Nominate the mass customization speaker you always wanted to hear !

We are planning with the MIT Smart Customization Group a focused business confernece on Mass Customization at MIT on Nov. 10 and 11, 2008 (the Annual MIT Smart Customization Group Seminar 2008), and I thought it is a good idea to practice what I preach in my lectures and ask YOU about nominations for business speakers and MC companies we should invite to present.

This should help me to overcome the "local search bias" -- just thinking on old friends and companies known to me. But with the field of MC developing so fast, I cannot follow track -- so if you have a good idea, let me know!

Whom would you love to hear?

We are seeking managers from large companies and start-ups DOING mass customization in a larger scale. I know there are the usual suspects like Michael Dell, but any NEW or not so known person you would love to hear on such an event?

Post nominations in the comments or send me an e-mail to piller@iimcp.org ! Thanks a lot!

PS: More information about the event will be posted soon. This is a focused business seminar targeting managers from companies doing mass customization. The next general MCPC conference for a wide audience will take in October 2009 in Helsinki, Finland.

Comments

[Monika Desai]

Greetings Frank!

I'm looking forward to speaking at the conference!

Have you thought about having a venture capitalist who has funded a Mass Customization company to come in and talk about their rational for investing in this space? Why do they see the MC market as an investment opportunity? Do they see funding for that space growing or shrinking in the next 3 to 5 years? What do they think the hot customization spaces are? I think this would be really interesting. I know it's a little self-serving on my part as an entrepreneur for mass customized shoes, but I think other industry leaders would be interested too.

Highland Capital may be a good candidate as they are the ones that recently funded Paragon Lake and they are based here in Boston. Another candidate would be Lightspeed Gemini Internet Lab who funded Styleshake.com.

Monika Desai
Founder, CEO
Sole Envie
www.soleenvie.com