This document summarizes a case study of co-designing a social media service called Monimos to promote civic participation among immigrant communities in Finland. A participatory design process was used involving workshops with immigrants and community organizations to develop concepts for the service. Key aspects of the process included open online collaboration during design, addressing challenges of integrating online and offline engagement, and ensuring community ownership of the project. The goal was for Monimos to serve as a virtual meeting place combining information sharing, civic participation, and social aspects to empower immigrant networks and encourage collective action.

1. 1
Co-designing a social media
service for civic participation
Case Monimos
Oct 22, 2010
Teemu Ropponen // SOMUS-project
Aalto University School of Science and Technology
Department of Media Technology

2. Case Monimos
• Can social media help immigrants in participating in
the society and in collaboration with public sector?
• Shared case study of two research projects
– Somus: Social media for citizens and public sector
collaboration
– EPACE: Exchanging good practices for the promotion of an
active citizenship in the EU, (Ministry of Justice)
• ...in collaboration with the network of multicultural
associations in Helsinki capital area (Moniheli)

3. 3
Background: Social media
Social
media
Content
Communities
and networks
Web 2.0
technologies
Fun FreeEasy

4. Three views to participation
• Goal: Civic participation
– deliberative process (public discussion), open and
accessible to the public
– involving citizens in processes that deal with their
everyday life and environment
• Process: Participatory design
– users participate actively as members of the design team
– integrates the knowledge of different stakeholders in a
common design space
• Result: Social media
– Process, not just tools, content, technology (Erkkola 2008)
– Produsage: open participation, fluid hierarchy, unfinished
artefacts, common property (Bruns 2008)

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Monimos design process
• Community-driven participatory design
• “Monimos team”: 10 immigrants, 2 Moniheli
employees, EPACE and Somus
researchers/developers
• Working methods
– 8 monthly workshops (face-to-face/online)
– Open online collaboration: discussion + voting of
service ideas, features, layout, service name

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The Monimos project
Needs, problems,
ideas
Workshops
Service concept
Owela discussion,
Moniheli workshop
Service pilot
Online test,
further development
2009 2010
Design and
development
w/ Monimos team
Workshops + Owela
Public
service
Continuous
development

7. Open co-design
in http://owela.vtt.fi/immigrantmedia

8. www.monimos.fi
8

9. Monimos value proposition
“Monimos is a virtual meeting place for
internationally minded people and
associations in Finland to enjoy diversity and
promote active citizenship”
9

10. Meaning that Monimos…
• Is a positive meeting place for developing associational
democracy through
– Knowledge sharing and problem solving
– Citizen participation and deliberation
– Combining fun and utility
• Networks the associations and people who share the same
interests and helps empower them to act on important issues
• Combines physical and online spaces as well as bottom-
up/top-down approaches
 Monimos is a vehicle for encouraging collective action
10

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Issues/findings
• Which roles of individuals are present in
people’s decision-making?
• Who owns the project? Researchers,
participants, (funders)?
• Democracy, or co-owning, can hinder
visionary work
• Decisions & design drivers need to be
reminded often, to avoid repetitive
discussions

12. Combining Online & Face-to-face :
Monimos Club yesterday
12

13. Challenges & success factors
• ”yet another website”
• will it gain enough user base to fly
• Integration/immigration hot subject??
• From talk to action?!
• Communities tend to end up meeting F2F! 
• Top-down vs. bottom-up
• Can gov agencies follow and utilize the service
• Ownership of the service & vision
• Co-design has created a driving force – will it last?
13

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Conclusions
• Open process needs A LOT of meta-level
communication and crystallization, as well as clear
decision-making guidelines
• Social media- & produsage-like process – already
starting from the design phase
– needs to be taken into account in tool, method and
process selection & design
• Community-driven design is difficult FOR ALL
PARTIES, agreement on open process necessary

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Thanks!
• Questions?
• We dare you to participate!
– http://www.monimos.fi
– http://somus.vtt.fi
• Contact:
– Teemu.Ropponen@tkk.fi, Pirjo.Nakki@vtt.fi