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”USERS AS INNOVATORS – HOW IS IT POSSIBLE”
Niklas Kviselius, Stockholm School of EconomicsMay 2009
 
 
 
Two trends of openness have in emerged enabling OpenInnovation. 1.) Increased interest in learning from users, 2.)Advances in development and usage of social media.
Users are shifting from being bystanders to being participants.
Let us briefly focus on the notionof openness. Innovation hasthroughout industrial history showntraits of openness versus closeness.Practices that today would be labeledas Open Innovation, has in the pastbeen used to innovate such diverseproducts as steam-engines, semi-conductors, medicalmachinery, and sportsequipment (asdocumented by Ericvon Hippel and Georgvon Krogh in “Freerevealing and theprivate-collective model for innovationincentives”). Quite few innovationshave been conceived by a sole geniusscientist in absolute isolation and lackof external influences. So, what is thisopenness fuss all about?There are at least two enablingtrends that have bedded for OpenInnovation as described in the recentwave of interest: 1.) Increased interestin learning from users, 2.) Advancesin development and usage of socialmedia. Both trends have implicationsfor a systematic opening up of innovation processes.We are arguably within an ongoingshift towards a more market-orientedapproach to innovation (as to the viewon the company as entity as a whole).Here customer orientation hasemerged as an importantpoint of departure whendeveloping new productsand services (asdescribed by BoEdvardsson et al in“Involving customers innew servicedevelopment”). Sure, thisshift has been going on for manyyears now and no eyebrows are raisedwhen the CEO acclaims “Look - let’scheck out what our customers want,instead of what our machinery canproduce.” Together active learning(e.g. organizing focus groups) andpassive learning (e.g. studyingtransaction data or online behavior),with the customers as teachers, isincreasingly used for example tocreate personalized environments andproducts for consumers.
”USERS AS INNOVATORS – HOW IS IT POSSIBLE”
Niklas Kviselius, Stockholm School of EconomicsMay 2009
 
“Innovation has throughout industrial history shown traits of openness versus closeness.” 
 
 
For the marketing department thisincreasing interaction has spurredpossibilities to adapt the marketingmessages correspondingly and talkabout one-to-one marketing.This outstretched hand to customersis clearly representingan opening of theinnovation processes.But some more stepsare necessary before“learning from users”becomes “co-creatingwith users”. If initialstrong inputs fromusers rapidly arefollowed by a steepdecrease in user influence on forexample problem-solving andevaluation, then we can only talkabout partial openness.The other, and more recent, trend isthe virtual explosion of new socialmedia. Social media has beendescribed as ways of creating contentusing highly accessible and scalableInternet publishing technologies. Thisconversion of mere “readers” into“authors” and “publishers” haschanged the media sphere andprovided distinct new user-createdmedia types (compared tonewspapers, television and film) suchas blogs and podcasts. In a way thishas meant opening up of previouslyclosed ways of expressing oneself andsharing this content with manyothers. This opening up of the medialandscape, due to technologicaladvances as well as wittiness of usersand maturity in usage, has started toimpact also innovation practices.Several of these technologies anduser behaviors, in thehands of savvy managersor innovators, have beenshown to becomepowerful innovationtools.These two trends of openness haveconverged in enablingthe crucial concept of users asinnovators, at the core of OpenInnovation. Observe the choice of theword users as opposed to consumersor customers. There seem to be muchto benefit from for example openingup innovation to more employees andsuppliers and so to speak tap ideasfrom all ranks - more on this infollowing articles. 
”USERS AS INNOVATORS – HOW IS IT POSSIBLE”
Niklas Kviselius, Stockholm School of EconomicsMay 2009
 
“...some moresteps arenecessary before"learning fromusers" become "co- creating withusers".” 
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