Welcome the world of user-led innovation

Stuart Corner
Sunday, 27 January 2008 03:39

Your IT - Home IT

A new report argues that social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and Wikipedia are merely the beginning of a paradigm shift that will see the innovation behind a vast range of new services and products, including physical goods, coming not from dedicated R&D and product development teams but from the huge community of ordinary users. These conclusions come  from the Smart Internet Technology Cooperative Research Centre's report 'User-led Innovation: A New Framework for Co-creating Business and Social Value,' co-authored by Swinburne University of Technology researchers Darren Sharp and Mandy Salomon.

Sharp says that digital technologies are making it possible for audiences to move beyond being consumers of media, culture and knowledge to becoming active producers. "The sources of innovation are shifting rapidly from the traditional 20th century model of commercial R&D labs, elite universities, private companies and government agencies to user-led innovation...It's a most significant development that everyday people can now utilise the web at a grass-roots level to have a voice and play an important role in the co-creation of software, media platforms, and even physical goods through what's known as 'citizen product design'...While the creation and sharing of digital media is the most visible of user-led activities, other forms of 'citizen product design' are catering to people's desire for personalised consumer goods."

As early examples of this trend, Sharp cites:
- Threadless, a Chicago-based company that solicits t-shirt graphics from its customers, produces the most popular designs, and then sells these via its website;
- Through its 'Open Source Footwear' initiative boutique shoemaker John Fluevog invites customers to submit new shoe designs which are then chosen through peer voting and are vetted for manufacturing feasibility;
- Danish toy manufacturer Lego became a champion of user-led innovation after discovering that users were hacking its popular 'Mindstorms' robot kits. The company re-positioned itself by establishing the 'Mindstorms User Panel' as an elite group of volunteer 'lead users' tasked with co-creating new toy designs and test working prototypes.

The report comprises two discrete sections: The first seeks to identify the key drivers of user-led innovation, its impacts and strategies to foster and exploit it. The second part is an examination of Second Life. It is available free from http://www.swinburne.edu.au/chance .