Services to support knowledge creation

Again, PATI's team is working remotely and is always trying new things, services and places where knowledge is or can be created. Today this post is being uploaded in quite a crowded airport lounge in Oslo. Luckily, a table in a quiet corner, wi-fi and a cup of coffee is available! This time I would like to have a little different post here and introduce a part of paper that's going to get public next spring. All comments if you have any are welcome and appreciated as it allows us go develop further. So, here it goes:
Nowadays organizations’ main competitive advantage has become the knowledge that it holds. Thus, all the efforts must go to empower and maintain the knowledge creation. According to Nonaka and Toyama (2003), the knowledge creation is a process of interactions and problem solving happening between individuals, organization and environment. Through different steps knowledge is transformed from tacit to explicit and it is time, space, and relationship specific because it needs a place where information gets a meaning through interpretation. In knowledge theory, a “Ba” concept is used which originally means place and is considered as factor, connecting time, place, and relationships with others (Senoo et al., 2007). The “Ba” might mean physical space (e.g. office) but it can also be virtual (e.g. email) or mental (e.g. ideas) as the interaction is more important factor in the knowledge creation process that the space itself (Huhtelin and Nenonen, 2015).
An understanding of the workplace as a support for knowledge creation process is important. Therefore, it needs to be seen not only as a physical space to work but also including virtual and social dimensions. This wider approach helps to better understand the needs of knowledge workers and provide support in order to meet their needs. In 2004, Nenonen introduced the concept of four workplaces that vary based on the type of work that is performed and if the space used to perform work is external or internal. Later, the study on learning environments in university campuses by Huhtelin and Nenonen (2015) identified four aspects of spaces and services for knowledge creation corresponding to four knowledge creation processes and “Ba”:

• Spaces and services that support informal interaction and idea creation;
• Spaces and services that support formal meetings;
• Digital platforms;
• Spaces that support learning-by-doing.

Based on the theory of knowledge creation and changed perception of a workplace, PATI team studied 103 services and service providers in order to understand the trends and directions where services are moving and how various services can support the knowledge creation processes. After some initial analysis, services were grouped based on the resources they are connecting and steps they are promoting in knowledge processes:

• Services that support collaboration and businesses are driven by connecting physical space and community. For example, mobile applications that allow users to know where people are, what they are doing, and who they are near, this way allowing serendipitous encounters.
• Services that enable knowledge sharing and businesses are driven by connecting community with technology. Organizations can create networks through different platforms such as LinkedIn or Facebook that allows organizations to understand how the inside community inside works. Such examples could be tags that are worn by employees to track their social behaviours online and within the organization, create possibilities to collect data and monitor team interactions and styles of communication.
• Services that provide access to knowledge. Service providers create businesses by connecting physical spaces with technology or virtual platforms. Technologies that also connect people to the Internet of Things (IoT), facilitating marketplaces based on the intelligence of physical proximity like Venuu or LiquidSpace.

The analysis of services and results of clusters indicate that services for informal interactions, formal meetings and virtual work need to be provided and cover both physical and virtual spaces as well stimulate community creation. This way, formed communities enable sharing of the tacit knowledge, socializing and creating explicit knowledge.
Service providers are adopting service-dominant logic and are combining own resources with others through established interactions between the suppliers and customers for the value creation (Saarijärvi et al., 2013). Technology allows creating new platforms that not only provide personalised experience but also enable users to design services themselves. New companies are coming into the game by providing the user with that it wants, wherever it wants and at the press of a button.
In order to stay competitive, traditional service providers need to reconsider their offerings in terms of customers, the needs of an end-user and other players providing resources for the same group of customers and end-users. Because of the wide possibilities, service providers can only compete by offering an experience for the customer and end-user because the traditional place and service for a fee is not sufficient anymore.

Have a blissful holiday season everybody!
Vitalija

References:
Huhtelin, M., Nenonen, S., (2015) “A co-creation centre for university-industry collaboration – a framework for concept development”, 8th Nordic Conference on Construction Economics and Organization. Procedia Economics and Finance 21 (2015) 137-145
Nenonen, S., (2004) “Analysing the intangible benefits of work space”, Facilities, Vol. 22 Iss 9/10 pp. 233 -239
Nonaka, I. and Toyama, R. (2003) “The knowledge-creating theory revisited: knowledge creation as a synthesizing process”, Knowledge Management Research & Practice, Vol. 1 No.1 pp 2-10
Saarijärvi, H., Kannan, P.K., Kuusela, H. (2013) "Value co‐creation: theoretical approaches and practical implications", European Business Review, Vol. 25 Iss: 1, pp.6 - 19
Senoo, D., Magnier-Watanabe, R., Salmador, M.P. (2007) "Workplace reformation, active ba and knowledge creation", European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 10 Iss 3 pp. 296 – 31

“Hubs will occupy the ground floor of every other block in the future”

Pati team attended Rework’15 conference which was arranged by HUB13 at YLE in Pasila on the 13^th and 14^th of October. The first day consisted of key notes and insightful panel discussions on the future of work and workplace, and an evening pitch night where startups in the field aimed to gain funding and inspire people with their groundbreaking gadgets and services. 

The speakers ranged from future researchers through workplace managers to CEOs and from workplace researchers through business developers to HR professionals. All the lectures suggested a larger inclusion and engagement of the employees to workplace changes that are, in essence, not about the spaces per se but rather about work practice changes and removal of cultural barriers created in organizations along the organizational path.

To illuminate the main points, I hereby list a bunch of phrases that the presenters used to describe the future of work and workplace:

Ola Sundell gave insights on Hub13 concept and described the background for the whole event.

“We build for startups and larger companies and give support in growth – we feel that the large companies can learn from the small and vice versa.”

Gunilla Ohls wanted to lead by example not having her own desk in the organization anymore.

“My work is in my backpack today: I sit where ever I find available, different, small spaces.”

Ilkka Halava painted with a future brush the relations between old and new organisations and their perceptions with surrounding environments.

“A building is a forecast. Some claim that they have such good forecasts, that it is worthwhile constructing a building for a specific purpose for 30 years. Forecasts fail.”

“Constructing cellular environments is the thing – environments that open up possibilities. The role of cities is to produce stimulus – it should be manifested in the built environment as well.”

“Spiritual places have always attracted people to the world of games. How come we don’t see those kinds of spiritual places in our work environments? Or will we?”

“Sharing economy challenges organizations”. 

Satu Huber from ELO gave insights from a CEO perspective and highlighted the role of leading from the front and identifying the organizational potential in the individuals.

“If you have 500 brains in the organization, it is important to find ways of utilizing that brain power.”

“A human being is an entity: If you think about it, what is the reason that gets you out of bed in the morning?”

“More open spaces support the well-being of human beings – nobody is left alone.”

“The three c’s of change consist of communication, communication, communication.”

“The young digital natives and the old veterans can support one another.”

Tytti Bergman from Alko emphasized the role of communication between HR and Real estate units inside the organization challenging the consultants that come and go.

”Your role is tricky in changing the working practices. You focus too much on the spatial dimension and you don’t have a clear enough idea of the internal organization.”

“We need certain prospects for building a communal spirit – the HR has taken ownership of an IT project.”

“The relation of space and time must change at the office – we need courage in testing quick and dirty solutions.”

PATIs own Suvi Nenonen discussed workplace changes from point of view of individual and wellbeing. She referred to identity, fear of loss and presence at a workplace.

“Tila edellä puuhun”

“Am I even allowed to eat consolation candy at my work desk?”

“Whatever ties you to your table prevents the work practice changes from happening.”

“50% of the workplace changes is purely emotional”

“A collaboratively planned is half done”

“The spatial team in Ruusupuisto came together every two weeks throughout the

 2,5 year project – its main task was to build trust."

The first panel discussion gave insights on regulation and how it creates barriers for flexibility in organisations and consequently, work practices in Finland. The panelists consisted of Petteri Uoti, Elina Lepomäki, Rasmus Roiha and Riitta Lumme-Tuomala.

”According to Tilastokeskus, over 60% of Finns work in knowledge intensive tasks. The work time law has been tailored for the purposes of industrial society and it refers to workspace. In reality work is the thing you do, not a space you go to.”

“We are moving from analogical towards digital and networked where everyone plays with everyone else with different kinds of tools – we need a huge cultural change.”

“The work time law bases on an assumption of timely divide: there is work time and other time. If I get a work-related idea naked in the shower, is it work time or the other time?”

“The work time law does not support differentiation even though an organization would like to make changes for employee’s sake.”

“Companies such as Reaktor and Futurice succeeded extremely well in the Best place to work competition. The authorities got interested, checked their hiring practices and started a hazzle: Goddamn, you can’t do it like this!”

“We would require individual regulation that should not be connected to time nor place but to the task under conduct. What we need is courage to release some regulation locally and provide responsibility.”

The lunch time provided time for networking and the afternoon continued with good talks from representatives of OP corporation, Martela, SOK and IBM.

“Our working culture needs to live with time. We enter the customer’s world where Vallila’s office is a pilot.”

“The next revolution after the industrial and digital ones will be that of wellbeing.”

“Hubs are activity-based offices for entrepreneurs and their difficulty lies in scalability – in the beginning you don’t actually know who is going to use the hub.”

“About 45% of global workforce today is unemployed or work in odd jobs. At the same time, there are jobs on the market. There is seemingly a gap between an employee and an employer which is why there is an increasing war of talent. The employees have an increasing amount of power.”

”The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”

“IBM Watson can process 2 million pages of information in 3 seconds, has a sense of humor and understands irony. What are we good for when Watsons take over?”

The official program was wrapped together by a panel discussion lead by Kontoret Konsult’s Tommi Ruohonen. The panelists were: Kalle Sogblom, Henri Helvarinta, Kati Barklund, Sanna Lindner and Mika Okkola. The whole panel discussion handled the issues between organisational culture, HR, physical spaces and IT. A common understanding was that a more holistic understanding and a more integrated approach is needed whether it is lead by HR sector or any person who is inside the organization and understands the humane aspects, individual and communal work practice challenges, opportunities and potential implications of their changes.

“Technology can not be implemented without cultural and managerial implications”

“The productivity of work can be improved by quitting from doing stupid, unnecessary things.”

“We tend to focus on technological dimension, not the work practices.”

“Is there a need for a separate HR or should HR be the ground for everything that is done?”

“The slowest knot of the whole change chain is human.”

“How could the human-believing human beings be taken on board the technological changes?”

The evening provided interesting pitches from startups such as Briim, 720 degrees, Lukoton, Fingertip, Agile Work and Apped. The next day's workshops touched similar issues but engaged the participants to reflect on their own working habits. More information on analyses of the PATI workshop coming up later on in the upcoming blog posts. Altogether the ReWork'15 was an insightful blast of work of the past, today, tomorrow and further. PATI team wants to thank HUB'13 and the organizers and hopes that the ReWork'16 will gain even more momentum than the first prototype.

And again, the discourse over the two days made PATI team feel ever more confident of being on the right track in its research focus.

Systemic nature of service innovation

The PATI team attended RESER 2015 conference arranged in Copenhagen Eigtved Pakhus the 10th and 11th September. The conference included about a hundred paper presentations on services in a wide range of fields including but not limited to health care, sustainability, social innovation, retail, ICT and Real Estate. 

The first day started off with a keynote from Anders Gustafsson who discussed the definition of service innovation. Discussed in a multitude of research contexts, the definition of service innovation is still somewhat blurred which makes the discussion around the subject slightly fuzzy and difficult to relate to. This reflects the issues in collaborating across sectors and integrating services in practice between different service providers.

However, Anders approached service innovation through five lenses that are all founded on behavioral innovation: Business model, Experience, Process, Brand and Social innovation. From the service provider point of view, the business model innovation relates to financial arrangements, the experience innovation handles adding experience to the customer, brand innovation seeks to differentiate the services from the competitors and social innovation seeks to offer help for the ones in need.

In terms of monetary value, around 70 % of the GDP (https://www.quandl.com/collections/economics/services-share-of-gdp-by-country) in western societies is already service-related and still growing - shifting monetary streams from product lines towards services. To pinpoint the changes in the market, Anders gave an example of Volvo vs Minecraft where Volvo with 40 000 employees was sold for 14 million and Minecraft with 28 employees was sold for 18 million euros. Which service is more useful for everyday life, sustainability, humanity and society, can be discussed, but the example certainly makes one understand the level of transition we are in.

The greatest value for PATI of the first conference day in addition to the keynote and practical presentation experience was considered to be the industry track, where Gustafsson, Jensen, Toivanen and Hasu reflected on service insights in retail, facilities, customer experience in general and front line employees. In fact, we felt that PATI as a project is aiming to combine the approaches presented by Jensen and Toivanen – to look at the facilities management through the lenses of a customer experience. Toivanen’s notions of the task of a service provider to assist user add value in the use-context, sharing value as an issue of trust, systemic nature of service innovation, shift from individual services towards systemic solutions, and the complexities the systemic nature brings with it to solve by the service providers.

The first presentation of PATI team was given by Eelis under the heading Serving mobile workers in university campuses – access to success. The piece of research aimed to start bridging the gap between Eelis’ dissertation on dynamics of university campus management in spatial transformation and potential services that could help in taking campuses into better uses. People appeared to be interested in the pragmatic approach and the presentation triggered a couple of questions and a sort of discussion which was promising. 

The second day started with a keynote by Paul Windrum from Nottingham University who talked about challenges that innovation researchers face especially in the public sector services. He focused on citizen-led innovation in a multi-agent framework and emphasized the roles of concepts such as Design thinking, Service design and the role of Designers as integrators in making processes functional. According to PATI’s interpretation all this relates to the transformation of decisive ownership over the services to be used from large corporations to individuals. We as researchers and firms as service providers need a deeper understanding on how the people interact and what they need and what is easy for them to interpret which is why the era of technical optimization is taken over by the era of human-centered usability. So technical optimization is needed but useless as such if the service is not usable.

Two PATI team members gave presentations during the second day. The morning session included Vitalija’s presentation about different scenarios for the future of Facilities management. The results from previous five research projects conducted at Aalto university about FM future in different sectors like retail, industry, knowledge workplaces, senior housing and wellness, were analysed. The results indicate that regardless of the sector and future scenario, FM service providers should consider providing more virtual services, paying attention to new ways of doing daily activities, thus new ways of supporting their customers. Also, a multi-use spaces are becoming a norm which requires less facility-oriented and more customer-centric approach. Responsibility and well-being should drive FM sector towards more balanced service package. PATI team was pleased to have Prof. P.A. Jensen himself at the auditorium listening and commenting on the presentation.

The second day was finished with the presentation by Maiju and her colleague Henna. They introduced few different ways how to measure emotions  of knowledge workers: human intelligence service for reporting daily experiences at work, wearable technology ring for measuring electrodermal activity during workday and mobile self-tracking service for identifying discrete emotions and their intensity. The results of the pilot study indicated that these kind of emotion measurement tools are useful if not forced by the organisation, and value of it is realised by knowledge worker becoming more aware of own emotions and thus changing the work performance individually. Maiju’s presentation raised a lot of discussion and thoughts for further development of the paper.

All in all, the RESER 2015 conference gave PATI team a feeling that we are on the right track and understand what is going on in both service and facilities sector. Service is replacing the space but the dynamics are sensitive as the success of services is dictated by human behavior and interaction. So when managing spaces and offering spatial services, rather than just optimize and make space use more efficient, the focus needs to be in effective use of spaces and change management which can be supported by a variety of services where customers and users are focal value co-creators. The PATI team has caught the wave and is happy to continue with the research.

Can virtual communication replace face-to-face meetings?

(Picture from: http://yaelzofi.com/)

Working time-and-place independently does not mean that collaboration with colleagues, teams or customers decreases. Collaboration still plays an important role in everyday work practice. Therefore, an increasing attention is put towards empowering virtual collaboration. In research, virtual collaboration can be divided into three groups: computer-mediated collaboration such as emails, chats and document sharing, audio conferencing and video conferencing. Although, there are plenty of tools that empower workers for virtual collaboration, face-to-face meetings are still considered as the most effective. The face-to-face meeting allows to demonstrate or show instead of only talking and visual sense helps to gather and understand information faster. People are able to read the body language of others, hence make a better connection with the team. Body language and keeping eye contact becomes an issue during video conferencing  when there is no possibility to see others but only the shared document. Therefore, it becomes difficult to receive the message as well as understand how the message is received.

Various studies of technology-enabled collaboration suggest that video conferencing is the most efficient for five to eight participants. In larger groups attention to the body language is lost. It might be one of the reasons why video conferencing is not appreciated by organisations in the same way as face-to-face meetings. So when the size of the group for video conferencing increases, different video features should become available to optimize the communication such as multi-screens where more people can be seen and each decides where to concentrate the attention itself. Suitable video systems in dedicated rooms can solve this issue but it is still difficult with the Internet based conference tools, e.g. Skype.

Another change happening in organisations is that more and more meetings are adopting free-flowing group exchanges instead of traditional one-to-many presentations. It becomes increasingly difficult to identify which person is talking, thus the efficiency of meetings decreases. The variety of synchronous meetings with different tools is both a technical and a social challenge for our collaboration and our experiences with them are worth to share - in good and bad.

Asynchronous communication is also taking place by using various tools. We all have experienced the misuse of common tools such as emails when one forgets to attach the file to the email, replies to all recipients when it concerns only a one person or forgets to switch off auto-reply message. Although it distracts us and does not improve our work efficiency, we still use emails every day. A video by comedians Tripp and Tyler is a very good illustration of problems that every user experienced at least once while using video conference. We have adapted to use the various tools technically and based on our experiences we could more discuss what kind of behavioral codes are typical for us in virtual collaboration.

Virtual collaboration is not a silver bullet for mobile workers. Some researches show that video conferencing cannot replace face-to-face communication in tasks like negotiation. One of the options which could help solving issues related to virtual collaboration, is training workers how to use computer-mediated communication tools properly. Such initiatives could be the standardization of lexicon or communication practices. Another option is a development of services for unified communications (UC). Unified communications is a fast growing market which is driven by the increase of mobility and virtual work as well as BYOD phenomenon. Capabilities of unified communications such as a single-number reach for mobile workers by simply dialing their office number, whether they’re in the office or not should be carefully studied by real estate and service providers in order to offer smart services supporting time-and-place independent work. Demand and markets are there.

Give me a health break!

(Pic credits: http://annazorzou.com/office-yoga/)

The trending discussions of workplace management seem to prioritize health and wellbeing of the work force over excellent technical performance of facilities or optimal working hours.

A recently developed WELL building standard created by Delos, reflects well the current state of the discourse. According to the Delos website, it is the first building standard that focuses on human health and wellness. It consists of seven basic naturally branded concepts: Air, Water, Nourishment, Light, Fitness, Comfort and Mind. The certificate claims to be grounded in a body of medical research that has been conducted over seven years. The aim of the certificate is to help create a built environment which would improve nutrition, fitness, mood, sleep patterns and performance of its occupants.

All in all, this trend indicates focus on soft and relative, humane factors of individuals as sources for more efficient and effective working environments. Optimization of spatial resources, ecological solutions, working hours, technical conditions of buildings or ergonomic performance of chairs and tables are shifting towards themes such as natural environments, well-being, fitness and mindfulness. Yoga and mindfulness exercises are increasingly common at workplaces, and employees are given opportunities to do sports or other hobbies during their office hours in search for better performance.

At the same time, also the importance of social well-being inside the community as a concept seems to be in the professionals’ highlighted sphere. Also the ways of commuting to and from workplaces have been on the table in terms of healthy workforce and ecological sustainability. For instance, Ramboll uses examples of IKEA’s free water bus and shuttle services in Brooklyn, and subsidized public transportations of WWF in UK as sustainable ways of commuting. So employees are encouraged to make healthier decisions even on the move.

So has the time come when we admit that doing more in a timely manner does not necessarily add quality to our performance but a well-spent break every now and then supports us more in the long run? Should the corporations increasingly create incentives for common sports exercises and alternative transportation methods?

The core of the development of working environments seems to thus currently be in encouraging personal development of individuals both physically and mentally. Performance of facilities is seemingly reaching its optimal state gaining lesser attention and individual well-being is highlighted more. Are we ready to implement these sorts of changes in Finland?