Listening to your customers is one thing, but letting them have a say in product development is another--and that's the trend that has been percolating for the past 5 years, says Trendwatching.com. In the innovation web site's November 2004 newsletter, it declares that this "customer-made" trend is about to hit it big because of the convergence of several developments. First, customers now have the means to tell companies exactly what they think through technologies such as the cell phone and the Internet. Second, Generation C (for content) is emerging and as their name suggests, this group has lots to say through digital technology. Third, managers are recognizing the value of their input.

Take Boeing, for example. Its Internet-based forum, World Design Team, prompted 120,000 people from around the world to participate in the design of a new airplane, expressing their opinions through message boards, exchanges with the Boeing design team and online discussions with fellow members. Says the company, "flyers and aviation enthusiasts from around the world are sharing the excitement of creating the airplane of the future."

And then there's Canadian shoe company John Fluevog, which urges customers to design shoes that they would like to see manufactured. Then it conducts online polls to evaluate the submissions. So far, the company has made 6 out of 2,000 designs it has received and has seen strong sales on all these customer-designed shoes.

"Customers are looking for the ability to interact with the company," University of Michigan Business School professor Venkat Ramaswamy tells Fortune magazine. Along with management expert C.K. Prahalad, Ramaswamy wrote about this trend of co-creation in The Future of Competition.

According to Trendwatching.com, customer-made is "NOT plain feedback, it's not Do-It-Yourself, it's not customization, it's not even personalization" which all occur after companies have already made key decisions about products and services. Most importantly, says Trendwatching.com, customer-made is NOT going away--in fact, it may very well transform the process of innovation.

Sources:

CUSTOMER-MADE
Trendwatching.com, November 2004
www.trendwatching.com/trends/CUSTOMER-MADE.htm

Customer-Made
Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, November 22, 2004
hbswk.hbs.edu/web-review.jhtml?id=4510&t=innovation

Next Little Thing: Latest Product Designer? You
Julie Sloane
Fortune Small Business, December 8, 2004
www.fortune.com/fortune/smallbusiness/articles/0,15114,945372,00.html