Lead user and usage patterns
This is a paper which is telling us how and why to introduce lead users into the process of innovation. By lead users, they are different from the manufacturers or typical users in that (1) they face unique needs; and (2) they derive net benefits from the solution to their needs. "By industrial and consumer products, they are only components in larger usage patterns which may involve many products. Since a change in one component can change perceptions of and needs for some or all other products in that pattern, users must first identify their existing multiproduct usage patterns in which the new product might play a role" (p. 792). In traditional marketing research such as similarity-dissimilarity method, there is a problem that "neither method contains an effective mechanism to encourage this outcome (new attributes of a product)" (p. 793).
Although people who are more familiar with one usage pattern of a product may not sense the new pattern of that product - say, "the familiarity with existing product attributes and users interferes with an individuals' ability to conceive of novel attributes and users" (p. 792). But on the other hand, von Hippel emphasized that "the constraint of users to the familiar does not lessen the ability of marketing research to evaluate needs for new products by analyzing typical users" since "the 'new' is reasonably familiar to the users" (p. 796). In particular, users able to obtain the highest net benefit from the solution will be the ones who have devoted the most resources to understanding it. And it follows that these users would have the richest real-world understanding of the need to share with inquiring market researchers (p.797).
Lead user and innovation
Since problem-solving activity has been motivated by expectations of economic benefit, and since lead users have been defined in part as users positioned to obtain high net benefit from a solution to their needs, it is reasonable that lead users may have made some investment in solving the need at issue" (p. 800).
Lead users' innovation and general market
With respect to users of industrial products, they "typically measure the value of proposed new industrial products in economic terms, so important underlying trends related to product value are often inescapably clear to those in the industry" (p. 798). But with respect to users of consumer products, there is often no underlying stable basis for comparison, so the accurate trend identification is often more difficult. Thus, in the instance of industrial goods, the translation of lead users' innovation to general market is not a serious problem while in the instance of consumer goods, a test of the applicability might be needed in the translation. "
