An interesting article by Virginia Postrel about how consumers are the new inventors.
"A growing body of empirical work shows that users are the first to develop many, and perhaps most, new industrial and consumer products," Eric von Hippel, head of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote in "Democratizing Innovation," recently published by MIT Press. (The book can be downloaded at Professor von Hippel's Web site, http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/ .)
Innovation by users is not new, but it is growing. Thanks to low-cost computer-based design products, innovators do not have to work in a professional organization to have access to high-quality tools. Even home sewing machines have all sorts of computerized abilities. And once a new design is in digital form, the Internet allows users to share their ideas easily.
In order for companies to generate new ideas, Professor von Hippel urges them to pay more attention to "lead users" like these biking enthusiasts: people who stretch the limits of a technology and create their own innovative prototypes.
In a study at 3M, he and several colleagues found that product ideas from lead users generated eight times the sales of ideas generated internally - $146 million versus $18 million a year - in part because lead users were more likely to come up with ideas for entire new product lines rather than minor improvements.
The definition of "lead users" can become a bit circular, identifying anyone who innovates as a "lead user." But in some fields, it is not hard to spot the people whose need to lower costs or enhance performance is particularly great.
"The Disney animators or Pixar animators are ahead on video editing tools from the ordinary consumer," Professor von Hippel said. "Yet we know the stuff that these guys develop now ends up migrating downstream to the general people over time."
Although governments and businesses move toward central planning, consumers still find a way to get what they want.
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