The most discerning people will have followed with interest, as I did, Beiersdorf's announcement of the development of a new deodorant class with novel properties. We have not yet seen the product, let alone what it does and how it is made. But what we do know is that according to this manufacturer, its development has followed an unusual path, that of crowd-innovation, a bit like the design of Boeing's latest aircraft, the Dreamliner.
The Dreamliner was conceived in 2000 with the beginning of the development of a conceptual aircraft called the"Sonic Cruiser". The idea was to develop a new ultra-fast plane, able to travel almost at the speed of sound (about Mach 0.95, or 1158 km/h). Boeing noted that"scheduled passengers prefer some aircraft to others for a number of reasons: comfort, on-board technology and safety perception". The objective for Boeing was to imagine an aircraft that would incorporate the characteristics travellers wanted, and
to do so, the company relied on consumer groups to define certain conditions, in particular interior design.
At Boeing, we explain:"The irony is that when we set up passenger panels, we discovered that most people weren't interested in flying: how can you imagine designing a product that your customers don't like to use?
A little slap to the engineers who have always imposed their vision on us! These groups therefore made it possible to revisit some of these notions. From these discussion groups, and information gathered by psychologists and anthropologists, Boeing discovered many interesting things. Solutions were sought, proposed and improved with user groups. Thus the width of the seats has been modified, the colour of the …
