I am researching about Living Labs as both research and business model and I want to know more if there is some form of synergy between the academic production and the design of commercially viable products, and how the open innovation (that the Living Lab provides by scientific publishing among other activities), impact the business model positively or negatively.
Also, It would be nice to know what happens when you compare it to closed innovation models or other iterative models that do not have an evident academic layer inside (like User Experience, Lean Startup or Customer Development).
Thank you for your answers and / or references in advance.
Living labs (LL) provide would-be innovators the benefit of user involvement while the "innovation process" is underway. Some years ago when I was involved in software (AI, ERP), we had to develop a demo version to get approval. Then, we set about developing. This was followed by user-testing which could reveal numerous problems that we had not anticipated. Much water would have flowed under the bridge during the development process. While developing equipment for the home, it was much the same. With living labs, one can have active user involvement. That aside LL is a more conducive environment wherein one can get numerous feedback, not to say help from various experts. Here in The Netherlands, one can find LL in several cities like Amsterdam, and in companies.
It is unclear what you mean by the terms shown in parenthesis in your question above... are you saying that user experience, lean start-up or customer development have no academic layer? If that is your view, I would disagree -- if you can drill down deep enough you will begin to see the academic connotations.
Finally, if you have not heard about it -- I would be surprises-- there is an organization devoted to LL and it is called ENoLL or European Network of Living Labs, to give its full name. MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) has also its own LL.
I hope the above helps, though I suspect I might not have fully answered your elaborate question.
If I could be of help, please ask -- the worst response will be a "Sorry"! And that is most unlikely.
Good luck with your research. I would be interested to know more about it. You can send it to my email address.
Dear Pablo,
There is one other direction to Symbiose of LL and educational proces in academiy. This is the creation of virtual laboratory. In our Technical University-Sofia, Bulgaria we have already recieved some results in educational process via virtual laboratory. If You are intersted in, please write to me.
With best regards,
R. Tsankova
Phil Barbonis: When I say academic layer, I refer to the fact that many Living Labs are publishing their academic research, along with their work of open innovation (which in the end is supposed to bring this innovations into the market). This is not the same situation for the Lean Startups, despite there are some papers about the subject (my master thesis, for example, was about the Lean Startup into the microentrepreneurial context). Thank you for your reply, it was very helpful.
Roumiana Tsankova: Thank you for your answer. I would like to know more about the Virtual Laboratory.