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Tamper-evident Organizational Change
What do you do with customers who tamper with your products? The immediate response is often to call the lawyer. Federal Express were quick off the mark to shut down Jose Avila who came up with an idea of selling FedEx furniture and Disney banned Jim Hill as soon as they heard of his highly rated private Disneyland tours. According to Professor Leyland Pitt, a marketing expert at SFU, organizations need to expand their strategic options. Identifying these customers as “creative consumers”, Professor Pitt and his colleagues argue that customers who modify and adapt existing products can offer rich sources for innovation. The adaption of Sony’s PSP, the development of Podcasting for Apple’s iPod and the modification of the Ford Mustang are examples of customer’s ability to extend a product’s design and application. Listen to the talk from a CMA Evening on January 26th to learn how to seize the opportunities and avoid the pitfalls.
Addendum: Also check out the talk by Charles Leadbeater on the rise of the professional amateur. He challenges the traditional view of innovation - a pipeline of ideas following from special people to passive consumers - by developing the concept of collaborative creativity where ideas accumulate in potential through the involvement of users. For change agents the challenge may be to create a project that has a clear overall framework but also encourages an open-source approach to the content.
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Tom Lawrence, our editor, is the Weyerhaeuser Professor of Change Management at SFU.Read Tom's Posts
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