Lead users are an interesting part of the innovation process.

And so, we're going to look at where lead users fit in the adoption cycle and

how they can contribute to an innovation strategy.

So, why are they significant?

Lead users actually solve a problem before the innovation cycle really begins.

They're problem solvers.

They fix things that they need to solve very early in the process and

they can be early adopters of a new product or

a new technology that is expected to become widely used later on.

But basically, they're early in the process and

what we can see here in this diagram is that lead users live really

before the adoptions cycle begins that area over there on the left

is where lead users solve problems before anybody else knows how to solve them.

They're out there doing things and

creating creative problem solving solutions, basically,

to problems that they have to solve in order to get their work done.

And the picture on the right is of Eric von Hippel who was the originator

of this concept and you can see below his picture a link to his website and

there are a great many resources on that website,

if you want to explore this notion of Lead User Concept a little further.

And so, some examples of lead users are things like NASCAR drivers that

introduced the idea of synthetic motor oil.

It would last very long for 500 mile races and

things like that where motors would burn out with typical oil.

And so, they found a way to solve a problem where they protected their engines

from very high speeds and at very high temperatures.

And salespeople who are out there in the customer community are lead users and

they were lead users by using mobile communications very early in the process,

and they would send their orders in in a mobile way.

On University Hospitals are another example of lead users where they do

work within surgery with experimental medical equipment.

People who lived in a desert climates are lead users where they solved situations

using solar applications way before anybody else was using solar technology.

And finally, mountain climbers are examples of lead users

where they use insular supporting gear.

Thinsulate was one example where people solved their problem by getting

very light weight support gear that worked in mountain climbing and skiing.

And so the lead user research approach is a strategy that is used

by a variety of companies, 3M is a company that initiated that.

And what you do in lead user approach is you form some kind of cross-disciplinary

team of people who have different expertise, different professional

expertise and different understanding of market space and customers and

you put them together along with technical people.

And you get a diverse expertise and provide some synergy to look for

opportunities about where lead users might be, and some immersion approach actually

of those teams with different expertise forms a certain amount of synergy,

and sustains a certain amount of momentum in terms of finding the users,

and then you proceed through four phases, and

we're going to look at those four phases now.

First of all, you lay the foundation.

You identify and pinpoint the markets that you want to explore, and

then you need to remember the type, and

a level of innovations that are desired by people in the company.

So you're looking for lead users and you have people in your company, and

you're out there looking for

who is it that's solving a problem that we're trying to solve too.

And so you reconcile a broad market search within the company and

you match it with the company strategy, and mission.

And so, you're not looking for

lead users that don't have a relevant relationship to the company's mission.

And so in phase two, you look at the trends by identifying experts and

emerging technologies and

leading edge applications in the area in which you're exploring.

If it's in the medical area, you're looking in hospitals.

If it's in the automotive area, you're looking in, perhaps sport car clubs.

You're looking for people who are doing things that are way out ahead,

that are solving problems way ahead of what the market needs.

And then you find them, you seek their opinions and

get insights on what's changing.

What do they see to be the things that are happening

way out ahead of what the market's doing.

You identify also what's out-of date, what's behind the market and

what's coming along in the user horizon ahead of the market.

In Phase three, you then identify, now that you've got the trends,

you identify who those lead users are.

Who are those people who are doing these lead user activities?

And you do that by a networking process where you identify problem solvers.

You find out who it is who are the people who are selling this problems and

who would be potentially lead users for a new innovation and

then you gather that information and you develop solutions,

you help with those people you develop solutions that might meet their needs.

So in effect, you are developing a problem solving team working with lead users.

Helping them solve their problems, but they're helping you by identifying and

scoping the problem that needs to be solved.

And so once you get that information, you shape a product concept,

you test it with them and you assess the concept's potential

as opposed to your own company's goals and your own company's vision and mission.

And in the fourth phase, you develop a prototype.

This is where you actually meet with the lead users and

develop a working session where you get lead users, and the lead user research

team, and you develop a prototype, and you test it out what they usually users think.

And you clarify and recognize the problem that needs to be solved and

you develop some innovative approach to the product that leads to meeting the lead

users needs, and then you determine whether those solutions actually fit

those needs and the lead users will give you feedback on that.

And then you evaluate, once you've got that information whether

it still fits with the solution for the company's purpose and

mission and then what we're looking here is a layout of all four of

these steps that play out in the lead user research process.

Again, you start with the lead user idea.

Are you identifying needs and trends?

And once you identify those trends,

then you find the people who are actually doing the lead-user activity.

And then on the four stage of your developing an idea and

a concept that you're testing out with lead-users.

And so the benefits of this kind of strategy and

it's really a strategy, it's the lead user research strategy.

You can reveal potentially important technical or market trends as candidates

for possible innovations and you can identify highly experienced participants,

whose trends in those trends who have compelling needs.

And once you identify the people who have those compelling needs,

you've got indicators of what the future market, the larger market,

the greater adoption market would likely be finding acceptable and

lead user data can then be projected onto a broader marketplace of users.

And once you've got that lead user data, you can project how other

people in the broader market might be able to use the same idea.

And so, the takeaways for lead user research strategies are that lead user

research actually formalizes and systematizes the innovation process.

It structures it.

It's not by chance, it's very deliberate.

You're going out there and you're finding customers, and

you're finding people who are actually doing things that need to be innovated.

And since lead users actually have developed a prototype solution very often

they do that, this strategy reduces the time it takes to get to a breakthrough.

So, you can build on what lead users have created in terms of a prototype

solution and build on that and make it in to a variable innovation.

And finally, this strategy actually reduces the need for internal research and

development where you or don't need to necessarily have all the work done inside

of your company or inside of your business or inside of your entrepreneurial venture.

You go out and you talk to lead users who actually have solutions and

they are in a position to actually lead you into a new innovation.

How can lead users contribute to an innovation strategy?

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