Question

The idea that you as an innovator have important choices has been a running, albeit largely implied, subplot of our journey thus far. Your earlier exercises saw you choose 1 problem out of 10 for you to solve. You also got to choose, if you recall, what skills you would apply to your problem, thereby “co-forming” the problem and the solution.

We trust that your choice-making wasn’t random. Hopefully, a good deal of your process was based upon your understanding of how important the given problems are to you and your awareness of the skills that you can bring to bear on the solution.

Knowing what choices you need to make, as well as when and how, is an important part of being a user innovator. Particularly if user innovation for you is a path to entrepreneurship.

Making choices is at the heart of this specific evolution. Your goal here is to think about diffusion of your innovation, that is, the spread of your innovation in society. As Eric von Hippel describes it, you have a sequence of overarching choices when it comes to diffusion:

– Whether to diffuse your innovation or not;

– If you choose to diffuse, you have a choice to diffuse your innovation via “Peer-to-Peer”, “Via the Market”, or both. Indeed, dual diffusion is possible. In fact, some innovations lend themselves quite well for dual diffusion. Take Google, for example: using Google for search is free, but not free if you want to advertise;

– Then you have a choice to license your innovation or to produce it yourself;

– And if you choose to produce your innovation yourself, you have a choice as to the kind of company you wish to build.

In case some of this sounds new, that’s okay. Just take a look at Modules 4 and 5 again. In Module 4, in particular, Eric distills this choice sequence.

When you’re ready, think about and provide answers to the following questions:

1) Do you choose to diffuse your innovation or not? Why? For the purposes of this exercise, we actually ask you to assume that you are choosing to diffuse your innovation. Otherwise, the remainder of this exercise would be irrelevant for you.

2) Do you plan to diffuse Peer-to-Peer, Via the Market, or both? What is your thinking for why you’re making your choice?

3) If you plan to diffuse Peer-to-Peer, what is important for you to think about in order to increase the chances that your innovation is adopted?

4) Do you wish to license your innovation or to produce it yourself? How do you think about this choice?

5) Ultimately, whether your choice is to distribute Via the Market, or Peer-To-Peer, what kind of venture do you want to build and what is important for you to think about to make that dream a reality?

We very much hope that you enjoy this process of introspection and analysis, and that it leads you closer to being the best user innovator that you can be.

You can innovate.

Answer 1

Answer) I will answer the given parts of the question as they are asked and will explain some concepts as and when required to understand the answer,I will also make reasonable assumptions if necessary and helps in understanding the concept.

1. Before choosing to diffuse innovation,let us first understand what exactly is diffusion of innovation is,when any company launches new product they want to assure that mist people try and use their product but customers have different levels of approach and acceptability for new products,there are few who are known as innovators who try new products very quickly,company based on their input make any changes and then it goes to second level of early adopters,in a way it is diffusing through different levels ,post early adopters,early and late majority use it and finally laggards go for it,so this innovation is diffused or spread through different groups gradually and not in one go.Now coming to whether I will go for diffusion of innovation or not,my answer would be yes because it gives me a chance to access my product's appeal,its good and bad points through innovators and use that to make adjustments to my product or create a pitch based on feedback from innovators to appeal to other customers to try,this diffusion also saves a lot of time to convince late majority and laggards as by then a lot of people would have tried and reviewed product,so in nutshell it saves my cost,time,efforts and help me improve my products and selling points.
2. I will go with both peer to peer and via market diffusion of innovation as they both provide different advantages,consider peer to peer,it is much more easily accessible and doable,it is cost effective,you get much quicker feedback,coming to via market diffusion ,it helps you to access a broader group,it will be completely unbiased group.So peer to peer and via market diffusion helps and compliments each other.
3. Now this part specifically concerns about peer to peer diffusion of innovation,in order for it to be helpful,it has to have unbiased opinion,broader group that is sample size has to be substantial and should have different personality/types in adoption so different opinions are recieved which can be helpful in identifying different problems.
4. When I look at decision to license my innovation,I look at what it provides me with and answer is financial safety net,a lot of times finance beyond innovation are high too and licensing can help cover costs ,add to that it helps investors to feel assured about their investment,keeping these things in mind I will go for licensing my innovation and use the finances to make my innovation better.
5. I strongly believe that innovation happens and serves 2 things,first is gap,if there is a gap in something then space for innovation is created and every innovation 's purpose should be to bring a real change for betterment ,with these 2 beliefs,I will venture fot an innovation which looks to solve a problem ,one problem which I feel innovation can help is in creating technology ehich helps in identifying if a natural event such as earthquake will happen in next 48 hours and can help people get evacuated,thus there is a gap here as some events such as earthwuakes can still not be predicted accurately and duch technology will bring betterment.To achieve this dream right team of people,finances and historical data with sample testing wiuld be required along with a strong belief and determination

Answer is complete.Thank you!