How to Network Your Way to New Product Ideas

What if traditional views of the innovation process are flawed?

Martha E. Mangelsdorf Reading Time: 3 min 

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Eric von Hippel is a professor of technological innovation at the MIT Sloan School of Management in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

What if much of what you know — or think you know — about the innovation process is wrong?

That’s a question Eric von Hippel thinks many companies — and businesspeople — should consider.

Von Hippel, who is a professor of technological innovation at the MIT Sloan School of Management as well as a professor in MIT’s Engineering Systems Division, has spent much of his professional career doing research that has led him to a radical conclusion: The traditional view of the product innovation process is flawed. In the traditional view, companies get too much credit for product innovation, according to von Hippel — and users get too little.

Surprisingly often, von Hippel argues, ideas for new or improved products come first from users who develop improvised versions to serve their own needs. Manufacturers then may discover, polish and capitalize on user innovations — particularly if those innovations begin to catch on with a group of users. Particularly important, in von Hippel’s view, are lead users — sophisticated users who are the most likely to innovate to satisfy their own needs.

I spoke with von Hippel earlier this year. In this brief excerpt from our conversation, edited for clarity, von Hippel talks about how to identify such lead users.

MIT Sloan Management Review: You’ve made the distinction between such lead users, who as I understand it are advanced users who are proportionally more likely to innovate — and ordinary users. How do I, as a manufacturer, identify who those lead users are? Where do I find lead users?

Von Hippel: What you do is you go to the leading edge of your market, and you find the people who have the most extreme problems now. For example, in a case study that’s in a videotape on my MIT website, 3M was looking for surgeons who were lead users in infection control. They found that surgeons who operate on cancer patients had developed improved infection control methods, because often those patients were immune-compromised, so they were really getting bad infections. I have free materials on

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Comments (3)
RALF LIPPOLD
Most often you get a product, and think, "Hm, there is missing something!" You play around with it, and often by accident, or an innocent question by some friend, spouse, or peer your thinking path is widened into some new use fields.

This often happens to systems thinkers who have the larger picture of processes in mind, only when their mind is shaken into a new direction of thinking, they see "new connections".

There are not too many people of this around, as it takes courage to try out new use of a product, instead of using what is predescribed by the producer.

Harness the people who act like this, when you get hold of these. They can clearly extend your products, projects, or visions into unseen opportunies.
Rajah Kumar
It's interesting as customer-lead was more common in B2B innovations such as healthcare and industrial areas.If you look at I Phone it is more Company-led than consumer-led. I have seen many instances where lead-users provide excellent ideas for firms to further develop. The question is who gets the credit and the economic benefit. Having said this if you look at open innovation such as C&D of P&G and many FMCG firms today users are playing an increasing role. That is the beauty of innovation - anyone with a critical eye can think about the problem and find simple solutions. As the author has made it clear if you listen as firm to your customers you can do a lot more. This is the new game and those who think they know will surely left behind.

Dr Rajah Kumar
How to Network Your Way to New Product Ideas | Accounting and Small Business /Beverly Shares
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