Mass Customization & Open Innovation News

Guest Article: Mass customization of musical instruments (in German language)

It has been a long time that I posted to this blog more than an event announcement – life as a German university professor keeps you really busy during the semester. But to keep up postings running, I got help from some members of our mass customization community.

In a first guest article, Jan Palkoska comments on a field not covered n the previous discussion of mass customization: the customization of musical instruments. Jan wrote his master's thesis on this topic, focusing on the customization process of drums. As he finds, customization is the predominant pattern in this industry, but the execution of mass customization principles is often just at the beginning. Often, craft customization dominates. Reading his thesis, I was reminded at the bicycle industry, where also many mid- and high-end bikes are being customized in form of craft customization in retail.

His article is in German language, but you may let Google translate the text, or just jump to the end of the text where you will find a number of examples for offerings of custom drums in English.

For more information, contact Jan Palkoska at janpalkoska@gmx.de

Vermarktung individualisierter Musikinstrumente – Ein Vergleich verschiedener Angebote in der Schlagzeugindustrie. Von Jan Palkoska.

Musikinstrumente erscheinen auf den ersten Blick relativ ungeeignet für Individualisierungsbemühungen: So kommen Umsetzungen individueller Vorstellungen bei Instrumenten einer klassischen Orchesterbesetzung schon von daher kaum vor, da sich in den meisten Fällen – etwa Streich- oder Blasinstrumenten – eine traditionelle Bauform zugunsten eines optimalen Klangerlebnisses bewährt und allgemein durchgesetzt hat. Durchaus denkbar sind persönliche Anpassungen oder Einstellungen in Einzelfällen; diese betreffen aber nicht die grundsätzliche Konstruktion, und auch ästhetische Veränderungen, obwohl dies durchaus denkbar wäre, sind insgesamt unüblich – abgesehen von wirtschaftlich nicht nennenswerten Zuwendungen, die dem Einzelkünstler den Acrylglasflügel nicht entbehren lassen.

Außerhalb des klassischen Bereichs hält die instrumentelle Welt aber durchaus zahlreiche Vertreter vor, welche zur Umsetzung persönlicher Wünsche geradezu einladen, vor allem nämlich diejenigen, welche der Konfiguration bedürfen und je nach Bauweise einen höchst individuellen Klang und extravagante Erscheinungsbilder zu lassen: zum Beispiel Schlagzeuge.

Drummers of today are spoiled by the plethora of custom made drums (nearly equaling the number of production drums).

Wie dieses Zitat von Falzerano (1994) aus dem Jahre 1994 zeigt, haben die Hersteller von Schlagzeugen recht früh die Vorteile kundenindividueller Produkte erkannt und sie entsprechend vermarktet.

Auf der NAMM Show 2008, der Messe für Musikinstrumente in den USA, waren von einundvierzig Schlagzeug-Ausstellern lediglich siebzehn als reine Serienfertiger zu bewerten; während die Präsenz existierender Serienhersteller auf der Messe nahezu komplett war, ist davon auszugehen, dass die vertretenen Customizer im Vergleich zu weiteren Customizern die deutlich kleinere Gruppe war: bereits im Internet sind weitere achtzig bis neunzig Unternehmen vertreten.

Zwar sind die meisten dieser Firmen kleine Handwerksbetriebe, doch auch sie vermarkten ihre Produkte global und genießen unter Musikern ein hohes Ansehen. Trotz kleinerer Firmenstrukturen bedienen sich diese Hersteller zunehmend typischer Mass Customization Tools, allen voran Konfiguratoren. Dadurch wird auch die Einteilung in kleine Handwerksbetriebe oder größere Mass Customizer mehr und mehr obsolet, wobei selbst die Mitarbeiterzahl und die Ausbringungsmenge nicht unbedingt aussagekräftig sind.

Tatsache ist, dass Customizing in der Schlagzeugindustrie zum Schlüsselbegriff geworden ist. Der von vielen Firmen erhoffte Differenzierungsvorteil durch kundenindividuelle Produkte ist dementsprechend vor allem hinsichtlich der Vermarktung fraglich, da die große Mehrheit aller Anbieter kundenindividuelle Produkte im Leistungsprogramm führt, ständig neue, wenn auch kleine, Customizing-Betriebe entstehen und nicht zuletzt auch der Begriff Customizing inflationär und nicht immer im zutreffenden Sinne zu Vermarktungszwecken verwendet wird.

Eine Marke soll mit den sich verändernden Ansprüchen des Nutzers wachsen können, weshalb eine Anpassungsmöglichkeit des Instruments unbedingt erfordert. Um, trotz der weiten Verbreitung dieser Mechanismen, durch Customizing dennoch ihre Marken abgrenzen zu können und nicht gerade durch vermeintliche Individualität zum gesichtslosen Produkt zu werden, platzieren sich Firmen in der Schlagzeugbranche heute durch den Grad der Individualisierung. Dieser ergibt sich aus den jeweiligen Kompetenzen und Möglichkeiten, so dass die Konstituierung einer Markenidentität zunehmend durch die Vermarktung intangibler Leistungshorizonte angestrebt wird.

Während also beispielsweise das kalifornische Unternehmen Orange County Drum & Percussion die außergewöhnlichsten Designwünsche der Kunden zu ermöglichen versucht, bietet der japanische Hersteller Pearl die Umsetzung kundenindividueller Klangcharakteristika durch unterschiedliche Trommelkesselkompositionen an. Andere Firmen wiederum spezialisieren sich durch die Verwendung unkonventioneller Grundmaterialien  – wie es bei RCI Starlite der Fall ist (Acryl), nach stilistischen Orientierungen – etwa bei San Francisco Drum Co. (Vintage Fokus), oder gar durch „special effects“ – von tmd customs (illuminierte Instrumente).

Auch die Art des Kundenservices unterscheidet sich teilweise massiv. Während bei einigen Herstellern Produktkonfiguratoren Verwendung finden, ermöglicht Phattie Drums dem Kunden den persönlichen Kontakt zu den einzelnen Handwerken. So können sogar hochspezielle, oft nur schwer verbalisierbare Wünsche gemeinsam umgesetzt werden. Entsprechend siedeln sich solche Produkte preislich im High End Bereich an und stellen somit eigentlich keine realistische Konkurrenz zu Herstellern von Serienprodukten dar.

Eine innovative Option bietet das traditionsreiche deutsche Unternehmen Sonor, welches ein Mass Customization Konzept geschaffen hat, bei dem der Kunde sowohl die Vorteile der Serienproduktion, als auch gleichzeitig Optionen des Customizings nutzen kann. Vorkonfigurierten Serienprodukte können durch Möglichkeiten des Customizing Konzepts SQ² individuell ergänzt werden und tragen so dem „share of wallet“-Gedanken Rechnung. Dabei sind auch vollständig individuell zusammengestellte Drum-kits innerhalb gegebener Möglichkeiten denkbar, wobei ein positiver Kosteneffekt vor allem durch die Synergie von Serien- und individuellen Produkten entsteht.

A selection of mass customization offerings in the drum industry

dw drums (www.dwdrums.com):  At DW, we're famous for building custom kits. Exotic woods from around the globe, sonically diverse shell configurations, hot-rodded Graphics lacquer finishes, four distinct drum hardware color choices and so much more. It's all about expressing your own personal style behind the kit and on it. (Customizing since 1990)

Orange County Drum & Percussion (www.ocdrum.com):  One of the things that makes OCDP different from other companies is the options and the finishes. […]This does nothing for the sound of the drum, but it gives the drum a more custom look which some people prefer. (1991)

Pearl (www.pearldrums.com): Masterworks is about choices for the discriminating drummer. Choices like North American Maple, Scandinavian Birch and African Mahogany. Three highly prized woods for shell composition, not just the same shell everyone else custom paints. […] With Masterworks, your kit sounds like your kit. (2003).

Phattie Drums (www.phattiedrums.com): Beyond Custom [...] Now you can work with a member of our staff to design your own Sounds Like Art snare. Our wood experts will help pick a wood that meets your sonic requirements while our artists turn your ideas into 3D designs carved into the shell. You also have the option of custom hardware, working with our artists to create a lug that compliments your shell design while maintaining functionality. (2001).

Pork Pie Drums www.porkpiedrums.com: Whether recorded or live, the difference in your sound will be a custom Pork Pie™ Snare. Hearing is believing! Our Snare Drums are available in an almost limitless choice of Custom Lacquers, Stains and Wraps. (1987)

RCI Starlite www.rcidrums.com: All of our RCI acrylic shells are made from a specialty formulated hardened performance polymer made in the USA exclusively for RCI. These are true All American manufactured products made in America by Americans. [...] It’s impossible to list all the infinite patterns and color combinations that we create due to the fact we are a total custom shop. Whether you are a top manufacturer in the industry, a boutique drum manufacturer or an individual looking to create your dream set RCI deals directly with a personalized service.

San Francisco Drum Co. www.sfdrumco.com: At San Francisco Drum Co, we believe in combining the classic design approach from yesteryear with today's modern materials, construction methods, and components. (2004)

SHINE Custom Drums & Percussion www.shinedrums.com: What makes a custom drum company successful in the very crowded "custom drums business" these days? We believe the answer to this question is quite simple...offer a product that is reliable, better built than your competitors and give artists and customers the kind of treatment you would give to your family or close friends. It seems like a simple concept yet it is why Shine Drums is the fastest growing and most sought after custom drum manufacturer in the world today. (2004)

SJC custom drums www.sjcdrums.com: Design your dream. (2000)

SONOR (www.sonor.com): SQ2 is more than a new drum series. It is an entirely new concept both of making drums and selecting drums. With an almost unlimited variety of shell - size - finish combinations SQ2 is the most individual drum we have ever made and the most unique one you have ever dreamed of playing. It will let you speak with your personal musical voice. It is your signature in sound. (1993)

tmdcustoms www.tmdcustomdrums.com: Ceelite is a new technology that allows flat, flexible light to be formed around the shell of any drum and is available through TMD Customs. This will bring a new dimension to what was thought to be a stale market. With every company offering custom designs, TMD Customs brings you the new wave in drum finishing that you will not be able to find anywhere else. Ceelite allows you to illuminate your entire drumkit with the touch of a button or by simply hitting the drum by using the optional trigger mount creating the first ever lit drum show. (2005)

Conference invitation: 3rd International Conference on Rapid Manufacturing (RM) to be held at Loughborough University on July 9 and 10

Rapid Manufacturing, also know as direct, digital, generative manufacture or additive fabrication, is one of the most exciting emergent technologies available to mass customize today. RM uses 3D Computer Aided Design (CAD) data to directly 'print' or 'grow' parts in a variety of polymeric, metallic, ceramic and organic materials. When fully implemented, it allows almost unlimited variety at no extra variable cost. Old paradigms of optimizing between switching and inventory cost will go away. While the potential of these technologies have been discussed since years, only very recently a larger scale of commercial application has begun.

The most exciting application of rapid manufacturing, in my perspective, is its enabling role for user manufacturing (previous postings on the topic). A new generation of rather cheap machines is coming to the market now promise to replicate the development we had in the printing industry: Form large printing presses to large laser printing systems to the desktop printer. The same may happen to manufacturing. From large centralized factories to decentralized plants to a factory on your desk.

The International Conference on Rapid Manufacturing (RM) is the world's only conferences focused on this trend. Organized by some core members of our mass customization community, the Rapid Manufacturing Group at Loughborough University in the UK, the conference focuses solely on the application of 'end use parts', made using additive layer manufacturing technologies.

The past events have been attended by over 150 delegates and speakers from around the world. The event provides a two day showcase of invited speakers, including the very best in both academic RM research activity and commercial RM applications. The event also plays host to a parallel technology and materials exhibition supported by leading RM systems vendors exclusively for conference delegates.

The program is divided in an academic and a business stream. Topics presented in the business track include:

- Developing a business case for customized RM
- RM for the home based market
- Ultrasonic Consolidation
- Developing intellectual property in RM product
- Pushing the boundaries of RM consumer products
- The socio-economic benefits of RM
- DMLS for high performance RM applications
- Quality management in RM using non destructive testing

The conference further will cover process and materials issues, design opportunities, management and organizational issues and industrial applications, making the conference of relevance to engineers, designers and business managers, as well as academics and researchers and RM materials and system developers.

For more information, registration, and the full program, please go to http://www.rm-conference.com/index.htm

Ultimate Customization: Design and Deliver - a new project that examines the next era of mass customization

A guest article by Daniel Eyers from the Cardiff University Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre (CUIMRC). CUIMRC is a new center at Cardiff University in the UK. In this post, Daniel describes about the mission and research at this center.

Imagine the opportunities that exist when the freedom of design opportunities afforded by Mass Customisation can be realised using innovative Rapid Manufacturing technologies, where one-off custom manufacturing is the norm, not the exception. As these technologies mature and become increasingly accessible to end-users, will this enablement of Mass Customisation be achievable? If so, what will be the effects of customised demand for business when compared to traditional Mass Production?

Cardiff University Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre (CUIMRC), funded by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council, is the UK’s leading research centre in the field of sustainable manufacturing R&D. Ultimate Customisation: Design & Deliver is a new project that examines the concept of Ultimate Customisation, the next era of Mass Customisation. Ultimate Customisation will involve much greater personalisation, where customers actively take part as co-designers and thus contribute to the value creation. The project aims to understand the viability of Ultimate Customisation using advanced manufacturing technologies such as those associated with Rapid Manufacturing. In this project we explore the possible implications of Rapid Manufacturing within a consumer facing environment, challenging traditional mass customisation production economics and disrupting existing commercial logistics, distribution and marketing paradigms.

Our previous consideration for Mass Customisation of logistics (through the McCLOSM study) demonstrated the implications for businesses in customising both logistics and manufacturing, and now that this project approaches its conclusion, the Ultimate Customisation: Design & Deliver project will continue to examine the implications of Rapid Manufacturing technology.

Considering the current status of knowledge, we have found that extensive literature exists for Mass Customisation, and separately, Rapid Manufacturing. However, as a result of rising individualism of consumer demand together with the technological improvement of Rapid Manufacturing, we believe these concepts will increasingly be implemented together in the short term. Despite numerous companies actively engaged in this field, as yet the body of knowledge analysing the overall topic has as yet received little research attention.

As a research centre, CUIMRC aims to help industry through creating greater understanding of the complex interrelationship between economics and environmental and social factors in developing a truly sustainable business. Our approach to research is to actively engage closely with our research partners and their associated supply chains in order to get an impartial, first hand viewpoint of their particular situation, while also allowing us to maximise the relevance and usefulness of our research outputs. Industrial secondments in which our researchers spend time embedded within host organisations have proven an extremely useful mechanism in this respect. We engage with stakeholders on several other levels, ranging from their participation in surveys and focus groups through to collaborative partnerships on individual projects and strategic input to the consortium through representation on our Steering Group.

The Ultimate Customisation project involves a number of collaborative industrial partners embarking on Rapid Manufacturing-Enabled Mass Customised production and through case studies and modelling approaches, we are exploring both demand and supply management implications arising from Mass Customisation. For the organisations involved in the project, our research aims to provide a clear understanding of both their present and prospective supply chains through ‘what-if’ simulations of futuristic business models for Ultimate Customisation. Additionally, from these assessments we can also assist in the optimisation of processes to directly benefit their business. The collaborative partners represent a cross section of industry, including highly experienced designers and manufacturers with capabilities both for rapid manufacture of customised products and traditional mass production.

During our research we anticipate making a number of Ultimate Customisation publications based on our research findings, many of which will be linked to our industrial collaboration. A warm invitation is extended to any individuals or organisations wishing to become involved with the research or receive project updates/dissemination information to register their interest with us.

Contact for more information Daniel Eyers (eyersDR@cf.ac.uk) or Hartanto Wong (wongH@cf.ac.uk).

Un-Readymades: From Object to Experience. A study of mass customization from the perspective of industrial design

Interview with Martin Konrad Gloeckle, NYC, on consumer co-design and his series of "un-readymade" designs, a great interpretation of the customization trend

When I saw these pictures, I was fascinated immediately ... Martin Konrad Gloeckle, an Industrial Designer currently based in New York City, created some wonderful designs that are one of the best interpretations of the customization trend I ever saw. His designs are part of a study where he discusses the customization trend from the perspective of industrial design.

Born and raised in Germany, Martin relocated to the US in 1996, and recently finished his Master’s Degree in Industrial Design at the Pratt Institute in New York. Martin has additional degrees in Computer Science and Business Administration, and before returning to school had a successful career working for leading web and interactive advertising agencies both in Germany and the US. Martin’s design work has been featured in exhibitions, design blogs and magazines including New York Magazine, his award-winning Bendino lamp is currently produced and distributed in Europe.

Martin is the author of "Un-Readymades: From object to experience" – a study of mass customization from the perspective of industrial design. In this work, Martin has analyzed how consumers are moving away from being passive consumers to actively influencing and shaping their world. Parallel to this, consumers are increasingly looking for improved experiences, involvement, and personal expression. In return, user-generated content or the Do-It-Yourself movement are booming.

But how should product design react on this? Martin finds that up to today, most designers have not reacted on this trend and still are just focusing on providing ready-made, fixed and stable products. He also finds that conventional mass customization systems still do not provide a full user experience or often require advanced knowledge or tools.

In his study, he explores the next levels in this field. Based on research and design explorations, it proposes a framework for product design that engages the user and allows for deeper experience and involvement. It provokes a rethinking of the products we use and interact with on a daily basis, and presents several designs based on this.

In a recent interview, we spoke about his work and how he developed his design.

Martin, what is the key element of the design framework you propose to engage consumers deeper into experiences?

Well, the proposed framework actually has six major principles. However, these are based on two key points: A) Create design opportunities for the user, and B) Use a low-tech approach.

Let me start with the first point: What we can observe today in the online or two-dimensional world are increasingly active, involved, and creative consumers. This includes things like the so-called ‘user generated content’ of blogs, YouTube, Wikipedia and so on, as well as the whole field of desktop publishing, desktop video, desktop music etc. However, when it comes to the world of three-dimensional products, there is very little happening at this point. There are simply very limited opportunities available to the consumer.
The series of products I created tries to address this. Called ‘Un-readymades’ to express the involvement of the end-users, they provide consumers with opportunities to design, create, and express themselves.

Of course, there are other developments related to this trend. Things like the many online customization tools, the fabber and prototyping tools, and the increasingly available D.I.Y. services like Ponoko or Buglags to name a few. These however generally are very technology driven. And this is where the second point comes in. Technology has opened many areas to the average consumer. But at the same time there still often is the need for certain knowledge and tools, be it of hard- or software. Therefore, this is not accessible to everyone. In addition, the user is physically removed from these products during the design process. Rarely is there any direct interaction between the product and consumer. By using a rather low-tech approach, I am trying to address some of these issues.

Browsing over your web site, I was fascinated by the originality of your designs that incorporate your ideas. Can you illustrate your framework with one of your own designs?

One of my goals was to create a multitude of designs, to explore different areas and address different users as well as to show the flexibility of the framework. To pick one piece out, the ‘drawn’ vase is probably a good example. It is essentially a combination of a dry-erase board with an opening for a flower and a water container mounted behind it. You can use it on the wall or on the table. What the dry-erase board does is to allow the user to redesign its surface and thereby the vase.

So lets go through the six framework principles:

Enable user involvement: The vase is somewhere between an off-the-shelf product and a D.I.Y. project. While it provides the users with a starting point in form of the vase functionality, it allows them add to this.

Make it interactive: By drawing on the dry-erase board, the user directly and physically interacts with the vase, and thereby develops a closer relationship with it.

Provide room for play: While the vase offers a starting point in terms of functionaly, it otherwise literally provides an empty canvas. Not everything is predetermined, but is left open for playful exploration. Watching people creating all different kinds of designs with this was definitely one of the highlights of this project for me.

Keep it simple: I wanted these pieces to be approachable for everyone, meaning not requiring any extensive tools or knowledge. Everyone knows how to hold a pencil, so everyone can use this product. Of course, people‘s drawing skills differ, but that is were the erasable and forgiving nature of the dry-erase board comes in.

Make it personal: As the vase provides for more than just pick&choose within a predetermined selection, it really allows people to create very personal and unique pieces. No vase will ever look the same as any other.

Small Steps: The piece doesn’t require anybody to suddenly draw like an artist. Rather, the user can start with a very simple drawing. But as his confidence and capabilities grow, so can his created product.

What is the role of companies in your concept? What would you recommend a manager that wants to place your ideas into practice?

In terms of manufacturing, the beauty of these designs is that they do not require any major changes in the manufacturing infrastructure as is usually associated with mass customization. As the customization happens at the end user and not in the factory, the company still only needs to create one fixed product.

In terms of management, it probably more comes down to being open-minded and believing in the creativity of end-users. Basically giving the consumer more credit than most companies currently do.

At the same time, we of course need to realize that while customization is a major trend, it is still to be seen how much of the mainstream it will become. While especially Generations X and Y are increasingly interested in self-expression and involvement, the majority of consumers still prefers buying non-customizable products and maybe express themselves solely through selected purchases.

What did originally motivate your research? How did you choose this topic?

As I was researching potential thesis topics, certain personal interests of mine came up repeatedly. These are areas that I have always been fascinated by, like peoples desire to express themselves, peoples urge to create, the growing D.I.Y. movement, and finally new and evolving production methods. At one point, I realized that there might be a way to bring these different areas together, and to use this combination to enable and encourage creativity and self-expression for the consumer. And to simply provide for more joy and fun as part of a product experience.

Why do most industrial designers neglect the customization and self-impression trend? Do design schools educate your designers in these new topics?

First off, there are of course certain products where customization is not applicable, for example for safety reasons. Besides that, a couple of things come to mind.

For one, designing a product that is customizable means giving away some control of the final product. As a designer, you put a lot of time and thought into determining a very particular look, feel, and functionality to create something that addresses a specific need. While most products usually stay as intended when they leave your hands, with customizable pieces you control them only up to a certain degree. This is something not everyone is comfortable with, especially with more visually driven pieces.

In addition, there is also a school of thought with some designers that only they should be the ones ‘designing’. After all, that is what they went to school for and spent a lot of time on, learning how to do it right. According to them, the general consumer does not know about designing, and should not be allowed to do so.

This whole issue of ‘professional’ versus ‘amateur’ designer, across all areas from web over graphic to industrial design, is something we could easily talk about for hours. I personally do not subscribe to this rather elitist thinking, and believe that there is and always will be a place for both. However, and as in every other profession, we designers need to rethink our roles periodically, and adjust to a changing environment.

In terms of design school education, there is obviously an inherent delay of current trends manifesting themselves in the education curriculum. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. I believe the value of design school, besides teaching basics like form and color, is rather in teaching creative thinking. This together with providing the appropriate environment for exploration is the starting point. The rest is really up to the individual student, to investigate and explore different areas, and push his own limits as well as that of design in general.

What’s next for you now that you have finished this project?

In terms of the ‘Un-readymades’, I am starting to look into potential options of moving some of them out of the prototype stage and into production. Besides that, as I am done with my Industrial Design degree, I am also currently interviewing for a job. Things are still open though, so I guess I should use this opportunity to invite anybody looking for an Industrial Designer to take a look at my resume and portfolio on my website.

To conclude: What is, in general and beyond your industry, the greatest mass customization offering ever – either one that is already existing or that you would like to get in the future?

Well, this is a pretty grand and open question. Maybe to answer it in a similar open way, I would pick the human mind? It probably does not get much more mass-customized than that. And thinking of it, it actually fits pretty well in my framework. :-)

Contact Martin at martin@martin-konrad.com or http://martin-konrad.com
You can view an illustrated abstract of his work at http://martin-konrad.com/unreadymades

Mass Customization Gets Its First Novel: UK author Sean McManus explores personalized music

Interview: Sean McManus on personalized music, customized books, and why he is using on-demand service Lulu -- and the background of his idea to write a novel featuring a mass customized service offering as its key element.

Sean McManus is the author of ‘University of Death’, a new novel satirizing the music industry. The book explores what happens when a major record label comes up with software for mass customizing music and uses spyware to sell it to customers, without telling them it’s all computer generated. Sean’s previous books include ‘Small Business Websites That Work’ and ‘The Customer Service Pocketbook’. As a journalist, Sean has written for Making Music, Melody Maker, Internet Magazine, Business 2.0, Internet Works and many more. And he has covered mass customization before: In May 2000 he wrote the mass customization essay ‘As you like it’ about for Personal Computer World magazine and in December 2005, he interviewed the company behind Erasure’s customized MP3s for his website at www.sean.co.uk.

Sean, Congratulations! You have written the first novel I know with strong references to personalization and matching-services in the music industry! What's the story?

It's a satire of the music industry, centred around one of the last surviving major record labels, Bigg Records. Clive Bigg is gobbling up independent labels and marketing lowest-common-denominator tosh made by boybands. It’s not enough, though, and like every other label, he’s seeing his business shrink away.

Then one day the solution arrives: a smooth-talking geek called Jonathan Harrington has spent ten years creating the perfect song: moving enough to make you laugh, cry, or dance on the first listen. The catch is that it’s computer generated and tailored for each listener after analysing his or her music collection. Together, Bigg and Harrington conspire to use hidden software to study what fans listen to, and then to automatically concoct and market their dream music to them.

While all this is going on, the story also follows the progress of Dove, who is burned out from touring for decades. He wants to break up his 'creatively bankrupt' band, University of Death, but he couldn't do a proper job. Now Bigg's bought up the indie label the band was on, he's about to make Dove an offer he can't refuse.

And the story also follows two of Dove’s biggest fans: Simon and Fred have a band called Goblin (performing a mix of rock and glam they call 'heavy tinsel'). Like many bands today, they can't get anyone to listen to them, and hope that Bigg will pluck their demo from the pile and launch their careers. As well as doing their own stuff, they cover University of Death in the hope that they'll catch someone's ear. As it turns out, their cover gets them into all kinds of trouble...

Dove, Simon, Fred, Jonathan and Bigg all collide in a finale that threatens the very existence of the music industry.

The story takes a slice through the music business: from the board room to the stage; from the studio to the record fair. It explores how fans relate to their favourite bands, how businesses use technology to manipulate consumers, and what would happen if the music industry disappeared overnight.

Where did you get the idea for this book?

In the 80s I remember typing in a program listing that created music on the Amstrad/Schneider home computer. It sounded a bit foreign and unstructured to me, but it started a fascination with computer generated music that I’ve had ever since.

In recent years, we’ve seen the internet become a channel for both marketing and market research. We’ve seen the rise of technologies that make mass personalisation possible. And we’ve seen record companies backed into a corner and taking desperate measures to prevent piracy, epitomised by Sony BMG putting software on music CDs which was widely considered to be spyware. We’ve seen the start of artificial intelligence as part of our e-commerce applications, with Amazon knowing my taste in books and music better than I do. And we’ve seen the rise of independent bands through communities like MySpace, where high quality music can be shared and sold outside the conventional music industry. All these threads came together in my plot. It’s a timely book. In fact, when the Sony BMG story broke, it felt like my plot was starting to come true!

‘University of Death’ is ultimately about why people love music, and where its soul is. The book explores the extent to which that can be automated or faked. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that (in my novel at least), music needs to come from people, not machines. I listen to a lot of synthesiser music, but that works because there’s a creative person directing it and the computers are just being used as instruments. Even Brian Eno’s generative music, which is unique each time you listen to it, works because a creative musician has defined its parameters before it runs. The question is whether the software will one day be good enough that you couldn’t tell the difference between a computer inventing and performing a song, and real human creativity.

I know your early essay on mass customization (still a well linked source on the topic on the internet). Have you written any other books in the meantime?

I’ve written ‘Small Business Websites That Work’, published by Prentice Hall, and co-authored ‘The Customer Service Pocketbook’. There are free chapters to download from both at www.sean.co.uk.

Why did you want to write this book?

They say everyone has a novel in them. This is mine: it includes so many of the things I love - music, technology, record collecting, old computer games, jokes. But all of them in service of a story and bound together by a single theme. Everyone has something that they just know they have to do in their life, and writing a novel was one of mine.

It's been a long time since I've devoted that much energy to a single project, and it was extremely satisfying. I really enjoyed the writing sessions.

What are your observations on personalization of music in the real world? How often are you, as a consumer, using these services?

The most exciting thing for me has been Trust Media’s customised MP3s, made on-demand using a Flash interface. Erasure made best use of the concept: you could define what kind of beats, vocals, basslines and synth lines you wanted, as you heard the track looping. When you were done, you paid and downloaded your track. Each combination was limited to a single copy, and had unique artwork. The music industry’s been marketing so-called ‘limited edition’ CDs for years, with serial numbers on them often running into hundreds of thousands. This really subverts that: Having the only copy of my favourite version of a particular song and knowing nobody else can buy it is truly a ‘limited edition’. Erasure really appreciated what they could achieve creatively with this technology, and it would be good to see more musicians adopt it. Trust Media is pushing the antipiracy aspect at the moment: people are less inclined to share something that’s unique to them (and traceable), and others are more likely to want their own unique version than someone else’s copy. When the music industry is suffering a decline, it makes more sense for the company to sell antipiracy software than an experimental music format, even if they’re the same thing.

Brian Eno’s done some interesting work with generative music, where he sets the parameters of the work and then each performance is unique. There’s no computer creativity involved in this: it’s still very much his work, with the computer randomly generating each performance of what is essentially one work. His first release of generative music ran on floppy disk and the software is obsolete now, but his 77 Million Paintings software brings the idea up to date and combines it with visuals. It’s not really personalised, though, even though each performance is unique, because I have no control over it.

I enjoyed the music recommendation engine Pandora while that was available [in Europe], but that’s been closed to people outside the US now because they can’t afford to pay international license fees. Last.fm is a nice recommendation engine, but I haven’t used it too much. I still tend to find new music through magazines, reviews online, friends and gigs.

As with publishing, mass customisation has made it viable for bands to sell their own music on CD from the very start. I’ve bought a few CDs by unsigned bands which probably wouldn’t have existed without the mass customisation and ecommerce technology that was used to create and sell them.

And your book is not just on personalization and customization, but I saw on your website that you also are using a print-on-demand service (Lulu.com) to publish it. So why are you self-publishing 'University of Death', and why are you using print-on-demand?

The main reason for using Lulu as my publishing platform is that it enables me to get the book out there much more quickly. I have friends who have written great books and then spent years trying to get interest from a major publisher, while their books have quietly gone stale. I spent two years writing my novel, and I didn’t want to spend another two traipsing it around publishers who are already inundated with other good books. By self-publishing, I can ensure the book reaches readers much more quickly. Because the book deals with many contemporary themes in the music industry and technology, this was important to me.

For a venture like mine, it makes good business sense. There’s no up-front cost working with Lulu, and I don’t have to store hundreds of copies of the book under my bed or in my garage. The downside is that it’s massively more expensive per copy than it would be to do a conventional print run, but it’s an ideal way to test the market for new creative products. I particularly like Lulu because it takes care of the retail side of things too – it handles the credit card or paypal orders, customer service and support. It helps that Lulu tends to rank well in search engines too. Working with Lulu means I don’t have to be involved in handling individual book sales, don’t have to spend up-front, and don’t have to carry stock. It also means customers can have a smooth and fully supported buying experience.

And where can we buy your book?

Thanks for asking! This book is not available in the shops. You can only buy the book at Lulu.com.

When you place your order at Lulu, they'll print your copy, perfect bind it, stick it in a sturdy cardboard wrapper and post it out to you. This book is not available anywhere else because copies don't exist until they're ordered.

You can download the first two chapters for free through www.universityofdeath.co.uk.

To conclude: What is, in general and beyond your industry, the greatest mass customization offering ever – either one that is already existing or that you would like to get in the future?

I’m not sure whether it counts as my industry or not, but I’d like to see more done on books. Wouldn’t it be great if I could instruct an intelligent agent to create a book about ‘Pink Floyd’, or even ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, and have it deliver a unique printed artefact to my door? The software could source newspaper clippings and reviews from leading publishers, maybe some blog posts from well-respected fans too. It could sort them into chronological order, and source images from leading photo libraries. It wouldn’t be easy: there’s a whole rights nightmare to resolve, and the micropayments could prove tricky to administer, particularly once you get down to the level of paying freelance journalists. But if the infrastructure was there, the content would follow. And you could create an interface for narrowing the search to something useful (eg, let users specify publication dates, proportion of blog content to newspaper content, number of images etc). Books are still the best way to communicate and digest large chunks of information, but at the moment, there needs to be a significant market for each book to make it commercially viable. That’s because somebody has to do the leg-work of writing each one, and someone else has to market and distribute it. If you want a book about 90s band ‘Kenickie’ (as I do), you’re probably the only one, so you’re out of luck.

We can already do much of the stuff required: we have good search algorithms, there is a lot of tagged content out there, and there are applications that create PDFs on demand, and others that print them in books. We already trust search engines to decide what content we should see online, so this would be an extension of that and would probably work best if restricted to trusted content providers named up-front. It could be a great way for rights owners to make money from archive material and for researchers or enthusiasts to access original reports from the archives.

This is all probably some way off. Still, I can recommend a nice novel to read in the meantime… ;-)

Zapfab: User-generated content meets 3D Printing

A new Ponoko-alike company is coming from Manchester in the UK! Zapfab Ltd is a user manufacturing start up that offers a new way of delivering individualized, customized products. As other companies in this field, they are combining the creativity of user-generated content with the power of 3D Printing (fabbing).

In a press release I got today, the company is described as follows:

"User-generated content is ubiquitous throughout the internet, from weblogs to YouTube videos. Zapfab builds on this trend, by providing a website where users can easily generate unique designs for 3D objects.

3D Printing is rapidly gaining ground as a way of creating real, physical objects from 3D design data. Zapfab provides an easy way to access this technology: Once you have generated a 3D design you can choose to have it 3D printed: Zapfab will 3D print the design and deliver the finished object to you.

The Zapfab website has two main areas: the Design Catalog and the 3D Customizer. The Design Catalog contains all the designs on the site and is a repository like Google's 3D warehouse. The 3D Customizer is where the customizing takes place: Each design can be customized in different ways: color, size, pattern, etc. and the 3D Customizer contains simple controls for each of the options. So, once a user has customized a design, she can save it back into the catalog for other people to see. And then they in turn can customize and build on her design.

“We see three main groups of users for Zapfab.com,” said Julie Wood, Zapfab Director, in the press release “First, we have made the 3D Customizer really easy to use, so that anyone can create a unique, customized design in just a few minutes.

Second, there are a range of users with 3D modelling skills, who will be able to upload their designs to the site; and we aim to make it easy for them to add customizations to those designs.

Third, users with programming or scripting skill will be able to create new, highly-customizable designs. And all the designs, from the simplest to the most complex, are customizable through the same easy-to-use 3D Customizer.”

At the moment, Zapfab’s Design Catalog contains over 100 customized designs, ranging from bowls to boxes and bangles. All of the designs can be 3D printed “as is”, or freely customized. It is a nice, but at this stage not too creative collection of things. But I hope to see much more activity on their side, and given that they are located in Europe, I also will try this service by myself in the next weeks and let you know about my experiences.

Great Report on User Manufacturing, Mass Customization, and How a New Infrastructure is Providing New Opportunities for SMEs

Last week, I got a note by Steve King, a research affiliate with the Institute for the Future. This is a non-profit research group based in Silicon Valley. Founded in 1968 by a group of former RAND Corporation researchers with a grant from the Ford Foundation to take leading-edge research methodologies into the public and business sectors, the IFTF today publishes reports to help people and companies to understand what is coming next.

They recently released a forecast report that is part of a series on the future of small business. In this report, they stress that small businesses will actively take advantage and use new manufacturing methods to create mass customized goods.

The report was sponsored by Intuit and can be downloaded on their website: http://www.intuit.com/futureofsmallbusiness/ (download Report #3)

In the report, IFTF writes about a new artisan economy that is the result of new manufacturing technologies, enabling individuals to access similar production technologies as large corporations (crafters using Ponoko, see previous posting, are a perfect example). It is a very nice summary of many of the recent trends that I have discussed here. Fabbing, blogging, user manufacturing, customization, open innovation -- it's all there and brought into a nice and coherent framework.

I especially liked the part about the new infrastructure that is enabling these developments:

"Plug-and-play infrastructures will make small businesses more competitive and successful. The ability of small businesses to take advantage of large-scale infrastructures and leverage new technologies will allow them to enter and compete in industries formerly served only by big business."

As an example, they refer to a great service that is enabling moms to become entrepreneurs, Mom Inventors, Inc.:

"For those who want to avoid teh hassle of assembling these services, firms are available to do everything for an entrepreneur. Mom Inventors Ic., for example, weill develop, manufacture, and sell quality Mom invented products throughout the United States and Europe. The mom (entrepreneur) only needs to come up with the idea, Mom Inventors will do the rest."

So I am expecting to these many more knitted marvels and clever kitchen aids on the shelves, invented by "Lead Moms".

In an e-mail exchange, Steve told me more about the background of the report, and stressed another implication from their research:

"A major issue we are trying to figure out is how small business relates to mass customization and user innovation. This was originally prompted by our work looking at consumer generated media - specifically blogs.

We found that the blogs with the most traffic were not authored by consumers, but by professionals. The professionals tended to fall into two categories: (1) small or independent businesses trying to build a small publishing business; or (2) professionals using blogs to promote either themselves or the goods and services of their company. Looking deeper at the second group, we found that most of them worked for small businesses.

Based on this work (which we did several years ago), we started looking at other categories. We quickly found a similar pattern of small business participation across a broad range of categories, including media (YouTube videos, etc.), open source software, crafts and small scale manufacturing (a lot of Makers at Maker Faire are small businesses, for example), financial services, etc.

Basically, we saw small businesses playing a role in almost every category where niche products and/or services were being built or highly customized. We also found a pattern of category "power users" moving from being hobbyists to starting their own small businesses. We kept seeing "prosumers" turning into small businesses, and we kept seeing small businesses somewhere in the customization value chain."

Accordingly, another area indicated in the report where small businesses will grow in the future is to serve as an innovation lab for larger corporations. Platforms like Innocentive or P&G's connect and develop program will help small businesses to sell their creativity to larger corporations in an efficient way. This may be the next wave of contract research.

Overall, a nice summary of recent trends that is worthwhile reading due its focus on small businesses.

Context: Get the full report here. http://www.intuit.com/futureofsmallbusiness/ (download Report #3)

INTELLIFIT Moves From Virtual Fitting (match-to-order) to True Mass Customization: Custom-made jeans with a high-tech twist

Intellifit is know to me as one of the leading providers of match-to-order systems in fashion retail. They currently market a special 3D full body scanner. At a retail location, the consumer enters a see-through "Intellifit Virtual Fitting Room" (the scnanner) that's 8' high and 7' wide. There, low power radio waves collect about 200 accurate body measurements in under 15 seconds – a personal “FitPrint” – while the consumer remains fully clothed. This data is used to match the user's measurements with sizing information of (standard) garments in the store.

According to the company, Intellifit has measured over 230,000 individuals to date, representing the largest sizing database of its kind in the world.

But now Intellifit customers will become enabled to use their profiles to shop for custom made jeans, and in the future, for custom pants, khakis, or shirts. Last week, the company began a test of its “Custom Jeans Center” at its company retail store outside of Philadelphia. Consumers can design their own custom-made jeans with a guarantee of a perfect fit. In the moment, retail shopping is by appointment only and includes consultation with a fashion advisor.

The customer can choose jeans from a selection of styles and washes and add details such as pocket shape and design, stitching and personalization options. The price point of the custom jeans is at about $150.

The FitPrint is transferred electronically from the retail location to the jeans manufacturer, where the garment pieces are custom-cut by computer control. The completed custom jeans are shipped directly to the customer in 3 to 4 weeks.

“This test will help us determine the scalability of the process. With a positive result, an international roll-out will be close behind,” Rob Weber, Intellifit's President, is quoted in a recent press release.

I believe that this combination of mass customization and match-to-order is a very promising way of establishing a sustainable operation. Many consumers do not want to wait for a perfect fit that is just made for them, but also are frustrated by complexity of choice and not finding their right size in a large retail store. Also, if the system finds that a standard item on stock is providing you a good fit, the retailer will have an advantage as the inventory can be reduced. On the other hand, if a consumer does not find a standard garment according to her fit and preferences, she does not have to leave the store without a puchase -- but can be transferred to the mass customization option.

For Intellifit, entering the mass customization market also is a great way to leverage the exiting investments in building such a large database of "FitPrint" customer profiles.

Context:
- For more information and store locations, go to www.intellifit.com.
- MVM's virtual model and Archetype's ZAFU are similar matching-services in the online world.
- Report about METRO's matching and in-store recommendation service

Industry Study on State of Rapid Manufacturing and the Future of Production

EOS, a leading manufacturer of laser-sintering systems, recently presented a market study on the state of laser-sintering technology for production tasks (called rapid manufacturing, e-Manufacturing or also fabbing). These technologies have been used pre-dominantly for prototyping tasks in the past where they allowed experimentation to a much higher degree. But their real economic impact comes from their role as a manufacturing technology, allowing custom manufacturing with no switching cost. It is now starting to compete with conventional casting technologies.

Rapid manufacturing delivers end products, functional parts and tools directly from CAD data. A laser heats and melts powdered plastics or metals layer by layer, until the build is complete and a final product can be taken out of the system. Whether it is jewelery, clothes, lamps, chairs or functional parts for components that are being manufactured, laser sintering and similar generative manufacturing technologies enable the creation of products with highly complex and filigreed structures and forms that are unthinkable geometries for conventional series production – and each piece can be customized at no additional cost.

EOS is, according to its own statement, the world-leading provider of this technology with revenues in laser-sintering of 59.7 million Euro in 2007, an increase of 14 percent compared to the previous year. This number shows that the market still is very small compared to the multi-billion market of traditional production equipment.

On the recent EuroMold Trade Show, the company conducted a survey among industry experts about the future of manufacturing. Is individualized series production from CAD data going to prevail in the future? And which technologies will drive this type of production? The answers on this survey have been published in a recent press release.

While no information is given on the number of respondents or any basic statistical validity, and the study obviously is biased due to its originator, here some quotes from the press release which address some questions I often get from readers of this blog:

33% of the respondents believe that individualized production with laser-sintering is already market-ready, while 37% predict the establishment of the technology in the market within the next three years. The rest anticipate the establishment of rapid manufacturing within five years, with only 4% seeing a lag of ten years.

According to the survey, rapid manufacturing is driven by the general mass customization trend. Both industry and end consumers increasingly request individually manufactured products, creating a potential demand for mass customization of those products. And this is exactly where rapid manufacturing comes into play: 28% of those interviewed said that the trend towards individualized series production is the most important factor for the success of the technology.

Nearly a quarter of the interviewees saw greater “cost savings compared to conventional technologies”.
22% judged that rapid manufacturing will overtake traditional technologies due to “shorter product life cycles”.

But rapid manufacturing with laser-sintering also faces a number of challenges: 29% of the interviewees called the limited choice of materials as the greatest barrier to implementation of rapid manufacturing technology.

Interestingly, respondents felt that the main difficulty is not so much the emerging technology itself, but rather a lack of knowledge and openness in the industry. Approximately a quarter of the respondents judged the “lack of know-how in the industry” as a hindrance. Companies are yet not aware about the technology or lack the capability to change their design and production processes in such a radical way.

Finally the interviewees were asked for their predictions about production methods 20 years in the future.
A clear majority (63%) forecast the broad establishment of mass customization in the Western world. 21% even believe that end customers will have their own mini-factories and produce their own products with rapid manufacturing. About 9% of those asked went so far as to remark that, in 20 years time, manual manufacturing will only take place on the PC.

Context:

- My previous posts on rapid manufacturing
- EOS site with case studies and more articles
- 3rd International Rapid Manufacturing Conference 2008 in the UK - I will speak there as well!

Trend Map 2008: See where personalization, open innovation, and mass customization are in 2008

Last year, I often showed in my presentations the great trend map created by Nowandnext.com and Future Exploration Network. They position in form of a subway map the major trends in society, policy, technology, and economy and thus provide a fresh look on these themes. And in case you need any buzzword for your talk or paper, they are all there.

Recently, the 2008 trend map has been published. It is derived from Shanghai’s underground routes. Limited to just five lines, the map uncovers key trends across Society, Politics, Demographics, Economy, and Technology.

Trends mentioned in the map include:

Simplicity, Reality mining, 3-D printers, Personalization, Geospatial web, Networked risk, Data visualisation, Open Innovation, or Constant partial attention.

But it also has nice ideas like Celebrity worship, Female chauvinism, or even Karma capitalism.

For all students, an important disclaimer from the trend map's authors: "Remember that our trend maps are generally for stimulation rather than being taken too seriously… :-)"

The trend map again is released on a Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons license, so readers are free to improve or modify the map!

Download the 2008 trend map as PDF here. The old 2007 trend map can be found here.

Crowdsourcing methods are McKinsey's Prime Business Technology Trends to Watch In 2008

In the recent issue of McKinsey Quarterly, the business journal of strategy consultants McKinsey & Co, James Manyika, Roger Roberts and Kara Sprague discuss Eight Business Technology Trends to Watch In 2008. Five of those eight relate directly to the topics of this blog:

Four trends, Distributing Cocreation, Using consumers as innovators, Tapping into a world of talent, and Extracting more value from interactions are sub-sets of the larger Crowdsourcing idea.

(1) Distributing co-creation is just another term for our own "interactive value creation" or Benkler's "commons-based peer production" or Don Tapscott's "Wikinomics". No doubt that this is a mega-trend which has been described widely in the last years but which practical implementation just has started. In consequence, McKinsey estimates that 12% of all labor activity could be transformed by more distributed and networked innovation:

"Outsiders offer insights that help shape product development, but companies typically control the innovation process. Technology now allows companies to delegate substantial control to outsiders -- co-creation -- in essence by outsourcing innovation to business partners that work together in networks. By distributing innovation through the value chain, companies may reduce their costs and usher new products to market faster by eliminating the bottlenecks that come with total control."

Interestingly, however, in the entire McKinsey article is no word on open source or open licensing models ("commons-based") which are a main driver for the efficiency of distributed open systems of value co-creation. This may be perhaps too much for the typical reader of McKinsey Quarterly.

(2) Using consumers as innovators: Well, not really a new trend, Eric von Hippel is saying this since the 1970s, and since the beginning of industrial production consumers are inventing new products. The new trend, however, is that firms are seeing this potential and they increasingly are utilizing the capabilities for innovation. They are not just asking for feedback on their own creations, but they are integrating consumers actively in the creation of something new. MyKinsey is quoting Threadless here, but this is not a correct example for this trend as most the creators at Threadless are no consumers but experts!

A better example, quoted by the iRise Blog in a posting on the McKinsey article, is Dell's IdeaStorm, and, on the B2B front, Salesforce.com. This software company is using an application for users to make suggestions to improve their CRM software. The top ideas from this contest is receiving executive-level visibility.

(3) Tapping into a world of talent is the consequence of opening your innovation and value creation process:. The people reacting on an open call for participation in the " Distributing co-creation" idea are those who are the most talented to do this work (as they have relatively lower cost to fulfill the job):

"As more and more sophisticated work takes place interactively online and new collaboration and communications tools emerge, companies can outsource increasingly specialized aspects of their work and still maintain organizational coherence. Much as technology permits them to decentralize innovation through networks or customers, it also allows them to parcel out more work to specialists, free agents, and talent networks."

This leads to a further consequence, and their next trend: (4) Extracting more value from interactions. The more a company is relying for value creation in its periphery, the higher is its costs for coordination compared to production cost.

"As a result, a growing proportion of the labor force in developed economies engages primarily in work that involves negotiations and conversations, knowledge, judgment, and ad hoc collaboration—tacit interactions, as we call them. By 2015 we expect employment in jobs primarily involving such interactions to account for about 44 percent of total US employment, up from 40 percent today. Europe and Japan will experience similar changes in the composition of their workforces."

This is nothing new at all, the fact, that the so-called transaction cost are dominating the overall cost in a modern economy is known since several decades. But it is good that McKinsey are stressing this relationship again – as mastering these cost will become a major capability for firms which want to profit from crowdsourcing. Technology is leading this path:

"Technology tools that promote tacit interactions, such as wikis, virtual team environments, and videoconferencing, may become no less ubiquitous than computers are now. As companies learn to use these tools, they will develop managerial innovations—smarter and faster ways for individuals and teams to create value through interactions—that will be difficult for their rivals to replicate. Companies in sectors such as health care and banking are already moving down this road. […] But: Creating the business case for investing in interactions will be challenging—but critical—for managers."

(5) A last trend from their report is "Putting more science into management". Technology is continuously helping managers exploit ever-greater amounts of data in real-time to make smarter decisions. One of the business models which are enabled by this data-driven management is mass customization, named by McKinsey as "the holy grail of deep customer insight":

"The amount of information and a manager’s ability to use it have increased explosively not only for internal processes but also for the engagement of customers. The more a company knows about them, the better able it is to create offerings they want, to target them with messages that get a response, and to extract the value that an offering gives them. The holy grail of deep customer insight—more granular segmentation, low-cost experimentation, and mass customization—becomes increasingly accessible through technological innovations in data collection and processing and in manufacturing."

Go to the original article which has plenty of good references for further reading (requires registration, for a version of the full text of this paper, go to ZDnet).

User Manufacturing Trendwatching Report

Trendwatching, a large trend research network, has recently published its annual briefing on the main trends for 2008. Among them is my favorite new topic, user manufacturing (other terms for the same idea are desktop manufacturing, manufacturing as a service, fabbing, ...). Named "MIY – Make it Myself" the Trendwatching crew is naming user manufacturing as the next big thing in user-created content.

"[user generated content]" is a mainstream trend now, one that keeps giving, with millions of consumers uploading their creative endeavors online, and tens of millions of others enjoying the fruits of their creativity. User-generated content, at least in the online world, has grown from a teenage hobby to an almost equal contender to established entities in news, media, entertainment and craft."

These consumers expect to be able to create anything they want as long as it is digital, and to customize and personalize many physical goods with traditional mass customization offerings. The next step in this evolution will be their desire to transfer digitally designed products into real physical goods as well.

Trendwatching is expecting that "MIY | MAKE IT YOURSELF (and then SIY | SELL IT YOURSELF) becomes increasingly sophisticated in the next 12 months".

As references, they refer to old friends which have been covered in this blog before:

# New Zealand-based Ponoko (which works like a Zazzle for 3D objects, see my original article on them here)

# Fab Lab Bcn (Barcelona) is part of the worldwide network of Fab Labs, an initiative of MIT Center for Bits and Atoms, and provides a laser-cutter, water jet, 3D printer, mini-mill and other machines for participants to use. One of Fab Lab's initiators is Neil Gershenfeld, professor at MIT and author of FAB: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop.

# The Desktop Factory 3D printer, with a list price of USD 4,995, uses an inexpensive halogen light source and drum printing technology to build robust parts from composite plastic powder, layer by layer. Desktop Factory envisages that within three years, Desktop Factory's 3D printers will be affordable for home use.

# They also mention the Swedish design group FRONT and their Sketch Furniture project. This trio materializes freehand sketches of furniture into real options. Very nice, very expensive with a chair starting at USD 10,500 per piece.

The last section of their trend report is very important to read, something that I always mention in my presentations on the limitations of user manufacturing:

"Now, we're not saying every consumer is going to design and manufacture his or her own furniture or appliances. Rather, MIY is yet another piece of the participation puzzle: enabling those consumers who feel like it to call the shots, bypassing traditional players. In future briefings we’ll address the implications of what this choice – being able to consume ready-made or create their own versions of anything and everything – will mean for the behavior and expectations of younger generations."

Context:
- The orginal Trendwatching report

- My original report about user manufacturing and my definition of this idea

- My earlier report about Ponoko (more here).

- My earlier report about the low cost 3D printers

- If you can read German, Jochen Krisch had many excellent postings on user manufacturing in the last months, a very good staring point is his recent listing of all 3D printing services on the web.

- A very good starting point also is press reports of Z-Printer, a manufacturer of 3D printers used to make custom objects.

Top 10 Mass Customization Companies in 2007 -- Report in Best Practice Business Blog

Happy New Year!

Best Practice Business is a rather large German blog, and Burkhard Schneider, its main author, recently added more and more good reports on new mass customization companies. If you understand German, very worthwhile to read.

Yesterday, as part of the usual top 10 lists popping up at the end of the year, he also created a list of "top 10" mass customization companies in 2007. There are a number of great concepts, others I find less innovative, other are missing, but it is a great review of interesting concepts in the area. The blog, and the posting, are in German, but you easily will get the picture. Here is the top-10 list (go here for further descriptions and the links)

# Mymuesli: Mass Customized Müsli
# Blends For Friends: Mass Customized Teas
# Vuru – Custom nutrition
# My Twinn - custom dolls
# Miss-Information: Custom travel books
# flattenme: Personalized children books
# TasteBook: Mass Customized recepies
# Paragon Lake: mass customized jewelry
# Cosmocards - Personal Greeting Cards
# Zyrra – mass customized bras