User innovations occur when customers of a product improve on that product with their own designs. In rodeo kayaking, the early participants built specialized kayaks from fiberglass using hand lay-up techniques; these crafts were especially nimble in rough water. In the early 1970s, other kayakers began asking these “user innovators” to create equipment for them—and the rodeo kayaking industry was born. Since then, rodeo kayaks have gone through several major design iterations, and the sport has become a $100 million business.

Baldwin and her fellow researchers wanted to better understand this path from user innovation to commercial product. What role do user communities play in this process? Are “user-manufacturers” —users who turn their improvements into commercial products—usually industry leaders? How competitive are existing, well-capitalized companies when they compete against user-manufacturers? Although there have been a number of studies on user innovation, little if any work has been done on the commercialization of user innovations, the authors believe.

The research was recently published in the working paper How User Innovations Become Commercial Products: A Theoretical Investigation and Case Study (pdf, 2.98 mb, 29 pages). The authors believe that their research “provides a first opportunity for both user-manufacturers and established manufacturers to think systematically about the dynamics of these types of markets, and to plan their business strategies accordingly.”

In an interview in Harvard Busines School’s Working Knowledge, Baldwin discusses the research and its implications for entrepreneurs who would like to become their own user innovators.

(via IdeaPort)

“Crowdsourcing is the unofficial (but catchy) name of an IT-enabled business trend in which companies get unpaid or low-paid amateurs to design products, create content, even tackle corporate R&D problems in their spare time.”

“Crowdsourcing is a subset of what Eric von Hippel calls ‘user-centered innovation,’ in which manufacturers rely on customers not just to define their needs, but to define the products or enhancements to meet them. But unlike the bottom-up, ad-hoc communities that develop open-source software or better windsurfing gear, crowdsourced work is managed and owned by a single company that sells the results.”

“To paraphrase von Hippel, it relies on would-be customers’ willingness to hand over their ideas to the company, either cheaply or for free, in order to see them go into production.”

Read full story

It features examples of John Fluevog Shoes, Jones Soda and Threadless and quotes MIT’s Eric von Hippel:

“Eric von Hippel, head of the innovation and entrepreneurship group at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has studied the effects of ‘lead-user innovation’ in industries from extreme-sports gear to medical equipment.”

“In a time of ever more talented technology enthusiasts, hobbyists and do-it-yourselfers, all connected by Internet-enabled communication, he says, the most intensely engaged users of a product often find new ways to enhance it long before its manufacturer does. Thus, he argues, companies that aspire to stand out in fast-moving markets would be wise to invite their smartest users into the product design process.”

“‘It’s getting cheaper and cheaper for users to innovate on their own,’ Professor von Hippel said. ‘This is not traditional market research — asking customers what they want. This is identifying what your most advanced users are already doing and understanding what their innovations mean for the future of your business.’”

Read full story (permanent link)

This will take place through the pilot project Danish User-Centered Innovation Lab, where he will take the first small step on the long road towards the realisation of the Danish government’s ambitious objective in collaboration with a group of researchers at Copenhagen Business School and a handful of Danish companies. The objective is to make Denmark a world champion in user-driven innovation.

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Citing the forthcoming book Outside Innovation by Patricia B. Seybold, a Boston high-tech consultant, the article highlights how “companies are shaking up their methods of bringing products and services to market. Among the outside parties they’re reaching out to: their own customers.”

“Through a process known as ”outside innovation,” companies are deputizing customers to help design new offerings, writes Seybold in her book.”

“Seybold, drawing on studies by Eric von Hippel, professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, said forward-thinking businesses are setting up online forums to identify ‘lead customers’, those who are early adopters and passionate users of their products, and work with them to drive innovation.”

The article also quotes Navi Radjou, vice president at Forrester Research in Cambridge, whose new report last month Transforming R&D Culture revealed how companies themselves say that “their inflexible R&D processes weren’t keeping up with evolving customer needs”, and that “the insular mindset of research and development departments” are becoming “a barrier to innovation”.

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Play is associated with enjoyment, irrationality, spontaneity, experimentation and fun, whereas work is serious, rational, economical, normal and entirely predictable. The juxtaposition of work and play is partly explained by the Protestant work ethic, which holds work to be a virtue and a model of the good life. According to this philosophy, sensible and hard work could not be, and was not allowed to be fun, entertaining or anything that would promote disobedience, enjoyment and smugness, all of which were thought to be ruinous to true Christian belief.

The juxtaposing of work and play may also originate from the view that play is a child’s activity. Especially within the fields of psychology and education, play among children and animals is studied as a phenomenon connected to biological and cultural development.

Removing play from the scope of socially significant work and adult activities has led to its trivialisation. Play has no place in the professional world or the social innovation system.

In the light of current trends, however, it looks like the role of play in work, especially in design and research work, will have to be re-evaluated. One reason for this can be found in the ongoing innovation crisis within established institutions and businesses. Organisations trimmed to maximise their economic performance no longer represent the kind of environment in which the best new ideas and innovations can develop.

Instead, scholars such as Eric von Hippel and Henry Chesbrough have highlighted how the latest applications are being developed in the fringes, among communities of users, hobbyists and amateur developers.

Read full story (to be published as an article in the Finnish Design Yearbook 2006)

In a response Matt Locke, Head of Creative Research and Development of BBC New Media, reports on the user-led innovation projects at the BBC:

“You might be interested in the open innovation projects we’re developing at BBC New Media in the UK. I’ve long been a fan of Eric Von Hippel’s ideas on user innovation, and we launched our own ‘toolkit’ environment last May – http://backstage.bbc.co.uk

Backstage provides RSS feeds of BBC news, weather and other content, and encourages lead-users to ‘build your stuff with our stuff’. The resulting ideas and prototypes are hosted on users sites, but linked to from the backstage site. We’ve see a huge number of prototypes generated by this community, and we’re starting to go out to the developers and commission some of the prototypes into full services. We’re also experimenting with design challenges on the site (e.g. a recent competition to ‘hack the tv schedule’).

The main driver for launching backstage was the recognition that users were hacking their own services using our content anyway, and that we should embrace this and provide the tools to make it easier, rather than rty and stop it. We’re also developing other open innovation projects to increase the number of ideas we get from outside the BBC. The second of these – Innovation Labs – is aimed at independent New Media companies in the UK, and we’re just about to go into 3 weeks of rapid prototyping with teams selected through this process. The innovation Labs site is at http://open.bbc.co.uk/labs“.

“If you have ever come up with a work-around or improvement for a balky product only to find that it performs better than the original, you are not alone. Eric von Hippel proffers multiple examples where an ordinary user, frustrated or even desperate, solves a problem through innovation. His research found innovative users playing with all manner of product: mountain bikes, library IT systems, agricultural irrigation, and scientific instruments. Often, manufacturers keep at arm’s length from these inventions. He describes the Lego company “standing like a deer in headlights” when technologically adept adults discovered they could design their own sophisticated Lego robots. User communities arise, freely communicate with each other, advance ideas and sometimes even “drive the manufacturer out of product design,” according to von Hippel. This widely distributed inventing bug is a good trend, believes von Hippel, because users “tend to make things that are functionally novel.” Not only is it “freeing for individuals” but it also creates a “free commons” of product ideas, parallel to the more restrictive world of intellectual property governed by less creative manufacturers.”

On Von Hippel’s website, you can also find some video tutorials on the topic of “lead user” studies.

(via Business Innovation 2005)

Inspired by the event’s comprehensive lineup of discussion topics and speakers (including Chris Bangle and Eric Von Hippel, already featured in this blog), the weblog showcases interesting interviews, case studies and commentary on the theme of “business innovation”.

Each week it showcases various factors impacting innovation – competition, customer experience, intellectual property and design.

I am proud to say that Putting People First also made it a few times already (here and here) to the Business Innovation 2005 blog. Thanks, Dominic.

In Democratizing Innovation, Eric Von Hippel, Professor and Head of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management, looks closely at this emerging system of user-centred innovation. He explains why and when users find it profitable to develop new products and services for themselves, and why it often pays users to reveal their innovations freely for the use of all.

Download the book for free (Creative Commons License)

Related: Von Hippel interviewed in The Feature on his new book

Let the Users Take the Lead – May 15, 2005
Interview with Eric von Hippel, the head of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group and a professor of management and innovation entrepreneurship at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

Let the Customer Make the Case - March 15, 2005
Collecting and analysing the stories behind purchases can provide deep and invaluable insights into jobs-to-be-done, much more so than traditional surveys or focus group

Harnessing the Power of the Customer – March 1, 2004
Organisations that can effectively harness the burgeoning power of the consumer to help shape their own products and services, argue C.K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy, authors of The Future of Competition, are the ones that will dominate.

Making Routine Customer Experiences Fun – October 1, 2003
For certain service businesses, the addition of fun can be an important differentiator. The authors present three case studies taken from industries not known for fun–furniture retailing, consumer banking, and the grocery business–to show how it can be turned to profitable advantage.

The New Frontier of Experience Innovation – July 1, 2003
The intent of experience innovation is not to improve a product or service, per se, but to enable the co-creation of an environment in which personalised, evolvable experiences are the goal, and products and services are a means to that end.