A Typology of User-Led Innovation: The case of ‘Anything Left-Handed’, the world’s first real and virtual shop for left-handed goods. Working Paper, Dr Jenny Gristock Department of Biology and Environmental Sciences, University of Sussex
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[email protected] 24 January 2008 Abstract Policymakers are increasingly interested (see NESTA 2007a, DIUS 2008) in what has been called User-Led (von Hippel 1988), Open (Chesborough 2003) and Democratic (von Hippel 2005) innovation as a driver for profit and/or social well-being. This paper argues that user-led innovation is a composite phenomenon, and puts forward a typology which distinguishes between userled changes to ideas, products, services, processes and systems. It situates this typology within an illustrative device called the Democratic Innovation Space, which can be used to differentiate between different kinds of user-led activities, and highlight the means through which engagement with scientific, firm, policy and lay users is supported. It is suggested that this approach may be used to gain a greater understanding of democratic innovation as a process (von Hippel 2005) and system (Gristock 2001). New perspectives on lead users, absorptive capacity, collective innovation settings, the linear model of user-led innovation (Baldwin et al 2006) and open systems of mediation as participative architectures are introduced. Application of the typology and illustrative device is demonstrated with the help of a case study of user involvement with products and service development associated with the global company Anything Left-Handed (see also Gristock 2001b).
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Contents: 1.0 Introduction 2.0 Changing perspectives on user-led innovation 2.1 User-led innovation: a typology 2.2 The Innovation-Space 3.0 Multiple User Types as actors in Democratic Systems of Innovation 4.0 Case Study: User Innovations and Anything Left-Handed 5.0 Anything Left-Handed and the User-led Innovation typology 5.1 Users driving ideas 5.2 Users changing products 5.3 Users changing services 5.4 Users changing processes 5.5 Users changing systems 5.6 Users interacting via open systems 6.0 Discussion 6.1 Lead users revisited 6.2 Absorptive capacity revisited 7.0 Conclusions 7.1. Implications from the case study 7.2 Implications for the management of innovation 8.0 References
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1.0 Introduction Innovation involving people other than scientists, technologists and firms is the subject of a startlingly large (and growing) number of research fields. At first sight, it seems that no-one can agree on what this focus should be, or what it should be called. In one corner (and taking their cue from the work of David’s (1992) work on open science) von Hippel and von Krogh (2006) argue for studies of ‘Open Innovation’ which, they say, is characterised by ‘free revealing’ 1. The importance of this free sharing of knowledge is also advocated by Allen (1983), under the term ‘collective invention’. Confusing matters still further, Chesborough (2006) argues that we should be studying ‘Open Innovation’, but defines it very differently, with reference to both knowledge flows and business models: Open innovation is the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the markets for external use of innovation, respectively. [This paradigm] assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as they look to advance their technology (Chesborough et al 2006) In contrast, the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills tells that ‘open innovation’ is about ‘out-sourcing some of the ideas generation process to others’ (DIUS 2008)2. As if this were not enough, ‘Open Innovation’ author von Hippel adopts a multitude of other terms as well, including lead-user innovation (von Hippel 1988); user-led innovation; user-centric innovation (von Hippel 2005); user-only innovation (von Hippel 2007); private-collective model innovation (von Hippel and von Krogh 2006) and democratic innovation (von Hippel 2005). In the US, innovation for positive social change – such as environmental protection or social inclusion – is called civic innovation (FCNY 1968, CCI 2002).
feature that makes it possible to have collaborative design in which all can participate – as is famously the case in open source software projects’ 1
a definition which, at first sight, seems to have more in common with more traditional notions of user-driven innovation (see van de Poel 2003) than user-centric activity. 2
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In this paper, I shall be arguing that user-led innovation is a collective term 3, and to understand it, we need to break it down into its respective parts, and compare it to other kinds of innovation, using an illustrative device called the Democratic Innovation Space. By considering each aspect of user-led activity in turn, it becomes possible, not only to distinguish between –and develop ways to stimulate – different kinds of social benefit and competitive advantage, but it also becomes easier to recognise the relationships that exist between the changing socio-technical character of the ‘links’ between actors and institutions in a national innovation system, and the way that this relates to patterns of choice, use, adaptation and response to innovation by different communities. In other words, it offers a way to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of democratic systems of innovation (Gristock 2001; 222). 2.0 Changing perspectives on user-led innovation To appreciate the composite character of user-led innovation, it is helpful to observe that von Hippel’s work on democratic innovation has a number of different foci. Each of these emphasise a different aspect of user-led activities. (i) Scientific users as developers Perhaps unsurprisingly, scientific experts were amongst some of the first users to be given recognition: von Hippel identified users as the developers of 82 percent of all commercialized scientific instruments studied and 63 percent of all semiconductor and electronic subassembly manufacturing equipment innovations studied (von Hippel 1976, 1977, 1988). This was in agreement with Enos (1962), Freeman (1968) and Pavitt (1984), who similarly identified use in science as a driver for innovation. (ii) Users providing data to market researchers After studying the actions of a relatively narrow set of scientific users (scientific instruments, semiconductors), von Hippel began to look at users more generally. At this time, and with this wider lens, what he emphasised 3
See Stirling’s (1999) incertitude typology which illuminates risk as a composite.
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was not user action, but rather the value of user data to market researchers. For instance, Urban and von Hippel (1988) describe how lead users ‘are in the best position to provide market researchers with accurate (need or solution) data’ and ‘can provide the richest need and solution data to inquiring market researchers’. (iii) Users providing a source of ‘sticky information’ for developers Later, the focus shifted from data gathering to the nature and locus of information transfer of value to the process of development. Instead of seeing users as a source of data, von Hippel (1994) regarded them as possessing information that was valuable for firms wishing to develop new innovations, information that was difficult to separate from its context. He writes: ‘Often the information used in technical problem solving is: costly to acquire, transfer, and use in a new location; [it] is... “sticky”’ (von Hippel 1994). This new focus suggested that to be able to capture this ‘sticky’ information, firms need to work in situ with users on problem solving, to benefit from what Wynne (1991) might describe as ‘lay knowledgeability’ and Polanyi (1958) term tacit knowledge. Note that for these studies, von Hippel was more concerned with how firms could best capture information from users, than he was in what users themselves did with it. (iv) Users as extra-firm developers In contrast, von Hippel (2005) is particularly concerned with the role of the user as an innovator outside the firm. Most of the case studies are associated with craft or open-source activities. The emphasis here is on the link between personal experiences, needs that are not met by firms, and user innovation. Von Hippel provides evidence that innovations are triggered by problems that people personally encounter, whether this is in kayaking, mountain biking or some other activity. He observed that this type of innovation often takes place outside firms, and may be distributed. This work echoed earlier studies by: Wynne (1991), who highlighted the importance of lay knowledge for scienceled development; Mansell and Silverstone (1996), who argued that lay users adapt new technologies to different purposes; by Gristock, whose ‘democratic
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systems of innovation’ approach (Gristock 2001; 222) relates: the kinds of communities that have been involved in (and excluded from) innovation; to the sociotechnical character of the systems of mediation used to link actors and institutions in national innovation systems and the positive and negative effects of innovation for these different communities. It is also related to the idea of upstream engagement between lay users and technical specialists for appropriate technological trajectories, as identified by Demos (2004), Gristock (2001), Unwin (1908), Europta (2002), Wakeford (2003), Royal Society/ RAEng (2004) and others. [For a discussion see Gristock, forthcoming]. (v) Users and networks Recent work examining the ‘open source phenomenon’ (von Krogh and von Hippel 2006), and ‘user-only innovation’ (von Hippel 2007), has emphasised: the process of innovation in open source software projects; the motivations of open source software contributors; governance; organization; and the competitive dynamics encouraged by open source software. Von Hippel and von Krogh (2006) describe this as the ‘private-collective model of innovation’ which can flourish when at least some users have sufficient incentive to (i) innovate, (ii) voluntarily reveal information sufficient to enable others to reproduce their innovations, and when (iii) user-self production can compete with commercial production (von Hippel 2007). Whilst a number of authors stress the importance of motivational factors for this user-led innovation (von Hippel 2007, Osterloh and Rota 2007) few have explained why different communications systems have different degrees of success in encouraging the sharing of ideas or co-development, or how the socio-technical characteristics of the user ‘links’ influence both the type and degree of user engagement and the communities of interest an innovation emerges from/ serves (see Gristock 2001). What is missing from democratic innovation studies is an acknowledgement that it is the socio-technical character of communication systems which extend and limit the possibilities for user-led activities. For example, the sociotechnical characteristics of the print system of mediation is based on an 7
architecture of exclusion: the system does not allow user input; only editors and journalists can contribute to the product. This limits user-involvement in news production to ‘letters to the editor’. In contrast, web-based systems of mediation in news production of the late 1990s had an architecture of inclusion, in that the technologies were designed to allow users to generate content [see This is Britain and the Beehive network within Gristock (2001)], creating a new hybrid role – the community reporter. In the late 2000s, web 2.0 technologies have been developed which have architectures which are even more participative, because they allow, not only user-generated content (as they have been widely described), but also user-generated form and structure. The socio-technical structure of these systems – as demonstrated by Wikinews – and the diffusion of other technologies such as camera-hybrid mobile phones - pushed the role boundaries still further with the rise of the citizen journalist, a phenomenon which even leaks into mainstream photojournalism (consider the source of the majority of images of the recent London bombings). Thus we begin to see the relationship between the socio-technical features of the systems which link firms and users, and the opportunities which exist for users to contribute to new ideas, products, services and systems. This relationship – which is not able to be investigated under conventional NSI frameworks which look only to the ‘strength’ or ‘weakness’ of links – is one of the central tenets of the democratic systems of innovation approach (Gristock 2001; 222). 2.1 User-led innovation: a typology From the review of literature it is possible to identify a number of themes: 1. Users as sources of ideas (von Hippel 1988, DIUS 2008, Gristock 2001b) 2. Users changing products (von Hippel 1988, Gristock 2001b, von Hippel 2005, NESTA 2007a) 3. Users changing services (von Hippel 2005, Gristock 2001b, NESTA 2007a) 8
4. Users changing processes (von Hippel 1988, 2005, NESTA 2007a) 5. Users changing systems (von Hippel 2007, Gristock 2001) and also, 6. Users interacting via open systems (von Hippel and von Krogh 2006, Chesborough 2003, Gristock 2001, Flowers 2004) 7. Innovations delivered via open systems (Chesborough 2006, von Hippel and Katz 2002) 8. The roles of users (von Hippel 2005) and open systems (Chesborough 2003) in democratic innovation (von Hippel 2005) systems (Gristock 2001). 2.2 The Innovation-Space (Tidd, Bessant and Pavitt 1997) To illustrate different types of innovation, Tidd, Bessant and Pavitt (1997; 7) construct a two-dimensional innovation space, which represents what has changed (a product, service or process?) and the perceived extent of change.
Figure 1: Tidd, Bessant and Pavitt’s (1997) Innovation Space
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Yet this version of the Innovation Space cannot be used to explore relationships between firms and users. To include user interactions beyond the firm, we need to consider a third dimension – who is involved? – and to look beyond products and services; to recognise not only how products and processes are changing, but also how ideas and systems are changing as well. We can therefore create a three-dimensional space to situate scienceled, firm-led and user-led innovation, such as in Figure 2. The word ‘democratic’ does not imply that all activity taking place within this space satisfies some utopian ideal; rather, it merely reflects different degrees of inclusion and exclusion – thus showing the relationship between degrees of user inclusion/exclusion, the characteristics of the resulting innovation, and the communities which experiences its positive and negative influence (see ‘democratic systems of innovation’, Gristock 2001; 222).
Figure 2: The Democratic Innovation Space
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3.0 Multiple User Types as actors in Democratic Systems of Innovation Although conventional national systems innovation (NSI) approaches consider the importance of the strength of ‘links’ between actors and institutions, they consider lay users as consumers, not actors. In contrast, the democratic systems of innovation approach recognises lay, firm, policy, scientific and technical users as actors reflecting the need for a ‘diversity of diversity in the kinds of expertise which are brought to bear in the processes which adapt means to ends; a diversity of the communities which are best placed to have these kinds of expertise (Gristock 2001; 74) and the socio-technical means through which links between users and other actors and institutions are created and maintained. Those with scientific/technical, firm, policy and lay expertise are potentially different kinds of users within this innovation space. Whether or not they play out this role is a function of management choices and the presence – or otherwise – of appropriate socio-technical systems linking production and use in a particular way, as we shall describe later. First, we shall demonstrate the democratic innovation space using the case study of Anything Left Handed, a company that specialises in goods and services for left-handed people (see also Gristock 2001b). 4.0 Case Study: User Innovations and Anything Left-Handed In the late 1960s, advertising executive William Gruby discovered that a number of his friends were struggling with everyday activities like peeling potatoes and using scissors or gardening equipment. These household items simply did not function for left-handed people. After researching the market for left-handed goods, and finding it poorly served - he could only find 30 products on sale, at very few outlets (Time 1969), he opened a shop and mail-order business called ‘Anything Left-Handed’, based in Soho in London. It was the first left-handed shop anywhere in the world (Leftorium 2008). When Anything Left-Handed opened in winter 1968, mail-order businesses were receiving a boost, not only from advances in computing (making
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customer data processing, and multiple mail-outs much more efficient) (Johnson 1970 , Tontz 1971) but also from low-cost printing, and the diffusion of telephony and television, which were opening up market access, and influencing conditions of trust in favour of virtual sales. In less than four years, the company had received tens of thousands of letters, were averaging 100 customers a day, and had earned grateful customers – including newspaper journalists, eager to plug their products – all over the world (Times 1972). Today, Anything Left-Handed is a wealth-creating enterprise, and a community service. Director Keith Milsom claims that the company doesn’t just sell products, but provides an advice service. Customers like to spend time at company’s shops (at Clacton on Sea, Worcester and Edinburgh), discussing their experiences and trying out gadgets. (Gordon 2003). From the outset, the company sold books and pamphlets to help women develop lefthanded sewing skills (Times 1973). In 2008 it offers videos and DVDs for parents and teachers of left-handed children to instruct them on how to help left-handed children to learn to write; a process which relies as much upon grip, paper positioning and praise as it does on pen and ink technology (ALH 1992). It also functions as a campaign group in its interactions with other businesses (including DIY goods manufacturers and banks) and policymakers on a national and international level, as we shall see later. When the business was taken over by one of its (left-handed) customersuppliers in the late 1980s (Telegraph 2003), it had a steady turnover of around £50,000, with roughly 28 per cent coming from mail-order sales. Perhaps a little late, in 1999, the company designed and launched its own website, www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk, which was soon returning a 58 per cent margin on sales. By 2002 turnover had reached £510,000 (Actinic 2008). At this time, Anything Left-Handed extended its campaign operations to serve its community of interest (and, at the same time, benefit from free advertising in the national and international press). The company's efforts resulted in: the modification of potentially dangerous hand- held power tools by a major
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manufacturer and the introduction of left- handed cheque books by some major banks in the UK (Gristock 2001b). In 1992 it also started International Left-Handers Day, an event to celebrate left-handedness and also increase public awareness of the advantages and disadvantages of being left-handed. Disaster struck in 2003, when the company outsourced their website development to a third party. The bespoke online business presence turned out to be anything but: it failed to alleviate time consuming technical overheads, and had numerous other technical flaws, including poor access to the site, incomplete navigation, slow load speeds, difficult site maintenance processes, and very poor activity reporting. Speaking to a software firm with whom Anything Left-Handed later developed a replacement in-house web operation, Keith Milsom said, ‘We should have been operating at higher levels than the old homespun site, but we could see our sales going through the floor’ (Actinic 2008). After a costly re-design of the website/sales operations interface, the company’s sales began to recover, although turnover has not yet returned (See Companies House 2008) to the heights reached at the peak of the mailorder boom. More recently, Anything Left-Handed has developed a new product and service based on its unique experiences setting up real and virtual businesses based around left-handedness. Their 2006 accounts document describes the company business as including ‘offering advice to other businesses on internet business development’. The company’s first franchise was in Ankara, Turkey. It says its ‘shop-in-a box,’ provides everything that is needed to test a small local left-handed business, including the Anything Left-Handed manual, 'How to run a successful left-handed shop,' a selection of our best-selling products, signs and display materials, and carrier bags (Gordon 2003). 5.0 Anything Left-Handed and the User-led Innovation typology The example of Anything Left-Handed can be used to illustrate the multiple roles of users in innovation systems.
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5.1 Users driving ideas Frustrated left-handed users of mass-produced household goods drove Gruby’s idea to form the company (Time 1969) in the manner of von Hippel (1988) and DIUS’ (2008). This process, of course, required much more than the mere presence of users as a source of information: left-handed people had experienced problems with mass produced items for many years; but firms did not perceive the potential within their complaints: ‘When [Gruby] asked for a left-handed can opener, for instance, [the shop clerk] asked if he wanted a left-handed can as well’ (Time 1969). It is important to recognise that fruitful interactions between left-handed users and Gruby - fast user or no were not enough. As well as left-handed users with unmet needs, and a receptive and entrepreneur, the creation of the company required communication systems which could enable to it to access markets that were not limited by geography. Thanks to the diffusion and use of home computers, telephones, television and radio, the 1960s offered communications, media and transport infrastructures to supported mail-order business. Anything Left-Handed also acted as an intermediary, passing on user-ideas about consumer products so that they could be changed by other firms. Because of the efforts of Anything Left-Handed, a major DIY product manufacturer changed the design of a power tool so that it was no-longer dangerous to left-handed people. The organisation also successfully campaigned for the introduction of left-handed chequebooks (Gristock 2001b). 5.2 Users changing products In 1986, when Anything-Left Handed was bought by one of its left-handed user-suppliers in 1986, it was a product-oriented organisation, offering essentials such as left-handed pens and scissors. The new owners however, were left-handed parents of left-handed children. They used their experiences as parents to extend the range of products to help children learn to write, including an especially commissioned video guide (and wallchart) for teachers
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and parents, to help them instruct left-handed children on the best way to hold pen and paper. These methods are as crucial to the educational development of left-handed pupils as appropriate technologies (fast-drying gel-ink pens or specially designed left-handed fountain pens to drag ink across the page without smudging) themselves (ALH 1992).
Figure 3: Anything Left-Handed ideas, products, services, processes and systems 5.3 Users changing services The left-handed company directors extended the company’s service activities through advice-giving in its shop operations in London, Worcester, Edinburgh and Clacton on Sea. The proprietor of the Worcester shop, Mark Stewart, also runs courses for schools, local education authorise, nurseries and pre-school groups to raise awareness of the difficulties experienced by left-handed children, and the simple strategies that can be used to help them, with a particular emphasis on handwriting (Steward 2008). Through its marketing, its interactions with MPs and the Teacher Training Agency (ALH 1992, Hansard 15
1998), Anything Left-Handed has raised awareness of all these activities. This was given an international impetus in 1992 with the launch of International Left-Handers Day (see www.lefthandersday.com). 5.4 Users changing processes Anything-Left Handed is also working to influenced the process of Teacher Training in schools. Thanks to the involvement of the left-handed company owners, left-handed politicians and the (left-handed) shop proprietor in Worcester, the Teacher Training Agency has issued copies of the Anything Left-Handed video (and wallchart): ‘Left-Handed Children: A Guide for Parents and Teachers’ to every teacher training college in England. The Anything LeftHanded Club continues to campaign to have left-handedness officially recognised in UK teacher training curriculum. As the Worcestershire MP Peter Luff said during a Commons debate in 1998: Anything Left-Handed first drew my attention to the scale of the problem that faces left-handed children in our schools and to the fact that, given the will, something could easily be done about it… We had a hard-won meeting with the Teacher Training Agency… The first stage was to work out where on earth responsibility lay… Letters were batted between Department and agency in a Kafkaesque way. In the end, the then Government decided that responsibility lay with the agency… At the meeting, we were advised to regard the subject as one for the special educational needs curriculum… I am no longer convinced that I was correct. Left-handedness is not a disability. The Government should instruct the Teacher Training Agency to ensure that lefthandedness is on the teacher training curriculum and that qualified teachers are provided with appropriate guidance. (Hansard 1998) 5.5 Users changing systems As the world’s first left-handed shop, its highly-successful mail-order business, and the Anything Left-Handed Club, one might argue that Anything Left-
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Handed created a new system for obtaining goods for left-handed people, which is part community-service, part enterprise. The franchise system it has created, which has spawned local shops around the world - in Turkey and Australia – is also an example of a new system of interaction, which is often taken up by left-handed users of the company’s products and services. 5.6 Users interacting via open systems Chesborough (2006) highlights the importance of open systems for user innovations, which is demonstrated, not only in the e-commerce developments by Anything Left-Handed in 1999 and 2004, but also at the time of its inception at the height of the mail-order boom (Johnson 1970) which was also a novel path to market at the time. The company continue this tradition with its affiliate scheme, which offers web-savvy users a 15 per cent cut on product sales, if new customers find their way to the company website through their links. The company’s struggle to maintain its turnover, as the power balance of mail-order sales was eroded in favour of the web, and the huge volume of correspondence between customers and the company, also reflects the importance of systems which mediate user links. 6.0 Discussion 6.1 Lead users revisited Urban and von Hippel (1988) define lead users as having two characteristics: •
they face needs months or years before the bulk of the marketplace encounters them, and
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they are positioned to benefit significantly from obtaining a solution to those needs.
The typology described above has implications for the concept of the lead user as put forward by Urban and von Hippel (1988). If, as this paper argues, the involvement of user in the innovation process can be of a number of different kinds, then it follows that what we have considered to be lead user
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characteristics might also be more extensive. This is especially so in a world where policymakers are interested in stimulating innovation, not only to create wealth, but also to induce changes which have social or environmental benefits. This paper proposes that we need to extend lead user characteristics in a number of ways: 1. First, our definition of lead user can involve considerations that go wider than the market needs of users. In the case of Anything LeftHanded, the company is concerned with wealth creation and the wellbeing of left-handed people 4. The company also recognises that with the latter comes the former. 2. Second, lead users may face needs at exactly the same time as the rest of the marketplace; what differs is not the need, but the recognition of it. For example, consumers who have environmental concerns take the view that all of society needs to be innovative in their response to climate change; but only a subset of those who recognise this need have taken action on it. 3. Third, as new communication and transportation systems allow us to organise activities differently across space and time user innovators are not only those who face needs before the bulk of the marketplace; they are also those who can re-configure business, policy or lay systems to link communities of interest across space and time (see Gristock 2001). Keith Milsom, for example, was not the first left-handed person, but he was the first left-handed user to be able to create, maintain and diffuse a global marketplace for left-handed goods using the internet. By creating this new mediating system, Milsom effectively tapped into a ‘bulk’ marketplace market that is (only geographically) a minor community. Built into Urban and von Hippel’s guidelines on lead user characteristics are assumptions about how users, firms can communicate and how products and services can be delivered. For another organisation, user-innovation might be addressing climate change (in an alternative study, the author is studying Transition Towns movement), or achieving some other target. 4
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6.2 Absorptive capacity revisited The notion of absorptive capacity relates to the ability of individuals and institutions to value, assimilate, and apply new knowledge to the business. However, the above discussion – and the Democratic Innovation Space illustrates that each ‘link’ between users and users, or users and firms, or users and policymakers is a system with both social and technical characteristics; characteristics which determine the extent and nature of different communities to interactions with them. For example, the success of Anything Left-Handed’s business in 2006 is not only dependent upon ‘the internet’ but also upon the company’s ability to integrate its business processes into its online presence. The company believes that the 2003 hiatus with the website set it back a whole year in terms of business development. To solve the problem, they had to put their old website back as an interim measure, and re-design the website themselves using a boxed e-commerce package. But the problems had a serious impact on the company: online sales began to recover a year later, increasing 50 per cent year-on-year for both 2005 and 2006 (Actinic 2008) but the 2005-2006 accounts show that the company’s absolute turnover (£346,000) was less than it was in 2002 (Companies House 2008). Building an effective system of mediation between the company and its customers was beyond the capabilities of the third party who was commissioned to produce the second iteration of the website. Similarly, the way the communications between users were managed was much more than e-commerce: as the Anything Left-Handed Club, customer forum and face-toface interactions at each of the shops highlights. One might argue that the Anything Left-Handed Club and International Left-Handers’ Day are the company’s attempt to form a collective invention setting (see Allen 1983, Nuvolari 2004) for the very idea of left-handed rights, products and services.
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The ability to value, assimilate, and apply new knowledge to the business is also a matter of effectively managing the diverse systems which mediate between the business and these different user communities; whether these systems are business, scientific/technological, policy or lay systems of interaction. Between 1986 and 2004 there was a huge change in the absorptive capacity demands of the business; from capacities at the business process/mail-order interface to capacities at the business process/e-commerce interface. At the beginning of this period, the majority of the company’s sales involved mailorder, a system that the company had long experience of. In 2002, web sales accounted for 25 per cent of sales. This rose to 65 per cent in 2004 and 80 per cent in 2005 (Interforum 2008). One cannot account for this by saying that the company suddenly had ‘no links’ with users, or that its strong links suddenly became weak, because the failing website was online and available to its customers; but it did not have the appropriate socio-technical structure to integrate firm and user systems. The case of Anything Left Handed illustrates that that absorptive capacity is not a singular quality. The company needed to absorb new capacities in the creation of web-delivered systems of mediation with its customers and integrate these into its business processes. Absorptive capacities are not only about the ability to create meaning from knowledge; it is also about the ability to reconfigure multiple business, scientific/technological, policy or lay systems of interaction to achieve certain ends. 7.0 Conclusions 7.1. Implications from the case study
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Thus we see that contrary to von Hippel and Schrage (2007), it is not technology per se that ‘dissolves once-meaningful distinctions between innovators and customers’, but particular uses, and particular types of technology, which have particular socio-technical characteristics, which introduce both opportunities and constraints for who is involved with the innovation process. The example of Anything Left-Handed illustrates that Allen’s (1983) collective invention settings can function, not only as communication environments where firms share technological knowledge, but as systems which allow scientific, technological, firm, policy and/or lay people to share expertise of many kinds. It is no longer sufficient, if it ever was, to speak of the ‘strength of links’ between users and producers in national systems of innovation; we need to consider the socio-technical characteristics of systems which mediate between these communities, introducing degrees of inclusion and exclusion, that shape, and are shaped by, who or what the innovation is good (and bad) for (Gristock 2001, 2000). For the Cornish engineers studied by Nuvolari (2004) this system was constructed through the communications and interactions which led to the production of Lean’s Engine Reporter. For Anything Left Handed, International Left Handers’ Day has become a similar focus. Elsewhere it has been noted that the construction of similar systems of mediation, involving intermediaries, led to policy innovations in science, such as Operational Research (Gristock 2006) and media innovations such as the Beehive (Gristock 2001) and Wikinews. The contexts which influence communications between the different kinds of user shown in Figure 2 involve not only settings, but standards, languages, and procedures which include certain communities and exclude others. Collective invention settings are systems of mediation. Director Keith Milsom says that the company is the biggest buyer of [lefthanded] products in the world, and as such, benefits from volume discounts from its 80 suppliers, as well as proprietary technology ‘the left-handed
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butterfly can opener[s] are custom-made [using] Anything Left-Handed's own tooling’. Twice over, anything Left-Handed has re-configured business, policy and lay systems to link communities of interest across space and time (see Gristock 2001). The ability to maintain this global marketplace for left-handed goods depends fundamentally on the company’s ability to maintain its mediation absorptive capacities, as the dominant media evolve over time (mail-order, web, web 2.0, etc). By maintaining these dynamic capabilities, despite the changing environment, it will retain and extend its ability to tap into a ‘bulk’ marketplace market that is (only geographically) a minor community. 7.2 Implications for the management of innovation It therefore follows that changing systems of mediation - mediation absorptive capacities - offer new opportunities and constraints for user innovation, which have implications for distributed economies of scale (as in the case of Anything Left-Handed’s supplier relationships) and also for user innovation models. Baldwin et al (2006), for example, postulate that user innovation proceeds in a linear fashion from the recognition of a new set of design possibilities to the ‘joining’ of communities and followed by the emergence of usermanufacturers. Whilst this fits the model of the rodeo kayak industry (Baldwin et al 2006), we see that in the case of Anything Left-Handed, what had to come first was a well developed system of mediation between users and business processes; in the 1960s, this was mail-order; in the 2000s, tailored e-commerce solutions. The turnover blip of 2003 demonstrates that an efficient and effective system of communication, marketing and delivery is imperative if user innovators are to deliver products across geographical boundaries and effectively turn a minority group into a major market. It is not just user ideas, or user practices that can be sources of innovation; new systems of mediation between involving users can be too (Gristock 2001).
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Thus it appears there are multiple models for user-innovation, and that the key to understanding these phenomena is understanding the relationships between the socio-technical character of communications, the paths taken by technological development, and the positive and negative effects of innovation for different communities (Gristock 2001; 212), in other words, to explore changing systems of mediation, and mediation absorptive capacities, within democratic (or otherwise) systems of innovation.
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Chesborough, H. W., Vanhaverbeke, W., & West, J. (2006), Open Innovation: Researching a New Paradigm, Oxford University Press: UK. Cleveland Civic Innovation Lab (2003), About us, www.civiclab.org/about.aspx Companies House (2008) Anything Left-Handed, Company Accounts 2005-2006. David, P. A. (1994) Toward a new economics of science, Research Policy, 23, (5), 487-521 David, P. A. (1992) Technology adoption, learning spillovers, and the optimal duration of patent-based monopolies International Journal of Industrial Organization, 10, (4), 517-543 Demos (2004) See through science: Why engagement needs to move upstream, London, October. DIUS (2008) Talking Innovation consultation, ends January 31, available at http://dius.dialoguebydesign.net/ last accessed 24 Jan 2008 Enos, J.L., (1962). Petroleum Progress and Profits: A History of Process Innovation. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Facebook (2008) ‘Odeon should get better booster seats for kids’, global group, available at http://sussex.facebook.com/group.php? gid=7410408982&ref=mf, last accessed 25 January. FCNY (1968) Fund for the City of New York: About us, www.fcny.org/ portal.php/fcny/about Freecycle (2003) The Freecycle Network, available at http:// www.freecycle.org/ Freeman (1968) Chemical process plant: innovation and the world market. National Institute Economic Review 45, 29–57. Gristock, J. (forthcoming) ‘When upstream engagement was not enough: the case of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and its implications for the value of public understanding measures’, Working Paper, Brighton, SPRU Science and Technology Policy Research Gristock, J. (2007) Action Medical Research and the Sugarcube Polio Vaccine, Paper presented at the ESRC/SEEDA Workshop on UserCentric Innovation, London, 2 November.
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Gristock, J. (2006) Crowther, Kuhn and Systems of Mediation, paper presented at the 75th Anniversary conference of the British Society for the History of Science, "Scientists and Social Commitment", Science Museum, London, 15-17 September, 2006 Gristock J. (2003) Science and Democratic Systems of Innovation, conference paper presented at the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Manchester, September. Gristock, J. (2001) Systems of Innovation as Systems of Mediation, DPhil Thesis, SPRU Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex, September. Gristock, J (2001a) Towards a Democratic Science, Manchester, British Council, March. Gristock, J. (2001b) ‘Innovating Users’, Chapter 7 in ‘Innovation UK: Science, Wealth Creation and Social Well-Being in Britain’, Manchester, British Council, November. Gristock J (2000) Systems of innovation are systems of mediation: a discussion of the critical role of science communication in innovation and knowledge-based development, Working Paper, July, available at http://pascal.iseg.utl.pt/%7Eccti/Documents/Gristock2000.htm Hansard (1998) ‘Left-handed Children’, Debate contribution by the Rt Hon. Mr. Peter Luff (MP for Mid-Worcestershire), 22 July available at http:// www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199798/cmhansrd/vo980722/ debtext/80722-15.htm Interforum (2008) Case studies: Taking the plunge, available at http:// www.interforum.org/case_studies/anthing_left_handed_02_p1.html, last accessed 28 January 2008. Johnson, P. (1970) Development of British and American Mail Order Trading, British Journal of Marketing, Volume 45, p220-226 Leftorium (2008) The Leftorium: Anything Left-Handed, online advertising (popular reference to The Simpsons), see www.leftorium.com, last accessed 28 January 2008. Mansell, R.E. and Silverstone, R. (1996) Communication by Design, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
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NESTA (2007) Hidden Innovation: How Innovation Happens in Six ‘Low Innovation’ Sectors, June, available at www.nesta.org.uk/assets/pdf/ hidden_innovation_report_NESTA.pdf NESTA (2007a) Innovation Glossary, available at http://www.nesta.org.uk/ informing/glossary/?a=User-led%20innovation New York Times (2008) What This Gadget Can Do Is Up to You, Anne Eisenberg, January 6. www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/business/ 06novel.html?th&emc=th Nuvolari, A (2004) Collective invention during the British Industrial Revolution: the case of the Cornish pumping engine, CAMBRIDGE JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, Volume: 28, Issue 3, May p347-363. Osterloh, M. and Rota, S. (2007) Open source software development- Just another case of collective invention? RESEARCH POLICY, Volume: 36 Issue: 2, March, p157-171 Pavitt, K., (1984) Sectoral patterns of technical change: towards a taxonomy and a theory, Research Policy 13, 343–373. Polanyi, M. (1958) Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. University of Chicago Press Rosenberg, N. (1976) Perspectives on Technology. New York: Cambridge University Press. Stewart, M. (2008) About us, www.leftshoponline.co.uk Stirling, A., (1999) On Science and Precaution in the Management of Technological Risk. Seville: Institute for Prospective Technological Studies. Telegraph (2003) Starting Out, 2 February, available at http:// www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2003/02/03/ cbstar03.xml Tidd, J. Bessant, J. and Pavitt, K. (1997) Managing Innovation: Integrating Technological, Market and Organisational Change, Chichester, John Wiley and Sons. Time (1969) Left in a Right-Handed World, Friday 10 January Times (1994) Duncan Guthrie Obituary, October 14 Times (1973) ‘Shopping around’ Friday, July 6, p 10
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Tontz, C. (1971) ‘Try mail order for extra honey sales’, Gleanings in Bee Culture, Volume 99, Issue 8, p310 Unwin (1908) ‘Town Planning’, Letter to the Editor, The Times ,Monday, August 3, pg. 16 Urban, G.L. and Von Hippel E. (1988), "Lead user analyses for the development of new industrial products", Management Science, Volume 34, Issue 5, May, p569-582. von Hippel, E. (2007) Horizontal innovation networks - by and for users, INDUSTRIAL AND CORPORATE CHANGE, Volume: 16 Issue: 2, April, p293-315 von Hippel, E. (2005) Democratizing Innovation, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. von Hippel, E., and Katz, R. (2002) Shifting innovation to users via toolkits, Management Science, 48, (7) July, pp821-833. von Hippel E. (1988), "The Sources of Innovation", Oxford University Press. von Hippel E. (1986) ‘Lead users: a source of novel product concepts,’ Management Science, Vol. 32, p791-805. von Hippel, E. (1977) ‘The dominant role of the User in Semiconductor and Electronic Subassembly Process Innovation’, IEEE Trans. Engineering Management, EM-24 (1977), 60-71. von Hippel, E. (1976) ‘The dominant role of users in the scientific instrument innovation process’ Research Policy, Volume 5, p212-239 von Hippel, E. and Schrage, M (2007), Users are transforming innovation, Financial Times, 11 July http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ b3f96a80-2f4b-11dc-b9b7-0000779fd2ac.html von Hippel, E. and von Krogh, G. (2006) Free revealing and the privatecollective model for innovation incentives, R & D MANAGEMENT Volume: 36 Issue: 3, JUNE, Pages: 295-306, von Krogh, G; von Hippel, E (2006)The promise of research on open source software, MANAGEMENT SCIENCE Volume: 52 Issue: 7 Pages: 975-983 JULY van de Poel, I. (2003) The transformation of technological regimes, Research Policy 32 (2003) 49–68
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