Eric von Hippel

The dominant role of users in the scientific instrument innovation process

A sample of one hundred and eleven scientific instrument innovations was studied to determine the roles of instrument users and instrument manufacturers in the innovation processes which culminated in the successful commercialization of those instruments. Our key finding was that approximately 80% of the innovations judged by users to offer them a significant increment in functional utility were in fact invented, prototyped and first field-tested by users of the instrument rather than by an instrument manufacturer. The role of the first commercial manufacturer of the innovative instrument in all such cases was restricted, we found, to the performance of product engineering work on the user prototype (work which improved the prototypes reliability, †̃manufacturabilityâ€TM, and convenience of operation, while leaving its principles of operation intact) and to the manufacture and sale of the resulting innovative product. Thus, this research provides the interesting picture of an industry widely regarded as ∗ Purchase Export

Satisfying Heterogeneous User Needs via Innovation Toolkits: The Case of Apache Security Software

User needs for a given product type can be quite heterogeneous. Segmenting the market and providing solutions for average user needs in each segment is a partial answer that will typically leave many dissatisfied ? some seriously so. We hypothesize that providing users with ?toolkits for user innovation? to enable them to more easily design customized products for themselves will increase user satisfaction under these conditions. We test this hypothesis via an empirical study of Apache security software ? ?open source? software that is designed to be modifiable by skilled users. We find that heterogeneity of need is high, and that many Apache users are dissatisfied with standard security functionality on offer. We also find that users creating their own software modifications are significantly more satisfied than are non-innovating users. We conclude by suggesting that the ?toolkits for user innovation? approach to enhancing user satisfaction might be generally applicable to markets characterized by heterogeneous user needs.

From experience: Developing new product concepts via the lead user method: A case study in a “low-tech” field

Conventional market research methods do not work well in the instance of many industrial goods and services, and yet, accurate understanding of user need is essential for successful product innovation. Cornelius Herstatt and Eric von Hippel report on a successful field application of a “lead user” method for developing concepts for needed new products. This method is built around the idea that the richest understanding of needed new products is held by just a few users. It is possible to identify these “lead users” and then draw them into a process of joint development of new product concepts with manufacturer personnel. In the application described, the lead user method was found to be much faster than traditional ways of identifying promising new product concepts as well as less costly. It also was judged to provide better outcomes by the firm participating in the case. The article includes practical detail on the steps that were used to implement the method at Hilti AG, a leading manufacturer of products and materials used in construction.

Profiting from Voluntary Information Spillovers: How Users Benefit by Freely Revealing Their Innovations

Empirical studies of innovation have found that end users frequently develop important product and process innovations. Defying conventional wisdom on the negative effects of uncompensated spillovers, innovative users also often openly reveal their innovations to competing users and to manufacturers. Rival users are thus in a position to reproduce the innovation in-house and benefit from using it, and manufacturers are in a position to refine the innovation and sell it to all users, including competitors of the user revealing its innovation. In this paper we explore the incentives that users might have to freely reveal their proprietary innovations. We then develop a game-theoretic model to explore the effect of these incentives on users’ decisions to reveal or hide their proprietary information. We find that, under realistic parameter constellations, free revealing pays. We conclude by discussing some implications of our findings.

PERSPECTIVE: User toolkits for innovation

Manufacturers must accurately understand user needs in order to develop successful products–but the task is becoming steadily more difficult as user needs change more rapidly, and as firms increasingly seek to serve “markets of one.” User toolkits for innovation allow manufacturers to actually abandon their attempts to understand user needs in detail in favor of transferring need-related aspects of product and service development to users along with an appropriate toolkit. User toolkits for innovation are specific to given product or service type and to a specified production system. Within those general constraints, they give users real freedom to innovate, allowing them to develop their custom product via iterative trial-and-error. That is, users can create a preliminary design, simulate or prototype it, evaluate its functioning in their own use environment, and then iteratively improve it until satisfied. As the concept is evolving, toolkits guide the user to insure that the completed design can be produced on the intended production system without change. Pioneering applications in areas ranging from the development of custom integrated circuits to the development of custom foods show that user toolkits for innovation can be much more effective than traditional, manufacturer-based development methods.

Democratizing innovation: The evolving phenomenon of user innovation

Almost 30 years ago, researchers began a systematic study of innovation by end users and user firms. At that time, the phenomenon was generally regarded as a minor oddity. Today, it is clear that user-centered innovation is a very powerful and general phenomenon. It is rapidly growing due to continuing advances in computing and communication technologies. It is becoming both an important rival to and an important feedstock for manufacturer-centered innovation in many fields. In this article, I provide an overview of what the international research community now understands about user-centered innovation. ZusammenfassungDie wissenschaftliche Forschung zu Nutzerinnovationen begann vor etwa 30 Jahren. Während das Phänomen anfangs noch als eher unbedeutende Kuriosität abgetan wurde, steht seine allgemeine Bedeutung heute ausser Frage. Bedingt durch Fortschritte in IT und Kommunikationstechnologien stellen Nutzerinnovationen in verschiedenen Feldern eine zunehmende Konkurrenz bzw. eine wertvolle Ergänzung für herstellerseitige Innovationsaktivitäten dar. In diesem Artikel wird eine Übersicht über den Stand der Forschung gegeben.

How learning by doing is done: problem identification in novel process equipment

Abstract The unit cost of producing manufactured goods has been shown to decline significantly as more are produced. It has been argued that ‘learning by doing’ is at the root of this phenomenon, but the modes of learning actually involved have not been studied in detail. In this paper we attempt to provide a better understanding of the learning behaviors involved in learning by doing via a study of 27 problems that affected two novel process machines in their first years of use in production. First, ‘interference finding,’ is described, a form of learning by doing that appears to be central to the discovery of the problems studied. Next, the reasons why the problems identified by templating were not discovered prior to field use - before ‘doing’ - are explored. Two causes are identified: an inability to identify existing problem-related information in the midst of complexity, and the introduction of new problem-related information by users and other problem solvers who learn by doing after field introduction of the machine. We find that problems due to information lost in complexity emerge earlier than do problems due to user learning by doing. Tests of reason are used to show why it would be very difficult to eliminate doing from learning by doing. Finally, other implications of the study findings are discussed.

User toolkits for innovation

Manufacturers must accurately understand user needs in order to develop successful products-but the task is becoming steadily more difficult as user needs change more rapidly, and as firms increasingly seek to serve “markets of one.” User toolkits for innovation allow manufacturers to actually abandon their attempts to understand user needs in detail in favor of transferring need-related aspects of product and service development to users along with an appropriate toolkit. User toolkits for innovation are specific to given product or service type and to a specified production system. Within those general constraints, they give users real freedom to innovate, allowing them to develop their custom product via iterative trial-and-error. That is, users can create a preliminary design, simulate or prototype it, evaluate its functioning in their own use environment, and then iteratively improve it until satisfied. As the concept is evolving, toolkits guide the user to insure that the completed design can be produced on the intended production system without change. Pioneering applications in areas ranging from the development of custom integrated circuits to the development of custom foods show that user toolkits for innovation can be much more effective than traditional, manufacturer-based development methods.

A customer-active paradigm for industrial product idea generation

Abstract New product need assessment and idea generation methodologies, developed and used successfully in the consumer product arena, are seldom used to aid in the design of new industrial products. It is suggested that the ‘fault’ lies in large part with the ‘manufacturer-active’ paradigm underlying these methodologies, which prescribes that the product manufacturer has the role of assessing customer needs and developing a responsive product idea. A new ‘customer-active’ paradigm is proposed in which the customer develops the new product idea and takes the initiative to transfer it to an interested manufacturer. The hypothesis that the customer-active paradigm offers a better fit to industrial product idea generation practice than does the manufacturer-active paradigm is tested against the available empirical data (eight studies are reviewed) and found supported. Speculative reasoning is then offered in support of the notion that the customeractive paradigm provides a good fit to the inherent requirements of industrial product idea generation as well as to current practice. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Incentives to Innovate and the Sources of Innovation: the case of Scientific Instruments

Abstract In this study we explore the relationship between the sources of innovation and incentives to innovate in a sample of 64 innovations related to Auger and Esca, two types of scientific instrument used to analyze the surface chemistry of solid materials. We find that innovations with high scientific importance tend to be developed by instrument users, while innovations having high commercial importance tend to be developed by instrument manufacturers. We also find that the ratio of user and manufacturer innovation affecting a given type of instrument can vary as a function of that instrument types perceived scientific and commercial importance. Finally, we find that the scientific and commercial importance of innovations developed for Auger and Esca, and the frequency with which these have been developed, have varied significantly over time.