Forms of User Innovation

Copenhagen.
The next presentation at COST298 is by An Jacobs and Jo Pierson. Their interest is in the role of users in innovation - an increasingly prominent perception, but which 'user' are we talking about here, and where are they taking us? Their ability to innovate also depends on contextual factors, of course, some of which may not be entirely known to them.

In the digital environment, there are two key conceptions of innovation: innovation as dominated by technology, and disruptive (rather than incremental) innovation. Users themselves are placed along a continuum from everyday users to productive users to users who are even mainly producers (and there are also non-users, of course); innovation at the lower, everyday end can be described more from a dominant, incremental sociotechnological innovation perspective, while innovation at the production end is more often seen from a breakthrough technology innovation perspective. These forms of participation also spread across content creation, technological innovation, and more general forms of innovation.

Additionally, of course, collaboration and coordination are needed to harness user innovation. This is also about interaction design for such collaborative projects. Collaborative approaches also lower the threshold for taking risks. It is necessary to take into account the different types of user participation in this context (rather than operating with only a few stereotypical categories), and help users move towards more professional-level forms of involvement - while also retaining a focus on innovation further down the long tail.

Technorati : COST298, collaboration, innovation, produsage, users
Del.icio.us : COST298, collaboration, innovation, produsage, users