Getting your customers’ ideas to work for you:Building user innovation communities

Paul M. Di GangiMolly Wasko Robert Hooker

Department of ManagementCollege of Business

Florida State University

Tale of Two Companies

User-generated Content

“Distributed groups of individuals focused on solving a general problem

and/or developing a new solution supported by computer-mediated

communication.” (Dahlander & Wallin, 2006 p. 1246)

User Innovation Community

Initial Study

ANOVA– 11 Adopted Ideas– 10 Not Adopted, Most

Popular Ideas

Variable Mean Std Dev F Sig.Appropriability 

Adopted 3.19 0.97 0.000 0.991Not Adopted 3.19 1.14    

Complementary Assets

Adopted 8.01 1.19 0.626 0.439Not Adopted 7.63 1.04    

Develop New Capability

Adopted 5.93 1.25 0.361 0.555Not Adopted 5.55 1.64    

Market Value 

Adopted 6.50 1.16 1.600 0.221Not Adopted 5.84 1.23    

Return on Investment

Adopted 5.76 1.12 0.039 0.846Not Adopted 5.67 1.07    

Total Votes 

Adopted 32,894 45,133 4.096 0.057Not Adopted 61,939 31,287    

Total Comments 

Adopted 257 441 1.108 0.306Not Adopted 186 112    

Number Unique Users

Adopted 169 283 1.450 0.243Not Adopted 144 89    

Community Age 

Adopted 83.18 34.97 4.595 0.045Not Adopted 118.50 24.49    

Di Gangi, P. M. and Wasko, M.  (2009)  “Steal my idea!  User innovation community influence on organizational adoption of user innovations:  A case study of Dell IdeaStorm,”  Decision Support Systems 48 (2009), pp. 303-312.

Implementing Considering Rejected No Status Update

February 2007

Size by # Ideas Contributed

Di Gangi, P. M. and Wasko, M.  “Should we follow the leader?  Examining lead users in an online user innovation community,”  Under Review.

Social Processes

Social processes for the effective development of an idea were required to transfer end user ideas into adoptable ideas for Dell. Users within adopted ideas

collaborated to resolve differences in opinion, create consensus, and provide additional information to Dell.

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Strategic Positioning of

Corporate Personnel

If You Let Them Vote, Make It

Count

Provide Users with the Tools for Self-

Governance

Create A User Toolkit

Present Your Progress Clearly

and Openly

Respond Quickly & Ask Questions

Engage Lead Users

Provide them with a Toolkit

Help users describe the idea in language that is clearly understood and accessible to others. Otherwise, the community spends a great deal of effort

cycling comments trying to refine the idea into an adoptable solution.

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Strategic Positioning

Strategically position corporate personnel into the User Innovation Community to ensure end user ideas are reaching the proper internal resources

for idea refinement and ultimately adoption.

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Identifying lead users who actively participate across multiple ideas within a

category could help when organizations look to innovate in specific markets / areas.

Engage Lead Users

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By incorporating tools that allow the community to form consensus on a user-driven idea, an organization reduces the need to cycle repeatedly through prototypes because the community is

able to quickly define and refine the innovation.

Promote Self-governance

Responding quickly to the community signals its importance to the organization’s innovation

process. Ask questions in order to ensure an end user’s idea is properly understood. It is the ideas that an organization does not clearly understand

that potentially hold the greatest promise.

Respond to your Users

and Listen!

Ask Questions

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Let their voices

be heard!

Guaranteeing that users are satisfied with the innovation process

requires an organization to

consider the popularity of a user-driven idea.

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Gamble on Transparency

When an organization opens its doors to user-driven innovations, it must also open its doors to the process by

which those innovations are examined.

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• Three Days Out– 0 Demotions– Most Popular Idea:

IdeaStorm category

• Four Days Out– 0 Demotions– 30th Most Popular Idea

on IdeaStorm

• Two Weeks Out– 330 Points– 0 Demotions– Reviewed by Dell

IdeaStorm (less than 2.5% of ideas reviewed by Dell)

Thank You for Listening

Slides will be available @ www.slideshare.com/pmd06c

Contact @ pdigangi@gmail.com | Website @ www.paulmdigangi.com