I just saw a flabbergasting account of a company attacking a customer for improving it’s product’s performance.  The lambasting came from digital audio tech. company, Creative, who threatened one of it’s own forum moderators to end the distribution of custom built drivers. I highly recommend reading through the ensuing forum thread–linked to above.

From the book Wikinomics:

 ”Despite … rich history of customer innovation, most companies consider the innovation and amateur creativity that takes place in communities of users and hobbyists a fringe phenomenon of little concern or value to their core markets. Firms often resist or ignore customer innovations.”

This has clrealy been the old paradigm in the manufacturer-customer relationship as far as innovation is concerned. But what happens when the internet allows for like-minded enthusiasts to get together and pool ideas?  Is this not product R & D? Wikinomics again:

“companies are discovering that “lead users”–people who stretch the limits of existing technology and often create their own product prototypes in the process–often develop modifications and extensions to products that will eventually appeal to mainstream markets.  In other words, lead users serve as a beacon for where the mainstream market is headed.”

The integral company is one that would reach out to these innovative consumers, in a mutually beneficial two-way flow of products and ideas.  But  much of the marketplace is adapting to this new form of customer centric business. I would observe this as the emergence of  second-tier or teal-valued models. Such communities fit the description from Spiral Dynamics:

    “While complex learning involves an array of higher-order thinking skills, it does not depend on raw IQ scores or formal education. Rather, it can be characterized by the knack of information gathering, the ability to access knowledge on multiple levels, the mental energy and discipline to carry through long-term tasks, and a sense of awe and playful delight with the new and novel.”

This is also the spirit of so many Open Source communities from which much of the software running the Web is built from.  Possibilities are being made more and more of a reality every day.  Within the next five years we will see even more extraordinary changes take hold.  Hopefully by then all of our workplaces adapt such conscious policies…