In the last few days, two of the leading global media outlets, The New York Times and The Economist, had quite extensive articles on user innovation, customization, and co-creation.
On February 10, 2011, on page C1 of the New York edition of The New York Times, Patricia Cohen writes about "Innovation Far Removed From the Lab",
The article is a great praise and acknowledgment of the work done by Eric von Hippel: Here are some quotes from the article I liked most:
"[...] Since the Austrian economist Joseph A. Schumpeter published “The Theory of Economic Development” in 1934, economists and governments have assumed that the industrial and business sectors are where ideas for products originate. A complex net of laws and policies, from intellectual property rights to producer subsidies and tax benefits, have flowed from this basic assumption.
However, pathbreaking research by a group of scholars including Eric A. von Hippel, a professor of technological innovation at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management, suggests that the traditional division of labor between innovators and customers is breaking down. [...]
Financed by the British government, Mr. von Hippel and his colleagues last year completed the first representative large-scale survey of consumer innovation ever conducted.
What the team discovered ... was that the amount of money individual consumers spent making and improving products was more than twice as large as the amount spent by all British firms combined on product research and development over a three-year period.
[...] Carliss Y. Baldwin, a business administration professor at the Harvard Business School, called the research remarkable, adding: “What makes Eric’s work so significant is that it is unprecedented to try to measure the extent of user innovation. He shows that we’ve had on a set of mental blinders.”
This is the UK study the NYT is referring to is: Von Hippel, Eric A., De Jong, Jeroen and Flowers, Steven, Comparing Business and Household Sector Innovation in Consumer Products: Findings from a Representative Study in the UK (September 27, 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1683503
The Economist takes on another aspect that somehow is complementing user innovation: Fabbing and the rise of additive manufacturing technologies for the average consumer.
In the Technology section of the Feb 10th 2011 print edition, the article "Print me a Stradivarius: How a new manufacturing technology will change the world" reviews the recent developments of aditive manufactuing and what this means for the world of manufacturing. Nothing less than a revolution, the Economist suggests.
Again some quotes from the article:
"[...] By reducing the barriers to entry for manufacturing, 3D printing should also promote innovation. If you can design a shape on a computer, you can turn it into an object. You can print a dozen, see if there is a market for them, and print 50 more if there is, modifying the design using feedback from early users. This will be a boon to inventors and start-ups, because trying out new products will become less risky and expensive. And just as open-source programmers collaborate by sharing software code, engineers are already starting to collaborate on open-source designs for objects and hardware.
A technological change so profound will reset the economics of manufacturing. Some believe it will decentralise the business completely, reversing the urbanisation that accompanies industrialisation. There will be no need for factories, goes the logic, when every village has a fabricator that can produce items when needed. Up to a point, perhaps. But the economic and social benefits of cities go far beyond their ability to attract workers to man assembly lines. [...]
Just as nobody could have predicted the impact of the steam engine in 1750—or the printing press in 1450, or the transistor in 1950—it is impossible to foresee the long-term impact of 3D printing. But the technology is coming, and it is likely to disrupt every field it touches. Companies, regulators and entrepreneurs should start thinking about it now. One thing, at least, seems clear: although 3D printing will create winners and losers in the short term, in the long run it will expand the realm of industry—and imagination."
Both articles also show why the new "Open Source Hardware" definition is so important: It will become the intellectual underpinning of user innovators using the new fabbing technologies to produce -- and distribute -- the next wave of innovation collaboratively.
If you want to know a bit more about the 3D-printing revolution I would advise you to watch the Arduino Documentary (VIMEO), which is no more than 25 minutes of highly interesting testimony about this open-source project that might democratize open-source hardware. You'll find a link here : http://yannigroth.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/arduino-electronics-3d-printing/
Posted by: Yannigroth.wordpress.com | February 14, 2011 at 04:01 AM
Check out www.openinnovation.net
Posted by: Daniel R. Stern | February 13, 2011 at 12:55 PM