Open-Source Innovation Set to Evolve to Next Stage
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The idea of employing open-source software methods to collaborate on creating products isn't new, but its hasn't received widespread adoption, yet. |
But an article by consultants at management advisors McKinsey & Co. suggests a favorable environment exists for more companies to not only combine with business partners but consumers, too, to create new products. Here's what McKinsey's Jacques Bughin, Michael Chui and Brad Johnson wrote:
Distributed cocreation is too new for us to draw definitive conclusions about whether and how companies should implement it. But our research into these online communities and our work with a number of open-innovation pioneers show that it isn't too soon for senior executives to start seriously examining the possibilities for distributed cocreation or to identify the challenges, such as the ownership of intellectual property and increased operational risk, they face in adopting it.
Consumers are a prime source of cocreators. McKinsey research shows that one-quarter of Western Europe's Internet users post comments and reviews about consumer products of all kinds. User-generated media sites are doubling yearly in terms of numbers of visitors and participants compared with a 20 to 30 percent growth rate for traditional sites.
These numbers suggest that people are more and more willing to participate with companies online and that companies can tap into that willingness today. To give an example, in the online environment Second Life, where participants assume three-dimensional likenesses called avatars and interact digitally with each other, approximately one participant in ten is cocreating with companies--for example, testing prototypes or helping to design new products and services. We expect that percentage to rise. At present, Second Life has few brands (virtual destinations, within the site, created by companies well known in the offline world), and participants generally don't know how to interact with them. In fact, during our recent research on the behavior of Second Life participants, we found that only four in ten members know about the possibility of cocreating with their favorite brands. When they do become aware of this, 60 percent of them say they would be willing to experiment with cocreation.
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