This document discusses seven cases related to product development and innovation. Case 1 looks at how to discover unidentified customer needs through a treatment program developed for COPD patients in collaboration with designers, practitioners, and patients. Case 2 examines how Lego communicates with users through its ambassador program of volunteer adults who represent the Lego community. Case 3 discusses how netbooks, originally intended for developing countries, became popular among general computer users in Western countries. Case 4 profiles a charity initiative in Danish supermarkets where customers can donate money from bottle returns to charities. The remaining cases cover consequences of innovations like the Segway, cradle-to-cradle design principles applied to products, and how

1. Cases #1
hOw dO yOu dIScOveR
undIScOveRed needS?
treatment offer for CoPd
In the following seven cases, we look at various patients nominated for design
overall questions about product development, prize
and illustrate several approaches.
By sara Jönsson and Jacob suhr thomsen,
Copenhagen institute for Futures studies
#2
hOw dO yOu cOmmunIcate
#3
whO IS yOuR taRget
#4
hOw yOu SeLL yOuR
wIth yOuR uSeRS? gROuP? PROductS and SeRvIceS?
leGo ambassadors the netbook effect Charity Button
#5
what aRe the cOnSe-
#6
what aRe the cOnSe-
#7
hOw dO yOu deveLOP
QuenceS OF yOuR QuenceS OF yOuR yOuR PROductS?
InnOvatIOn? I InnOvatIOn? II accidental innovation
dean Kamen – segway’s Cradle to cradle
inventor
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3. hOw dO yOu dIScOveR undIScOveRed needS?
treatment offer for CoPd patients nominated for design prize
What happens when you learn you have a chronic illness? How you get a positive relation
to your illness? And what about your surroundings? The design agency 1508, together
with Frederiksberg’s health center, has developed a user-driven program for patients.
in a true autumn forest of white, yellow and red post-it notes, ideas and insights come
to light and create a pattern that soon makes sense for caregivers and patients in
Frederiksberg’s health and treatment program for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
(CoPd) patients. at a time when professionalism is considered important, the users who
need to understand and relate to a foreign sounding diagnosis are too often overlooked.
you have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.” “Gezundheit, doctor!”
the design agency 1508 and odegaard Consult, in collaboration with practitioners,
users and experts at Frederiksberg’s health center combined their creative energies to cre-
ate a unique course. users – citizens, caregivers and the treatment system – go through a
comprehensive qualitative process that has clarified a number of undiscovered and unrec-
ognized needs. in other words, users are at the heart of product development.
this is where the white, yellow and red post-it notes come into play. if you are seri-
ous about involving users in product development, it is not enough to simply ask “What
can we do for you?” users must be allowed into the intimate processes usually reserved
for management and the development department. you must let users speak alongside
consultants, developers, managers and experts. you must realize that the real experts are
the users.
in other words, user involvement requires you to give up much of the control and
secrecy normally associated with product development. users must be allowed to write
post-it notes, and you must take their notes seriously.
in the case of the treatment offered to CoPd patients, Frederiksberg health center,
along with 1508, odgaard Consult and users, has created a groundbreaking product that
has been nominated for the indeX 09 award – one of the world’s biggest design awards.
read more about the indeX award and CoPd-treatment at http://www.indexaward.dk
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4. hOw dO yOu cOmmunIcate wIth yOuR
cOnSumeRS?
leGo ambassadors
how does a global company communicate with all
of its millions of users? how you get people to be
co-creators in product development? and do you
get to know your users?
leGo has found the answer to these questions
through its ambassador program – at least in part.
the program consists of volunteer adults who have a
burning interest in leGo and who wish to liaise with
users. leGo ambassadors represent leGo’s com-
munity and, for a year, share their ideas and leGo
constructions with the world. new ambassadors are
chosen each year.
today, there are 40 ambassadors from 22
countries. their task includes:
- helping develop and improve relations between
leGo’s global community and the leGo Group.
- active cooperation with leGo’s staff and their
users.
- helping the leGo Group’s activities in the leGo
community.
ambassadors becomes the interface between leGo
and users. the program is an original and differ-
ent way to engage users while learning more about
them.
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5. whO IS yOuR taRget gROuP?
the netbook effect
in the effort to improve computers and make them stronger, no one considered that users might
not want more out of their laptop but less. the result – which was intended for an entirely different
purpose – is a market favorite today.
netbooks, minicomputers with a seven-inch screen and limited performance, have been a
sales success for many computer makers. the idea sprang from the one laptop per Child pro-
ject, which provides laptops to impoverished children in developing countries. With cheap, but
intelligently designed hardware, such as flash memory – the same kind that can be put on the
usB stick on your computer – and cheap operating systems such as linux, the computer was
designed to give poor children access to the digital world. Who would have imagined it would be a
success among general computer users in the western world?
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6. hOw dO yOu SeLL yOuR PROductS and SeRvIceS?
Charity Button
since 2007, shoppers at Kvickly, a danish supermarket chain,
have been able to “press the Charity Button” when depositing
returnable bottles. By doing so, the money they would have got-
ten for their empties goes to charity.
Jens Juul nielsen, information director of Coop danmark,
Kvickly’s parent company, talks about the concept.
“We got the idea for the Charity Button when we looked
for areas with high traffic and where “many small streams come
together to make a big river.” We investigated the possibilities to
introduce the technology through various channels, but it quickly
became clear that it was tomra, our bottle return system, that
could do the task. after testing, it was rolled out to all stores last
year,” says nielsen
the concept now appears in other danish markets.
according to nielsen, more than €600,000 are collected for char-
ity through the Charity Button.
“our Partner agreement with danChurchaid and uniCeF
denmark aims to profile Coop as a socially-responsible company
and collect money for the two organizations through Coop stores.
to create visibility for the two organizations and raise money, we
conduct various activities. typically, we develop some products,
the profits of which accrue to the two organizations,” said nielsen.
Charitable organizations are often innovative in their sales
channels. other successful ideas include selling fabric bags, pins
and bracelets, the profits of which go to charity. in sweden, it is
possible to “round up” in many clothing stores. For example, if
your bill comes to €28, you can “round up” to €30, with the €2
going to charity.
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7. what aRe the cOnSeQuenceS OF yOuR InnOvatIOn? I innovations. if it were up to him, the entire world population could get
dean Kamen – segway’s inventor clean drinking water and thus escape having to far for water and so gain
a better life. But it is not the poor who decide, and neither do people buy
“i take a lot out of the world, i mean a lot. i fly my planes, i have my heli- inventions or technology. they buy solutions to meet needs or to remedy a
copters ... having said that, my whole life, i have always assumed that problem. this means that it does not matter if you have the best solution if
when you look back you want to make sure you put back more than you people do not perceive it as the answer to their problem.
took out.” about the future: “With 10 billion people on this planet, all trying to
the quote is dean Kamen’s, entrepreneur and inventor whose most have food and water and power, and a standard of living, the only way
famous invention is the segway, a self-balancing transport device con- we’re going to do that is if most of those people are contributors and not
trolled by body weight. Kamen has also worked to develop water purifica- recipients. these people need to become an educated group that can add
tion systems for the urban poor, intelligent wheelchairs for the disabled and to the real value of this world. “
user-friendly insulin pumps for people with diabetes. he has stood behind dean Kamen radiates some of the same glow and inspiration as
more than 400 different inventions, many of which are designed to make Barack obama and has almost the same motto as obama: We can do it.
life simpler for socially vulnerable people. some believe it is a ploy to earn more money, and perhaps the solution is
“life is so short, why waste a single day of it doing something that not as straightforward as dean Karmen makes it sound. But the questions
does not matter, that does not try to do something big?” he asks. he is asking about belief in the future, new needs and the role of innova-
dean Kamen believes that there are ready solutions to many of the tors in society are still interesting – even philosophical. When are we are
world’s problems, and that the world, in other words, is not awaiting new ready, and who decides?
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9. what aRe the cOnSeQuenceS OF yOuR three Cradle-to-Cradle ProduCts the point of Considered is to recycle eco-
InnOvatIOn? II friendly materials, reduce waste, create sus-
Cradle to cradle # 1 thinK Chair tainable manufacturing processes and work
think is the name of the chair that is the first innovatively to protect the environment as much
“Why not challenge the belief that human indus- product to receive product certification accord- as possible. the goal is that all nike shoes will
try must damage the natural world? in fact, why ing to cradle-to-cradle principles. the chair is be Considered by 2011, with all that entails.
not take nature itself as our model for making made by steel Case, which makes office fur- nike has created specific guidelines to ensure
things?“ niture and has 13,000 employees around the established environmental requirements are met
these questions are posed by William world. the company has described the chair before a product may be called Considered. By
Mcdonough and Michael Braungart, authors life cycle and shows in precise figures every- 2020, all products – including sporting goods,
of the book Cradle to Cradle. the idea behind thing from how much the chair production and clothes and accessories – will be made accord-
the concept is to produce products that are transport affects global warming to how it can ing to the Considered criteria. nike helps even
recycled or degraded naturally, and which thus be reused. collect and recycle shoes. since 1990, it claims
go from cradle to cradle rather than from cradle to have reused more than 23 million pairs using
to grave. - up to 98% of the chair can be reused. the slogan “Turn your old shoes into places to
“a tree produces thousands of blossoms - dismantling for recycling takes five minutes play.”
to create another tree, yet we consider its abun- and requires only basic tools such as a
dance not wasteful, but safe, beautiful and high- screwdriver. # 3 sunChiPs
ly effective,” write the authors. they believe it is - the chair contains up to 37% recycled mate- What about a 100% biodegradable potato chip
not about individual innovations, but on a whole rial. bag? since april 2009, sunChips have had
new way of thinking. at a time when industrial outer packaging made from Pla, a plant-based,
waste has become an environmental problem, # 2 niKe trash talK compostable substance. From next year, the
a solution is offered in the motto “Waste equals under the label Nike Considered, which includes entire package can be composted in just 14
food – food for growth.” environmental and climate-friendly products, weeks if it is placed in warm compost. since
Mcdonough and Braungart have worked the clothing giant nike has made a shoe from several billion sunChips bags are produced each
with companies such as nike, Philips, and Ford, recycled materials. they call it the Nike Trash year, this represents a huge savings of waste
and they have been inspired to create such Talk after what is made of: trash and toxic materials in nature.
things as dishes and containers that can be sunChips are made by Frito-lay, part of
eaten, as well as biodegradable ice cream wrap- - the uppers are sewn-together leather resi- the PepsiCo group that also includes Pepsi,
pers containing seeds. But the concept is not dues and leather picked up from the factory tropicana and Quaker Foods. PepsiCo has more
just about individual products: whole towns can floor. than 185,000 employees worldwide and profits
get a new view of sustainability. Cradle to Cradle - the inner soles are made of excess foam of more than $39 billion. “Frito-Lay’s SunChips
has been mentioned as the production principle from factory production. Brand Changing the Future of Snack Food
of the future in which the consumer does not - the outer soles made of eco-friendly rub- Packaging” can be read on PepsiCo’s website.
work against nature but supports it. if it was ber which reduces toxic waste and contains and they are probably right, since they are put-
reality, we could consume in good conscience – residues from the production of other nike ting even greater pressure on the packaging
far more than we already do. shoes. industry, so they can find more eco-friendly solu-
- the shoe box is recycled cardboard. tions to reduce the trillions of tons of garbage
generated in the united states alone each year.
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10. hOw dO yOu deveLOP yOuR PROductS?
accidental innovation
the microwave oven, cornflakes, nylon, penicillin, post-it stickers, ice cream cones and
champagne are all very different things, but with one common trait: they are all accidental
inventions. in english, you use the word serendipity to describe the effect when someone
inadvertently invents something useful, and so it is with some of our most used products.
robert austin, associate professor at harvard Business school and visiting professor
at Copenhagen Business school (CBs), researches the innovations that occur by chance,
and the work that lies behind. he became interested in the topic when he interviewed
some artists about their creative processes and discovered that many of them used co-
incidences when they produced interesting and creative results.
“Working without a clear definition of your objective is considered wasteful, inefficient.
But if you are trying to get outside what you can anticipate and see in advance, if you are
going after the truly new and valuable, this way of thinking can be a problem. this is one
truth about innovation that artists seem to understand a lot better than managers,” says
austin.
at the same time, he is careful with the word “accidental.”
“actually, though, i would not really label this “accidental innovation.” the innovation
itself cannot really be said to be accidental, even though it involves accident. it takes a
considerable capability to see the value in an accident, and to build upon it to create even
more value,” says austin.
niels Krøjgaard, creativity expert, who holds the course Become the creative employee
of the future at CiFs believe it is important to allow a “mistake-culture” when you create
something.
“Many so-called random inventions build on physical or chemical reactions. in
other words, when an unexpected result appears when you accidentally mix two drugs
incorrectly. this kind of innovation is based on a “mistake culture,” and this mindset can
be used in many more areas than just random development of natural products,” says
Krøjgaard.
“Many people fear making mistakes. We want to be perfect, and we want to first
present the finished product to our surroundings only when it is absolutely perfect. it
would be a great idea for the creative process to ask ‘What if?’ and consciously did things
that are not logical. your logic is based on your knowledge and is backward-looking. use
your imagination, which is forward-looking. Break habits. visit subcultures of persons who
live in a completely different way. read books and watch movies whose contents are far
from your field of study. there is where you can find truly useful inspiration. But remember
– it doesn’t pay back right away. often it can take a long time before inspiration unfolds
into a creative process,” says Krøjgaard.
read the full article on robert austin: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5441.html
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