Democratizing Innovation

In the video the speakers talks about "Democratizing Innovation", which means that users are increasingly able to innovate for themselves. He started to research where innovations began so he went to different manufacturers and asked them who came up with this model. All of them told him that the company came up with this idea but throughout his research he found out that most of the innovations were created by users. Actually 80 percent of innovations are created by users and 20 percent is from manufacturers. There is a difference between user innovations and manufacturer innovations. A user innovation is when the developer expects to benefit by using it. A manufacturer innovation is when the developer expects to benefit by selling it. Innovating users tend to be "Lead Users." They have needs that foreshadow general demand in the marketplace and they expect to obtain high benefit from a solution to their needs. So most user-centered innovations can increase social welfare.

Knowledge management can help bring numerous user innovators together so they can communicate and collaborate on different ideas. It can also help manufacturers as well. Some innovations created by manufacturers are not as good and don't last long. If manufacturers created an innovation and placed it on a site where users could collaborate and provide ideas that would make the innovation better and more successful, it could help manufacturers out a great deal. It also could help society as well.