is the key for trust and convenience of thecustomer. It also can work as a first product/service testing depending on the level ofdevelopment (market launch testing).

Co-creation . The core service of the Living Lab is to facilitate the co-creation of a product, service or application development. This co-creative product development processcan be decomposed into four phases: Product Idea, Product Concept, Product Development,and Market Launch. The methods are divided into traditional market research methods andinternet based methods allocated to the process phase they are most appropriate.

Data preparation . To fulfil the customers expectations regarding the results and toreduce the complexity of the evaluated data, the Living Lab provider offers a standardiseddata preparation. The great advantage of the standardisation is the comparability with theresults within other Living Labs in the network and the confirmation of the expected outputin the run-up to the usage of the Living Labs.3.7 Discussion and Conclusions

This article aims to define a shared reference towards a harmonization of methods and toolsused in the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL). For this purpose aninteroperability cube, a 6x3x3 model, has been proposed. The six sides of the cubecorrespond with six topics; these are: user involvement, service creation, infrastructure,

governance, innovation outcomes, and methods & tools. Each of the topics (sides of thecube) facilitates interoperability between the phases of a Living Lab (setup sustainability scalability) and organizational, technical, and contextual issues. This model enables


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and between other Living Labs. An outstanding role for ENoLL is to encourage LivingLabs to describe their best practices in terms of the harmonization cube. The harmonizationcube has already started to show its communication value. When shown at the Living Labsworkshop in Munich (20-21 June 2007), the cube not only provides a common ground fordiscussions, it also inspired the EC (DG Information Society and Media) representatives touse it in Living Labs strategy discussions to illustrate effectively the multifaceted LivingLabs research, development and innovation challenges and opportunities. Currently, thereare plans to use the physical instance of the harmonization cube during the PortuguesePresidency launch in Brussels of the second wave of the European Network of Living Labsin mid-October 2007.

Concurrently, we continue with the validation of the interoperability cube inforthcoming projects that aim at scrutinizing various Living Labs, on Swedish andScandinavian levels, in the Dutch Network of Living Labs, as well as regarding the secondwave of ENoLL. An effective interoperability helps to achieve a sustainable and self-livingnetwork which is one of the objectives of ENoLL. It also helps to understand in which areasand how Living Labs can improve their collaboration. Accordingly, such an exchange of best practices and lessons learned is definitely something ENoLL should offer to interested parties in the Open Innovation community and in other networks that share the commoninterest in involving users in open innovation processes.

AcknowledgementsThe authors thank Hank Kune and Kari Mikkel for facilitating the first ENoLL workshopin Brussels, the EU delegates as well as the Living Labs representatives for theircontribution to the discussion. Moreover, we appreciate the engagement of the CoreLabsteam in fruitful discussions which sharpened our vision and ideas on the harmonization ofmethods and tools. The CoreLabs project has been funded by FP6 35065. Information on

this project and the Living Labs community can be retrieved through: www.corelabs.eu.References[1] Ballon, P., Pierson, J., & Delaere, S. (2005). Test and Experimentation Platforms For Broadband Innovation:

Examining European Practice. In: Conference Proceedings of 16th European Regional Conference, InternationalTelecommunications Society (ITS), Porto, Portugal, 4-6 September, 2005.

[2] Fahy, C., Power, T, & Ponce de Leon, M. (eds.) (2006). Innovation Aspects, Prerequisites & Requirements.CoreLabs deliverable D3.1a. Available online: www.corelabs.eu.

[3] Mulder, I. (2004). Understanding designers, designing for understanding. Enschede, The Netherlands, TelematicaInstituut.

[4] Rhea, D. (2005). Bringing Clarity to the Fuzzy Front End, a predictable Process for Innovation, Design Research,The MIT Press, Cambridge.

[5] Schaffers, H., Horak, P., Van Bemmelen, J., Merz, C. (2007), Creating and Managing Synergies in a network ofRural Living Labs, this volume.

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