Professor Eric Von Hippel, Head of Innovation & Entrepreneurship Group at MIT Sloan School of Management provides an excellent perspective on the causal basis for some of the Web 2.0 powered Social Networks and why people are participating in them or leading them. His freely downloadable book Democratising Innovation also explain how lead users and opinion makers of software and technology products are different from followers:
When I say that innovation is being democratized, I mean that users of products and services - both firms and individual consumers - are increasingly able to innovate for themselves. User-centered innovation processes offer great advantages over the manufacturing-centric innovation development systems that have been the mainstay of commerce for hundreds of years. Users that innovate can develop exactly what they want, rather than relying on manufacturers to act as their (often very imperfect) agents. Moreover, individual users do not have to develop everything they need on their own: they can benefit from innovations developed and freely shared by others.
User driven innovation -- inside companies (by employees)
Google's (GOOG) policy of allowing 20% time to its employees to work on projects of their choice is an interesting company-based implementation of democratisation of innovation. It is a way to democratize innovation -- through employees at a grass roots level, not let it be a top management driven agenda.
Yahoo Hack Day
Yahoo (YHOO) celebrates user (in this case employee) driven innovation in its Hack Days. Every quarter work stops and from midnight 00:00 employees work furiously to present a Hack by the evening of the coming day. (Many work before the Hack day -- to work and refine their "hack"). The energy, creativity and ideas are fun and enjoyable. Top hacks even get funded.
How Blogging is Democratising Thought Innovation
I write and read blogs -- to share my ideas and enrich my thinking from the ideas of others. I would rather not wait for a Media company or an analyst to create an article and (sometimes) make me pay through the nose to get same or similar ideas. Sometimes Media driven journalism is just too slow to catch on with cutting edge ideas and trends.
Also read Irving Wladawsky-Berger's blog post on Von Hipples book.
