It’s said that part of what makes OSS so powerful is its user innovation. Without it, there is little doubt that the OSS community would not be half as strong as it is today.

User innovation, in the form of open source software, is one of the most powerful forces in the software business today. Will this force propel the software industry to yet another phase of bold innovation? Or will it cripple commercial R&D organizations and lead to a future of stagnant, commoditized software?

In his book “Democratizing Innovation,” Sloan School professor Eric Von Hippel shows user innovation at work in many industries, including sporting goods, surgical equipment, electronics manufacturing — even the 18th-century mines of Cornwall. His finding is that innovations from users are often more lasting and important than innovations from vendors. Hippel finds that while vendors focus on incremental improvements to known capabilities, users are more likely to come up with new capabilities that have important future uses.

Hippel focuses on “lead users” — users with extreme needs that have not yet been encountered by most other users. A lead user might be a surgeon practicing a new technique, a systems administrator under persistent network attack, or a mountain biker exploring new terrain. Lead users are motivated to figure out how to build new things with existing products. And, this book demonstrates, they often have the ability to make substantial progress. A weekend kiteboarder might be an aerospace engineer during the week. A surgeon might be able to raise funding to manufacture new equipment. An electronics manufacturer certainly has the means to make extensive customizations to the equipment it uses on its primary assembly line. [Read the rest]