The Benefits and Challenges of Collaborating with User Communities

OVERVIEW:User communities are potentially rich sources of new product ideas and innovations. However, accessing these communities brings significant challenges, including how to identify users, how to engage with them, how to integrate user innovations into corporate process, and how to manage intellectual property and other aspects of the relationship. The LEGO Group's experience engaging with user innovators, explored in a longitudinal study of the firm's interactions with independent and corporate-sponsored user communities, illustrates both the challenges and the rewards of collaborating with user communities.KEYWORDS:: User innovationUser communityNew product development