Grand designs by ordinary folk

Convergence Culture: Corporations are getting consumers involved in designing everything from cars to hemp milk, writes Haydn Shaughnessy.

Over the past two decades, analysts of that strange abstraction called "society" have described its changing characteristics in a number of portentous ways. Post-capitalist, post-industrial, post-modern. They all conjure up a sense of loss in the way we choose to go about our business together. They are intimations of people adrift.

But that was yesterday. The internet technology that allows people to interact with each other at will is bringing significant change. We live in what some ecomonic and sociological analysts now call a creative economy full of "participative consumers".

A new piece of jargon, a "participative consumer" is one who lends a hand in designing new products and services as well as shaping the way society sees itself. Today's "society" is vibrant and creative.

Companies and political parties have long made use of techniques such as focus groups to provide feedback on design, strategy and policies. Now, some companies at least, are opening up their design departments to the general flow of creativity around us. In response, some consumers are taking the initiative in designing new products, leaving the corporate world to catch up.

The trend towards incorporating consumers into design is strongest in the auto industry where Peugeot now runs an annual future car concept contest open to anybody over the age of 14, and where BMW has set up a customer innovation lab. The German company Hyve works with BMW and other German companies, including backpack makers Backtools, and baby carriage brand Wolke to "systematically integrate customers in the innovation process via the internet". For BMW, Hyve created online design tools for consumers to propose and design new in-car services. Trinkhauf, an Austrian producer of hemp milk asked its consumers to come up with new flavour combinations for hemp milk. Muji, the Japanese furnishings company has launched an international design competition for household items, open to all. The list could go on.

OScar or the Open Source Car, is an example of consumer participation taken a stage further. It may be an example of a longer term trend. It may die on its feet. More than 100 engineers from around the world are cooperating on the design of a social car, one that takes into account how people see the future of mobility and such issues as car sharing as well as the carbon footprint.

Its founder, Markus Merz, describes the aspirations behind the project as: "Building a car without an engineering centre, without a boss, without money and without borders. But with the help of the collective creativity of the internet community."

On a grey Wednesday afternoon recently I was one of 135 people on the OScar website looking at how to design one of the most complex and costly of products. There is a big question mark over whether or not a project of this complexity can succeed. That hasn't stopped the prestigious German magazine Technology Reviewgetting behind OScar. Technology Reviewnow hosts an OScar online forum. OScar is a new departure. It is not, however, unique.

On a lighter note, Vores is a Danish beer designed and crafted by a group of students at the Institute of Technology in Copenhagen. It consists of beer and Guarana, a tonic. The recipe and brewing technique, normally a closely guarded secret for conventional brewers, are posted openly to the web under a Creative Commons' licence and the beer (now called Free Beer) looks to have been reproduced in about 10 countries.

Just before Christmas the online magazine Makelisted more than 30 open-source product projects. There are vastly more on instructable.com a website devoted to sharing design and production information. Projects include kites, prosthetics, new lighting concepts, kimonos and scanners. The arts group Eyebeam's New York-based Open Labs meanwhile is home to a new open source research facility, the first of its kind in the world.

The slow evolution away from competitions incorporating consumers in the corporate design and marketing process, to consumers taking product-design responsibility into their own hands is an undeniable trend.

Its significance is that consumers are finding a third way beyond the corporate and entrepreneurial approaches to innovation and creativity. The people have spoken and they're telling the academic world and politicians they really won't tolerate the negativity of those post-industrial, post-capitalist days again. They may have tired of participatory democratic politics but in "participative consumerism" people see they can make a difference. There may be lessons for politicians.

• The examples of competitions above come from www.trendwatching.com .

• Haydn Shaughnessy edits the online magazine wripe.net. Next: create your own online newspaper.

Words in your ear

Open Source- a way of developing products based on participation from interested parties. Typically, Open Source products will have an unconventional approach to intellectual copyright, often eschewing the idea of private ownership.

Open Source Hardware- Open Source projects evolved in the IT software sector but have gradually become more common in the physical world. The term OS hardware distinguishes these from software.

Creative Commons- an intellectual property licence that allows anyone to use intellectual property (for example, designs), providing they also let other people use any enhancements they make.

Participative consumerism- consumers helping companies design products.

The Creative Economy- the term coined by academic Richard Florida to describe the importance of creativity and the "creative" sector to economic growth.