[pre-draft] Anil Gupta's Innovators

(indigenization of von Hippel - 2005 - Democratizing Innovation)

"Studies of innovating users (both individual and firms) show them to have characteristics of 'lead users'." Lead user is a term developed by Eric von Hippel in 1986. Lead users face needs that will be general in a marketplace – but face them months or years before the bulk of that marketplace encounters them. Furthermore such users are positioned to benefit significantly by obtaining a solution to those needs. (wikipedia[en] - Lead User)

It has also been found that higher the intensity of lead user characteristics exhibited by an innovator, the greater the commercial attractiveness of the innovation that the lead user develops. (Franke and von Hippel 2003)

It would be interesting to reflect these findings of growing user-innovations in the mature (developed) markets on the theories of user-led innovations (or grassroots innovations) champion in India - Prof. Anil Gupta.

The narrative of consumption in India is sung by a myriad of actors interacting with each-other across the traditional domains of ideation-production-distribution-consumption. Consumption in India is a process of production in itself with users translating / interpreting the consumables into their own structures of ritual and belief.

A majority of the Indian population has long expressed itself through the process of Jugaad or tinkering. This inventive re-use extends artifacts into new domains and sometimes bridges the gap between the imagined and real ecology of needs that a product fulfills. These remixes, freely shared within communities represent the gaps in translation of products into a specific ecology of needs. The gaps are more pronounced in developing or new markets where the need and context-of-use information (generated by users) and generic solution information ( generated by manufactures specializing in a particular type of solution ) very weakly correlate (von Hippel 2005). Both need and solution information is 'sticky' - costly to move from the site of generation.

The growth of 'modern' industrial products in Jugaad rich spaces creates a curfew on individual adaptation / adjustments and thus expression. The strict distinctions between the manufacturer and consumer are clearly reflected in the closed nature of designs - to be handled only by experts - and the resulting fear in the minds of the unaware 'user'. The consumer thus, is denied his creativity and freedom to adjust his generic purchase into a 'perfect fit'. A tinkering community sees products not as a non-argumentative black box but as an action agent to be used to his fancy.

The characteristics and attitudes that define the usage patterns of Anil Gupta's grassroots-innovators can help create parts of the ecology of need and re-use in India. Can the relationships between the 'trends of Innovation Attractiveness' and the 'characteristics of Local-Hackers' help in selecting and refining the most promising tricks in the NIF databases. (Innovation attractiveness is the sum of the novelty of innovation and the expected future generality of its market demand).

Most 'innovations' lie silent in the archives of Anil Gupta despite efforts to package jugaad for mass-market because not many translate into a wonderful purchase. It is more the process of discovery, creation and learning which forms the motivation for use - just like Sudoku for an enthusiast, who would not enjoy being given the very solution, that he/she so strongly seeks.

Maybe the Indian innovator can teach more about the design and use of customization toolkits - a model for the market of jugaad and creative adjustment. Indian jugaad can provide a framework for democratizing innovation, with its own interpretations of the unusable and misfit.

Just like the conversations of a neighborhood lady with the tailor about her newly bought ready-made dress teach us so much about the perfect fit.