Democratization of Innovation is a Competitive Imperative
Companies innovate by making incremental product improvements inspired largely by market research that looks to fill needs. New product development of the future, it can be argued, will actually be accomplished by communities of user groups feeding cool stuff they want to use into manufacturers who make it happen. And now, Denmark has become the first to say it will pay incentives to companies who align with their open innovators rather than in-house R&D to create new products. Expect EU partners to follow.
Over the last 30 years, market-changing, mega-income producing new products have largely been created with a single market research method: find a need and fill it.
Simple.
Yes, but increasingly ineffective, says MIT/Sloan School of Management Professor of Innovation Management Eric von Hippel. His exhaustive study of multiple industries and innovations shows that in most cases, the truly ground-shaking product innovations come from the the most ignored part of the market curve: the user’s own invention.
“All markets are small and uncertain at the beginning; users experience need well ahead of manufacturers and are usually ignored by companies because they are few in number,” Dr. von Hippel just told hundreds of global business strategists attending the World Innovation Forum in New York.
Why? Because, Dr. von Hippel says, users innovate to develop something they can use the way they want to use it as opposed to companies who innovate largely when they see the potential to sell something. Products created this way include the heart and lung machine, the jogger baby stroller, the mountain bike, the Dyson vacuum cleaners, and endless software and IT systems.
