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Novel IoT market solutions and research promise IoT modules that do not require programming or electrical setup, yet shop floor personnel need to face problem solving activities to create technical solutions. This paper introduces the Karakuri card deck and presents a case study composed of four workshop sessions in four manufacturing settings, where shop floor personnel tested the cards as a means of ideating and presenting conceptual IoT solutions in the form of diagrams. The results indicate the validity of the proposed conceptual solutions and suggest prototyping as a next step.

The availability of new research for IoT support and the human-centric perspective of industry 4.0 opens a gap to support operators in unleashing their creativity so they can provide improvements opportunities with IoT technology. This paper presents a case-study carried out in four Swedish manufacturing companies, where four different workshops were facilitated to support operators in the conceptualization of manufacturing improvements with IoT technologies. The empirical material gathered during these workshops has been analyzed in five different reflective sessions and discussed in light of previous research from industry 4.0, operators, and IoT support. Results indicate that operators can collaboratively create conceptual IoT solutions and that expressiveness in communicating their ideas and needs using IoT technology is more relevant than technical aspects and details of their proposed IoT solutions. This technological expressiveness is identified as a necessary skill to be cultivated on the shop floor and can potentially contribute to making a more effective and socially sustainable industrial landscape in the future.

This case study presents how the mixing of speculative design with artistic methodology can contribute to the inquiry of technological potentialities in the future of work. The goal and belief are that technologies such as artificial intelligence can augment employee creativity and support their well-being at work. The co-design process followed an artistic approach and consisted of three cycles of labs, workshops and events during the span of one year to support professionals with non-technical background in the ideation and conceptualization of possible futures. The artistic approach consisted of different exploration perspectives of technology through the use of embodiment, artifacts and creation of speculative fictions. The research team that facilitated the labs was interdisciplinary and the participants were assembled from different partner organizations from industry and public sector. We share the learnings from this study attending to three different perspectives: our learnings from the facilitation of the artistic approach, our learnings from the future of work ideas and concepts developed by participants, and discussion of what these learnings can mean to design practitioners and the research community. Results indicate that embodiment and speculative fiction can create engagement among professionals that lack technical expertise and support them in collaborative exploration of alternative futures of work with novel and abstract technologies such as AI.

Artificial Intelligence offers a wide variety of capabilities that can potentially address people's needs and desires in their specific contexts. This pilot study presents a collaborative method using a deck of AI cards tested with 58 production, AI, and information science students, and experts from an accessible media agency. The results suggest that, with the support of the method and AI cards, participants can ideate and reach conceptual AI solutions. Such conceptualisations can contribute to a more inclusive integration of AI solutions in society.

Futures Literacy is the capability to imagine and understand potential futures to prepare ourselves to act and innovate in the present. This pilot study aims to understand how artistic methodologies and speculative design can support the collaborative exploration of futures in the context of work and contribute to developing peoples' capability of futures literacy. Our premise is that technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of things can augment people and support their needs at work. To illustrate this process, we have presented a collaborative method that integrates an artistic intervention with speculative design activities. We tested the method in a full-day workshop with seventeen (17) participants from a Swedish academy responsible for enabling learning and competence development at work in the healthcare sector. The results indicate that the artistic intervention, combined with the speculative design activities, can challenge current participants' perspectives and offer them new ways of seeing futures with technologies. These new ways of seeing reveal underlying premises crucial in developing the capability of futures literacy. 

This paper presents a collaborative solution developed to enable people without prior Internet of Things (IoT) knowledge to ideate, conceptualise, role-play and prototype potential improvements to their work processes and environments. The solution, called the Karakuri IoT toolkit and method, was tested in two workshops with eight production leaders at a Swedish manufacturing company. Outcomes were analysed from the perspectives of materials interaction and instruments of inquiry. Results indicate the solution can help people conceive and prototype improvement ideas at early design stages.