DEVELOPMENT OF PHYSICAL PRODUCTS IN ONLINE COMPUTER

COMMUNITIES:THE INNOVATORS DEVELOPMENT

“R&D has been a costly and inexact process for a long time. Now some companies are trying a

radical new approach, giving customers the tools to design and develop their own products”

(Thomke, von Hippel 2002)

LEAD USER THEORY AND TRIGGERS TO INNOVATE Lead User …

…face needs weeks, month or years before the bulk of that marketplace encounters them

.. they are capable to benefit by obtaining a solution to those needs

Triggers to innovate Motivation

Intrinsic Motivation Extrinsic Motivation

Creativity Creative Personality

„[…] innovation highly depends on the creative ability of a person/group and can not only be seen as a manageable organizational work process.” (Brown S.L., Eisenhart K.M. )

Longitudinal studyRelation between triggers and and physic developements in the innovative process

PROBLEM STATEMENT

t

N (innovators)

Past researche.g. motivation, personality, physic innovation

at specific ‚t‘

(New) trigger to innovatee.g. facing new problems/needs; I am a case-modder/overclocker because all my friends do so, …

My goal is to reconstruct the development process of a manageable number of innovative case-modder and

overclocker, in order to determine, whether triggers to innovate change over a specific period and how these findings affect the innovative process and the physic

innovations.

THE INNOVATIVE PROCESS(TIETZ R., MORRISON P.)

Two Major Steps1. Idea generation

knowledge and experience (innovation-related knowledge)

2. Idea realization Several preconditions must be given

(e.g. available materials and tools, enough time and triggers/motivational aspects)

RESEARCH FIELD What is …

… Case-Moddification… Overclocking/Tweaking

Online-CommunitiesBoards are well maintained (History)Many active users

Tangible and Intangible ProductsCan user benefit by using the own

developement?

EMPIRICAL APPROCH Observation

Nethnography Long-term immersion in context increases the

likelihood of spontaneously encountering important moments in the ordinary events of consumers' daily lives and of experiencing revelatory incidents (Fernandez 1986).

Developement of a manageable number of Case-Modder and Overclocker, identefied by Gebauer

Interview Data-interpretation and –verification Trough stories and accounts of behavior, participants

recall, interpret, script and give meaning to events (c.f. Arould E. J., Wallendorf M.)

CONTRIBUTION AND RELEVANCE OF RESULTS Long-term research in that field for the

first time! Valuable information how to identify and

utilize the potential among innovative customers/communities

This study should lead to a better understanding of these highly innovative individuals.

STRUCTURE OF INDEX1. Introduction

1.1 Problem Description1.2 Structure

2. What is Case-Modding and Overclocking?

3. Lead User Theory4. Innovation in User Communities

4.1 Offline Communities4.2 Online Communities4.3 Tangible and Intangible Products

STRUCTURE OF INDEX5. Theory

5.1 Innovation Process5.2 Creativity

5.2.1 The Creative Personality5.2.1 Creativity and Flow

5.3 Motivations to Innovate5.3.1 Intrinsic Motivation5.3.2 Extrinsic Motivation

STRUCTURE OF INDEX6. Empirical Research

6.1 Research Field6.2 Methods

6.2.1 Netnography6.2.2 Interviews

6.3 Analysis6.4 Results

7. Discussion8. Implication and Further Research