Co-Creation with Amateur Designers via Open Innovation

Abstract

This research presents a literature review and a series of short cases on amateurs’ participation in collaborative innovation process. Amateurs are generally considered as non-professionals to a particular pursuit, study, or science. In new product/service development, amateurs are the ones that do not have the occupation as professional designers, but still have the ability or willingness to participate in the innovation process. The concept of “amateur” discussed here is different from “user”. The results of the literature analysis and case studies proved that amateurs’ participation already contributed to companies’ idea generation, and even had commercial success in some industries. Some suggestions are given for assisting amateurs and designers to adapt to the new design process changes, and rules are offered for the companies to localize their collaboration mode with a long-term strategy.