Quotes About Innovation

The empirical finding that users often freely reveal their innovations has been a major surprise to innovation researchers.

example, developed the World Wide Web as a lead user working at CERN. The World Wide Web was certainly

enabling that transition was my close friend and colleague Dietmar Harhoff.

In this book I explain in detail how the emerging process of user-centric, democratized innovation works. I also explain how innovation by users provides a very necessary complement to and feedstock for manufacturer innovation. The ongoing shift of

course, innovation writ large is related to anything and everything, so the phenomena and the literatures I will discuss here are only those hanging closest on the intellectual tree. My goal is to enable interested readers to migrate to further branches as they wish, assisted by the provision of a few important references. With respect to phenomena, I will first point out the relationship of user innovation to

The trend toward democratization of innovation applies to information products such as software and also to physical products. As a quick illustration of the latter, consider the development of high-performance windsurfing techniques and equipment in Hawaii by an informal user group. High-performance windsurfing involves acrobatics such as jumps and flips and turns in mid-air. Larry

I conclude this chapter by reminding the reader that studies of the sources of innovation show clearly that users will tend to develop some types of innovations but not all. It therefore makes sense for manufacturers to partition their product-development strategies and portfolios accordingly.

Dedicated to all who are building the information commons.

attractive qualities. It is becoming progressively easier for many users to get precisely what they want by designing it for themselves. And innovation by users appears to increase social welfare. At the same

contribution of users is growing steadily larger as a result of continuing advances in computer and communications capabilities.

and services-both firms and individual consumers-are increasingly able to innovate for themselves. User-centered innovation processes offer great advantages over the manufacturer-centric innovation development systems that have been the mainstay

universities and the Library of Congress, with support provided by grants from the federal government (Tedd 1994). Until roughly 1978, the only such systems extant were those that had been developed by libraries for their own use. In the late 1970s, the first commercial

By 1998, more than a million people were engaged in windsurfing, and a large fraction of the boards sold incorporated the user-developed innovations for the high-performance sport.

Innovation user and innovation manufacturer are the two general "functional" relationships between innovator and innovation. Users are unique in that they alone benefit directly from innovations. All others (here lumped

Innovation user and innovation manufacturer are the two general "functional" relationships between innovator and innovation. Users are unique in that they alone benefit directly from innovations. All others (here lumped under the term "manufacturers") must sell innovation-related products or services

Research provides a firm grounding for these empirical findings. The two defining characteristics of lead users and the likelihood that they will develop new or modified products have been found to be highly correlated (Morrison et al.

Eric von Hippel

The user and manufacturer categorization of relationships between innovator and innovation can be extended to specific functions, attributes, or features of products and services. When

windsurfing, and a large fraction of the boards sold incorporated the user-developed innovations for the high-performance sport. The user-centered innovation

Routine and intentional free revealing among profit-seeking firms was first described by Allen (1983). He noticed the phenomenon, which he called collective invention

example, Boeing is a manufacturer of airplanes, but it is also a user of machine tools. If we were examining innovations developed by Boeing for the airplanes it sells, we would consider Boeing a manufacturer-innovator

innovations. The user and manufacturer categorization of relationships between innovator and innovation can be extended to specific

Research provides a firm grounding for these empirical findings. The two defining characteristics of lead users and the likelihood that they will develop new or modified products have been found to be

that can also benefit from them. If user innovations are not diffused, multiple users with very similar needs will have to invest to (re)develop very similar innovations, which would be a poor use of resources from the social welfare point of view. Empirical research