The paper refers to the challenges in innovation management resulting from the growing importance of network and virtual communities, where the consumer is perceived as a value co-creator and innovation source. The wisdom of crowd ideas and the corresponding paradigm of value co-creation are discussed in the context of crowdsourcing as a source of innovation. Special attention has been paid to prosumption on the virtual market. Toffler’s prosument idea and corresponding paradigm of value co-creation with consumers are discussed in order to identify different types of value co-creation interactions. Consumers become increasingly involved in the process of creating products and services, which to a certain point was the domain of companies and professionals. Enterprises are increasingly using the potential of online communities to build competitive advantages. Cheap and fast access to information, tools of production, distribution and communication channels contributed to the development of this form of cooperation with customers. The virtual communities of practitioners using state of art communication and information technologies develop specialist knowledge in many fields. As far as computer software is concerned, we shall pay attention to a virtual user group of the operating system called Linux. The group evolved out of the small network academic community. This community, thanks to specific work forms and tools, created a modern multi-task operating system used by over ten million people.

The paper refers to the challenges in innovation management resulting from the growing importance of network and virtual communities, where the consumer is perceived as a value co-creator and innovation source. The wisdom of crowd ideas and the corresponding paradigm of value co-creation are discussed in the context of crowdsourcing as a source of innovation. Special attention has been paid to prosumption on the virtual market. Toffler’s prosument idea and corresponding paradigm of value co-creation with consumers are discussed in order to identify different types of value co-creation interactions. Consumers become increasingly involved in the process of creating products and services, which to a certain point was the domain of companies and professionals. Enterprises are increasingly using the potential of online communities to build competitive advantages. Cheap and fast access to information, tools of production, distribution and communication channels contributed to the development of this form of cooperation with customers. The virtual communities of practitioners using state of art communication and information technologies develop specialist knowledge in many fields. As far as computer software is concerned, we shall pay attention to a virtual user group of the operating system called Linux. The group evolved out of the small network academic community. This community, thanks to specific work forms and tools, created a modern multi-task operating system used by over ten million people.