Reflection on the seminar "Customer-Centered Systems Intelligence in Wellbeing Service Ecosystems"

I had the chance to participate in the Immediate Results Seminar of MORFEUS project. MORFEUS is the abbreviation of Mallinnettu informaatio, Osallistavat työtavat, Rakentuva tulevaisuus, Fasilitoitu yhteistyö ja Ennakoiva innovointi Uudistuvassa Sosiaali- ja terveydenhuollossa. And if you are not a Finnish speaker, like me, translation into English is “Future value creation in wellbeing service networks”. It is a joint multidisciplinary project between Aalto University and Laurea University of Applied Sciences.

The seminar had three key presentations:

1. Systems Intelligence in the Wellbeing Service Ecosystem - Esa Saarinen

2. Concepts and prototypes of digital tools and information modeling for future customer-centered wellbeing services  - research results presented by MORFEUS team researchers: Soile Pohjonen, Marika Noso, Anna Salmi, Lauri Majuri and Roni Nukarinen

3. Future Wellbeing services in the Digital Age - from Estonian and Finnish perspectives - Madis Tiik

In this brief, I will share my impressions about the first and the third presentations. 

Firstly, Esa Saarinen presented on “Systems Intelligence in the Wellbeing Service Ecosystem”. Esa started with the basic idea of what systems intelligence meant. He stated “Intelligence behavior in the context of complex systems involving interaction, dynamic and feedback”; and “acting intelligently as part of the system even when parts of the system remain hidden and unknowable.” A system can be “intelligent” as an object, separate entity or human subjects like individuals, groups, teams, organizational units, institutions, etc.

From PATI perspective, it is a collaboration project of different companies that are learning from each other in order to build an ecosystem, where the central theme is to enhance positive impacts of workplace. It is beneficial to take into consideration what elements would contribute to the “success as a whole” as Esa presented. One of the most critical points in his opening was the mentioning of “The Invisible System”.

An invisible system is the things you don’t see and, most important, the research group is interested in.

The invisible system often reflects subtleties of interaction on the emotional/ non-conscious/ non-articulate/ attunement level. 

Then, he considered one of the biggest breakthroughs of our time - breaking through of natural sciences to micro level. These changes relate to our brain, which is the home to intelligence. Their research group (J. Törmänen, R. P. Hämäläinen, E. Saarinen) had conducted “Systems Intelligence Inventory”, where key competences, key skills, key individual separate, form of actions, and form of intention are being defined for the success in whole. Those are the key elements. Systemic perception, effective responsiveness, attunement, spirited discovery, positive engagement, wise action, attitude, and reflection. Each element is guided with a set of questions to identify the systems intelligence.

It is significant to the systems like workplace, studies, school, or relationship. The spirit is needed, otherwise people are easily trapped in routine or habits:

It is possible for people to enjoy something, and there are the outcomes of the enjoyment.

If seeing workplace as a system, how many elements do you find in your system or ecosystem?

Next presentation was about “Future Wellbeing services in the Digital Age - from Estonian and Finnish perspectives” by Madis Tiik. In our PATI project, digitalization is emphasized as one of the key drivers for the changes of working environment. It is impressive and kind of breathtaking to see how digitalization is actually impacting on healthcare sector at the moment. Madis Tiik gave a very interesting presentation. Did you know that iPhone can work as a medical device (it is probably proceeding dramatically now with Apple Watch while I’m typing this)? Technology changes in the blink of an eye. Some of the apps are even approved by healthcare authorities for medical usage. You can check and even download some of them from the examples in the photo.

In his presentation, Madis highlighted the transformation from Health 1.0 to Health 3.0. The details are in the following photos. His key idea was that we are moving from fragmented Electronical Health Record (EHR) and Hospital Information System (HIS) towards the era of one User Health Account with health data, information storage, and the health support (symptom checker, data analytics, and data checking with equipment). I was not aware of how problematic this healthcare system is until Madis showed the youtube video If Air Travel worked like Health Care. The video is a super hilarious reminder of where our healthcare systems are at the moment. His introduced change will save time and effort which is especially needed due to the shortage of medical professionals. You can see this is happening in a video with Sophie:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig3dADXqBF8&t=4m3s

So for your vocabulary to understand the photo “Health 1.0 to Health 3.0”:

EMR: Electronic Medical Record

HIS: Health Information System

EHR: Electronic Health Record

HIE: Health Information Exchange

PHR: Personal Health Record

Health Account

 

[Health 1.0 to Health 3.0]

From PATI and my own perspective, the final point to mention here is that our health and wellbeing is affected 40% by our behavior and lifestyle and 20% by the environment and social factors. We truly need a workplace which not only creates a good environment and social atmosphere but also enhances healthy behavior and lifestyle. Madis Tiik also gave an example of Turntable clinic in Las Vegas where health coaches and doctors focus more on spending time and activities with their patients like cooking or jogging together to address the needs of the patients. And how do they do that? They need support from the built environment that enhances those shared activities. That is where our PATI service could “sneak in”. J

[An example of Turntable clinic floor layout]

[What affects our health – McGinnis et al. 2002, Health Affairs 21 (2). Image from Sitra]

All the best,

Kim

Aidosti eteenpäin vievä coworkingtila

PATI's team member Tytti Vasell is visiting San Francisco at the moment and, as part of the research of co-working spaces, she gives us her impression of a co-working space specially dedicated for Nordic community! 

Picture from NIH takern by Tytti Vasell 

Piilaaksossa sijaitseva Nordic Innovation House on pohjoismaisille, Amerikan markkinoille tähtääville yrityksille tarkoitettu softlanding space.Perinteisten coworking- tai HUB-tyylisten tilojen rinnalla NIH on meille pohjoismaalaisille unelmavaihtoehto, jos mielessä siintää Amerikan markkinat.
 Ihan ensivaiheessa yritys saa Nordic Innovation Housen kautta osoitteen, jossa toimia. Edulliseen kuukausihintaan työpisteen muutamiksi päiviksi kuukaudessa, “työkavereita”, pääsyn verkostoitumistapahtumiin, ja ennen kaikkea lämpimän ja avuliaan vastaanoton. Nordic Innovation Housea voisi kuvailla vaikka kansainvälistyvän start-upin golfklubiksi.
 Vähän pidemmälle amerikkalaistunut yritys voi hankkia NIH:n kautta vakituisempaa työtilaa, saa käyttöönsä verkostoitumisen lisäksi myös resource HUBin, jonka kautta yritys saa vinkkiä esimerkiksi siitä, minkätyyppinen lakimies, ja mikä asianajotoimisto voisi olla sopiva kumppani esimerkiksi viisumiasioissa auttamiseen tai vaikkapa yhteistyösopimusten laatimiseen.
 Verkostoitumista NIH tarjoaa mm. kuukausiaamiaisilla, kerran kuussa järjestävissä iltamixereissä, eli yritysten kanssa yhteistyössä järjestyissä teemoitetuissa verkostoitumistilaisuuksissa. Itse pääsin paikalle pohjoismaisten terveysteknologiayritysten iltamaan tutustumaan niin ruotsalaisiin, tanskalaisiin kuin norjalaisiinkin yrittäjiin ja luomaan kontakteja hiljattain alkanutta matkaani ajatellen.
 Start-upien ja kasvuvaiheessa olevien yritysten lisäksi NIH tarjoaa yhtä lailla palveluitaan myös korporaatioille sekä sijoittajille. Työtilan lisäksi esimerkiksi sopivien yhteistyökumppanien tai “sijoituskohteen” löytyminen onnistuu ihanien NIHilaisten kautta vaivattomasti.
 Auttamisen halu, avoimuus ja yhteiset tapahtumat. Sekä tietysti yhteiset aamiaiset, lounaat ja iltatilaisuudet nousevat päällimmäisenä mieleen vietetyistä päivistä NIH:lla. Tietty samankaltainen pohjoismainen mentaliteetti, luottamus ja ahkera tekeminen ovat niitä asioita, joita ainakin itse arvostan ja saa tuntemaan oloni kotoisaksi täällä.

Where is the workplace moving to?

Photo from Republikken co-working space in Copenhagen taken by the author

Traditional offices and work from 9 to 5 are decreasing. That’s a fact and we all know that. Now, when we can easily measure space utilization rates, we see that desks are used less than 50% of the time (see e.g. Oseland et al. 2013, Knoll, 2011, or http://www.workplace-manager.com/). Some companies try to reduce their costs by giving up some of the office space and promoting flexible work style and remote work, for example, from home (see e.g. Smart Flexibility book by Lake, A. 2013). Others try to increase the attractiveness of their office space by heavily investing into modern design. However, bright colors and cool furniture often doesn’t do the trick. So what is going on? Where are we moving?

Yesterday I bumped into an interesting dissertation from UK. In her dissertation, Dr. Canonico explores the influence of homeworking to employees and organizations and differences between three age groups. She claims that when home-working practice becomes a commodity rather than a privilege the effect of increased productivity disappears. Meaning, that now, when only some employees are given the privilege of homeworking, they feel obliged or thankful, thus, put more effort to what they are doing and work harder for this given opportunity. However, when flexibility becomes an expected entitlement, they do not feel the same way and start requiring more, for example, covering stationery costs and similar. So the common proposition that people are more productive at home is disproved. I believe that this is a good indication that offices will not become obsolete and we still need a place where we go to work.

But then again, people don’t go to offices as much. We can witness a rise of co-working spaces. What is the secret there? I found a new book about co-working spaces (The Coworking Handbook by Suarez, R. 2016) which I, unfortunately, have not read myself yet but looked at the review of it written by P. Carder. And I must say, after having multiple interviews with both co-working space managers and people working at co-working spaces, as well as trying as many different co-working spaces myself, I totally agree with the reviewer. The main difference that separates successful co-working space from non-successful one is the community it creates. If there’s no community – it doesn’t matter how cool your place is from the design perspective, how well located it is – people might come once but probably they won’t return. And, according to the author, co-working space is an added value offer for a traditional real estate. It seems that often, co-working companies can rent physical space from real estate owners and “sell” it (sublet) for the higher cost. So if people are willing to pay, they see the value in it. Of course, we cannot exclude the role of the space itself – it needs to be functional and supporting the needs of people working there but in general people tend to complain about it less than in a traditional office environment.

So what does this mean to big corporate organisations? How can they create this added value of real estate? If people don’t come to the office, they want flexibility, and they are rather willing to work in co-working spaces, does it mean that companies have to become some kind of hubs with a community manager to attract their employees to come there? Is that a role of real estate manager, HR manager, or a totally new role that corporations still overlook? Should they do it or is it too much? Should they rather change their employment agreements with employees and allow a total flexibility by covering costs of using other spaces than their own office? Would that mean more financial flexibility for company moving from capital costs to operational cost?

I have much more questions than answers when looking at this. And we at PATI work hard try to answer at least to some of those and would be happy to have a discussion if that is interesting for you as well!

All the best,
Vitalija

Co-creation in FM services and a road to hospitality business

               https://hospitalitytechnology.wordpress.com/2012/07/09/idsnext-changing-the-face-of-service-delivery-in-the-hospitality-sector/

At the beginning of this week (29-30 August 2016) PATI team members Suvi and me participated in the CFM Nordic conference in Copenhagen where researchers and practitioners gathered together to find an answer to the question “Does FM contribute to happiness in Nordic countries?”. Although, there wasn’t a single answer for this hard question, we all heard and learned a lot about the development of FM in the Nordics. Our team presented 3 papers in total, all related to developing spaces, workplaces, and FM services. Here, I won’t discuss about the space development and co-working spaces but I will share my personal thoughts on co-creation and service development topic.

The second conference morning started with few sessions and one of them concentrated on co-creation and service innovation. I was presenting a paper there, introducing the ways how FM service providers could improve their services through value co-creation. I tried to show how differently FM and value co-creation see and understand value. In FM, value creation is more of a top-down approach where improvements are coming from the collaboration of client organizations and service providers. In value co-creation, a network of stakeholders is necessary but the leading role is given to end-users, improving products or services based on their needs. The second presentation there was made by a researcher that looks at value co-creation phenomenon in hospitality business. Her results showed that, even though we think that unique service experience is the main (or most successful) road to value creation, the main thing that users notice is the quality of service delivery, meaning how front-line service personnel delivers the service and what experience s/he provides. Ms. Forder (DK) also discussed the role of the front-end service personnel and the ways that these employees can add value and create better services because they are the ones that have the most knowledge about their customers collected through face-to-face interaction and constant feedback.

After our presentations, the discussion concentrated on the ways how FM service providers can learn from their end-users and what the suitable methods of co-creating together with the end-user and together with own employees are. Can FM learn from the hospitality business and try to use their service personnel as the main point of collecting knowledge about own customers? After all, a lot of service development in hospitality business is done because of the information that front-end employees hold. Is that the easiest way to provide services that are really needed? And then, how front-end staff should be trained that their mind set would be oriented towards helping customers in any way possible?

One example illustrated the discussion pretty well. A cleaner at the airport helped struggling travellers to do their check-in and sent them to the right terminal and gate. Is this an example where FM services are moving? As far as our knowledge goes, yes, that is the direction. How should it be done properly? And what challenges does it create to FM service providers? These questions will need to be answered later. But the thought in my head keeps on going – what does it mean in terms of our office environment? Does it mean that a receptionist will become a main “people manager” of corporate employees? Or a maintenance person will be the one that will help with IT systems? What do we, as knowledge workers, expect from a person watering flowers in the corridor? Can we change our perceptions and ask for help with setting up a video conferencing system for our meeting?

Let’s see where the future brings us. I hope for an exciting change!

Vitalija

World Building Congress 2016 - Intelligent Built Environment. Day 1.

The biggest scientific conference for Built Environment - World Building Congress 2016 - is taking place this week in Tampere and PATI team members are presenting papers from the research project. It is amazing to see so many professionals gathered in one location and discussing about the Intelligent Built Environment for Life and brainstorming how the future of Built Environment will look like.

Here, I will try to capture the first day presentations and topics that have been discussed and hopefully at the end of the week we will have a comprehensive overview of the conference and the idea where the future will take us.

So, the day started with two keynote presentations by Dongping Fang from Tsinghua University, China, and Matti Kokkala from VTT technical Research Center, Finland. Both of the presentations quite nicely captured the future direction of built environment. Prof. Fang introduced initiatives in China for resilient urbanization, while Prof. Kokkala discussed how digitalization is shaping building and construction sectors.

Today 130 papers were presented in more than 20 sessions and workshops. What an intensive day it was! As you imagine, it is hard to cover everything as physically I was able to listen to only a small fraction on those. But from the ones I’ve heard, I can say – the future looks very interesting!

The first session I participated covered usability issues, and researchers discussed about knowledge creation processes, work environments, and effects workplace has on the organizational performance. The new ways of working and an end-user approach suggest many discussions in the research society.  The importance of increased productivity and performance seems to be clear in the research but I keep on wondering: is it also well understood in organizations?

Similar thoughts were introduced in presentation related to BIM – Building Information Modelling - topic. Simon Ashworth from UK introduced his research on how FM experts use BIM in their operations. His results showed that FM service providers and their customers are not that familiar with BIM and rather use asset management standards than BIM standards, although BIM is already widely used in construction phase. BIM can have (and will have) a significant impact on FM in a long term by providing the data about the building, and simulations based on that data. Mr. Ashworth suggested that FM practitioners understand the benefits but so why is it that FM practitioners are still not implicating that in the real life (researched showed, that less than 10% of FM service providers use BIM in operations)? Is it just the lack of experience? Is there something else that is hidden under this resistance for change?

Another interesting topic I could introduce here was the workshop related to Smart Cities. 5 panelists from Hong Kong, USA, Norway and UK discussed how the future of cities might look like and what are the main topics that need to be researched. According to panelists, the Smart city is an integrated system, covering energy management, building networks, urban planning issues such as land use and infrastructure, transportation, and community. Digitalization seems to be the key enabler, empowering innovation and co-creation in the field. With the help of digitalization, new ecosystems and value chains are created, and built environment is changing towards service business, like building-as-a-service, energy-as-a-service, X-as-a-service, or… Workplace-as-a-service! Aren’t we on a hot topic right here? J

But… There were many more interesting topics covered today and I could continue for a while but you will probably get bored by reading it. One needs to be in place to feel the spirit and get excited about it. I have gained very valuable knowledge and connections, and believe this will add value to PATI project as well. And if you’re around there, let’s keep in touch! We always talk about collaboration and co-creation, so let’s make it happen in real life!

Yours truly,

Vitalija

Uusia palveluita nopeasti ja ilman ylimääräistä sensuuria

Rakentamisen Laatu RALA ry yhdessä TTY:n ja digitaalisia palveluita tarjoavan Futuricen kanssa järjestivät hackathonin, jonka tavoitteena oli rakentaa uusi palvelukonsepti rakennusyritysten toiminnan laadun valvomiseen keskittyvälle yritykselle. Kolmen päivän aikana käydyt intensiiviset työpajat olivat Futuricen fasilitoimia.

Osallistujakunta koostui mm. rakennustekniikan -, käyttökokemuksen, arkkitehtuurin ja tietojohtamisen opiskelijoista. Ensimmäisen illan aikana jakauduttiin pienryhmiin, käärittiin hihat ja alettiin hommiin! Oma ryhmäni osoittautui varsinaiseksi konkariporukaksi – kaikki ryhmän jäsenet olivat jo useamman vuoden ajan olleet yrityselämässä, niin IT:n, rakennesuunnittelun kuin markkinoinninkin parissa. Tästä lähdökohdasta oli hedelmällistä lähteä liikkeelle.

Hackathon fasilitoitiin perinteisin palvelumuotoilun työkaluin: mietimme asiakassegmenttejä, viestintää, ansaintalogiikkaa, kohderyhmiä, palvelupolkuja ja suoritimme pikaisesta aikataulusta huolimatta myös haastatteluja. Intensiivisten hackathon-päivien lopputuotoksena esittelimme konseptin, jossa ehdotimme kohderyhmän laajentamista uuteen asiakaskuntaan sekä rakentamaan tunnettuutta meidän “tavallisten suomalaisten” keskuudessa. Raadin jäsenistöön kuului edustus seuraavista yrityksistä: TTY, RALA ry, Rakennusteollisuus RT ry, Hartela, Skanska ja Peab.

Kun halutaan kehittää nopeasti uutta, unohtaa liian tiukat arjen rajoitteet ja innovoida yli toimialarajojen, on tämänkaltaiset konseptointiworkshopit erinomaisia vähintään ajatusten herättelijöinä. Parhaimmillaan työpajoista voi saada usean pitkälle pureksitun konseptin, joita hiomalla ja jatkojalostamalla saadaan uusia kohderyhmiä, uusia palveluita /tuotteita tai vaikkapa täysin disrputoitu tapa markkinoida!

Osallistujan näkökulmasta nämä intensiiviset työpajat ovat erittäin antoisia, hauska vaihtoehtoinen tapa opiskelulle, ja muutaman päivän rutistuksen jälkeen on aina kaikkensa antanut olo. Tässä workshopissa RALA sai mielestäni hyviä ideoita, kun kaikki neljä ryhmää olivat lähestyneet hieman eri näkökulmista ja kolmea eri kohderyhmää palvellen. RALAn toiminnanjohtaja itse kiitteli osallistujia kaikkien odotusten ylittämisestä. Jään odottelemaan päätyykö joku esitellyistä konsepteista – tai ainakin joku osa niistä – käytäntöön saakka!  

Tämän kaltainen intensiivinen hackathon voisi toimia lähestymistapana erinomaisesti myös PATI-hankkeeseen kehittäessämme uusia palveluita liikkuville tietotyöläisille. Coworking, virtuaaliset työkalut ja yhdessä tekeminen yli organisaatiorajojen saavuttaa yhä enemmän jalansijaa myös suomalaisissa yrityksissä, joten nopeat palveluinnovaatiot olisivat varmasti hyödyllisiä myös PATIlle.

Future of work and the evening at the Mothership of Work

Picture by: Vitalija Petrulaitiene

Last Thursday real estate investment company Sponda launched a new service concept – co-working space called The Mothership of Work (MOW). MOW is a co-working space for freelancers and businesses, providing not only work space but other spaces together with additional services such as health and well-being, accounting and legal services. One of the main aims of MOW is to create a community which empower employees - various activities and events organized there help to reach that aim.

So back to the event. PATI team is very keen on learning about new workspaces and co-working spaces around Helsinki, therefore we were fast in getting in contact with MOW and going to look around new spaces for inspiration. And how did it go for us?

It was fun! There were so many people! More than 500 participants were on the list, and the place was crowded. The concept of the event was something new at least for PATI team. MOW made a small conference “Telling the Future” which included 5 presentations about the future of Work, Education, Health, Food and Love in 5 to 10 minutes. After the presentations, participants were able to look around the space which is distributed through 6 floors and have a sneak-peak how it would feel to be working there. But I am not here to promote anything, rather share my thoughts about the event and conference. I will not go through all of the topics but I must say: some interesting things were presented! From eating various bugs to improving own health by biohacking (optimizing yourself based on your current health, well-being, genetic data and other information). Shortly, I loved the idea of mini-conference and I believe that “conference” type of knowledge sharing even in smaller circles is the future of knowledge work!

And I could extent a bit more about the Future of Work which was the topic presented by Outi Kuitonen from Demos Helsinki. She started with introducing the concept of work by the famous 20th century philosopher Hannah Arendt where is identified different modes of work: from ideation, construction of work to action and speech. Speech, especially in her times, was the freedom to a man and society. And these actions such as speaking and collaborating was the leading theme of this presentation. According to Outi, work in 2030 will be much more global and free. Societies and communities will gather together to collaborate, share ideas, discuss and, thus, innovate. Many of traditional tasks will be performed by robots (I would say, also automatized), much of own time will be spent on different activities (why not a hackathon on one’s free time), and world will be everyone’s office. Outi gave an example when they hired one professional from Serbia to prepare a task needed for Demos Helsinki. They found a person through a website which gathers professionals from around the world to share their expertise.

I agree with a lot of things that Outi Kuitonen presented in those valuable 6 minutes that she used. It made me think: are we all becoming freelancers? Working from project to project, not anymore devoted to one company or organization? And I believe this is the direction we are heading to. However, many times I end up pondering about those people who are afraid of that change or do not want to change at all. How will they adapt? How much are they going to resist? How much time will it take for traditional businesses and old companies to adapt to this kind of work? What will happen to those who won’t? Many questions started running in my head after this presentation and I believe that is always a good sign for the presenter. I just hope that we can get some hints regarding these issues in our PATI project…

Your sincerely,

Vitalija