Mass Customization & Open Innovation News

Reminder: Call for Papers & Presentations MCPC 2009: MATCHING - CUSTOMIZATION, CONFIGURATION & CREATIVITY

The 5th World Conference on Mass Customization and Personalization
Business, Innovation & Research Conference

4-8 October 2009, Aalto University in Helsinki & Espoo, Finland

The MCPC conference series started out as a biennial conference devoted to Mass Customization & Personalization. The content has broadened in recent years, including also open innovation, user co-creation and other strategies of customer-driven value creation. But mass customization is still the main trend that drives the success of the MCPC conferences, bringing together hundreds of the world's most remarkable people in the field.

I am happy to tell you that already more than 150 persons have joined the MCPC2009 website and created their profiles there. You can still create your profile and join the conference mailing list in order to receive all the latest news about the conference.

I warmly welcome you to participate to the Call for Papers of the MCPC2009 conference. Please submit your paper or presentation proposal by May 31 (NEW).

To log directly in to the submission system, please go to:
http://sitruuna.uta.fi/ocs/index.php/mcpc2009/mcpc2009

While we prefer full papers, there also is room for proposals in form of PPTs or short abstracts .. your creativity and ideas related to customization & personalization is important, not your format!

We are looking forward to your contributions!

Professor Jarmo I. Suominen
Conference General Chair
University of Art and Design Helsinki TaiK Hämeentie 135 C FI-00560 Helsinki FINLAND

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CALL FOR PAPERS

Deadline May 31, 2009

A growing heterogeneity of demand, exploding product complexities, and the rise of the creative consumer are challenging companies in all industries to find new strategies to address - and profit from - these trends. Mass Customization and Personalization (MCP) is widely appreciated as a viable and promising strategy which aims to provide goods and services that best serve individual customers' personal needs with near mass production efficiency. The biennial World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization (MCP) is one of the premier events for the business, innovation and research community in this field.

Bridging academic research and management practice, the conference provides an interactive and interdisciplinary platform to share ideas about mass customization strategies and to discuss the latest technologies and enablers.

The special objective of the MCPC2009 conference is to extend the dialogue beyond today’s boundaries and to explore the future avenues for mass customization and personalization. The theme "Mass Matching" asks for leading-edge examples of customer interaction, as well as insights on the emerging new concepts of personalization and interaction, and on the newest customer centric innovations. We invite submissions and speaking proposals under the sub-themes Customization, Creativity and Configuration. The conference is designed to engage academics, business leaders and consultants in fundamental debates through a set of plenary presentations, discussion panels and paper presentations.

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CONFERENCE THEMES

You will find the selected track and topic examples on the Call for Paper and template documents that you can upload on the conference website. We also look forward to proposals for presentations from the practitioners of mass customization and personalization.

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SUBMISSION SPECIFICATIONS

For submission instructions and more information please see:
http://sitruuna.uta.fi/ocs/index.php/mcpc2009/mcpc2009

If you have any queries regarding abstract submission, please contact:
mcpc2009@fimcp.fi

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IMPORTANT DATES

• 31 May 2009: Deadline for Abstracts and Short / Full papers 30 June 2009: Notification of accepted contributions
• 31 August 2009: Approved Papers due
• 4 October: Pre-conference
• 5-6 October: Innovation & Research Conference
• 7 October: Business Strategy Conference
• 8 October: Business Labs

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Organizers:
The MCPC 2009 (http://www.mcpc2009.com) is co-organized by the Aalto University (Helsinki School of Economics, Helsinki University of Technology, University of Art and Design Helsinki) in co-operation with the Tampere University of Technology and the University of Tampere.

MCPC2009 Conference General Chair:
Jarmo Suominen, Professor of Mass Customization, University of Art and Design Helsinki / Aalto University, Visiting Scientist MIT

MCPC2009 Conference Program Committee:
Frank Piller, Professor, RWTH Aachen University
Mitchell Tseng, Professor, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology

Kalevi Ekman, Professor, Helsinki University of Technology,
Director of the Design Factory at the Aalto University
Kristian Möller, Professor, Helsinki School of Economics,
Director of the Service Factory at the Aalto University
Maija Töyry, Professor, University of Art and Design Helsinki,
Director of the Media Factory at the Aalto University

Matti Hämäläinen, Professor, Helsinki University of Technology / Aalto
University
Turkka Keinonen, Professor, University of Art and Design Helsinki /
Aalto University
Marko Mäkipää, Senior Researcher, University of Tampere
Esko Penttinen, Assistant Professor, Helsinki School of Economics /
Aalto University
Matti Sievänen, Senior Researcher, Tampere University of Technology
Jarmo Suominen, Professor, University of Art and Design Helsinki /
Aalto University
Mikko Ruohonen, Professor, University of Tampere
Reijo Tuokko, Professor, Tampere University of Technology
Maija Töyry, Professor, University of Art and Design Helsinki / Aalto
University

Prosumer Revisited - A Brief Conference Report and Links to Summaries of Most Talks

Update: In case you speak German, there is a great comprehensive summary of the event here: "Ich bin ein Prosumer - Brigitte Holzhauer berichtet von der Tagung "Prosumer Revisited" in the Magazin Change X."

This week, at the Goethe University in Frankfurt/M, Germany, an interesting conference took place. Organized by Birgit Blättel-Mink and Kai-Uwe Hellmann, two professors of sociology, the event wanted to review the long school of academic thought on prosumers and co-creating customers. The organizers gathered a diverse and interesting crowd of participants that provided insight from many different perspectives. Overall, it was an interesting event, even when I realized that in sociology, the majority of scholars still focused on mapping that the phenomenon of co-creation or prosuming customers exists, while in the management literature, the state of the discussion has moved one step forward in explaining the structures, methods, and contingencies of user participation in value creation.

Axel Brun, a scholar from Australia who participated in the conference, has written a very comprehensive report, summarizing all keynotes and many of the paper presentation in his blog. Axel is a Senior Lecturer in the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. He has coined the term "produsage" to better describe the current paradigm shift towards user-led forms of collaborative content creation which are proving to have an increasing impact on media, economy, law, social practices, and democracy itself. For more information, have a look at his website, http://snurb.info.

Here are a few direct links to Axel's summaries of the conference keynote presentations:

• My opening keynote of the conference: http://snurb.info/node/970. This is a nice summary of parts of the talk and of my basic argument why user participation in the innovation process is important: to get access to sticky need information of customers.
• Holm Friebe, co-author of my favorite book "Marke Eigenbau". The book is a great summary of all topics I am writing about in this blog, and so was Holm's presentation: http://snurb.info/node/973
  
  
• Kerstin Rieder is the co-author of a rather critical book on the "working customer", that, when it appeared in 2006, seemed to me like a critical and pessimistic review of the self-service society. Missing many of the more recent developments of voluntarily co-creating customers- So I was glad to hear that in her talk, Ms. Rieder did extend the concept and also focused on the opportunities and advantages of co-creation for firms and, equally, customers: http://snurb.info/node/980
  
  
• Johann Füller from Hyve talked about the creation of brands by users. I have heard this talk before, but it again was fascinating to see how user-created brands challenge the marketing thinking of many decades: http://snurb.info/node/977
  
  
• The honorary keynote speaker of the conference was the famous sociologist and scholar of cultural studies, George Ritzer from the University of Maryland. He provided a nice historical overview of the prosuming customer, but -- as most speakers at the conference -- stopped when it got interesting, i.e. when new forms of co-creation emerge. But overall, it was a great experience to listen to Prof. Ritzer live: http://snurb.info/node/976

For summaries of many more talks, go to http://snurb.info/taxonomy/term/104

New International Executive Program on Mass Customization: Learn in three days the fundamentals to profit from mass customization and how to bring this strategy into practice

Mass Customization: Turning heterogeneous customers into a source of profitability

IE Business School, Madrid, 6, 7 and 8 of May, 2009

I am glad to announce a new Executive Education Program in cooperation with IE Business School (ranked as the 5th business school in the world in Open Programs by the Financial Times, May 2008) that wants to provide a strategic  introduction into how to implement mass customization in your organization.

Download Program brochure.

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

With this program participants will realize that offering superior fit to their customers’ needs does not have to necessarily come at the expenses of efficiency. Mass customization is a key strategy to meet this challenge. Many large corporations have started large-scale mass customization programs. The next one may be your company – you will learn why Mass Customization is far more applicable often believed. Most importantly, this program will introduce you to the different issues, tools and approaches that you can adopt to build profitability by serving differentiated customers’ needs – to move towards mass customization.

Over the past decade, we have studied mass customization in more than 200 different organizations. We found that mass customization is a strategic mechanism that is applicable to most businesses, provided that it is appropriately understood and deployed. The key is to view it basically as a process for aligning an organization with its customers’ needs. Mass customization is about moving towards these goals by developing a set of organizational capabilities  that will, over time, supplement and enrich an existing business.

"Mass Customization" is an innovative, ground-breaking international executive program designed to help executives gain competitive advantage by learning how to turn heterogeneities across their customers into a source of profits. Participants will gain a holistic understanding of the various capabilities – both organizational and individual – that their companies will have to develop in order to recognize and exploit heterogeneous customers’ needs. The program emphasizes a cross-functional approach and covers such issues such as organization design, CRM, and organizational change.

PROGRAM OBJECTIVES

This state-of-the-art program provides its participants with the latest practices and cutting-edge strategic insights to help them steer their organizations towards Mass Customization. The program is delivered by world-class experts on the topic, with excellent academic and practical experience.

Participants will develop a sound understanding of:

• Which capabilities your organization needs to move towards Mass Customization
• Which tools and approaches you can use to build these capabilities
• How to revamp your innovation processes to offer the “right customization”
• How you can you keep the costs of product and service customization under check
• How human capital contributes to achieving Mass Customization
• How IT and knowledge management can support Mass Customization
• How to orchestrate organizational change towards Mass Customization

For the full program structure, please download the program brochure.

WHY IE BUSINESS SCHOOL

IE Business School is a leading international business school oriented at providing top-level training for executives. The recognized prestige of its teaching faculty, the degree of excellence of the academic programs and a clear international focus are the keys behind a learning model that has ranked IE Business School among the best business schools in the world (IE Business School has been ranked the 5th business school in the world in Open Programs by the Financial Times, May 2008).

The Executive Education Programs offered by IE Business School aims to develop the vision, skills and management capabilities required to meet the many and varied challenges facing business organizations, both today and in the future. In recognition of the high quality and academic rigor of the programs, IE Business School is accredited by EQUIS (European Quality Improvement Systems), AACBS International (The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) and AMBA (Association of MBAs).

Together with my co-instructures, I invite you to join our mass customization community and benefit from a unique learning experience in an environment that nurtures top-level talent both professionally and personally.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, please contact:

Karen Hobbs, International Executive Programs Manager

karen.hobbs@ie.edu
Tel.: +34 91 782 17 15
Fax: +34 91 745 47 62
www.execed.ie.edu/internationalprograms

For more information, please download the program brochure.

Open Innovation Speaker Series at UC Berkeley

Henry Chesbrough, Author and Executive Director of the Center for Open Innovation, and Adjunct Professor at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, is propably the best known figure in the world on the new paradigm of open innovation. So it is no wonder that he is able to get some of the most interesting people in the world to contribute to his weekly "Open Innovation Speaker Series" (Mondays, 12:30 - 2:00 pm).

Every monday during lunch time, the Open Innovation Speaker Series provides both academic and managerial perspectives on open innovation and related subjects. It is open to students, faculty, staff, and the general public.

I am delighted to have been invited to join this elite crowd, and will present in Berkeley on April 13.  My talk will be on "Customer Co-Design and Co-Creation: Mastering Long-Tail-Markets by Integrating Customers in the New Product Creation Process". The presentation will introduce a number of strategies that help companies to profit from heterogeneous customer demand.

But before, there are many more interesting presentations. In case you can not join, there is a video download of all presentations. But if you are living in the Bay area, I would be pleased to meet with you at my presentation in Berkeley!

Here is the full Spring 2009 Series Schedule

Mondays, 12:30 - 2 pm (Refreshments provided)
Cheit Hall, Room 330, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley

• Feb. 9 - Wim Vanhaverbeke, Professor, Hasselt University, Belgium, "Broadening the scope of Open Innovation"
• Feb. 23 - Steve Goers, Kraft Foods, VP Open Innovation, "Applying the principles of open innovation to drive growth"
• Mar.  2 - Peter Williams, IBM, CTO, Big Green Innovations, "Case Studies in Environmental Innovation at IBM"
• Mar. 9 - Dan’l Lewin, Microsoft, Corporate VP, Strategic & Emerging Business Dev.
• Mar. 16 - Marko Torkelli, Professor, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland    
• Mar. 30 - Alex Osterwalder, Business Model Advisor
• April  6 - Tony Singarayar, Founder, Analogy Growth Partners
• April 13 - Frank Piller, Professor, RWTH Aachen University, and MIT Smart Customization Group
• April 20 - Francesco Sandulli, Professor, Complutense University of Madrid
• April 27 - Andrew Davies, Professor, Imperial College, London
• May 4 - Rich Friedrich, HP Labs, Director, Open Innovation Office

For more information, and also to download the videos and presentations from the Fall 2008 series, head here. http://openinnovation.haas.berkeley.edu

Update - Conference: Prosumer Revisited: Zur Aktualität der Prosumer-Debatte. Forschungsstand und -perspektiven

26. and 27. March 2009, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt/M, Germany

An interesting conference will take place in March 2009 in Frankfurt, Germany. The academic event wants to review the long school of academic thought on prosumers and co-creating customers. Organized by sociologists, and dominated by a critical perspective on the theme, the conference wants to provide an interdisciplinary review of the research in the area. I am honored to provide the opening keynote for this event, and are looking forward to it!

Update: The conference flyer with the full program can be downloaded here!

For more information, head to the conference website: http://www.prosumer-research.de

From the conference announcement (in German language, as this is the conference language):

Ausgehend vom ursprünglichen Stichwortgeber Alvin Toffler (1980) ist es das Ziel der Tagung, den Forschungsstand der Prosumer-Debatte bis in die jüngste Gegenwart interdisziplinär aufzuarbeiten und sich in einem internationalen Plenum über zukünftige Entwicklungen, Tendenzen und Trends zu verständigen. Vieles von dem, was Internetökonomie heute praktisch ausmacht, läuft darauf hinaus, daß sich die Kundinnen und Kunden selbst in die Vermittlungsleistung mit einbringen und damit gewissermaßen eine pro-aktive Mitarbeit leisten (müssen), wenn sie bestimmte Sach- oder Dienstleistungen erwerben wollen.

Indes hat diese Entwicklung nicht erst mit der Internetökonomie eingesetzt. Vielmehr können wir schon viel früher beobachten, daß Konsumentinnen und Konsumenten einen eigenständigen Beitrag liefern (müssen), wenn es um die Abwicklung gewisser Handelsgeschäfte oder die Erbringung bestimmter Produktleistungen geht. Man denke nur an die ersten Automatenrestaurants Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts, an das Aufkommen der Selbstbedienung in den 1920er Jahren, an die globale Verbreitung der Fast-Food-Ketten seit den 1950er Jahren oder an die „Do it yourself“-Bewegung, speziell im Möbelsektor in den 1970er Jahren, mit IKEA als bekanntestem Beispiel. ...

In der entsprechenden Forschung wird diese aktive Mitarbeit der Kunden seit längerem schon mit dem Begriff des Prosumers in Verbindung gebracht, den Alvin Toffler 1980 in „The Third Wave“ geprägt hat. ... Inzwischen jedoch hat sich der Prosumer-Begriff auch für Formen der direkten Kollaboration zwischen Unternehmen und Kunden eingebürgert, die mit Konzepten von Co-Design, Co-Produktion oder „Produsage“ (Axel Bruns) gefaßt werden. Seit Ende der 1990er Jahre hat sich hierzu eine rasant wachsende Forschungs- und Publikationsaktivität entfaltet.

Auf diese Forschungs- und Publikationsaktivität einerseits, aber auch auf die entsprechende Entwicklungen in den verschiedensten Märkten andererseits soll die Tagung „Prosumer Revisited: Zur Aktualität der Prosumer-Debatte“ Bezug nehmen. Ausgehend vom ursprünglichen Verständnis der Prosumer-Figur bei Alvin Toffler wird es darum gehen, den heutigen Stand der Entwicklung und Forschung zum Phänomen des Prosuming umfassend aufzuarbeiten und aktuell zu erheben, einschließlich eines Ausblicks auf zukünftige Perspektiven, Tendenzen und Trends.

Veranstalter sind Prof. Dr. Birgit Blättel-Mink (Frankfurt/M.) und PD Dr. Kai-Uwe Hellmann (Berlin).

Update: The conference flyer with the full program can be downloaded here!

Conference website: http://www.prosumer-research.de

Business Forum at RWTH Aachen: Innovating With Your Customers

[This is an announcement of an event in German language at RWTH Aachen. To continue with the next posting in English, click here.]

Innovation durch Interaktion – mit dem Kunden zum Erfolg

Aachen, 25. und 26. Mai 2009

Prof. Robert Schmitt, ein Kollege am WZL an der Maschinenbaufakultät der RWTH, organisiert am 24. und 26. Mai in Aachen seine jährliche Veranstaltung zunm Thema "Qualität und Unternehmensführung". Dieses Jahr steht sie unter dem Motto „Innovation durch Interaktion – mit dem Kunden zum Erfolg“.

Ziel des Forums ist es, Methoden kennenzulernen, die den Innovationserfolg durch die Verknüpfung von interaktiver Produktentwicklung mit emotionaler Wertgestaltung zu fördern.

Viele der etablierten Ansätze wie Kundenbefragungen und Quality Function Deployment scheinen nicht ausreichend, um Kundenwünsche und Begeisterungsfaktoren zu identifizieren und in technische Spezifikationen zu überführen. In der Veranstaltung werden Lösungsansätze vorgestellt und erfolgreiche strategische und operative Lösungswege diskutiert.

Der erste Themenblock „Strategische und operative Implementierung einer interaktiven Produktentwicklung“ behandelt Ansätze, wie der Kunde intensiv in den Innovations- und Entwicklungsprozess mit dem Ziel eingebunden wird, Blind- und Fehlleistung infolge von Produkten, die den Markt verfehlen, zu minimieren.

Der zweite Themenblock „Konzepte zur Emotionalisierung von Produkten“ ermöglicht Einblicke in namhafte Unternehmen, denen es gelungen ist, über die reine Erfüllung von Kundenforderungen hinaus ihre Produkte mit subjektiven Werten zu bereichern. Die Emotionalisierung von Produkten ist der Schlüssel zu hoher Preisbereitschaft Ihrer Kunden und damit ein wichtiges Element Ihres Unternehmenserfolgs.

Mehr Information und das vollständige Programm hier im Flyer oder auf der Konferenz-Web-Site.

MVM Visual Search - Free Webinar on new shopping personalization technology

In September last year, My Virtual Model (MVM) unveiled a first-of-its-kind personalization technology in a partnership with Sears and IBM (Note: I am using the term personalization according to my own definition, i.e. it refers to a customized shopping experience – I will work on an update on this definition soon).

Struggling retailer Sears is investing heavily in its web-site to counterbalance decreasing sales in stores by a great web experience, probably the right way to do! As part of this effort, Sears.com was the first company in the world to integrate MVM's new 3D visual search and e-commerce capability on its site. Now, after the x-mas shopping rush, Sears confirmed that the technology significantly improved and enhanced a consumer’s online shopping experience. Sears was the first retailer to apply both a visual search and virtual model to an entire catalog online.

The Sears site allows consumers to recreate their in-store shopping experience online by enabling them to search for merchandise using images versus words, and to virtually “try on” selected items using a personalized model of themselves to ensure that the style, color, pattern and fit are right before purchasing.

It is a great advancement in personalization and online experience (Disclaimer: I served on MVM's board of directors, so I may be a bit biased in my positive evaluation :-)

Next week, Louise Guay, President and Founder of My Virtual Model, is offering a free series of Webinars where the visual search application will be demonstrated, and where Louise also will comment on the achievements and challenges of this technology.

Louise will make a 30 minute presentation on:
- January 21, 12PM (ET)
- January 21,  4PM (ET)
- January 22,  4PM (ET)
- January 23, 12PM (ET)

To register for a Webinar, go here.

Topics of the Webinar:

• 3D Visual Search: use Key-Images to find what you are looking for sooner.
• How to create a scalable solution that covers 100% of your product assortment.
• Outfitting: create inspirational fashion looks.
• Targeted recommendations based on shopper’s profile and behavioral patterns.
• How to uses MVM to drive qualified traffic to your site.
• News from the Virtual Model community.

Update (Jan 20, 2008): Today, MVM announced its new Jeans Finder in cooperation with IndiDemin:

For more information, go their site. More information about indiDemin is in this previous posting.

Building a Customer-Centric Organization: IE Executive Education Program

IE Business School's Executive Education Division is one of the world's leading institutions to educate managers on recent business trends. Their Open Enrollment Programs have been ranked no. 5 worldwide according to the Financial Times ranking, May 2008.

Within this scheme, we are offering again our program

Building a Customer-Centric Organization: OUTPERFORMING YOUR COMPETITION IN PROFITABILITY

IE Business School, Madrid, Spain
9, 10 and 11 March 2009. [PDF of Program Brochure]

The program features all three facets of building a truly customer-centric organization:

- Mass Customization and strategic capabilities of offering truly customer-centric offerings
- User innovation and customer co-design
- Relationship marketing

It recently is the only program of its kind worldwide! So register now to participate!

About the content:

Heightened competition is forcing business leaders to recognize that the new foundation for profitability is establishing loyal, long-term customer relationships; to conceive themselves not as a group of products, services, territories, or functions, but as a portfolio of customers; to know how profitable each of their customers or customer segments are, and to understand why; to continuously innovate in order to improve their customer value propositions.

The challenge then arises when trying to manage the organizational complexity that surfaces when trying to implement a truly customer-centric strategy. Organizations must align all aspects of their business with the target customer-value proposition. In order to be successful in implementing a sound customer-centric strategy, everyone in the company needs to make decisions consistent with this strategy.

The program features three core modules:

• Strategic capabilities for customer-centricity, taught by Fabrizio Salvador:  Building a customer-centric organization is appealing but also difficult because it involves profound changes in virtually all the value-adding processes of a firm. Yet the payoff is potentially enormous. This module examines the fundamental capabilities that a company has to develop in order to become more customer-centric, and offers a birds-eye view of the scope and content of the organizational changes associated to customer-centricity. Special attention will be devoted to the issues associated to connecting front-end and back-end areas of the firm for fast and efficient adaptation to customer needs.
• Placing the customer at the center of the innovation process, taught by Frank Piller: A key challenge in new product and service development (NPSD) is to match new designs to customer preferences. The growing heterogeneity of demand, the advent of "long tail markets", exploding product and service complexities and the rise of the creative consumer are making this task more difficult than ever. This module will explore new strategies to navigate NPSD more efficiently by utilizing the firm's periphery for innovation.
• Focusing on the individual customer relationship, taught by Martin Boehm: Delivering what customers' value provides competitive advantage in today's business arena. No matter in which sector it finds itself competing in each company needs to focus on the customer's point of view not only to improve the customer experience, but also to increase the customer's contribution to the business. This module will explore how to determine the value of each individual customer for your business and how to retain the ones that offer the highest value, as well as, switching costs associated with their loss.

For more information, download the program brochure, or head to IE's website. http://www.execed.ie.edu/internationalprograms

Reminder: Front End of Innovation Europe Conference 2009 - Special Discount Code available

I have made an announcement for this conference before, but as the event is coming closer, here it is again:

Monte Carlo, Monaco, 26-28 January 2009

The Front End of the innovation process is where new products and services are first conceived and is widely regarded as the greatest opportunity for organic growth. The FEI Conference is the only European program focusing on the Front End specifically and the one event that matches best-in-class thought leaders with current and future challenges.

The "Front End of Innovation" is an expensive event, but one that I really enjoyed in 2008. While some of the keynote presentations at the last conference were not really the best I had in my life, the conference had very interesting case studies in the parallel tracks, and provided some of the best networking opportunities in innovation management I ever experienced. So I am happy that I am invited again to speak at the upcoming event in 2009 as well -- and not just as it is in sunny Monaco :-)

Building on the successful example of the US conference, Prof. Peter Koen, the conference chair, has developed with PDMA and IIR a unique cross-industry innovation conference delivering superior content. Deemed as Europe’s leading innovation event, FEI 09 brings more than just a few select industry gurus and academics. This event includes over 50 speakers from around the globe showcasing practical techniques and leading case studies that will guide you to develop a profitable ecosystem for innovation. During the 2009 event, over 50 real life case studies will be shared.

The conference web site is highly interactive and has plenty of additional content. And the best:

And here is a great deal: IIR gave me a discount code so that you get 20% discount on any registration package. Just use the code SPKRM2150FP when registering online!!

Invitation: Conference on Customizing & Personalizing Media

This is an invitation to a very interesting event in Cologne on Jan 15. Customizing media is one of the topics that has been discussed most in the last years. But while there is plenty of talk, practical applications are rather scare (beyond customizable music streams with Last-fm or Pandorra). So here is the opportunity to discuss the topic in depth -- with the people offering media in Germany. The conference is, however, in German language, and so is this posting.

Das Institut für Rundfunkökonomie an der Universität zu Köln lädt ein zu einer Vortragsveranstaltung anlässlich seines zwanzigjährigen Bestehens:

Die Individualisierung der Medien. Herausforderungen und Chancen
Donnerstag, 15. Januar 2009

Kammermusiksaal des Deutschlandradios, Raderberggürtel 40, 50968 Köln

10.00 h Grußwort: Prof. Ernst Elitz, Intendant des Deutschlandradios

10.10 h – 10.35 h: Prof. Dr. Detlef Schoder, Institut für Rundfunkökonomie: Die Individualisierung der Medien als betriebswirtschaftliche Aufgabe

10.35 h – 11.00 h Helmut Heinen, Vorsitzender des BDZV (angefragt): Die Individualisierung der Medien als Herausforderung und Chance der Zeitung

11.30 h – 11.55 h: Prof. Dr. Heiner Meulemann, Institut für Rundfunkökonomie: Nutzerpräferenzen und die Individualisierung des Rundfunks

11.55 h – 12.20 h: Dieter K. Müller, ARD-Werbung Sales & Services GmbH: Daten und Methoden zur empirischen Ermittlung der Zuschauer-/Zuhörerpräferenzen in Deutschland

13.50 h – 14.15 h: Prof. Dr. Horst M. Schellhaaß, Institut für Rundfunkökonomie: Individualisierung der Medien –  wettbewerbsstrategische Implikationen für die Sicherung der Meinungsvielfalt

14.15 h – 14.40 h: Eva-Maria Michel, Westdeutscher Rundfunk (angefragt): Individualisierung der Medien –  Herausforderungen und Chancen für den öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunk

15.30 h – 15.55 h: Dr. Manfred Kops, Institut für Rundfunkökonomie: Individualisierung der Medien – Selbstregulierung als medienökonomische Konsequenz?

15.55 h  – 16.20 h Ernst Elitz, Deutschlandradio: Individualisierung der Medien –  Herausforderungen und Chancen für den professionellen Journalismus

16.50 h – 17.00 h: Prof. Dr. Günter Sieben, Institut für Rundfunkökonomie: Schlusswort

Das Funkhaus des Deutschlandradios liegt im südlichen Kölner Stadtteil Raderberg. Ab Dom/Hbf fährt die Buslinie 132 bis Haltestelle Bonner Str./Gürtel und die Linie 133 bis Brühler Straße/Raderberggürtel. Von dort aus erreichen Sie in wenigen Gehminuten das Funkhaus. Mit dem Auto fahren Sie über den Kölner Autobahnring bis zum AB-Kreuz Köln-Süd. Von dort fahren Sie über die Bonner Straße ca. 2 km stadteinwärts bis zum Raderberggürtel. Am Funkhaus steht den Tagungsteilnehmern eine beschränkte Anzahl von Parkplätzen zur Verfügung. Vom Flughafen Köln-Bonn erreichen Sie das Funkhaus mit dem Taxi in ca. 20 Minuten.

Veranstalter und Anmeldung: Institut für Rundfunkökonomie an der Universität zu Köln, Hohenstaufenring 57a, 50674 Köln, Tel. +49221-233536, Rundfunk-Institut@Uni-Koeln.de
www.rundfunk-institut.uni-koeln.de

Weitere Information zum Thema auch bei Prof. Detlef Schoder [schoder at wim.uni-koeln.de]

MCPC 2009 Call for Papers: Mass Matching - Customization, Configuration & Creativity

2009 World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization (MCPC 2009)

Mass Matching - Customization, Configuration & Creativity: Business, Innovation & Research Conference

Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland
October 4-8, 2009. www.mcpc2009.com

Download the Call for Papers here.

Our biannual World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization (MCP) is the premier event in this field. Bridging academic research and management practice, the conference provides an interactive and interdisciplinary platform to share ideas about mass customization strategies and to discuss the latest technologies and enablers.

In October 2009, the conference will move to the first time to Finland, home of a very strong and active community of mass customization researchers and practitioners.

This also is the first time that not Mitchell Tseng and I will organize the conference, but will pass the job to two friends and colleagues, Jarmo Suominen and Mikko J Ruohonen.

The MCPC 2009 will include four parts:

• Part 1: Oct 4, Pre-conference workshops
• Part 2: Oct 5-6, Innovation & Research conference
• Part 3: Oct 7 Business seminar
• Part 4: Oct 8 Business Labs (extended company tours and workshops)

Mass Matching: The Conference Theme

Mass Matching is the main theme of the 2009 conference. It implies a transition towards identifying and exceeding each of your customer interactions from a mass of product supply, marketing acts and customer experiences.

Our manifesto is to shift the mass customization debate from a mere physical product level to a perspective of total value system and life cycle experience and to go deeper on customer-centric communications. Mass customization should be more than just configuring a piece of hardware, but should be seen as the co-design of an entire system, including services and experiences at the individual, organizational as well as at the inter-organizational level.

The Main Conference

The MCP Business, Innovation & Research Conference is designed to engage academics, business leaders and consultants in enriching debates and interaction through a set of plenary presentations, discussion panels, paper presentations and business labs. In addition to the traditional functional conference streams of the MCPC conferences, we especially welcome submissions from managers and consultants reflecting upon the conference theme. In the MCPC2009 we have also company-initiated business labs, a co-creation challenge, and several focused workshops which will elevate knowledge creation and sharing during the conference.

Community building for the MCPC 2009

As a novelty in 2009 conference we will also invite you to build match-making in your area of interests and continue with wrapping up the results and discussions after the conference (matching will be opened 1 January 2009). We will launch blogs in our website for community building in all three sub-theme areas, customization, configuration and creativity. We encourage participants and authors to engage in these questions and to bring forth their experiences from an interdisciplinary and cross-functional perspective. The keywords of profiles and abstracts are needed for conference match making.

Profile creation & matching your personal interest areas via idea outlines, paper abstracts, and presentation descriptions will start at 1 January 2009.

Submission process

We invite you to start working today. The submission site will open in January 2009.

Contribute to the co-creation process of the MCPC 2009 by submitting your best work on mass customization, personalization and related areas.

All papers have to be written in English. We prefer papers which go beyond pure conceptual contributions and are empirically grounded. We are open to a diverse set of quantitative and qualitative methods of empirical research. We seek papers following the idea of "engaged scholarship" being relevant to both practice and research.

Short/Full papers or Presentations: Either 4-8 pages or max. 25 pages  (12pt font, double line spacing) or 15-20 slides for 20 minute presentation.

Only full papers will be considered for the conference's Best Paper Award and selection procedure of papers for the final conference book publication.   

Conference proceedings: The conference proceedings will contain short abstracts of all accepted papers. Authors of accepted papers can decide if they submit a (revised) version of their full paper for publication in the full-text proceedings of the conference, or just a summary version which does not compromise publication of the paper in top journals.

We will connect a number of highly respected academic journals for featuring special issues with selected conference papers after the conference.

To submit a paper (for practitioners: presentation proposal), please use ONLY the online submission system for this conference on the conference web site (the submission system will be opened in Jan. 2009). Do not submit papers per e-mail directly to the conference chairs.

All papers will be double-blind reviewed.

Important dates

• March 31, 2009  Deadline for abstracts/outlines/presentations (may be extended)
  
• April 30, 2009 Full paper submissions due
• June 30, 2009: Notification of accepted contributions
• Aug 31, 2009: Final submissions & Author registration deadline
• Oct 4, 2009: Pre-Conference
• Oct 5-6, 2009:  Innovation & Research Conference at Aalto University
• Oct 7, 2009:  Business Conference
• Oct 8, 2009: Business Labs (company case workshops)

I am very excited to work with Jarmo and Mikko on this conference, and hope to see all of you there as well !

More information:

• Conference web site (will be updated soon!!)
• Homepage of the hosting university, Aalto University
• Past MCPC conferences: MCPC 2007, MCPC 2005, MCPC 2003

For more information, please contact the conference chairs ...

Prof. Jarmo I. Suominen
University of Art and Design
jarmo.suominen@uiah.fi

Prof. Mikko J Ruohonen
University of Tampere
mikko.j.ruohonen at uta.fi

... or the Chief Conference Organizer:

Renita Niemi
University of Art and Design Helsinki
Renita.Niemi@taik.fi

Hard Copies: New Open Designs by Ronen Kadushin

An exhibition at Appel Design Gallery, Berlin 1-22 Nov. 2008 -- and an invitation to download all design and place it on your local CNC machine.

Now we have Ponoko, eMachineshop, JuJups, Shapedays, etc to produce what ever come to our mind in an easy way. But still, at least I don't have every day a nice idea for a great coffee table in my mind.

This is where Ronen Kadushin comes in. I wrote about this Berlin-based designer before. Ronen's idea is to publish all his designs under a CC Creative Commons license( by-nc-sa). So whenever you have access to a CNC cutting facility, you can get his designs:

As Ronen describes: 

"Open Design products flow with an essential cultural wave: towards freer information, Web-based collaborations and open-source methods. In Open Design anyone can download and produce my designs for free. Open Designs encourage modification, redistribution, and direct contact with the designer. I would only ask producers to share with me revenues from commercial uses. This means that with no tooling investment, you can produce Open Design products independently."

All object rely on a very clever 2D digital start point, which makes them easy to alter into new shapes and uses, and they are flat packed. “Hard copies” of the designs can be ordered from any CNC cutting facility that’s local to you, your consumers, or distributors. Ronen's idea is that designs that typically live only a few years in the marketplace can live on and develop.

Still, at the same time, Ronen needs to earn some money. Generating fame and buzz and getting his name out is one of the intentions of the Open Design project. But he also produces some of his collections in high quality and exhibits (and sells) them in an annual exhibition at a Gallery in Berlin.

He says about his new exhibition: 

"This Open Design collection of lighting and furniture limited editions is playing a double role. As gallery pieces, they express my personal style: simple, effortless and humorous. But they also relate to wider cultural issues and offer a designer an alternative course to consumer products, especially relevant in economically troubled times.

There is a feeling about Open Design I would like to convey. Making products this way is, for me, mind clearing and fun. You can feel as good about the Open Design production process, its low environmental footprint, and what it stands for, as you do about the objects themselves."

Context information:
- Freely download the Open Designs and more from www.ronen-kadushin.com
- Order them at Appel Design Gallery, Berlin, www.appel-design.com

Exhibition at:
Appel Design Gallery
Torstr. 114, 10119 Berlin, Germany
phone: +49 (0)30 32 51 81 60
info@appel-design.com

My M+M's, Net Virta, and Zazzle Founders join the Speaker List of MIT Smart Customization Seminar 2008

Early Registration Discount Extended Until October 24, 2008

Great news! Two exciting new companies join the rooster of speakers of our upcoming MIT Smart Customization Seminar, and the Zazzle Co-founders will present their cooperation with Keds in person.

NEW PRESENTATION: Mass Customization Leaders: My M&M's, Mars, Inc. Dan Michael, R&D Director

Few mega-consumer brands have driven customization as far as Mars, Inc., owner of the famous M&Ms product line. Introduced in 2005, My M&M's is one of the largest mass customization ventures of a major consumer brands. Dan Michael shares in his presentation how My M&M's was planned, implemented, grown and established at its recent scale and scope. He also will discuss the opportunities and challenges of establishing a mass customization business within a large existing organization focused on the mass market.

NEW PANELIST in Mass Customization Entrepreneurs Panel: Jeff Jian Chen, Founder, Net Virta

Net Virta won the MIT100K business plan competition this year as a semifinalist. Their technology enables consumers to construct their precise virtual 3D body models with ease for their online needs.  The markets include online apparel shopping, weightloss tracking, customized apparel products , on-line virtual reality gaming, remote tailoring, social networking, and any avatar based markets.

The technology is based on patent pending computer vision technology. Consumers use simple digital cameras to construct their 3D models, at home, with no cost, and with extreme accuracy. Consumer takes 3-5 pictures of them self, upload these pictures to their PC, and Net Virta's algorithm will convert these 2D images into 3D body models .

Sounds to good to be true? Join the seminar and see for yourself ... I am personally very existed to listen to this two presentations.

In addition, I am glad to announce that Jeff Beaver and Andy Howell, Co-Founders of Zazzle will personally share experiences in the online mass customization domain, joined by Kristen Ella, Ecommerce Manager of Keds.

Zazzle is the only on-demand retail platform for consumers and major brands, offering billions of one-of-a-kind products shipped within 24hours. Users can instantly create, customize to fit their personal style, purchase, and sell a near infinite array of products online. In an exclusive partnership with sportswear icon Keds, the inventor of the "sneaker", Zazzle created its first line of fully customizable sports shoes. The presentation will share the creation of a new customization assortment for Keds.

Finally, we added one more exciting talk:

Mass Customization Next Generation: Embedded Toolkits in the Automotive Industry, Robert Schmitt, RWTH Aachen: This presentation will present an example of leading edge research on customization toolkits. Conventionally, you configure your custom product before you order it. The idea of this joint project with Robert Schmitt, however, is to embed a customization toolkit within a product. You will see the first BMW equipped with such a toolkit, allowing the customization of a car during the usage stage in a new dimension.

And we also took care that you still can come and register to the seminar -- despite all financial crisis. The early registration deadline has been extended until October 24 -- so save 800 USD of the registration fee by registering now!

Continue reading ... My previous posting with detailed information on all presentations of the seminar!

Microcentrum Symposium on Rapid Manufacturing and Mass Customization

Microcentrum Rapid Manufacturing & Mass Customization Symposium
18 November 2008, ’s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands

A new symposium on 18 November in ’s-Hertogenbosch brings Mass Customization and Rapid Manufacturing together. Organized by Microcentrum, a large Dutch research and high-tech education  organization, the seminar brings these two hot topics together.

The text of the pre-announcement describes quite neatly the topic and idea of the event:

Matching mass customization and rapid manufacturing can be compared to writing a letter: Today anyone can write a personalized letter and merge it with data on paper. But why can this be done with letters and not with plastic, metal or ceramic objects? Individuality plays a central role in an increasing number of industrial and consumer products. This topic will be discussed by experts with various backgrounds, including RM guru Terry Wohlers from the United States. I also will have the opportunity to provide a keynote on this event.

The steam engine and the industrial revolution went alongside with each other , and the chip and the second industrial revolution were also closely related. The first industrial revolution was concerned with mechanization, the second one with automation. Mechanization led to many identical objects for many users. The distance between makers and users grew. They became producer and consumer. Automation reinforced this. Mass production exploded in terms of numbers and globalization. The areas in which mechanization and automation took place overlapped each other only slightly and the result was continuous production in large numbers as opposed to a revival of craftsmanship.

Thus the freedom that automation offers does not lead to a greater diversity in products the average individual can obtain. New insights and technological possibilities however, have led to something that lies between the old and new situation: Mass Customization. Products are still made in large quantities. But now the individual does have influence. The Internet plays an important role in enabling the consumer to configure objects to his needs. One of the solutions that has much to offer, despite the fact that it concerns industrial production, is Rapid Manufacturing. The form of objects is no longer dictated by machine tools but rather is directly defined by digital – thus inexpensive – information that can vary for each product and makes each object unique. With this the consumer can also create his own design.

Can sufficient added value be generated with Mass Customization and Rapid Manufacturing for the products to rise above those of the competition? How can both generate profits? This new symposium also targets those responsible for making strategic choices.

The event ‘Rapid Manufacturing & Mass Customization 2008’ will take place on 18 November 2008 in ’s-Hertogenbosch.The conference language is English. Students are entitled to a reduced entry fee.
Organisation: Mikrocentrum. Chairman: Rein van der Mast

Update: Program now online:

09.00  Welcome
 
10.00  Opening of the symposium
Geert Hellings, director Mikrocentrum
 
10.10  Introduction: the shortening distance between RM and MC
Rein van der Mast – chairman
 
10.30  Profiting from Mass Customization: Success Factors and Pitfalls
Frank T. Piller, RWTH Aachen & MIT Smart Customization Group, M.I.T.
 
11.20  The shape of things to come
Jan Willem Gunnink, Delcam PLc
 
11.50  Coffee break
 
12.10  How to get more out of MC, wherever possible with RM
Hans Maessen, Solvagroep
 
12.40  Realizing the business potential of rapid manufacturing
Martijn Laar, Berenschot
 
13.10  Lunch break
 
14.00  The Future of Rapid and Custom Manufacturing
Terry Wohlers, Wohlers Associates, Inc
 
14.50  Rapid Manufacturing cost-effective?
Mike Ayre, Crucible
 
15.40  Metal Rapid Manufacturing
Jonas van Vaerenbergh, Layerwise
 
16.10  Coffee break
 
16.30  RapidManufacturing.net
Liam van Koert, Array Publications
 
16.40  Tailored solutions for sourcing Rapid Manufacturing components
Jurgen Laudus, Materialise
 
17.20  Conclusions
Rein van der Mast - chairman
 
17.30  Drinks and networking
 
For more information, check back to the event web site.

The Top 20 of Mass Customization: A closer view on the agenda of the MIT Smart Customization Seminar

The upcoming Smart Customization Seminar at MIT will gather a great group of individuals representing some of the most advanced and interesting businesses in mass customization today. The seminar is targeting executives in the mass customization market and companies interested in launching a mass customization business or applying some of its principles to boost an established business.

Here is a more detailed look on the program with some comments. Participate at this unique event and register today!

For the full program, go the the seminar's web site at MIT.

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MONDAY, NOV 10, 2008 (starting at 2pm)

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Introduction & opening addresses: Frank Piller & B. Joseph Pine II, MIT Smart Customization Group: Joe Pine and I will start the seminar with two short keynotes highlighting key aspects of matters today in mass customization. We also want to provide a framework how to navigate the two days during the seminar.

Mass Customization Leaders: Adidas, Alison Page, Director, Mass Customization: Adidas' mass customization offering mi adidas is the premier example of custom sports wear since 2001, combining customization in all three dimensions: fit, style, and functionality (performance). Alison Page will talk about the learning of establishing the customization business unit within a global corporation.

Mass Customization Leaders: Business-to-Business Leader
We are talking to one of the most advaced examples of BtoB customization. Come back to see who will be speaking in this slot.

Mass Customization Next Generation: Spreadshirt, Inc. Jana Eggers, CEO
Spreadshirt represents a new breed of mass customization, combining personal creativity with the power of the social web. Spreadshirt has recently made it into the Top 5 European Growth list "Europe's 500". CEO Jana Eggers will share her experiences with leading a major customization brand, connecting average consumers, artists and corporations like Samsung, Coca Cola, or Chuck Norris.

Open Space discussion: Defining your mass customization strategy
Meet with a smaller group of peers to discuss your mass customization challenges and experiences. Groups will be facilitated by a leading professor in the field, providing also first-hand insight into the latest research to master your challenges.

Reception and networking dinner in the MIT Faculty Club

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Tuesday, NOV 11, 2008

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Opening address: William Mitchell, MIT Smart Customization Group, is a Professor of Architecture and Media Arts and Sciences at MIT and directs the Media Lab's Smart Cities research group. Before coming to MIT, he was Professor of Architecture and Director of the Master in Design Studies Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He also taught at Yale, UCLA, Carnegie-Mellon, and Cambridge Universities. He holds a BArch from the University of Melbourne, MED from Yale University, and MA from Cambridge. He is a recipient of honorary doctorates from the University of Melbourne and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. In 1997 he was awarded the annual Appreciation Prize of the Architectural Institute of Japan for his "achievements in the development of architectural design theory in the information age as well as worldwide promotion of CAD education."Mitchell is currently chair of The National Academies Committee on Information Technology and Creativity.

Mass Customization Leaders: Masters in Configuration, Lars Hvam and Niels Henrik Mortensen, DTU and Co-authors of "Product Customization": Lars Hvam and Niels Henrik Mortensen are co-authors of the 2008 book "Product Customization: Designing Configuration Systems". Configuration is a key capability for mass customization. But setting up a configuration system is a holistic task that demands much more than just dealing with IT. Lars and Niels developed a methodology to implement a configuration system that helped pump manufacturer Grundfos to react on customer orders in 3 minutes instead of 3 days. American Power Conversion (APC), an infrastructure provider for data centers, could reduce its delivery time from 400 to 16 days. Learn from these and other examples how the latest methods for designing modular product architectures and configuration toolkits can improve the efficiency and customer satisfaction in your mass customization business.

Mass Customization Supply Chain Enablers: CustoMax.com, Bas Possen, Founder & CEO: "In general, too little use is made of the advantage, that all people are different." That's the credo of Bas Possen who manages Europe's largest network of retailers for mass customization, combining multiple vendors of custom goods and retailers on one single platform, both online and offline. Bas Possen brings more than a decade of experience in mass customization to the meeting, having established a number of successful companies in the field.

Mass Customization Entrepreneurs: Meet the next generation of mass customization: Following MIT's entrepreneurial spirit, we proudly present some of the best upcoming new ventures in mass customization. Learn from the founders what motivated them to invest in a mass customization business and get the latest insights from their research and experiences.

Paragon Lake just secured more than $7 million of additional financing, demonstrating ist leadership in the custom jewelry industry. Tikatok is an award-winning idea that empowers children to create their own books and get them produced in large or small quantities. MyFactory and Proper Cloth are start-ups of resent MIT Sloan School graduates in the field of custom fashion and apparel. Look for their latest ideas how they want to differentiate their sites in a crowded market. Sole Envie targets to become the first company in the US selling custom made footwear to women with a high design appeal.

All companies will be presented by their founders and CEOs and will provide a great opportunity to learn about what's hot in the customization market today and what market & technology trends are coming up.

Matt Lauzon, Co-Founder & CEO, Paragon Lake (Jewelry)
Sharon Kan, President & CEO, Tikatok, Inc. (Children books)
Sasha Revankar, Founder, MyFactory (Fashion)
Seph Skerritt, Founder, Proper Cloth (Shirts)
Monika Desai, Founder, Sole Envie (Women's footwear)

Mass Customization Integrators: Zazzle Inside: How Zazzle's infrastructure enabled Keds to offer custom sneakers rapidly, Zazzle, Inc., and Keds Corporation: Zazzle is the only on-demand retail platform for consumers and major brands, offering billions of one-of-a-kind products shipped within 24hours. Users can instantly create, customize to fit their personal style, purchase, and sell a near infinite array of products online. In an exclusive partnership with sportswear icon Keds, the inventor of the "sneaker", Zazzle created its first line of fully customizable sports shoes. The presentation will share the creation of a new customization assortment for Keds.

Mass Customization Leaders: Swarovski: How a leading international brand co-creates products with their customers, tba, Swarovski, Inc. & Johann Fueller, CEO, Hyve AG:  Swarovski is the luxury brand name for crystals around the world. With sales of more than $3 billion, the Swarovski group is one of the largest players in its industry. Still, Swarovski's organization is very customer-centric. Recently, the company explored a number of co-creation and customization initiatives which will be presented in this talk. The co-presenter of this talk will be Johann Fueller, who was responsible for the realization and implementation of several customer co-design toolkits at Swarovski.

Mass Customization Next Generation: Desktop Factory, Inc., Cathy Lewis, CEO: The goal of Desktop Factory is to make 3D printing as common in offices, factories, schools and homes as laser printers are today. Just as laser printers became ubiquitous in the last decade, so too will new uses for 3D printing emerge as devices become inexpensive and widely available. Customization and personalization is the main driver behind this trend. Started in 2004, Desktop Factory is the leading company to build a manufacturing system for each customer for less than $5000.

Changing the Game: How Video Games Are Transforming the Future of Mass Customization, Ethan Mollick, MIT Sloan School: Some of the world's best configuration toolkits today are not being developed to sell automotives or complex machine tools, but videogames. In his presentation, Ethan Mollick will share the latest insights on configuration toolkit development in this industry and what you can learn from this to develop state-of-the-art toolkits for your business. With David Edery, Ethan Mollick is the co-author of "Changing the Game: How Videogames are Transforming the Business World" (2008, Pearson Education/Financial Times Press).

Mass Customization Next Generation: i-Fashion: The Future of Personalization Today. Chang Kyu Park, Director, i-Fashion Technology Center, Korea and Yongsoo Park, CEO, i-Omni Co. Ltd., Korea: Virtual representations of products and customers are a key capacity of successful mass customization & personalization. They match customers' preferences to products and configurations. The i-Fashion Consortium in Korea operates one of the world's most advanced set-ups of virtual reality. Using virtual models based on an Intellifit body scan, consumers get personalized recommendations of products they may like. At the same time, vendors' efficiency increases due to the virtual -- and not physical -- representation of products for most stages of the value chain. Chang Kyu Park will discuss present achievements if i-Fashion and provide recommendations on using virtual models in your organization.

Open Space discussion: Implementing Mass Customization: Meet with a smaller group of peers to discuss your mass customization challenges and experiences. Groups will be facilitated by a leading professor in the field, providing also first-hand insight into the latest research to master your challenges.

Closing comments by Frank Piller & B. Joseph Pine II, MIT Smart Customization Group

For the full program and registration, go the the seminar's web site at MIT.

Building a Profitable Mass Customization Business: Seminar at MIT

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Boston, Nov. 10-11, 2008: The 2008 Executive Seminar by the MIT Smart Customization Group. Meet the managers who matter most in mass customization today. Engage in peer-to-peer discussions on how to implement a profitable customization business. Chat with SCG-Co-Leaders B. Joseph Pine, William Mitchell & Frank Piller on what is next in personalization. Experience the latest start-ups in the field and talk to their founders and CEOs. More information and registration here.

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MIT Seminar on Mass Customization - Meet the Thoughtleaders in the Field

MIT Faculty Club, MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA, November 10-11, 2008

Another event ... but one that we believe will matter and create value: We are inaugurating the MIT Annual Smart Customization Seminar. Its foremost idea is to connect managers in peer-to-peer interaction to foster an intense discussion, facilitated by presentations from industry leaders and the Smart Customization Group faculty. The seminar's core faculty consists of Mass Customization guru B. Joseph Pine II, MIT Design Lab Director William Mitchell, and myself (Frank Piller).

The seminar provides a unique opportunity everyone working on, implementing, or considering mass customization and personalization strategies and technologies (note: it is organized in the style of the MIT Executive Education, so there are no student discounts, etc.).

The MIT Smart Customization Seminar is the only event of its kind in North America and provides an in-depth coverage of one of today's most important business trends. The objective of the 2008 seminar is to take an intensive look on the success factors and "how to do it” aspects of mass customization and personalization.

For more information, the preliminary agenda, and registration please refer to the agenda in the attachment and our seminar web site: http://stellar.mit.edu/S/project/smartcustomization/

Space in the seminar is limited, so reserve your seat today, and also enjoy the early registration discount until October 24, 2008.

The Silver Market Phenomenon: Business Opportunities and Responsibilities in the Ageing Society

International Symposium "The Silver Market Phenomenon: Business Opportunities and Responsibilities in the Ageing Society" on October 3 and 4, 2008, United Nations University, Tokyo, Japan

The German Institute for Japanese Studies Tokyo (DIJ) is co-organizing an international symposium on the Business Opportunities and Responsibilities in the Ageing Society.

Florian Kohlbacher, the organizer of this first-ever global forum that unlocks the secrets of the silver market phenomenon, has assembled a great group of speakers on innovation, product and service development, technology management, marketing and business models for the 50+ market.

This is a unique opportunity to discuss Japan's silver market phenomenon with renowned experts from around the globe and to meet the inventor of "Paro", a robot for therapeutic treatment, the inventor of the Robot Suit HAL, Dr. Kawashima from the worldwide success "Dr. Kawashima`s Brain Training" and many more.

I am happy to present our latest research on open innovation and mass customization on this event. I believe that in a world of demographic change, open innovation and mass customization provide major opportunities to react on some of these challenges.I will discuss how the integration of older consumers will create better fitting products and services.

Registration is required by September 22. Detailed program here.

UK Event on Leading Innovation and Open Innovation

Innovation Leader Summit 2008, 3 - 4 November 2008, Copthorne Hotel, Slough, United Kingdom

My friends at Pure Insight are running a great event on innovation that also has a core focus on open innovation in form of an executive round table.  The conference organizers wants to extend your understanding of the relationships between strategy, people, culture, customers and organisational issues that are required to enable your organisation’s innovation capabilities, and some of the tools required to frame problems, research customers, analyse insights, and create breakthrough concepts.

One of the keynote speakers is my colleague Bettina von Stamm, Founder of the Innovation Leadership Forum, who is running with John Bessant the Discontinuous Innovation Lab, one of the projects at our department at RWTH-TIM. Bettina is hugely passionate about understanding and enabling innovation, particularly in large organisations.

The event faculty and an experienced panel from Fortune 500 companies will share their perspectives, experiences and methodologies. Articulating not just the ‘what’ but also the ‘how to’ required to succeed based on their own successes and failures, this event focuses firmly on 'how to innovate successfully'.

For more information, head to http://www.innovationleadersummit.com.
To download a brochure, click here.

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.

Conference Report: The International Conference on Mass Customization and Personalization in Central Europe (MCP-CE 2008)

Guest article written by Robert Freund, Chairman of the Scientific Committee

The main goal of the MCP-CE conference series is to bring Mass Customization and Open Innovation closer to companies and scientists in Central Europe. The previous two conferences were held in Rzeszow (Poland) successfully organized by the University of Information Technology and Management (UITM), giving the fundaments and research directions in this part of Europe.

Host of the MCP-CE 2008 (June, 3-6, 2008, Palic – Novi Sad – Serbia) was the University of Novi Sad (Serbia), Faculty of Technical Sciences, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management. The conference was held in Palic, the most beautiful part of the municipal region of Subotica. The conference can be considered a good success with contributions by more of 50 participants coming from 12 countries.

On Tuesday evening the conference started with an informal meeting at Villa Lago. On Wednesday, we had a plenary session and in the afternoon two parallel sessions with 26 papers and 22 presentations (Program). The Dinner at a wine castle offered the perfect environment for discussions and networking. Thursday morning we had a workshop on Mass Customization and Open Innovation in Tourism with very good discussions. On the afternoon all participants were invited by the University of Novi Sad to visit the Faculty of Technical Sciences.

We believe that the MCP-CE 2008 conference was successful, because it offered a perfect platform to exchanging ideas, discussing research resultsm and to network. If you are interested in the conference proceedings, please contact Zoran Anisic (Chairman of the Organizing Committee): azoran@vts.su.ac.yu.

The next MCP-CE will be hold in 2010, probably again in Novi Sad.

You find the full program of the 2008 conference and many more, including plenty of pictures, on the conference web site.

Conference on Open Innovation and the Importance of External Information for the Innovation Process at Zeppelin University

JULY 11, 2008, 2-6pm, Friedrichshafen

Zeppelin University is the rising star among the new private German universities, and they reinforce their status by organizing their first Innovation Symposion around the topic of open innovation.

I am privileged to be invited to open the event with a keynote, but three managers from leading companies will demonstrate how they apply open / user innovation in practice. And in a workshop with all participants, we want to explore how you can profit from an internet based platform for open innovation for your company.

The event is in German language, and so is all other information as well:

 
Das Symposium für Innovation

Das Symposium für Innovation der Zeppelin Universität Friedrichshafen möchte Unternehmer und Entscheider aus dem Innovationsbereich mittelständischer und großer Unternehmen aus der Bodensee-Region und darüber hinaus zusammenbringen, um über dieses bedeutende Thema zu diskutieren.

Anregende Praxis-Beispiele und Vorträge ausgewiesener Experten auf dem Gebiet des Innovationsmanagements verdeutlichen Ihnen die Bedeutung offener Innovation auch für Ihr Unternehmen. Nutzen Sie das Symposium für Innovation, um sich mit Unternehmensvertretern aus Ihrer Branche und anderen Branchen in einem offenen Rahmen auszutauschen und neue Kontakte zu knüpfen.

Zunehmende Bedeutung externen Wissens und offener Innovation

Das erfolgreiche Management von Innovationen stellt heute eine zentrale Herausforderung für Unternehmen dar, um langfristig erfolgreich zu sein. Die zunehmende Bedeutung von Wissen als grundlegender Ressource von Innovationen macht hierbei die Integration externen Wissens (beispielsweise von Kunden, Zulieferern, Universitäten, etc.) zu einem häufig wettbewerbsentscheidenden Faktor für ein erfolgreiches Unternehmen. Das Management offener Innovationsprozesse in Innovationsnetzwerken und anderen Kooperationsformen vermag somit einen bedeutenden Beitrag als Quelle neuer Innovationen für die Entwicklung von am Markt erfolgreichen Produkten zu leisten.

Aus dem Programm:

• „Die Hilti AG und die Einbeziehung von Kunden in den Innovationsprozess“, Elke Baessler, Corporate Innovation Manager, Hilti AG, Liechtenstein
• „Open Innovation in der Automobil-Industrie: Das Network of Automotive Excellence und der Innovations-Wettbewerb 2008“, Herbert Köpplinger, ewf institute, München, Leiter der Initiative Network of Automotive Excellence, eines firmenübergreifenden Zusammenschlusses von Unternehmen aus der Automobil- und Automobilzulieferer-Industrie
• „Outside In: Kundenintegration als Erfolgsfaktor im OEM-Geschäft“, Alexander Lang, Director Marketing & Innovation, Webasto AG, München

Workshop: „Anforderungen von Unternehmen aus der Praxis an eine internetbasierte Plattform für den Einsatz von Open Innovation im Unternehmen“

Download des Programm-Flyers mit allen Informationen als PDF.

Mehr Informationen und Registrierung (60,- Euro Teilnahmegebühr) hier.

Mass Customization in Clothing & Fashion: Annual Conference of the European Technology Platform

Thursday May 29th 2008, 9.30 – 14.30 in Brussels, Belgium.
Pre-Conference on May 28th, 9.20 - 17.00 h

EURATEX, the European Association of the Textile Industries, is running its third conference on mass customization in the textile and clothing industry. It is the main European networking meeting for this sector and presents an excellent opportunity to connect with industry, technology providers, and EU policy makers.

More than 200 participants from industry, academia, public authorities and the media attended last year’s Technology Platform conference and the organizers expect at least a similar attendance this year.

A range of industry speakers are scheduled to describe their own experiences and business cases in the field of Mass Customization. The European Commission will present its policies and programs to support more Research & Innovation in the industrial sector in general and the textile and clothing sector in particular.

This event will be preceded on May 28th by a full-day pre-conference which provides an overview of recent mass customization related projects funded by the EU.

For the full program and more information, please download this PDF.

Attendance of the conference including lunch and cocktail is free of charge. Registrations are handled on a first come, first served basis.

A registration form is here, and more information on accommodation in the conference hotel can be found here.

Contact for organizational & logistical questions
Paulette De Wilde, Euratex (Ph : +32-2-285.48.83, paulette.de.wilde@euratex.org)

Pre-Announcement: The 2009 World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization Will Take Place in Helsinki, Finland

The 2007 conference just is over, and I am still not done with all follow-up duties, but the next MCPC already is in the making:

Safe the following dates in your agenda!

The 2009 World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization

Conference Theme:

Conference Place: Helsinki, Finland
Date: 4-7 Oct 2009 (!) (not 2008!)

Production methods are ready to offer personalized mass customization. The next challenge is to develop means to matchmaking products & services with specific customer demands in a satisfactory way.

The World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization (MCPC) is the primary event in this domain. Bridging between academic research and management practice, the conference provides an interactive platform to learn about mass customization strategies and to discuss the latest technologies and enablers.

In Oct 2009, the conference will be in Helsinki with an interdisciplinary focus on the new advancements in the field of manufacturing, marketing and communication. The second part will be a business seminar addressing opportunities to bring mass customization and personalization to practice, with a focus on communication and marketing.

An innovative MassMatchMaking platform will enable all participants to experience a matchmaking flow from conference pre-launch to the actual conference and beyond. A highly interactive website will enable pre-matchmaking before conference, used in workshops, sessions, roundtables and dinner tables during the conference.

Stay tuned with MCPC 2009 newsletter and be part of the MassMatchMaking platform launch.

Conference Schedule:

Papers & Speaking proposals will be due on JAN 9th 2009 A call for papers is coming up soon.

Pre-workshop | 4 Oct 2009
Conference | 5-6 Oct 2009
Business seminar | 7 Oct 2009

Conference Organizers:

Helsinki School of Economics
Helsinki University of Technology
Tampere University
Tampere University of Technology
University of Art and Design, Helsinki

For all further information, check at www.mcpc2009.com frequently.

Last minute: Executive Class at IE - Building the Customer-Centric Organization: Mass Customization, Open Open/User Innovation, and Relationship Marketing

IE Business School is the best business school worldwide in executive education open programs, according to the 2006 ranking published by The Economist. Now they finally offer a program on mass customization, user innovation, and one-to-one marketing:

Building the Customer-Centric Organization:
Outperform your competition in profitability

Madrid, 2, 3 and 4 of April, 2008
Instituto Impresa Business School, Executive Education

Facilitators:
- Fabrizio Salvador, Frank Piller, and Martin Boehm

PDF Information Brochure: http://www.execed.ie.edu

Sorry for the last min. announcement, but I forgot to post this before. Perhaps you still can make it to Madrid next week!

Customer-centricity is increasingly becoming the key source of competitive advantage in today’s globalizing marketplace. Heightened competition is forcing business leaders to recognize that the new foundation for profitability is establishing loyal, long-term customer relationships; to conceive themselves not as a group of products, services, territories, or functions, but as a portfolio of customers; to know how profitable each of their customers or customer segments are, and to understand why; to continuously innovate in order to improve their customer value propositions. A company’s ability to find, grow, and retain their clientele has increasingly become the key to success.

The challenge arises when trying to manage the organizational complexity that surfaces when trying to implement a truly customer-centric strategy. Organizations must align all aspects of their business with the target customer value proposition. In order to be successful in implementing a sound customer-centric strategy, everyone in the company needs to make decisions consistent with this strategy.

The program features several stimulating modules that address numerous issues of concern.

Strategic capabilities for customer-centricity

Building a customer-centric organization is appealing but also difficult, because it takes profound changes in virtually all the value-adding processes of a firm. Yet the payoff is potentially enormous. This module examines the fundamental capabilities that a company has to develop in order to become more customer-centric and a true mass customizer, giving the 30,000 feet view of the scope and content of the organizational changes associated to customer-centricity. Special attention will be devoted to the issues associated to connecting customer, front-end and back-end of the firm for fast and efficient adaptation to customers’ needs.

Putting the customer at the center of the innovation process

A key challenge in new product and service development (NPSD) is to match new designs to customer preferences. The growing heterogeneity of demand, the advent of “long tail markets”, exploding product and service complexities, and the rise of the creative consumer are making this task more difficult than ever. This module will explore new strategies to navigate NPSD more efficiently by utilizing the firm's periphery for innovation.

Focusing on the relation with each individual customer

Focusing and delivering on what a customer values provides competitive advantage in today’s business arena. No matter what the sector is, each company needs to focus on the customer’s point of view not only to improve the customer’s experience, but also to increase the customer’s contribution to the business. This module will explore how to determine the value of an individual customer for your business and how to retain high value customers. Retaining customers can primarily be achieved by either increasing a customer’s cost of leaving your business or by delighting the customer with superior service. This program will explore how to increase a customer’s switching cost and how to delight and satisfy customers.

IE Business School is a leading international business school oriented at providing top-level training for executives. The recognized prestige of our teaching faculty, the degree of excellence of our academic programs and a clear international focus are the keys behind a learning model that has ranked IE Business School among the best business schools in the world (IE Business School is the best business school worldwide in executive education open programmes, according to the 2006 ranking published by The Economist).

In recognition of the high quality and academic rigour of our programs, Instituto de Empresa is accredited by EQUIS (European Quality Improvement Systems), AACBS International (The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) and AMBA (Association of MBAs).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION and registration, please contact:

Olga del Ama
International Executive Programs Manager

Tel.: +34 91 782 1715
E-mail: olga.del.Ama@ie.edu
www.execed.ie.edu/internationalprograms

Registration also online here.

Conference on Open Innovation in Munich on April 24, 2008

The MÜNCHNER KREIS is a prestigious non-profit supranational association working at the interface of public policy, science, business, and the media on issues of technology, societal and business impacts, and regulation of information and communications technologies. The MÜNCHNER KREIS organizes discussion groups, member conferences, symposia, and congresses.

On April 24, it organizes a rather large conference on open innovation in the telecommunication industries in Munich:
Leadership by Open Innovation in the Telecoms, IT and Media Industries
April 24, 2008, Haus der Bayerischen Wirtschaft, Munich

From the conference announcement:

The telecommunications, IT and media industries are simultaneously facing the challenges of globalization (in emerging markets such as China), convergence (through IP networks) and new value chains (through increased customer involvement and competition). Innovation will be the key to lead in these industries. The important question is: How should firms innovate?

Innovation cycles are shorter and costs are increasing. Could Bertelsmann have created a Google without having a garage in Silicon Valley? Will Kodak and Fuji be the leaders of the digital photos and videos? Will Apple take over EMI? How should firms use inventions of their R&D departments, which do not fit into their current business models? How should firms share, save or protect intellectual property? Is Digital Rights Management advantageous or is a free market model better? Should a mobile operator focus on customers or become a utility company to transport bits and bytes?

Perhaps “Open Innovation” is the magic word to answer these challenges and provide a model for innovation in these industries. Open means on the one hand the involvement of customers, users and clients in the innovation process and on the other hand the opening of the innovation process and sharing of intellectual property with third parties and even competitors. The conference is mainly focusing on the latter aspect, but a few speakers, including myself, will also address the former aspect of user innovation.

Open innovation as a methodology has an impact on business models, on corporate culture, on communication processes with users/suppliers, and on the architecture of the value chain. What do firms need to lead in their markets? Certainly they will need the right innovative products/services, the right business model, the right management and team, and the adequate financial backing. But more and more smart people are living and working outside their corporate borders. Will Open Innovation motivate people to team up, to create and to be passionate across borders or will it lead to strengthen competitors? There are no black and white answers to these questions.

The conference "Leadership by Open Innovation in the Telecoms, IT and Media Industries" will examine and discuss the importance of innovation for the commercial success of new inventions including technology, marketing, business models or a mix of all three.

For more information and registration, have a look in this PDF file (the conference will be in English and German with Simultaneous Translation of German-English language).

Mass Customization in the Construction Industry: Industry Tour Visits Custom Home Manufacturers in Japan

This sounds like the best of all worlds: "Zero-Energy" and "mass customization" in one home. I met Dr Masa Noguchi, a scholar at the Mackintosh School of Architecture at the Glasgow School of Art on the MCPC 2007 conference, where he was presenting at in the "Mass Customization & Architecture" track.

Masa is doing plenty of research on mass customization of homes, and coming from Japan, he has access to the manufacturers of the leading nation when it comes to the industrial fabrication of highly customized homes (pre fabs 2.0).

His institute is offering a unique field trip ("the mission") to see mass customization in this industry in practice during the

PV ZERO-ENERGY MASS CUSTOM HOME MISSION TO JAPAN 2007, 10-12 September, 2008.

From the announcement:

"The PV Zero-Energy Mass Custom Home Mission to Japan 2008 is aimed at offering industry professionals, academics and government officers opportunities to visit not only the state-of-the-art production facilities of five leading housing manufacturers in Japan, but also the sales center where a number of model homes are displayed allowing potential home buyers to examine the quality.

The mission also extends its visit to an existing solar community that consists of 100 prefabricated homes that are usually equipped with solar photo voltaic power generating systems. During the 1960s and 1970s, Japanese housing manufacturers focused solely on the mass production of their products, resulting in a supply of virtually identical, rather monotonous houses.

Due to the inferior image associated with the low-quality appearance of these mass produced houses, the public immediately rejected industrialized homes. Since then, the manufacturers have placed greater emphasis on improving housing quality, and thereby customer satisfaction, such that Japanese housing manufacturers today enjoy a reputation for providing reasonably-priced quality housing that, while still mass-produced, is customized—i.e. mass customization.

Japanese housing manufacturers are successful in commercializing their industrialized houses that are often equipped with a PV system, as a standard feature rather than options. In fact, between 1994 and 2003, the number of domestic PV installations in Japan drastically increased from 539 to 52,863 houses. Although the country has been experiencing the negative fluctuation of housing starts over the last few years, the PV housing manufacturers express their confidence in the increase of their sales for years to come.

The mission corresponds with the global market needs and demands for housing of today and tomorrow and helps the participants gain the knowledge of contemporary housing technologies being implemented for the commercialization of marketable and reproducible zero-energy houses.

For more information, please look in this PDF file with more information, or contact Dr Masa Noguchi, Mission Coordinator, at m.noguchi@gsa.ac.uk. Or go here for more information: http://www.masscustomhome.com.

Seminar in Sweden: Mass Customization & Innovation in Fashion Retaling

March 6, 2008

In case you fancy a spontaneous trip to Sweden, this may be a great seminar:

Producing goods and services to meet individual customer’s needs
Mass Customization & Innovation in Fashion Retailing

The Textile Innovation & Competence Center TIC at the Swedish School of Textiles generates, according to their own brochure, "new thoughts, models and methods of positive and sustainable growth. It´s all about designing methods, processes and products, about interdisciplinary education, resulting in a dynamic view of the world." Thus it makes a lot of sense that they organize a seminar on mass customization.

The seminar is free of charge but seating is limited. Registration and more information: http://www.hb.se/ths/ctf

Innovation Excellence - Conference in Vienna features open innovation and more

[This is a posting in German language as it refers to an event in German language -- continue in English below].

Einladung zum 5. Forum Innovation und Produktentwicklung am 10. April 2008 in Wien

"Innovation Excellence" – Erfolgsfaktoren zur Steigerung der Innovationskraft

Erfolgreiche Innovationen sind Voraussetzung für beständigen Unternehmenserfolg und sichern anhaltende Wettbewerbsvorteile. Die zunehmende Markt- und Technologiedynamik, der intensivierte internationale Wettbewerb sowie wachsende Kundenansprüche setzen Unternehmen verstärkt unter Druck.

Innovation zielt darauf ab, die Wettbewerbsposition zu verbessern und die Profitabilität zu sichern. Dazu müssen Kundenansprüche besser erfüllt werden, und das bei gleichzeitig geringeren Kosten. Innovationsmanagement ist eine komplexe Aufgabe, da es bei konsequenter Anwendung sämtliche Unternehmensbereiche betrifft. Vor diesem Hintergrund gewinnt "Innovation Excellence" als systematische und umfassende Gestaltung der Entstehung und Umsetzung von Innovationen zunehmend an Bedeutung.

"Innovation Excellence" ist dann nicht nur Garant für Unternehmenserfolg, sondern auch Hebel zu langfristigem Unternehmenswachstum und Profit. Um substantielle Marktanteile zu generieren und zu verteidigen, ist eine Orientierung an Benchmarks und Erfolgsfaktoren über die eigenen Branchengrenzen hinweg sowie der Austausch von Best Practice Erfahrungen empfehlenswert.

Typische Fragestellungen zu "Innovation Excellence"

> Wie innovativ ist mein Unternehmen? Wie kann dies bestimmt werden?
> Wie erfolgreich ist mein Unternehmen mit neuen Produkten und Prozessen?
> Wo steht mein Unternehmen im Vergleich zum Wettbewerb?
> Wo bestehen Verbesserungspotenziale bei Innovationsaktivitäten?
> Wie lassen sich Kompetenzen im Unternehmen erweitern?

Am 5. Forum berichten Experten aus Industrie, KMU, Forschung und Wissenschaft in 18 Vorträgen zu Modellen, Erfahrungen, Benchmarks und Erfolgsfaktoren für "Innovation Excellence".

Darunter:

· Prof. Sören Salomo, TU Denmark – Die österreichische Innovationselite

· Prof. Frank Piller, RWTH – Neue Strategien zur Steigerung der Entwicklungseffizienz

· Johannes Prinz, Frequentis – Launching Customer Prinzip – Innovation im Anlagenbau

· Roger M. Chevalier, Strategyn – Kundenbedürfnisse, die zu planbarer Innovation führen

· Hagen Strasser, Trumpf Maschinen – Erfolgsfaktoren in der Vorentwicklung als Innovationstreiber

Erstmals findet am 9. April 2008 die Vorabendveranstaltung "Innovation Lounge – Meet the Prof" statt. Nutzen Sie einen gemeinsamen Abend im kleinen Kreise mit international führenden Experten, Prof. Frank Piller und Prof. Sören Salomo, um Herausforderungen und Trends im Front End of Innovation zu diskutieren (begrenzte Teilnehmerzahl).

Anmeldungen bis 10. März 2008 erhalten den Frühbucherbonus von 10%.

Erfahren Sie Erfolgsfaktoren zur Steigerung der Innovationskraft – nützen Sie die Chance zum Erfahrungsaustausch und Wissenstransfer!

Programm und Anmeldung: http://www.pfi.or.at/forum

Invitation: European Conference on Sports and Innovation

Are you interested in the future of sports and mass customization in the sports goods industry? Then you should join this upcoming conference.

12 to 14 March 2008 in EINDHOVEN, Netherlands

The conference is an initiative by the European Action Project INNOSPORT.EU. In this project, a number of the core players of the European sports goods industry brainstormed in the last year how to create a better platform for this important industry. I was invited to join the advisory board of this project, as mass customization and user innovation are regarded as some of the key trends in this sector.

The results of this coordinated brainstorming will be presented on the conference. This also is THE KEY EVENT if you are interested in participating in European projects around this sector.

Topics to be discussed on the event:

Sport vision 2015: What social trends are there in relation to sport? What developments are taking place in health and safety aspects? What impact can sport have on the economy? Where are the opportunities for innovation? The Sport Vision 2015 which will be presented at the conference will provide some insight into these issues about trends, needs, aspects and innovation opportunities. The programme also includes a number of workshop sessions and visits to field labs about football, sports promotion, gymnastics, swimming and horse-riding.

European platform: The European Sport Innovation Platform (ESIP) will be launched at the conference. This is a proactive networking platform at European level for high-tech companies, knowledge institutes and government, with the aim of joining forces in innovation and creating new opportunities as a result.

Free company presentation: We are pleased to offer you the opportunity to present your company free of charge during the conference. Please visit the website for more information.

International speakers who have already agreed to take part in the conference are Alberto S. Bichi – Secretary General FESI (Federation of the European Sporting Goods Industry), Antonello Marega – R&D Director of Tecnica, and Philippe Freychat – Vice-president Sporaltec and R&D Director of Decathlon.

Program and registration: For a detailed and up-to-date programme, please visit www.innosport.eu where you can also register for the conference.

Further contact: Marc van der Zande, TNO Science and Industry, marc.vanderzande@tno.nl

Design & Configuration of Complex Products -- Insights From DTU's Product Modeling Group, one of Europe's leading centers on the mass customization

Lars Hvam and his colleagues at Denmark's Technical University (DTU) in Copenhagen have built one of the world's leading research groups in the area of product configuration and modular product design. Their approach is that you not just should build a configurator or sales system for your existing products, but hat successful configuration and mass customization demands a dedicated modular product architecture that should be developed together with the configurator.

Their work is very much driven by industry input. Lars chairs a huge industry interest group with more than 40 company members, many of them world market leaders in customization. The group is one of the strongest pillars in our community of mass customization researchers, and you have two chances to interact with them in the next weeks -- and a new book is summarizing their recent research:

(1) Industry Meeting on "Product Modularization & Variety Reduction" on Jan 31, 2008 in Copenhagen.

The presentations at the meeting will include experiences from applying the principles of product modularization for managing and reducing the number of product variants at Rolls Royce Marine, Siemens and LEGO - see the agenda and register for the meeting at this link. All presentations will be held in English!

(2) PETO’08 Conference on Service customization

As reported before, Kasper Edwards and Lars Hvam from the Technical University of Denmark are hosting this European MC event in 2008. More information here.

(3) Product Customization - A New Book by Lars Hvam, Niels Henrik Mortensen, and Jesper Riis

From the abstract (I have not received the book yet, so this is just an announcement, not a review):

For the majority of industrial companies, customizing products and services is among the most critical means to deliver true customer value and achieve superior competitive advantage. The challenge is not to customize products and services in itself – but to do it in a profitable way. The implementation of a product configuration system is among the most powerful ways of achieving this in practice, offering a reduction of the lead time for products and quotations, faster and more qualified responses to customer inquiries, fewer transfers of responsibility and fewer specification mistakes, a reduction of the resources spent for the specification of customized products, and the possibility of optimizing the products according to customer demands.

This book presents an operational procedure for the design of product configuration systems in industrial companies, based on the experience gained from more than 40 product configuration projects in companies providing customer tailored products and services.

Published by Springer. ISBN: 978-3-540-71448-4

For any further information in any of the topics above, just contact Lars directly:

Lars Hvam, Chairman of the Association for Product Modeling
Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Management
Technical University of Denmark
lhv@ipl.dtu.dk

Trendcamp Open Innovation by Net Culture Lab Austria

Net Culture Lab Austria is an initiative that wants to explore what "internet culture is" and how a large corporation, Telekom Austria, its main sponsor, can learn from it. The project was initiated in May 2007. It supports small projects of innovative people all around Austria who want to build, experiment, create, or craft in the broad area of "net culture" (remember that Austria is one of the world's leading countries with regard to multimedia and electronic arts).

Recently, I was invited to one of their regular "trend camp" gatherings, and it was a great experience for me. The topic of my 1.5 day workshop was open innovation, and we were a mixed crowd of managers of Telekom Austria (a typical former monopolist in the telecommunication industry, now under pressure in a deregulated market) and young artists, web programmers, lecturers in the area, and consultants. Organizer was Thomas Fundneider from a small innovation consultancy in Vienna.

The day was a great surprise for me: I frequently do this kind of workshops with companies, and regularly the reaction is one of fascination for the opportunities of open innovation, but always paired with a very strong resistance towards change and how this could work in their own corporation.

Not this time, however. The Telekom managers seemed to be even more open on the topic then the "net people", and thus it was a very refreshing experience, one that really filled me with hope that Crowdsourcing and open innovation really can change large corporations fundamentally.

In many small presentations by everyone from the group, and two large structures open table discussions, we generated lots of ideas and great input. I also learned a lot – and mow I am curious to see what Telekom Austria will do with our results.

More reports on this Trendcamp can be found (all in GERMAN language) at Polymatic, digitalks.at, the Telekom Austria Blog and at Thomas Fundneider's Blog

MCP Meetings and Conferences in 2008

In 2008, a few smaller focused events on mass customization and personalization are coming up. The next large MCPC conference will be in Europe in 2009. Before, you have the opportunity to interact on these regional events -- all taking place at very nice locations in Europe!

(1) 3rd Conference on Mass Customization and Personalization in Central Europe (MCP-CE 2008)

3-6th of June 2008, Palić - Novi Sad, Serbia

Conference chairs Robert Freund, UITM Poland, and Zoran Anisic, University of Novi Sad, Serbia are again bringing together the East European countries in this general, but regional event. This conference is a great example of our growing mass customization community. The MCp-CE 2008 is organized by the local chapter of the IIMCP, our mass customization society, and driven by the fantastic support of a group of local people!

All conference information and the call for papers: http://www.ftn.ns.ac.yu/MCP-CE2008

(2) 3rd Joint Conference PETO’08 and IMCM’08: Mass Customization of Services

19-20th of June 2008, Copenhagen, Denmark

Kasper Edwards and Lars Hvam from the Technical University of Denmark are hosting this European event this year again in Copenhagen.

Many industrial companies have successfully applied mass customization to physical products. However, little is known on the transmission of mass customization principles to service industry. Our question is if the service industry can benefit from research advances in mass customization. More importantly, how the mass customization of services can be achieved in the practice. This relates also to services associated with the production and sales of mass customized physical goods. Nowadays, one can hardly imagine a product without the delivery of secondary services. Customers are expecting additional services such as financial services or quickly and reliable on site repair and maintenance. In the case of mass customized products, the task faced by manufacturing companies is even harder. Customer service begins with the interaction/configuration process and ends up with the after-sales phase along product usage. The customer may later initiate a new configuration process hoping to add features to his system. This requires a configuration system able to span product families and generations.

More information and the full call for papers: http://www.dtu.dk/sites/IMCMPETO2008.aspx

(3) IF-MC2 2008 First International Footwear - Mass Customization Conference

10th of October 2008, Lugano, Switzerland

Sergio Dulio and Claudio Boer are planning this focused event on mass customization in the footwear industry. The footwear world is showing a growing interest for the application of the Mass Customization paradigm to its business processes. An increasing number of startups, new ventures and traditional producers are launching MC projects or are already in an advanced phase of exploitation of its market benefits.

The conference will survey the actual penetration of MC among footwear companies, it will present a complete analysis of its market potential and it will provide an up to date survey of the most relevant technological and organizational issues related to the adoption of MC by footwear companies. Researchers will also present the state of the art on footwear MC and future trends.

More information will follow!

Reminder: User Manufacturing & Open Innovation Webinar onThursday, Nov 29, 2007

Some buzz for my next webinar:

Recent trends in personalization and improved product configuration systems mean that Mass Customization is being taken very seriously, driving a new breed of process and improved product development strategies.

In what is described as the ultimate Open Innovation strategy, User Manufacturing allows customers to not just feed into your New Product Development cycle, but actively drive it!

Thursday 29th November 2007: 10.00 New York / 15.00 London

User manufacturing, Instant Companies and Customer Co-creation -- New infrastructure is leading to new competition

In this 60 minute live web seminar I will define what will and won't affect your business as rapid manufacturing takes a hold in the development process. Showing business models of companies already utilizing the creativity of their customers, I will:

- Explain key aspects of Mass Customization
- Define why user manufacturing is a trend you need to take seriously
- Cover the challenge of managing the 'long tail' of variety, personalization and creative customers
- Outline where key threats and opportunities exist

To register, please go to http://www.pure-insight.com/webinars/mass-customization-next-generation and use promotional code "aix" (case sensitive!) when registering for a 10% discount.

Note: You also can download the webinar after its initial live broadcast – but only when joining live, you can interact and ask direct questions.

Pure Insights 60 minute Webinars:
No travel - World class presentations delivered directly to your desktop.
More information.

Upcoming Open Innovation & Mass Customization Related Events -- Fall / Winter 2007

I am slow in blogging these days, but active in speaking. Here are a number of events where we can meet in the next weeks in Germany (or even on your desktop with a new webinar on Next Gen Mass Customization). Some are in English, some in German, some are costly to attend, some are free of charge.

First, the International Events

Rethinking Business: Products of tomorrow: Fabbing, personalization & custom manufacturing (Essen, 22 Nov 2007)

Webinar: The Next Gen of Mass Customization: User Manufacturing, Instant Companies, and Customer Co-Creation (On your desktop, 29 Nov 2007)

IMB Forum: Open Innovation in the Textile Industries (Cologne, 21 Nov 2007)

Frontend Europe Conference: How to master customer focused innovation (Vienna, 28-31 Jan 2008)

Second, two German public lectures

In two lectures in Munich and Aachen I provide an updated introduction into mass customization (Munich) and open innovation. These lectures are a good opportunity who want to get a personal introduction into these topics or just want to meet and discuss in person:

- Mass Customization and Customer Co-Creation (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 12. Nov 2007)

- Open Innovation and User Innovation (RWTH Aachen, 4. Dec 2007)

Webinar: The Next Gen of Mass Customization: User Manufacturing, Instant Companies, and Customer Co-Creation (Nov 29, 2007 on your desktop)

How a new infrastructure is enabling consumers to become instant manufacturers – and your future competitor -- 10% discount for MC&OI Blog readers

I am coming back to your desktop. After the large success of an earlier webinar on mass customization, London based Pure Inisghts is organizing a second webinar on the theme, this time around my new favorite topic of user manufacturing.

The topic: We are used to have a networked laser printer on every desk in our office and in every home, enabling us to print documents on the spot which a few decades ago demanded a specialized manufacturer. The same may be happening with the production of many other goods. Today new production technologies ("fabbing") and advanced design software allow average users to produce almost everything – on their own desk. Welcome to the factory in your kitchen.

This session will discuss the upcoming user manufacturing trend, a development that recently is taking shape in larger scope and scale: User manufacturing refers to a public available software, manufacturing, and distribution infrastructure that enables creative users and customers to design, build, and sell own creations to a larger public – without the traditional investments in setting up a business. User manufacturing supplements – or substitutes – mass customization strategies which many companies have implemented. It also may become the most efficient strategy to serve the long tail of variants in many industries.

Consider Spreadshirt, one of the world's largest producers of graphic t-shirts. This company just allows everyone to create an own assortment of designs, and then sell this assortments in highly targeted retail outlets, online and offline, to a small market segment the user knows best. Thus, Spreadshirt does not have to predict the long tail of heterogeneity of fashion products, but just focuses on allowing users to create and sell this assortment by their own.

User manufacturing is enabled by three main technologies: (1) Easy-to-operate design software that allows users to transfer their ideas into a design. (2) Design repositories where users upload, search, and share designs with other users. This allows a community of loosely connected users to develop a large range of applications. (3) Easy-to-access flexible manufacturing technology. New rapid manufacturing technologies ("fabbing") finally deliver the dream of translating any 3-D data files into physical products -- even in you living room. Combining this technology with recent web technologies can open a radical new way to provide custom products along the entire "long tail" of demand.

User manufacturing builds on the notion that users are not just able to configure a good within the given solution space (mass customization), but also to develop such a solution space by their own and utilize it by producing custom products. As a result, customers are becoming not only co-designers, but also manufacturers, using an infrastructure provided by some specialized companies.

The webinar will discuss recent trends and case examples of the user manufacturing trend. We also will compare the business models of companies which are building on the user manufacturing trend and which implement and operate the underlying infrastructure ´for creative users to become manufacturers.

Planned session outline:

- A short review of conventional mass customization thinking

- Which recent trends and developments enhance these strategies and how mass customization is related to “The Long Tail” phenomena

- What is user manufacturing, and which trends does this strategy support?

- What are the components of an infrastructure that supports user manufacturing?

- A review of business models of established companies and recent startups which already successfully benefit from the opportunities of user manufacturing

- A discussion of the major challenges and open issues in this domain

- Session wrap-up: Idea for further action

To register, please go to http://www.pure-insight.com/webinars/mass-customization-next-generation and use promotional code aix (case sensitive!) wenn registering for a 10% discount.

Note: You also can download the webinar after its initial live broadcast – but only when joining live, you can interact and ask direct questions.

All further information can be found here.

Context information

- If you prefer to see the content of this webinar in action, a seminar on Fabbing and User generated Manufacturing in Essen, Germany, provides a great opportunity on Nov 22.

- My earlier posts on user manufacturing

- Article in CNN online on the fabbing trend

- Article in New Scientist on the fabbing trend

- Article in Make magazine on how to use a fabbing device

Rethinking Business: Products of tomorrow: Fabbing, personalization & custom manufacturing (Essen, 22. Nov 2007)

A VERY interesting focused event on the new world of fabbing, laser sintering, user manufacturing, and how to make business with this will take place in Essen (Germany) on Nov 22 afternoon & evening. Hosted by Z-Punkt, an innovative trend consultancy, and taking place in the Zeche Zollverein, a spectacular industrial location, the conference promised to become a real eye-opener and point of discussion.

For more information on the theme, have a look on this previous blog post: I will host a webinar on the same topic of user manufacturing on Nov 29 in case you cannot travel to Essen, Germany, for this event.

For a list of all speakers and the detailed program, please download the event flyer.

The event will be in German language, so all the following announcements are in German language as well.

Erfahren Sie, wie neue Materialien zu Innovationstreibern werden und warum der 3D-Druck das Business revolutioniert. Die Konferenz "Rethinking Business #02. Produkte von morgen" findet am 22. November 2007 auf der Zeche Zollverein in Essen statt. Themenschwerpunkte: Neue Materialien und individuelle Produktion.

Und noch mehr Informationen zum Thema finden Sie in einen Interview mit Frank Piller auf dem Z-Punkt-Blog.

Drucken wir in ein paar Jahren unser Geschirr jeden Tag frisch aus unserem persönlichen 3D-Drucker aus? Und werden die Fallschirme der Zukunft aus Nano-Spinnfäden gefertigt? Wie neue Materialien die Produktwelt von morgen prägen und welches Innovationspotenzial in einer individualisierten Produktionsweise steckt – das diskutiert Z_punkt im Rahmen der Konferenz „Produkte von morgen“ am 22. November 2007 in der Zollverein School of Management and Design in Essen.

Die zweite Veranstaltung im Rahmen des Konferenzzyklus „Rethinking Business“ setzt den Fokus auf „Neue Materialien und Individuelle Produktion“ – und schlägt dabei die Brücke von der Vision zur Praxis. Der nach dem Open-Source-Modell „fab@home“ für 2.000,- Euro gebaute Prototyp eines einfachen 3D-Druckers geht während der Konferenz live in Produktion und vermittelt den Teilnehmern einen Eindruck von den zukünftigen Möglichkeiten einer Fabrik im Taschenformat: Mit einem für Endkunden erschwinglichen 3D-Printer könnte das Ausdrucken von Alltagsprodukten nämlich bald flächendeckend zu Hause möglich sein.

„Uns beschäftigt im Rahmen der Rethinking-Business-Reihe die Frage, wie die Wirtschaft der Zukunft funktioniert. Dieses Mal interessieren wir uns für die Produktwelt. Wir fragen: Wie sehen die Produkte der Zukunft aus? Wie werden sie entwickelt und hergestellt? Und wie müssen sich Unternehmen aufstellen, um intelligente Materialien und individuelle Produktion als Innovationstreiber zu nutzen“, sagt Andreas Neef, geschäftsführender Gesellschafter von Z_punkt.

Darauf muss die Wirtschaft vorbereitet sein – wie einst beim Siegeszug des Personal Computers. Dr. Matthias Lüken, Produktentwickler bei Henkel, und Dr. Sigurd Buchholz, Technologieexperte bei der Bayer Technology Services GmbH, berichten aus der Industrieperspektive über Anwendungsmöglichkeiten und Innovationspotenziale einer individualisierten Produktionsweise.

Weitere Infos:
Rethinking Business #02. Produkte von morgen

22 Nov 2007, 16:00 - 21:30 Uhr at Zollverein School of Management & Design, Essen

http://www.rethinkingbusiness.de

Programm-Flyer und Anmeldung online (Studenten können für nur 50 Euro teilnehmen !)

Info: Silke Schneider (schneider@z-punkt.de)

IMB Forum: Open Innovation in the Textile Industries (Cologne, 21 Nov 2007)

IMB is one of the largest trade shows for the textile industry, a showcase not of the latest fashions in apparel but the latest in machinery and software for the industry. The IMB main event takes place in Cologne every three years. IMB Forum is a smaller sister event of IMB, filling the years in between with a focused exhibition and conference.

The fifth event of the series will be held on the Cologne Fair Ground on Wednesday, 21st November and Thursday, 22nd November 2007. This year's conference theme is "Information Technology for the Textile Processing and Apparel Industry", and I have the honor to provide the opening keynote for this event as part of a conference section dealing with open innovation in this sector.

I am speaking together with Ralf Reichwald, my colleague and co-author from TU Munich. Our topic on the morning of Nov 21 is "Open Innovation: Customers as active partners of companies in the textile industry." We will address latest trends and case studies on open innovation with a focus on the textile industries to provide an overall framework of interactive value creation.

Our talk is followed by Andreas Milles from Spreadshirt, who is presenting the leading implementation of open innovation and interactive value creation in Europe. Johann Füller from Hyve, Munich will present the work his company did with BMW to implement open innovation in this company

For the entire program, head to the IMB forum website, here is a PDF flyer for download.

Here is some more information from a IMB press release:

"IMB Forum, the international exhibition with an accompanying congress, which will take place at the Cologne exhibition center from November 21 to 22, 2007, has come to be one of the sector's top annual events. That's why many leading companies regard participation in the IMB Forum as an absolute must. Or, as Holger Klappstein, Managing Director Sales and Marketing of TXTe solutions GmbH in Halle, puts it: "The IMB Forum is one of the most important information platforms for the fashion, garment, footwear, and textile industries."

The success of the IMB Forum is based on the fact that the event perfectly supports direct dialogue between the sector's users and suppliers. This is also an important factor for Dominik Berger, Managing Director of RF-IT Solutions GmbH in Graz: "The IMB Forum offers us an ideal presentation platform for our goods and services in this area, while simultaneously offering us the opportunity to conduct intensive discussions with our customers."

Christiane Klaschik, Head of Marketing for ImPuls AG from Krefeld, is also well aware of this strength of the IMB Forum: "There's hardly any other trade fair where we can meet such a concentration of our target groups. Customer contact is also a very important issue for us."

Jacqueline Kellner, Head of Marketing at Lectra Deutschland GmbH, regards the IMB Forum as "one of the most professional events for presenting yourself to a high-caliber public."

"We believe in the event and clearly recognize the efforts on the part of Koelnmesse to achieve a breakthrough in terms of the degree of international participation, especially with regard to the visitors. The presence of the decision-makers, at least from the immediately neighboring countries, is a crucial step in the right direction," says Yvonne Heinen-Foudeh, Marketing and Communications Manager Europe of Gerber Technology GmbH in Munich."

The IMB Forum 2007 will take place from Wednesday, November 21 to Thursday, November 22, 2007. The exhibition will be open to visitors on the first day from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and on the second day from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Presentations will be held in the morning and afternoon on both days.

Frontend Europe Conference: An expensive but high-profile event on mastering customer focused innovation (Vienna, 28-31 Jan 2008)

This is a conference I always was interested in but feared the heavy price tag. So I am glad that this time I am invited to speak and so do not have to register :-) The second annual Front End of Innovation Conference in Europe is taking place from 28th -31st, January 2008 in Vienna, Austria. It is the European sister event of a large, very well established US conference

Readers of my blog get 20% discount off the standard & onsite rate to join me at the event. Mention the code SPKRM2050FP to have the discount applied (but the price tag still is heavy – it is a typical commercial IIR conference that also uses pricing to create a high-profile crowd).

The Front End of Innovation Europe offers some of the most respected names in Innovation and R&D., including Clayton M. Christensen from Harvard Business School (the guy who showed that most companies fail when being faced with disruptive innovation).

This conference will address many recent innovation challenges, including: Reducing Your Carbon Footprint, Global Innovation: Bridging Cultural Differences With Asia And Beyond, Open Innovation, New Business Model Innovation, Customer Focused Innovation, Generating Breakthroughs While Reducing Risk, Linking Product Life Cycle Management With The Fuzzy Front End… and many others.

I am speaking on Thursday, 31st January, during the "Front End Innovation Management Research Focused Academic Workshop", when I will be giving my presentation: “Bridging the Mass Customisation and Open Innovation”

During this talk, I will share some of the latest research on setting up successful mass customization systems and will discuss recent trends in product configuration systems from the perspective of strategy and marketing. Based on our own study of more than 250 mass customisers in consumer and industrial markets, the session outlines the building blocks of successful mass customisation strategies and provides ideas how to avoid the pitfalls of its implementation.

Remember: Readers of my blog get 20% discount off the standard & onsite rate to join me at the event. Mention the code SPKRM2050FP to have the discount applied.

Full information and registration: www.iirusa.com/feieurope

Or download the official conference brochure with much more information and all abstracts of all presentations.

Public Lecture: Open Innovation and User Innovation (RWTH Aachen, 4. Dec 2007)

What is open innovation? What is user innovation, and what is the real idea behind the 'lead user' concept? What are tools and methods companies can employ to profit from these buzzwords? Why does it make economic sense? When does it make no sense at all? What have we learned from case studies and pilot studies in this field? And how is Webasto, a leading German automotive supplier, profiting from creative users & customers?

These are some of the questions Alexander Lang and I will address in a public evening lecture at RWTH Aachen on Tue, Dec. 4. The event is hosted by the German Association of 'Wirtschaftsingenieure' (industrial engineers)..

Alex Lang and I will also talk about our experiences from a joint research project on user innovation which is co-sponsored by "Stiftung Industrieforschung", a large grant giving institution on Germany.

This is the first public event I am organizing in Aachen at my new university. So a special invitation to come and discuss with us. The regular language for this event is German, but if we will have international guests, we will talk in English.

All information (in German language) and an abstract of our talks can be found in this PDF.

The event takes place on 4. Dec 2007, 7:15 - 9pm, followed by a network reception. Place: RWTH Aachen, Karmann-Auditorium, Room FO 5, at Templergraben 62 (opposite of the RWTH Main Building).

The lecture is free of charge, and no registration is necessary. Just come to the room!

Here is some more information for all of our German speaking readers.

Open Innovation: Neue Ansätze zur Steigerung von Effizienz und Qualität der Produktentwicklung

Eine öffentliche Veranstaltung (Eintritt frei!) in Zusammenarbeit des Verbands Deutscher Wirtschaftsingenieure (Hochschulgruppe Aachen), des Lehrstuhls für Technologie- und Innovationsmanagement an der RWTH, der Stiftung Industrieforschung und der Webasto AG

Vorträge:

Prof. Frank Piller, RWTH-TIM: Open Innovation und Interaktive Wertschöpfung: Prinzipien und Erfolgsfaktoren

Alexander Lang, Webasto AG: "Ideen aus der zweiten Reihe" - Strategien für kundenorientierte Innovationen in der Automobilindustrie

4. Dezember 2007, 19:15 – 21:00 und anschließender Network-Empfang
RWTH Aachen, Karmann-Auditorium, Raum FO 5 (Templergraben 62 gegenüber RWTH Hauptgebäude, 1. Stock

Abstract:
Open-Source-Software ist nicht nur ein technisches oder gesellschaftliches Phänomen, sondern das dahinter stehende Wertschöpfungsprinzip erweitert herrschende Prinzipien im Innovationsmanagement zum Teil völlig – auch in anderen Bereichen jenseits der Software-Entwicklung. Auf dieser Veranstaltung soll anhand aktueller Fallbeispiele diskutiert werden, wie durch eine solche Open Innovation Effizienz und Effektivität der Neuproduktentwicklung gesteigert werden können.

Kernidee von Open Innovation ist, eine Aufgabe nicht an den "besten" bekannten internen oder externen Entwickler zu vergeben, sondern das Problem in einem offenen Netzwerk in Form eines breiten Aufrufs zur Mitwirkung auszuschreiben. Potentielle externe Problemlöser entscheiden dann durch Selbstselektion, ob sie mitwirken oder nicht.

Im Mittelpunkt stehen dabei Strategien von Unternehmen, die ihre Kunden bzw. Nutzer nicht mehr als nur passive Empfänger und Konsumenten einer von Herstellern autonom geleisteten Wertschöpfung sehen. Vielmehr treten Nutzer als Wertschöpfungspartner von Unternehmen oder anderen Nutzern auf, indem sie Produkte oder Dienstleistungen mitgestalten und teilweise sogar deren Entwicklung und Herstellung bestimmen oder übernehmen.

Bei allen Potentialen von Open Innovation zur Effizienzverbesserung in der Entwicklung stellen sich jedoch auch neue Herausforderungen. Open Innovation ist nicht einfach ein "Outsourcing" interner Entwicklungsaufgaben an die Peripherie, sondern verlangt eine aktive Beteiligung durch den Anbieter, der hierfür bestimmte Ressourcen und Fähigkeiten besitzen muss.

Dies zeigt eindrucksvoll das Beispiel der Webasto AG, einen führenden deutschen Automobilzulieferer. Eine Neuausrichtung des Webasto-Innovationsmanagements betont entscheidend das Potential von durch Endkunden generierte Produktideen im Entwicklungsprozess. Die so entstehenden Produkte verfügen über einen echten Mehrwert, worauf Webasto als Automobilzulieferer mit überwiegend Sonderausstattungsprodukten eminent angewiesen ist. Generell wird es bei der Vermarktung von Sonderausstattungen zukünftig noch wichtiger werden, einen echten Endkundenmehrwert klar vermitteln zu können.

Dazu entwickelte Webasto zum einen eine umfangreiche Workshop-Methodik, mit der Kunden und potentielle Nutzer in die ersten Phasen der Produktentwicklung einbezogen werden. Zum anderen nutzt das Unternehmen ein interaktives, webbasiertes Tool, mit dem die Bewertung und Speicherung von Ideen vereinfacht und standardisiert wird.

Neben den Ideen, die aus den firmeninternen Quellen sprudeln, ist es hier nun auch möglich, systematisch „Endkundenideen“ mit in die Bewertung aufzunehmen. Dies ist der letzte Baustein, der die Lücke zwischen Zulieferer und Endkunde schließt. Im Vorfeld wurde eine Methode entwickelt, die es ermöglicht, aus einer beliebigen Gruppe von Endkunden mit Hilfe eines eigenen Testverfahrens so genannte "Lead User" zu identifizieren, die dann in mehrtägigen Workshops gemeinsam mit professionellen Moderatoren völlig neuartige Ideen generieren. Der Unterschied zur Gewinnung von Ideen durch die hauseigene Entwicklung besteht in der strukturierten Vorgehensweise, die immer zuerst ein Endkunden-Bedürfnis identifiziert, bevor Funktionen daraus definiert und schließlich in Produkte überführt werden.

Die Veranstaltung basiert auf gemeinsamen Forschungsarbeiten der Referenten, die durch die Stiftung Industrieforschung im Rahmen eines aktuellen Projekts unterstützt werden.

Public Lecture: Mass Customization and Customer Co-Creation (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 12. Nov 2007)

The "Festo Program for Applied Knowing" is an initiative at LMU Munich (hosted by the Humanwissenschaftliches Zentrum) that studies diverse topics around the future of knowledge work. One of their ideas is to transfer mass customization on the field of education. Mr. Klinger, the groups' co-director, initiated a well received workshop around this theme at MCPC 2007.

In a regular lecture series, they invite guest speakers to address a larger audience around topics of their interest. Next Monday, Nov 12, I am invited to talk about mass customization and consumer co-creation. This will be a basic overview using some recent case studies and examples.

I guess the official language is German but if we will have international guest, I will talk in English. And the evening may be a good opportunity for old friends or people interested in the topic in Munich to re-connect at this evening.

Date and location:
12. November 2007, 6-8 pm

Humanwissenschaftliches Zentrum
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität
Schillerstraße 44 (Innenhof / Court yard), Munich
Room 11

The lecture is free of charge, and registration is possible with this form. Or just come to the room!

MCPC 2007: Finally a Conference Report & Review

The MCPC 2007 now is over since almost a month, and finally I get the time to restart blogging. Immediately after the conference, my teaching period at RWTH started, and I was very busy in keeping my students happy.

What to write? The MCPC 2007 was a terrific and very rewarding event. We were a great bunch of several hundreds of people at MIT and HEC Montreal, and the depth and quality of discussion was amazing. To get an overview, you can download all abstracts of the conference here. You also can order the full-text proceedings here.

I will not provide a long conference report here but let our participants talk. We received this quotes after the conference, and they summarize very neatly what was special about this conference:

"Thank you for organizing the best conference I have ever attended. This conference gave me a lot of power, ideas, and inspiration for my future research. I have been struggling in my research regarding MC for footwear for ten years. Few researchers are studying MC for the footwear industry in the US, but learning that many researchers and firms are tackling this issue in other countries, gave me inspiration. In addition, many colleagues don't realize the enormous potential of MC. Now I can perceive of a clear future direction for MC after attending this conference." Sage Endo, School of Business Administration, University of Mississippi

"Excellent conference. I thought Joe Pine's talk was enough to make the
conference worthwhile (it was) but then the rest of it was beyond my
expectations as well. Congratulations." Suzanne Loker; Cornell University

"One of the best, if not the best conference I've ever been to. Right mix of
theory and practice." Oinonen Sami, Nokia

"It has been one of the most rewarding conferences I've have attended. It was really
well organized as it brought together a heterogeneous group of people
who usually don't interfere with each other. The complementary competencies make an ideal arena for some really exiting stuff to happen." Christian Thuesen, NCC Construction Denmark

"It was an eye opener and I can't remember a time when so much new information (at least for me) was crammed into such a short time." Art St Onge, President, St Onge Company

"Seeing so many people trying to forward mass customization across so many different disciplines was very inspiring and I'm already looking forward to the next conference!" Monika Desai, Footwear Entrepreneur, Boston

And one note made all of us very proud:

"Thank you so much for getting me to speak at this week's event! I thoroughly enjoyed it, and seeing what a great group of folks you have brought together to push forward the state of art in Mass Customization." B. Joseph Pine II, Author of "Mass Customization"

Joe gave a really inspiring talk to start the conference. It almost was a journey though his life, starting with the very first research on mass customization and ending with its most recent book (just published this month) on Authenticity.

Joe agreed that we can share his slides and so you can follow his thoughts at least partly on paper. Download his presentation here. (Including Joe's personal comments on screen during the presentation!).

For more conference reviews, several blogs have provided feedback:

A great large and extensive conference report can be found here: http://no-retro.com/home/category/mass-customisation/

Ronal Reddington from the Made For One Blog collected a selection of feedback from our visitors posted in several blogs. He could not make it in person to the MCPC; but contributed with this selection! Thanks a lot, Ronal!

Based on his original summary, here are some quotes and links to more extensive reports:

First off, Peter Semmelhack of Bug Labs, who spoke at MCPC 2007, wrote briefly about the event on the company’s BugBloggers weblog. For some pictures, just look here.

As Ronal Reddington wrote, Bug Labs is producing an open source, modular consumer electronics platform which will allow individual users to customize gadgets. I am really looking forward to their launch at the end of this year.

Elaine Polvinen, Professor of Fashion Textile Technology at Buffalo State University, published her thoughts on the MCPC Business Seminar in Montreal on her Virtual Fashion Technology blog. Her conclusion:

"The conference was short, and jam packed with interesting presentations highlighting the latest developments in mass customization and personalization. Someone mentioned at the conference that an obstacle preventing wider scale use of mass customization and personalization was a system to input and save standardized measurements. As I listened to these comments I remembered that such a system was recently developed in Korea called i-fashion."

I-Fashion was represented with several talks during the MCPC research conference at MIT.

Michael Galpert, Chief Operations Officer of Worth100.com, shares his notes on MPCP 2007 Pre-Conference Workshop at MIT. Real notes, but interesting to read (especially for me to see what people note while I am talking :-).

Adrian Bowyer of the RepRap digital manufacturing machine (3D printer) project, posted about his journey to Boston and how he set up one of the ‘Darwin’ 3D printers in the conference lobby. This was one of the great exhibits we had a MIT !! And one of the most interesting discussions we had a MIT: The upcoming world of user manufacturing where cheap manufacturing infrastructure will allow users to make directly what they want ... without having to wait for a manufacturer to set up a traditional mass customization system for them.

Another home fabbing device we had on the conference was the famous Fab@Home machine from Cornell university (I wrote about this before in this blog).

Robert Freund reports in German, but larger detail on his impressions from the conference and the feedback he received.

Ruben Robert of open innovation accellerator FellowForce has published a short summary of his MCPC presentation ‘The Business Smarts of Strangers’ on the FellowForce blog. And FellowForce also gave us their innovation widget for free to gather feedback and ideas for the next MCPC 2009 ! (See it on the conference web site),

The writers of the OPENeur blog also participated át the MCPC 2007 – here is their preview.

Adam Fletcher from Spreadshirt also reported from its MCPC 2007 trip which took place while he was very busy in running the "Open Logo project" for Spreadshirt: Posting 1 and Posting 2

So: A great event with great people and really interesting discussions. The next conference will be in Europe in September/October 2009 –we have not decided yet where and are taking proposals from interested universities who want to host the 2009 conference. if you are interested, you drop me a line!

Update: On configurator-database.com, you find a number of MCPC 2007 conference pictures, but -- first of all -- a number of great videos with some prominent participants.

More information:

You still can order the proceedings: They are a pretty expensive 149 USD for the booklet and CD-Rom, but the price included VAT (19% sales tax) and international shipping. The proceedings include many of the papers in full text or extended abstracts, plus access to a special web site with about 40 slide sets of the presentations and the pre-conference workshops.

MCPC 2007 Starts: The International Mass Customization Community Gathers at MIT

Wow, these were a couple of very loaded weeks of preparing the MCPC 2007 conference. But now the fruits of all this work are there: Hundreds of mass customization enthusiasts are arriving in Boston to meet at MIT during the next days.

The conference will start tomorrow (Sunday) with pre-workshops and then the big opening keynote of B. Joseph Pine. Joe will discuss the origins of the mass customization movement that led to the MCPC, his views on the current state of the art, and where his continuing search for how businesses can add economic value through their offerings is leading him -- and where it could take us.

After Joe, Brennan Mulligan will present the latest from Zazzle.com. The company recently relaunched its website and introduced a number of new services that enable consumers to even easier create their own stuff and sell it to others in their own MC mini shop.

I am very excited to here what they will say – as the other 160 speakers in the remaining two days. But most exciting will be to meet

As you have realized, I did not find the time to blog really a lot during the last weeks, and will be very busy also during the conference. But the guys from the Openeur Blog are with us reporting from the MCPC, and I also think that Adam Fletcher from Spreadshirt / HipHipUK will post a line or two.

I will provide my comprehensive report after I return from Boston. If you cannot join us, there again will be the opportunity to order the conference proceedings with a full text version of many papers.

Talking about joining: If you do not have a private jet or live on the East Coast, it may be a bit difficult to arrive in time for the MIT event, but you still can make it relaxed and in time to the great MCPC 2007 Business Seminar at HEC Montreal on October 11th . It will provide a focused top-management-view on mass customization in retail and the future of virtual identities.

During the Montreal event, more than 30 top executives from the industry will talk, plus some very great keynotes from Don Tapscott and the leading Supply Chain Manager at Dell !!

MCPC 2007 Montreal Business Seminar: An Extreme Makeover of Retail - Program online

Don Tapscott, author of Wikinomics, and Mike Gray, Supply Chain Evangelist at Dell, Inc. to keynote MCPC 2007 business seminar

The second part of the MCPC 2007 will be in the form of a business seminar hosted by My Virtual Model, Inc., at HEC Montréal—Canada’s oldest business school. It addresses the application and implications of mass customization and personalization in retail. The business seminar is presented by MVM.com

An Extreme Makeover of Retail

Personalized advertising is transforming marketing, advertising and the media business. Virtual identity, product placement in games and movies, televisions and ads, social shopping and communities are driving and transforming forces in the market. How will merchants, brands and retailers address this new wave of interaction? The business seminar features the new breed of entrepreneurs: investors, advertisers and researchers in E-commerce, gaming industry leaders, TV and movie special effect providers and new media innovators in PDA, iPods, SMS, RSS feeds and even RFID.

Keynote Speakers at the MCPC 2007 Business Seminar

DON TAPSCOTT, Chief Executive of New Paradigm, Adjunct Professor of Management at the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

Don is an internationally renowned authority on the strategic value and impact of information technology. He has authored or co-authored eleven widely read books on technology and business, including his most recent Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, which will form the basis of his presentation. He is also the author of The Naked Corporation, Digital Capital and Growing Up Digital.

MIKE GRAY, Supply Chain Evangelist – Dell, Inc. With Dell for over 15 years, Mike is considered an expert on Dell’s unique approach to supply chain management. He has been a lead architect for many of the business processes that allow Dell to achieve its unprecedented levels of inventory while maintaining industry-leading customer service.

Mike Gray is a lifetime Certified Purchasing Manager (C.P.M.) with the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) and is also certified in Integrated Resource Management (CIRM) by APICS, the Association for Operations Management.

Don and Mike’s presentations are framed by four panel presentations. Experts, specialists and leaders scheduled to participate in the "Extreme Makeover of Retail" seminar include:

Sean Belka, Senior Vice President, Online Strategy for Fidelity Personal Investments(FPI), unit of Fidelity Investments

Robert Bonneau, President of Global Wine and Spirits

Lukasz Gadowski, President and Founder of Spreadshirt

Louise Guay, President and Founder of My Virtual Model

Philip Jacob, Founder of StyleFeeder, computer, programs architect and entrepreneur

Kirk Jones, Director, Nike ID Innovation

Michael Kahn, Vice President, Account Manager, double click performics.

Paul Miller, Senior Vice President Direct Commerce Sears Holdings Company

Jacques Nantele, Secretary General, HEC.

John G. Palfrey Jr., Clinical Professor of Law & Executive Director at The Berkman Center for the Internet and society at Harvard Law School

Frank Piller, Researcher & Author, Chair Professor of Management at RWTH Aachen University Germany, and Founding faculty member of the MIT Smart Customization Group

Sean Ryan, CEO of Meez

Christian Stegmaier, Head of Life Style, Reebok International Ltd

Jarmo Suominen, Professor of Mass Customization, Director of the Future Home Institute University of Art and Design Helsinki, Guest Researcher at the MIT.

Marybeth Thomson Luber, General Manager Custom Archetype Solutions Inc.

Paul Trevitchick, CEO and Co-Founder, Parity Communications Inc.

Joshua Young, Product Imaging Operations Manager of Nike Apparel US

Registration for the seminar and much more information here.

Context:

This business seminar is part of the MCPC 2007 World Conference that will take place from Oct 7-10 on the MIT campus in Cambridge, MA, USA, and from Oct 10-11 at the HEC Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The MCPC 2007 is the largest event in the field of mass customization and personalization. More information here.

CATER - Mass Customization in the Automotive Industry: New European Project Wants to Shift Auto Customization to a New Level

Free Workshop in Nice Will Present First Results on Sept. 11, 2007

CATER is a 3-year collaborative research project launched in September 2006 and supported by the European Commission aiming at developing innovative ICT tools and methods for mass customization of vehicles as well as new approaches to automotive design principles. The research consortium includes 14 major European and Asian organizations in the field ranging from vehicle manufacturers (VOLVO, FIAT), OEMs (IC:IDO, Imartis, etc.) to research centres and universities (Fraunhofer, CERTH, University of Nottingham, Nanyang Technological University, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, etc.).

CATER introduces systems and methodologies that go beyond the traditional approaches of automotive OEMs and in which design is driven by cross-cultural and emotional aspects of customer needs. This is enabled through integration of innovative ideas from diverse expertise of both Europe and Asia. The project also advocates networked business in the automotive field, aiming at a better integration of stakeholders (from OEMs to customers) within the supply chain, to support product planners and designers; while the customers can design their own vehicle via a VR interface in a 3D Web environment.

The image on the left illustrates the various expected benefits brought by CATER to the different stakeholders (click for full scale).

To reach its overall objective of enhancing MC in the automotive industry, CATER will develop according to its work program (see second picture on the left):

“- A semantic notation system, used by engineering teams addressing customers citarasa (Note: Citarasa is a Malay term that refers to emotional intent and aspirations).

- A citarasa engineering methodology, involving elicitation of customer expertise and citarasa in vehicle purchase, and mapping these to vehicle design by concurrent engineering team.

- A teardown database for product development & benchmark for both manufacturers & suppliers.

- A ‘Do-it-Yourself’ design system, powered by citarasa to support customers’ configuration tasks.

- A database architecture based on the previous components supporting the n-business paradigm.”

The CATER workshop

CATER is organizing its first dissemination workshop on September 11, 2007 in Nice (France) to present its first results as well as discuss the state-of-the-art in mass customization of vehicles.

Speakers from the automotive industry will introduce their views in the workshop with regard to new design and vehicle customization principles while several innovative aspects of the CATER project will be presented, such as: the Citarasa Engineering Approach (emotional design concepts), the Web Based Do-it-Yourself-Design system for self-customization of vehicles and VR Interfaces for the customers and the automotive manufacturers product planners, which are the main objectives of the project.

Participation is free but pre-registrations are compulsory.

Note: The MCPC 2007 conference at MIT in October 2007 also will feature a special track on mass customization in the automotive industry, including a presentation on this project.

MCPC 2007 -- Latest Program Information -- Registration Is Now Open

I did not blog for a while about the MCPC 2007 conference. But in the meantime, we did organize the program and really stepped forward in making this conference happen.

Here are some general information on the conference. In the coming weeks, I will feature in individual postings some special presentations that will be given at the event!

The 2007 World Conference of Mass Customization & Personalization (MCPC 2007) will become a high profile and truly interactive event for the mass customization research and practice community on the MIT campus on Oct. 8 and 9, 2007. On Oct 11, a special business seminar will be held in Montreal.

(1) Program Overview

Our program committee selected from the submissions of more than 400 authors about 150 papers and proposals for presentation at the conference. Besides the latest research on mass customization, personalization, and related topics like user innovation, we are very glad that also a large number of managers from leading companies will share their success stories and challenges from running a MCP business.

In addition, we will have academic keynotes of several top MIT researchers, including
- Eric von Hippel (Sloan School of Management),
- Marvin Minsky (“inventor” of artificial intelligence), and
- William Mitchell (Professor of Architecture and Media Arts and Sciences at MIT Media Lab).

Also the expert who made mass customization known and developed the original concept in detail, B. Joseph Pine II, plans to attend and keynote the conference.

In total, we will have much more than 200 participants on the program!

The business seminar on Oct. 11 in Montreal -- a one-day focused event of high-profile invited management presentations -- gets in great shape in the moment. We will have companies like Dell, Google, Rebook, Nike, Fidelity, among many others, presenting their latest customization and personalization initiatives. Montreal is an easy 4-5 hour drive away from Boston; and the trip though the New England Indian Summer should be a great experience at this time.

More information on the Montreal program will follow very soon in a separate posting. Please make your own travel arrangements, there is no central group travel organized by the conference.

(2) Registration

Conference registration is now open online.

Participants can register until the beginning of the conference. On-Site registration is possible as well. The early registration discount however ends on Sept 1, 2007 !! You can either register for the MIT event only or enjoy a special discount when registering for the Montreal business seminar as well.

(3) Program and Scheduling

The final program will be ready at the end of August once we have the feedback and commitment by all authors to come and present. General presentations will be scheduled either on Oct 8 (between 10.15-6.15) or on Oct 9 (between 10.15-4.45).

The MCPC 2007 will start with our opening keynote session on Sunday, Oct 7, at around 3:30pm, followed by an opening reception. Earlier on this day, there will be s special interactive workshop program. More information on this will follow soon.

The MIT part of the conference ends on Oct 9 with a closing keynote panel at about 6pm.

The Montreal part will start on Oct 10 with an evening reception and go until Oct 11 night.

(4) Sponsorship Opportunities and MIT Smart Customization Group

If your organization, company, or consultancy is interested in supporting the MCPC 2007 conference at MIT and exhibit your services, products, or MC offerings during the conference, please contact Betty Lou McClanahan who will discuss any possible arrangement with you (contact data at the end of the posting).

Also, for corporations who want to continue to work with MIT after the conference, the MIT Smart Customization Group, part of the MIT Design Lab, is a great initiative to join. You find more information on this group here: http://design.mit.edu/smartcustomization/

There will be a special information session on the MIT Smart Customization Group during the conference, and again Betty Lou is glad to discuss any options of working with MIT students and researchers on mass customization.

(5) Hotel Booking

On the conference web site, you find a list with hotels. We got a special room block at the Marriot Cambridge, which is just on the MIT Campus.

Also, the Renaissance Cambridge and the Kendall Hotel are within steps from the conference site. The Hotel Marlone, the Royal Sonesta, and the Hotel@MIT are in easy walking distance (<10 min.). As October is a busy season in Boston, hotel prices are not cheap. So as an alternative, you may want to stay in a cheaper motel outside Boston (e.g., at Route 1 north of Boston) and drive to the campus (parking is available at public garages for about 15-20 $/day).

Or check Craigslist where you may find a cheap room sublet (listings for Oct will not be in before mid of Sept).

There also is a helpful site at MIT with guest houses and B&Bs.

Context: MCPC 2007 contacts and more information:

Registration and Payments:
Nicole Silva
MIT Conference Services
Phone: 617-253-0116
Fax: 617-258-7005
Email: conferences-www AT mit.edu

Sponsorship and Organization:
Betty Lou McClanahan
Program Manager, MIT Media Laboratory
20 Ames Street, Room E15-228
Cambridge, MA 02142-1308, USA
Phone: 617-253-0630,
Fax: 617-258-6264
E-Mail: bl AT media.mit.edu

Abstract / Paper Updates and Modifications:
Dina Franzen
RWTH Aachen University, TIM Group
Phone: +49 241 809 3577
Fax: +49 241 809 2367
Email: franzen AT tim.rwth-aachen.de

Program Planning and All Other Questions:
Frank T Piller
RWTH Aachen University, TIM Group
Phone: +49 241 809 3577
Fax: +49 241 809 2367
Email: pillerAT tim.rwth-aachen.de

I am coming to your desktop: Webinar on Mass Customization Implementation, Trends, and Success Factors

Special discount code for blog readers and early registration price available

Please allow a little bit of self-advertising, but this may be an interesting offer for some of you: Together with Pure Insights, a London, UK, based company offering seminars and webinars on innovation and technology related topics, I am offering a live web-based seminar on mass customization and designing winning configuration systems. This may be a good offer for corporate readers that want to get a convenient introduction into mass customization thinking and product configuration strategies.

Mass Customization and Customer Driven Value Creation:
Implementation strategies for winning by product configuration

Date: 01 Aug 2007, 10:00-11:00am EST / 15:00-16:00 GMT [more time zones]
Location: Your Office

The cost to produce one-off custom products is high, and it affects both front- and back-end systems. But as Forrester Research reports in a recent study (“Why Custom Product Buyers Could Be Your Most Important Consumers“, June 2006), companies find this investment worth as it provides a new channel for manufacturers to reach out to buyers directly, and an opportunity to fine-tune their product mix based on direct observations of consumer behavior — consumers who are opinion leaders with greater than average influence.

Based on our own study of more than 250 mass customizers in consumer and industrial markets, the webinar outlines the building blocks of success full mass customization strategies and provides ideas how to avoid the pitfalls of implementing mass customization. The focus of this session will be on the design and development of product configuration systems or so called toolkits for customer co-design. Rather than commenting extensively on technical details, the session will provide hands-on recommendations on the strategic positioning and implementation of theses central tool of each mass customization strategy.

Session Outline

- What is mass customization and personalization – and what is it not?
- Which recent trends and development enhance these strategies and how is mass customization related to “The Long Tail” phenomena?
- What are the building blocks of a mass customization strategy and what does it demand from corporate functions like product development, manufacturing, and marketing?
- What are the elements of a successful product configuration system?
- What are the risks associated with mass customization? How do you manage these risks?
- Session wrap-up: Idea for further action

By attending you will learn how to:

- Champion and/or lead a mass customization initiative in your company
- Identify opportunities for mass customization and personalization in your industry
- Develop the fundamental competencies a company needs to build a sustainable MC business
- Prepare your company to benefit from mass customization and product configuration systems
- Discover the risks and threads of mass customization and develop successful counter strategies

To register, please go to http://www.pure-insight.com/webinars/mass-customization-customer-value-creation and use promotional code aix (case sensitive!) wenn registering for a 10% discount.

Note: You also can download the webinar after its initial live broadcast – but only when joining live, you can interact and ask direct questions.

All further information can be found here.

Open Design by Ronen Kadushin

Exhibition of his latest open designs in Appel-Gallery in Berlin, May 12-20, 2007

A frequent topic in my public lectures is the “open design” project by Ronen Kadushin, an Israeli product designer living in Berlin, Germany. Ronen created this product line to close the creative gap between product design and other fields, such as music, graphic design, animation and photography that are traditionally more connected to political, social and economic flows and issues. Inspired by the Open Source movement, he released the designs under a Creative Commons license, which means that you are allowed to reproduce them for personal use. Each design can be downloaded along with a description and a 'blueprint'.

“Industrial design is becoming more and more a toy for rich people … dominated by large names and big companies”, Ronen once explained to me in an interview. Industrial design industry is monopolized by a number of large producers (manufacturing and distributing the designs), focusing on the concepts of less than 150 “famous” industrial designers whose concepts are recognized. All the thousands of other well talented designers are just serving the elite. His intuition was that this system was just producing too much “waste”: Even of the more established designers, only one out of twenty design concepts are becoming products, the rest is just creative waste.

As a result, the concept of Open Design was born. The idea is to find a new logical method how design could be working, using open source software as a working model. His designs are two dimensional "cutout" represented as digital information. It relies on the internet's communication resources, to publish, distribute, and copy the designs under a CreativeCommons deed. Coupled with the flexibility of CNC production methods and their broad availability due to new enablers like emachineshop.com, all technically conforming designs are continuously available for production, in any number, with no tooling investment, anywhere and by anyone.

The latest developments and objects of this project will be exhibited in Berlin in a new exhibition in the Gallery “Appel-Design” (Torstrasse 114, 10119 Berlin Mitte) from May 12 to May 20. Meet Ronen during the exhibition’s opening on May 13, 6pm.

For more information on the exhibition, click on the picture or go to Ronen’s website http://www.ronen-kadushin.com.

How Mass Customization Addresses the Challenges of Tomorrow’s Supply Chain: Vlerick Supply Chain Conference 2007

Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School, one of Europe’s leading business school, is organizing its annual Supply Chain Conference on June 1, 2007. I will keynote this event and talk about how mass customization can address some of the challenges of modern supply chain management. Several other presentations will share the experiences of leading European experts in supply chain management.

Vlerick Supply Chain Conference 2007: Challenges in Tomorrow’s Supply Chain,
1 June 2007, Leuven, Belgium
For more information, please contact Katleen Sottiaux (katleen.sottiaux [at] vlerick.be) or look on the conference web site. Download a PDF with the full program and registration form.

MIT Course on Product Platform and Product Family Design, June 2007

This class of MIT's Professional Education Program may be interesting for some of you, as it teaches some of the fundamentals of a mass customization strategy: the ability to deploy and manage a family of products in a competitive manner.

Product Platform and Product Family Design: From Strategy to Implementation, Course for Professionals, MIT Campus, June 18-22, 2007, by Professors Olivier de Weck and Timothy W. Simpson

This course explores how product architecture and platforms can help a firm deploy and manage a family of products in a competitive manner. We will examine both strategic as well as implementation aspects of this challenge. A key strategy is to develop and manufacture a family of product variants derived from a common platform and/or modular architecture. Reuse of components, processes and design solutions leads to advantages in learning curves and economies of scale, which have to be carefully balanced against the desire for product customization and competitive pressures.

Additionally, platform strategies can lead to innovation and generation of new revenue growth, by intelligently leveraging existing brands, modules, and sub-system technologies. We will present the latest theory as well as a number of case studies and industrial examples on this important topic. We will engage the course participants through interactive discussion and hands-on activities. Recent strategic issues such as embedding flexibility in product platforms as well as the effect of platforms on a firm's cost structure, organization, and market segmentation will also be presented.

The course is targeted towards executive decision makers, product managers, marketing managers, product line strategists, product architects, as well as platform and systems engineers in industrial and government contexts.

More information here.