Eric Arthur von Hippel

Eric Arthur von Hippel is the T Wilson (1953) Professor in Management and a Professor of Management of Innovation and Engineering Systems at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His research discovers and explores patterns in the sources of innovation and develops new processes to improve the 'fuzzy front end' of the innovation process—the end where ideas for breakthrough new products and services are developed. In his most recent book, Democratizing Innovation (MIT Press, April 2005), von Hippel shows how communities of users are becoming powerful innovation engines. This discovery has been used for a better understanding of the innovation process and for the development of new innovation processes for industry. He is currently leading a major research project to discover how these user innovation communities work and how the same principles might extend to many areas of product and service development.

Eric von Hippel is a Professor of Technological Innovation at MIT, known for his research on innovation, particularly focusing on user innovation and the role of users in the innovation process. His work explores how users contribute to technological advancement through informal knowledge sharing, open-source collaboration, and lead-user activities. He has examined the dynamics of innovation networks, emphasizing the shift from producer-driven to user and open collaborative models. His research highlights the importance of 'sticky information' and how it influences problem-solving and innovation. Von Hippel's studies also address the economic and strategic implications of user innovation, including the benefits of voluntary information spillovers and the development of toolkits for user-driven innovation.