Discover a Crowdsourcing initiative – CrowdSpirit Part II

2. What is this concept of “customer-centric product” or “customer-manufactured ” as invented by Springwise ? In other words, what value will crowdsourcing bring in terms of innovation within the CrowdSpirit World ?

To simplify this, let us summarize the innovation using 2 major categories (c.f.Wikipedia article)

• The ones which are driven by the manufacturer and which are called manufacturer innovation.
• The ones which are more driven by the end-user and which are called end-user innovation.

Let’s illustrate the first type of innovation via an example: A new protocol of communication is invented to exchange information between devices over an incredible distance. We’re talking about manufacturer innovation in that case. So the concrete application of that innovation can lead either to totally new product functionality or simply improve the current functionality without major changes. In this case, we’re talking about invention because you can see that a technical solution (*the protocol of communication)* is answering a problem *(exchange of information between 2 devices separated by a great distance)*

For the second case, end-user innovation, we are thinking the other way. Let’s think about a simple example, like users who are fed-up with when they discovered that their phone has accidentally woken a friend again (you know, *always the one with a name starting by a “A” * ) in the middle of the night because of a keyboard which is impossible to lock. That’s the reason why the famous Motorola “valve” was invented from a hardware standpoint or the automatic keyboard locking from a software standpoint. In that case, we’re talking about invention because you can see that a technical solution *(Valve or automatic keyboard locking)* is answering to a problem *(undesirable call)*.

So to summarize, in the first case (*manufacturer innovation*) we start by discovering a technical innovation and we need to find a concrete application or functional need for that product whereas in the second case (*end-user innovation*) we start from a functional need and fulfill it by a technical innovation. This is a totally different approach.

If now we look at this within the company boundaries. The manufacturer innovations will be found by a Research department whereas the end-user innovations are supposed to be found by the marketing guys based on market research and developed by the Development Department, when the technical solution can be easily found, or directly by the research department itself when it’s extremely complex.

So the scope of our project, as you can easily guess is definitively not to look for manufacturer innovation, even if we could imagine such innovation, but clearly on end-user innovation based on easy technical solutions. In fact, our aim is to bypass the marketing department and go directly to the source of the need. I mean YOU, to avoid all the misunderstanding that can happen between all the different actors or by market research. We all know this principle very well, this is the classical “Chinese whispers” where the last guy is convinced they have really understood the information, but it is totally different from the first one. We can also see that principle in the supply chain world with the Bullwhip effect. So the best way to ensure that we really gather the genuine needs is not only to directly ask the right person meaning You, this is already the purpose of market research, but to totally involve you to make sure that we permanently stick to the needs which change all along the time. That’s right, user wants something one day and a totally different thing another day..that’s human behaviour

Moreover, Eric von Hippel, a MIT economist, has identified end-user innovation as, by far, the most important and critical in his classic book on the subject, Sources of Innovation . Hey, but this is somehow the definition of CrowdSourcing

Now I think you get it, CrowdSpirit will be able to design the best products because of the permanent and real time market study which is performed all along the product life. This is my vision of the Customer centric product.

So now you can wonder how is it possible for a newcomer to design very good products..let’s review this tomorrow !!

Lionel David, CrowdSpirit Founder