Democratizing Innovation

Released under CC license and on MIT Press 2005, here’s Eric Von Hippel’s manuscript for Democratizing Innovation, which argues that we should be paying attention to “lead users” to see what they do with our products. Lead users “are defined as members of a user population having two distinguishing characteristics: (1) They are at the leading edge of an important market trend(s), and so are currently experiencing needs that will later be experienced by many users in that market. (2) They anticipate relatively high benefits from obtaining a solution to their needs, and so may innovate.