Monimos Aalto Service Factory 22.10.2010

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Co-designing a social media service for civic participation

Case MonimosOct 22, 2010Teemu Ropponen // SOMUS-projectAalto University School of Science and TechnologyDepartment of Media Technology

Case Monimos

• Can social media help immigrants in participating in the society and in collaboration with public sector?

• Shared case study of two research projects– Somus: Social media for citizens and public sector

collaboration– EPACE: Exchanging good practices for the promotion of an

active citizenship in the EU, (Ministry of Justice)

• ...in collaboration with the network of multicultural associations in Helsinki capital area (Moniheli)

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Background: Social media

Socialmedia

Content

Communitiesand networks

Web 2.0technologies

Fun FreeEasy

Three views to participation

• Goal: Civic participation– deliberative process (public discussion), open and accessible

to the public– involving citizens in processes that deal with their everyday

life and environment• Process: Participatory design

– users participate actively as members of the design team– integrates the knowledge of different stakeholders in a

common design space• Result: Social media

– Process, not just tools, content, technology (Erkkola 2008)

– Produsage: open participation, fluid hierarchy, unfinished artefacts, common property (Bruns 2008)

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Monimos design process

• Community-driven participatory design• “Monimos team”: 10 immigrants, 2 Moniheli

employees, EPACE and Somus researchers/developers

• Working methods– 8 monthly workshops (face-to-face/online)– Open online collaboration: discussion + voting of

service ideas, features, layout, service name

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The Monimos project

Needs, problems, ideasWorkshops

Service conceptOwela discussion,Moniheli workshop

Service pilotOnline test,further development

2009 2010

Design and developmentw/ Monimos teamWorkshops + Owela

Public serviceContinuous development

Open co-design in http://owela.vtt.fi/immigrantmedia

www.monimos.fi

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Monimos value proposition

“Monimos is a virtual meeting place for internationally minded people and associations in Finland to enjoy diversity and promote active citizenship”

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Meaning that Monimos…• Is a positive meeting place for developing associational

democracy through– Knowledge sharing and problem solving– Citizen participation and deliberation– Combining fun and utility

• Networks the associations and people who share the same interests and helps empower them to act on important issues

• Combines physical and online spaces as well as bottom-up/top-down approaches

Monimos is a vehicle for encouraging collective action

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Issues/findings

• Which roles of individuals are present in people’s decision-making?

• Who owns the project? Researchers, participants, (funders)?

• Democracy, or co-owning, can hinder visionary work

• Decisions & design drivers need to be reminded often, to avoid repetitive discussions

Combining Online & Face-to-face : Monimos Club yesterday

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Challenges & success factors

• ”yet another website” • will it gain enough user base to fly

• Integration/immigration hot subject??• From talk to action?!

• Communities tend to end up meeting F2F!

• Top-down vs. bottom-up• Can gov agencies follow and utilize the service

• Ownership of the service & vision• Co-design has created a driving force – will it last?

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Conclusions

• Open process needs A LOT of meta-level communication and crystallization, as well as clear decision-making guidelines

• Social media- & produsage-like process – already starting from the design phase– needs to be taken into account in tool, method and

process selection & design

• Community-driven design is difficult FOR ALL PARTIES, agreement on open process necessary

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Thanks!

• Questions?

• We dare you to participate!– http://www.monimos.fi– http://somus.vtt.fi

• Contact: – [email protected], [email protected]