Democratizing Innovation as CC-licensed PDF

I've been reading the print version of Eric von Hippel's Democratizing Innovation, an interesting book about the way that "lead users" are making significant contributions to the development of products and services. Von Hippel is a professor of management of innovation and entrepreneurship, at MIT's Sloan School of Management.

Democratizing InnovationIn this traditional model, a user's only role is to have needs, which manufacturers then identify and fill by designing and producing new products. The manufacturer-centric model does fit some fields and conditions. However, a growing body of empirical work shows that users are the first to develop many and perhaps most new industrial and consumer products. Further, the contribution of users is growing steadily larger as a result of continuing advances in computer and communications capabilities.

You can download the entire book at no charge from von Hippel's site.

Link

UPDATE: Peggy Salz of TheFeature interviewed Eric von Hippel today.

TheFeature: In your book, you talk mostly about product development. How do you know the lead-user approach can also create breakthrough services?

Von Hippel: A field study involving a major Swedish mobile telecoms company recently tested this and produced some surprising results. These researchers adopted the "toolkit innovation method" and supplied a sample of university students tools to develop their own services. Compared to the services generated by professional developers the students' services were by far more novel, creative and cutting-edge.

For example, one girl was frustrated because she was unable to find an apartment. She cleverly developed a mobile alert service that would contact her phone every time the university web site posted an ad for an apartment that fit her requirements. This insight can obviously become the basis for a suite of mobile alert services.

Link