1. ABSORBING KNOWLEDGE
FROM CREATIVE YOUTH
Based on the following paper and other work in
progress.
Berthon, P.R., Pitt, L.F., McCarthy, I.P., and
Kates, S.M. 2007. When Customers Get Clever:
Managerial Approaches to Dealing with Creative
Consumers. Business Horizons, 50(1): 39-47.
(Download a PDF of the paper)

2. FEEL FREE TO CONTACT
AND FOLLOW ME
ian_mccarthy@sfu.ca
http://twitter.com/Toffeemen68#
http://itdepends4.blogspot.com

3. SOME ASSUMPTIONS
• Entrepreneurship: identifying high-potential opportunities (business, social,
etc.) and exploiting these opportunities.
• Innovation: processing of producing and exploiting new things
• Research: the transformation of resources (time & $$$) into knowledge.
• Commercialization: the transformation of knowledge into money/impacts
• User innovation: innovation that is undertaken by end users, both firms and
consumers who at the time were users of the product or service that they
innovated innovation.

4. GEORGE HOTZ (GEOHOT): THE JAIL BREAKER
• An alumnus of the
Johns Hopkins Center
for Talented Youth
program.
• At 19 yrs. old hacks
iPhones (Feb 2008)
• In Nov 2009 hacks
Playstation 3.
• Apple does nothing
• Sony launches law suit
• Facebook employs him

5. NEWMAN DARBY AND LARRY STANLEY: THE LEAD
USERS
• In 1948, Darby aged 20
develops the first windsurfing
board
• In the 1970s Stanley and his
teenage friends helped
develop many of the
innovations in high
performance windsurfing.
• Founded the firm Windsurfing
Hawaii.
• Windsurfing is now a
multibillion dollar industry

6. JOSE AVILA: THE USER DESIGNER

7. JOSE AVILA: THE USER DESIGNER

8. JOSE AVILA: THE USER DESIGNER
• He posted his furniture on a web site.
• FedEx promptly overnighted a cease and desist letter.
• Lawyers at the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and
Society represented him for free.
• consumer comments on weblogs persist:
– “This really brightened my day! The letters are classic lawyer
exchange. My husband and I laughed and laughed. Lawyers
jousting at windmills...”,
– “FedEx needs to lighten up. Jose is a bright and innovative
young man, and instead of making his life miserable, they
should give him a great job.

9. JEFF MOSS (THE DARK TANGENT): THE BLACK HAT
• At high school he was a
“phreaker”
• During the 1980s as a teenager
he ran an underground bulletin
board systems for hackers.
• In 1993 founded DEF CON, now
the oldest and largest hacker
conference in the world.
• In 2009 became a consultant for
the U.S. Homeland Security
Advisory Council
• In 2011 became chief security
officer of the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers (ICANN)

10. NICK HAYLEY: CONSUMER GENERATED ADS
• In 2007 the 18 yr. old U.K.
student created an ad for the
iTouch and posted it into on
YouTube.
• “We represent Apple and
we’ve seen what you have
produced and we’d like a
chat with you”
• Click on the picture to watch
his advert.

11. THESE ARE ALL EXAMPLES OF CREATIVE
CONSUMERS:
Creative consumers are any “individual or
group, who adapts, modifies or transforms a
proprietary product, service or idea”
(Berthon, Pitt, McCarthy & Kates, 2007, page 40)
Based on the following paper:
Berthon, P.R., Pitt, L.F., McCarthy, I.P., and Kates, S.M. 2007. When Customers Get
Clever: Managerial Approaches to Dealing with Creative Consumers. Business
Horizons, 50(1): 39-47.
(Download a PDF of the paper)

12. WHAT DO THESE STORIES TELL US?
• Motivations (intrinsic vs. extrinsic)
• Products and services, both low tech and high tech are being
innovated
• The faithfulness of the innovation varies
• There are varying levels of value in the innovations
• Individuals versus groups
• The reactions of firms, governments and societies can vary
significantly
• These factors impact how we view, treat and absorb
knowledge from creative consumers.

13. WHAT STANCE DO WE TAKE TOWARDS THESE
CONSUMERS?
RESIST ENABLE
Actively restrain Actively facilitate
Active the innovation the innovation
Firms action
to consumer
innovation DISCOURAGE ENCOURAGE
Defacto ignore or Happy to allow
tolerate the but don’t help the
Passive innovation innovation
-ve +ve
Firms attitude to
13
consumer innovation

14. THE “WHY” AND “WHAT” Berthon, P.R., Pitt, L.F., McCarthy, I.P., and Kates, S.M. 2007.
When Customers Get Clever: Managerial Approaches to Dealing
with Creative Consumers. Business Horizons, 50(1): 39-47
PATRIOTS MERCENARIES
Creative consumers Creative consumers
Faithful who are loyal to the who are initially
product’s original motivated by external
functionality and rewards to loyally
innovate for the enhance product
experience itself. offerings.
Appropriate
REBELS MAVERICKS
Creative consumer Creative consumers
who are disloyal to the who are initially
product’s original motivated by external
Unfaithful functionality and rewards to alter a
innovate for the product’s functionality.
experience itself.
Intrinsic Extrinsic
Consumer
14
Motivation

15. IMPLICATIONS FOR GOVERNMENTS, SCHOOLS
AND UNIVERSITIES
• How do we teach youth to jailbreak, hack, phreak, modify and
re-appropriate products?
• Could/should we apply/adapt the stances for schools and
universities?
• What are the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that drive “youth”
to innovate?
• What facilitating mechanisms should schools and universities
employ?
• What barriers that prevent youth from being creative
consumers

16. DRIVERS, FACILITATORS AND BARRIERS
Drivers Facilitators Barriers
Fun Tool kits Adults
Interest and curiosity Spaces and places Rules, laws and
Commercial Heroes, regulations
Problem solving Mentors, Confidence
Dissatisfaction Resources (time, $, Lack of resources
Self-expression knowledge)
Peer recognition Context
Boredom Protection
Revenge Channels

17. THANK YOU