User Innovation in Sports
Excerpt from Sonali Shah's Open Beyond Software essay in Open Sources 2.0
Examples
Sonali Shah:
"Sports Equipment Innovation by Users & Their Communities
Both users and manufacturers contributed to the development of equipment innovations in the windsurfing, skateboarding, and snowboarding industries. Users are defined as individuals or firms that expect to directly benefit from a product or service by using it (von Hippel 1988). In contrast, manufacturers are those who expect to benefit from manufacturing and selling a product, service, or related knowledge; thus, firms, entrepreneurs, and inventors seeking to sell ideas, products, or services are all examples of manufacturers. To illustrate, snowboarders are users of snowboards. Firms such as Burton and Gnu are manufacturers of snowboards. An inventor who hears that there is a market for improved snowboard bindings and develops a new type of binding with the intent of patenting and licensing it is categorized as a manufacturer.
The User Innovation Process in Three Sports
This section describes the process by which users and their communities develop innovations. I begin with an example that illustrates this process. The following passage describes how Larry Stanley and the community of windsurfing enthusiasts around him innovated in the sport of windsurfing.
Mike Horgan and Larry Stanley began jumping and attempting aerial tricks and turns with their windsurfing boards in 1974. The problem was that they flew off in mid-air because there was no way to keep the board with them. As a result, they hurt their feet and legs, damaged the board, and soon lost interest. In 1978 West German Jurgen Honscheid came to participate in the first Hawaiian World Cup and was introduced to jumping. A renewed enthusiasm for jumping arose and soon a group of windsurfers were all trying to outdo each other. Then Larry Stanley remembered the Chip - a small experimental board that he had equipped with footstraps a year earlier for the purpose of controlling the board at high speeds - and thought:
It’s dumb not to use this for jumping.
News of the innovation spread quickly and instructions for how to make and attach footstraps to a windsurf board were shared freely. Later, Larry Stanley, Mike Horgan and a small set of windsurfing friends would begin the commercial production and sale of footstraps (and other innovations). Today the footstrap is considered a standard feature on windsurf boards.
This example illustrates three key components of innovation development by users. First, the act of use itself creates new needs and desires among users that lead to the creation of new equipment and techniques. Second, user cooperation in communities is critical to prototyping, improving, and diffusing solutions to those needs. Working jointly allows rapid development and simultaneous experimentation, however working jointly also requires that users openly reveal their ideas and prototypes to others. Third, user innovations – even after they have been freely revealed - are sometimes commercialized." (http://faculty.washington.edu/skshah/Shah%20-%20Open%20Beyond%20Software.pdf)
Discussion
How Important is Community-Based Innovation in These Sports?
Sonali Shah:
"In 2000, I conducted a longitudinal study of the development and commercialization
histories of 57 key equipment innovations in the windsurfing, skateboarding, and snowboarding
industries (Shah 2000). The aim of the study was to understand the extent to which users did or
did not contribute to innovative and commercial activity in these sports. The study found that
users and their communities were critical to the emergence and development of these sports.
Sports equipment users developed the first-of-type innovation in each of the three sports
studied, that is, users developed the first skateboard, the first snowboard, and the first windsurfer.
Users also developed 57% of all major improvement innovations in the sample, while
manufacturers developed 27% of the major improvement innovations. The remaining 16% were
developed by other functional sources of innovation, such as joint user-manufacturer teams or
professional athletes.
Product Origins: First-of-Type Innovations
In each of the three sports studied, users developed the initial first-of-type innovation. In each instance, the innovator(s) engaged in the process of bricolage, using the skills and materials at hand to create the innovation.
For example, skateboarding began in the early 1900s. At that time, children played and rode on wooden scooters, often homemade, consisting of a board with roller skate wheels and a handle attached for control. Over the next five decades, adventurous users removed or did without the handle (it often broke off), thereby creating the first skateboards.
In the case of snowboards, people have been trying to stand up on their sleds for ages. Experts agree, however, that the “formal” history of the snowboard began with Sherman Poppen’s Snurfer (Howe 1998; Stevens 1998). In 1965 Poppen noticed his daughter and a friend standing up on their sleds as they slid down a hill. He went to his workshop and used the materials available to create the first prototype – two skis bound together with a string attached at the nose for stability – of what would later become known as the “Snurfer” (a name created by combining the words snow and surfing).
In the case of windsurfing, an individual user, Newman Darby, was the initial innovator. In 1964 Darby, a Pennsylvania sailboat enthusiast and amateur boat builder, created the first windsurfer by fixing a universal joint to the base of a mast on a floating platform. The universal joint – a fundamental feature of the windsurfer - allowed the board and mast to move relative to one another. This in turn meant that the sailor could directly manage the direction of sail by standing up and holding the boom and tipping the mast.
Major Improvement Innovations
Manufacturers developed 27% (n=12) of the major improvement innovations in the sample; users developed 57% (n=26)7. Major improvement innovations are an important subset of overall innovative activity in the sport. They are those equipment innovations identified by multiple experts as being most critical to the development of the sport.
An existing manufacturer developed two major improvement innovations in the sample.
Existing manufacturers might (theoretically) be of two types: those in closely related productcategories (e.g. sailing, skiing, surfing) and those with production or design capabilities useful in mass-producing the product. The existing manufacturer observed in this study - NHS - was a small, Northern California firm founded by three surfing buddies to design and build surfboards.
A surplus of fiberglass and a deficit of customers led the trio to begin designing skateboards.
NHS ultimately developed two key skateboarding innovations: the use of precision ball bearings and skateboard truck modifications that allowed each wheel to move independently of the others.
Manufacturers organized specifically to produce for the sport in question developed three major improvement innovations in the sample.
Existing sports equipment component suppliers developed seven major improvement innovations in the sample. These innovations generally involved transferring specific technology and know-how from an existing sport to the novel one. For example, a maker of fins for surfboards was asked to design a fin to solve some windsurfer-specific problems. Similarly, a producer of sailboat sails worked to improve the design of windsurfing sails and made several innovations. In most cases, the innovative components suppliers were small craft shops run by their founder-owners.
Users and user-manufacturers developed 58% of all improvement innovations in the sports studied. The term user-manufacturer describes innovative users who founded firms after prototyping and beginning to refine an innovation(s) – and, in most cases, also after sharing the innovation(s) with others8. These individuals benefited from their innovation(s) both through use and financially. As discussed earlier, the firms they founded are generally best characterized as small, lifestyle firms rather than mass market producers. (http://faculty.washington.edu/skshah/Shah%20-%20Open%20Beyond%20Software.pdf)