User innovation in the search light

User innovation on the political agenda

As the first country in the world, Denmark has put user innovation on the political agenda. That is obvious from the government’s platform from 17 February, in which it says that the government in cooperation with a special knowledge forum will develop programmes for “strengthening user innovation and the spreading of knowledge”.

Thus, Danish companies can build their innovation on knowledge from both companies, users, suppliers and technological institutes – and in this way ensure the business successes that the country is known for.

Exactly this topic is the theme of an event today 28 November at CBS where the international acknowledged pioneer and MIT Professor Eric Von Hippel is visiting CBS and presents his latest book ‘Democratizing Innovation’.

The man behind the event, PhD and Assistant Professor, Lars Bo Jeppesen, is foremost among CBS’ and Denmark’s researchers on this area. In September he was interview to the Financial Times under the title “Letting users lead the way to new ideas”.

“In a Danish context there is great potential for using user innovation in many different industries – not only in the computer game industry, which is the most obvious place to use ‘lead users’,” says Lars Bo Jeppesen.

“User innovation – in contrast to supplier innovation – is in the search light right now because companies find great competitive advantages attached to it. User innovation can be used as input to the companies’ own innovative processes, and those companies who are capable of collecting and using this information have a good starting point for creating the best products,” he states.

Lars Bo Jeppesen has worked together with, among others, Valve (the men behind Counter-Strike and Half-Life), and at the moment he cooperates with Nokia and a range of other companies on user innovation. He has also helped innovative users in the world of computer games to start their own companies.

CBS is one of the first research institutions that works goal oriented with user innovation.