Episodes Archives - The Innovation Show

Eric von Hippel on Systems of Use and Why Users Out-Innovate Firms

A surgeon changes her technique halfway through an operation. A mountain biker rebuilds a part in his garage. Both innovated, and the companies that made their equipment probably never knew.

MIT Sloan’s Eric von Hippel coined the term lead users in 1986 and has spent 50 years showing where new ideas really come from. His books, from The Sources of Innovation to Free Innovation, changed how researchers and companies think about innovation. He returns to The Innovation Show with a new lens called systems of use. Look at everything a person combines to get a job done, their own behaviour included, and users hold advantages that manufacturers struggle to match.

What you will learn
• Why a UK survey found 100 consumers innovating for themselves for every person a company hired to develop consumer products
• How a food company killed a promising athletic gel by surveying the wrong people
• What mountain bike klunkers and an orthopaedic surgeon’s back taught the bike industry about suspension
• Why John Heysham Gibbon had to build the heart-lung machine, the operations and the valve supply himself
• The four advantages users hold over producers inside a system of use
• Why a tennis racket maker can sell you a bigger head and can never change your serve
• How frosting on the kitchen floor reveals the value of temporary innovation
• What AI-assisted user innovation means for manufacturers

Chapters
00:00 Cold open, the athletic gel “flop”
00:48 Kyndryl and introduction
01:10 The mountain biker and the surgeon
03:10 Welcome back Eric von Hippel
03:35 User innovators and producer innovators
06:20 The hidden 100 to 1 ratio
07:40 Why companies still ignore users
08:30 Spotting user innovations online
09:20 The athletic gel “flop”
10:15 Systems of use, life buoys and Russian dolls
12:00 Mountain bike klunkers and the first suspension
15:50 John Heysham Gibbon and the heart-lung machine
17:50 A listener’s pillow and the system of sleep
19:50 Frosting on the floor and temporary innovation
22:00 Behaviours manufacturers cannot sell
23:15 The MacGyver principle
24:30 Producer innovation is the special case
25:00 Advantage one, a market of one
28:20 Advantage two, sticky need information
30:10 Advantage three, design freedom and the tennis racket
33:55 Advantage four, speed and cost
36:00 AI-assisted user innovation
36:50 Bricolage and the pooper scooper
37:50 Wrap-up

Eric von Hippel
Books and papers, free under Creative Commons: https://evhippel.mit.edu
MIT Sloan: https://mitsloan.mit.edu/faculty/directory/eric-arthur-von-hippel
Systems of use paper, Research Policy (2026): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2026.105534

Previous conversations with Eric von Hippel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URSWL7vCaME
https://youtu.be/VWOeX6FS-zo
https://youtu.be/s2EeXDp9rk4

About the Host
Aidan McCullen is the 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker on AI, disruption, innovation and change, host of The Innovation Show, and author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention (Wiley). https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen

About The Innovation Show
The Thinkers50 award-winning podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes.

This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world’s leading businesses. Discover the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com/institute

Website: https://theinnovationshow.io
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Linda Hill discusses Genius at Scale and the architects, bridgers and catalysts of innovation on The Innovation Show

EP 673 Genius at Scale: Linda Hill on Architects, Bridgers and Catalysts of Innovation

Posted 4 days ago Tagged Ajay Banga architects bridgers catalysts bridgers Catalysts Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi Collective Genius Genius at Scale Harvard Business School Innovation Culture Kyndryl Institute Leadership leading innovation Linda Hill Mastercard Labs Pixar scaling innovation wayfinding

Most organisations can generate ideas. Few can scale them. Harvard’s Linda Hill explains Genius at Scale and its ABC framework of Architects, Bridgers and Catalysts, with stories from MasterCard, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, Microsoft and Renault, plus why bridgers so rarely get the credit.

Henry Mintzberg busts management myths on The Innovation Show with Aidan McCullen

Henry Mintzberg: Who Ever Measured Management? | Bust Those Management Myths

Posted 2 weeks ago Tagged Bust Those Management Myths communityship emergent strategy Henry Mintzberg management myths Managers Not MBAs McGill University measurement Michael Porter organisational structure Peter Drucker Strategic Planning Strategy

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Henry Mintzberg calls that a ridiculous comment. The McGill professor discusses his new book, Bust Those Management Myths, from the flat earth theory to bees and flies in a bottle, and explains why strategies are learned and why top management is a dangerous metaphor.

David Rogers explains the AI value gap on The Innovation Show with Aidan McCullen

AI Value Gap | Why AI Investments Fail to Pay Off | David Rogers

Posted 3 weeks ago Tagged AI ROI AI strategy AI value equation AI value gap David Rogers Digital Transformation enterprise AI harvard business review keynote speaker Ireland Krishnan Sankaranarayanan strategic alignment The Digital Transformation Playbook The Digital Transformation Roadmap value drivers

Companies are pouring money into AI and the CFO still cannot see the return. David Rogers explains why the AI value gap is a strategy problem, shares the AI value equation and walks through four steps that tie AI to the income statement.

Alexander Osterwalder explains six patterns of value creation and the Value Stack on The Innovation Show with Aidan McCullen

EP 670 Alexander Osterwalder on the Value Stack: 6 Patterns of Value Creation

Posted 4 weeks ago Tagged Alexander Osterwalder business model canvas Business Model Innovation Innovation keynote speaker Ireland patterns of value creation Strategy Strategyzer The Invincible Company Value Proposition value proposition design value stack

Alexander Osterwalder shares six patterns of value creation and the Value Stack, a new Strategyzer tool for sharpening your value proposition. Nintendo won with an inferior console. Ford made cars for his factory workers. Diners Club invented the credit card. Hear how each pattern works and how to apply it.

Alex Osterwalder explains AI value proposition design on The Innovation Show with Aidan McCullen

EP 669 Alex Osterwalder: How to Use AI to Augment Value Proposition Design (Without Creating AI Slop)

Posted 1 month ago Tagged AI agents AI slop AI value proposition design Alexander Osterwalder buying decision map human in the loop Innovation Marketing Product Management Strategyzer value proposition design value scenes value stack

AI writes brilliant sales decks once you feed it the right ingredients. Alex Osterwalder explains the four artifacts teams must build first, how the new Value Stack ranks benefits using Gmail as the example, and why marketers are becoming overseers of AI agents.

Robert Burgelman explains autonomous strategic behaviour at Intel on The Innovation Show with Aidan McCullen

How to Get Leadership to Back Your Idea Robert Burgelman on Intel

Posted 1 month ago Tagged Andy Grove autonomous strategic behavior autonomous strategic behaviour Corporate Innovation exploration and exploitation Inside Corporate Innovation Intel internal venturing James March Robert Burgelman Stanford GSB Strategic Inflection Point Strategy Is Destiny

Intel’s microprocessor began as a side project nobody at the top asked for. A later RISC chip was shut down. Stanford’s Robert Burgelman explains autonomous strategic behaviour, why leaders back projects that teach the company something new, and how internal entrepreneurs can carry the burden of proof.

David Bland, author of Testing Business Ideas, on assumptions mapping and the DuPont case study, The Innovation Show episode 667

EP 667: David Bland on DuPont, Qnity and the Power of Assumptions Mapping

Posted 2 months ago Tagged Aidan McCullen Alex Osterwalder assumptions mapping Corporate Innovation David Bland Dead Projects Day DuPont evidence-based innovation experimentation Innovation Culture Precoil Qnity Strategyzer testing business ideas The Invincible Company

David Bland, lead author of Testing Business Ideas, shares how assumptions mapping helped DuPont and Qnity build an award-winning experimentation culture. Across 35 real opportunities, DuPont saved over $12M by stopping weak projects early and earned about $24M from the ideas that passed.

$Shuo Chen explains fractional founders and how great startups begin on The Innovation Show with Aidan McCullen$

Ep 666: Shuo Chen — Fractional Founders, Frontier Firms and Why Enterprise Data Is AI's Gold

Posted 2 months ago Tagged AI agents fractional founders frontier firms Intrapreneurship IOVC proprietary data revenue per employee Shuo Chen side projects Spirit Airlines Stanford Startups venture capital Woolf

Eight of the ten American trillion-dollar companies started as side projects, according to Shuo Chen’s research. The IOVC general partner and Stanford and Berkeley lecturer explains fractional founders, why the organism rejects the organ, how frontier firms use AI, and why Google bid for Spirit Airlines’ data.

Paul Nunes discussing combinatorial innovation and Motorola's comeback on The Innovation Show with Aidan McCullen

Paul Nunes — Motorola, Combinatorial Innovation and the Treasure in the Trash

Posted 2 months ago Tagged Aidan McCullen Big Bang Disruption business podcast Change Management combinatorial innovation corporate reinvention Disruption innovation podcast jumping the S-curve Lazarus companies leadership podcast Modularity Motorola comeback non-consumers Paul Nunes Paul Nunes combinatorial innovation price deflation strategy supplier innovation The Innovation Show

Combinatorial innovation means most new products are recombinations of parts that already exist. Paul Nunes, co-author of Jumping the S-Curve, explains how that logic explains Motorola’s collapse and comeback, why suppliers matter more than your R&D department, and why price deflation may be the hardest strategy problem of the next decade.

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