User-led innovation
User-led innovation
Eric von Hippel (1988) has identified user-led innovation as the process by which a person or a company develops a personal or in-house innovation because existing products do not meet their needs. It is a bottom-up phenomenon that allows a company to identify what its most advanced users are already doing and to understand what their innovations mean for the future of the company. Von Hippel also calls such innovation a "lead-user innovation".
References
Von Hippel E. (1988), "The Sources of Innovation", Oxford University Press.
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Added: 17/03/2008 3:51pm
Brendan Dunphy
Also often referreed to as Customer or Consumer led innovation. Whether its 'bottom-up' or 'top-down' depends where you put the customer and when 'bottom-up' is used it says a lot about an organisation's view of the themselves and the customer!