cocreates

CoCreates is a term used to describe collaborative processes in which multiple stakeholders jointly develop ideas, products, or services. The concept emphasizes shared creation rather than traditional top-down design and is applied across corporate, civic, and educational contexts. It is closely related to ideas in open innovation, participatory design, and co-design.

The term is often used by organizations to brand platforms, programs, or communities that host co-creative activities. Core components typically include diverse participation, structured facilitation, iterative prototyping, and shared evaluation of outcomes. Common modalities encompass workshops, design sprints, living labs, online ideation, and crowdsourced concept development.

Typical workflows involve defining a challenge, recruiting diverse participants, conducting facilitated sessions to generate ideas, synthesizing insights with participants, prototyping potential solutions, testing with users or stakeholders, and implementing or refining outcomes. Governance considerations emphasize transparency, equitable participation, and clear arrangements for intellectual property and credit.

Applications of CoCreates span product and service design, urban and community planning, policy development, education, and cultural initiatives. The approach aims to enhance relevance and adoption by incorporating a broad range of perspectives and fostering broader ownership of outcomes. Challenges include coordinating participation at scale, ensuring inclusivity, managing IP and incentive structures, and measuring impact.

See also: co-design, participatory design, open innovation, crowdsourcing.