Lonely, I’m so lonely, I have nobody… The loneliness of Lead Users: manage and exploit their presence “inside the Company”

Lead users are part of a big community but, deeply lonely.

Recent studies, linked with sociology, media, marketing, are now focus to the role of lead users. Of course the roles of individuals within a community of consumers is quite varied and changes depending on the specific situation. We stumbled upon consumer groups where there are some very simple Lead Users that drive the thought of a homogeneous base of "followers" rather than complex systems, where the hierarchical levels are capillaries and the different users belong to each other. Why this dependency? It is because of the degree of influence within all the layers of the community.

The key word in their activity is strongly subjected to social recognition, their main personal and work need. The common factor within different situations is the existence and predominance of opinion leader and influencers recognized by others as the top of the hierarchy, of the pyramid.

Video: Lead Users Definition in a target market curve

What is changing in the eyes of companies is the attention to these individuals, the recognition of the role, the importance of the positive (or unluckily negative) shadow effect on customers. Due to these changes in fundamental characteristics of companies and the increasing in the attention for these individuals, new strategies for open innovation are starting to be developed and results are growing. Incentives and rewards for their added value need to be implemented (higher salaries or roles, also if they are part of a  “crowd” environment) in order, for the firm, to select best, or almost perfect ideas.

The average consumer, alone, without the lead guide, without this trend setting roles, in fact, rarely is able to be useful to the company and its improvements of innovation. Why? Even if he/she will know exactly what are your needs, the “common user” will hardly be able to communicate clearly to the departments of R & D, first for poor connections, then because of the difficult to put in practice, physically, prototypes, companies first will need some representative people.

Who are these opinion leaders? Opinion leaders are pioneering consumers of specific products and perceive before the consumption needs as well as having a greater technical knowledge than the average user. They incorporate the necessary skills and motivation on the purpose of a process of innovation, and they are alone, in the middle of the community, studying and scouting.

Video 2: Innovation, Ideas and Communication

It is interesting to understand the relationship with companies. Examples of innovation results, for them, bring to light the main purpose of 2.0 or community recognition, more than economic reward. They are always fighting against their “solitude” and find the leadership position in the community! For the lead users , in fact, is not so much the remuneration of its innovations, which are willing to share, but is definitely more the mechanisms related to personal reputation within the community. This will result in “more” social power, great feedback, new collaborations, and oppositely, as an inverse proportion to more social “solitude”

This superior knowledge and this anti-opportunistic behavior puts them at the top of the hierarchy of a hypothetical community. This position also is assigned by the community itself in a total recognized by all members. They can influence the behavior of the subjects in their entirety.

Understand these lonely lead user and their behavior is one of the best insight in a company. 

In the last 3 years MIT made some studies about how to understand lead users and exploit their knowledge to learn how to anticipate the “big” community.

We can summarize it in 5 Golden Rules:

i.                Understand that "lead users" ( main users ) are important ; seems obvious, but for some company all customers are jerks , without exception

ii.              Identify who these lonely "lead users" are

iii.             Don’t be to critic and attack lead users"; you are using them to receive insights and honest feedback. It could happen that they will use or analyze products in a different way from what the company designed; maybe they can suggest a way to open up new markets!

iv.             Use Lead User as a support and encourage them to communicate often

v.              These users are not virtual entity; it is fundamental to create interaction; let them talk to each other or different department (finally fight against their loneliness!)

And now....Music!