While organizing the MIT Smart Customization Seminar, I frequently got asked, "What or who is the MIT Smart Customization Group"?
First, the MIT Smart Customization Group (MIT SCG) is a great group of individuals from the MIT community and some affiliates that came together in 2006 to organize the MCPC 2007 conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It then became an official research group at the MIT Design Lab with the focus on academic research that matters for the practice. To my knowledge, the MIT SCG is the only research group in the United States dedicated to research on the management and design aspects of mass customization and personalization.
The official mission statement of the group is as follows:
The MIT Smart Customization Group is an MIT-Industry collaboration devoted to improving the ability of companies to efficiently customize products, services, and experiences in various industries and for diverse customer groups. This industry interest group aggregates the key players in the area of mass customization and strives to become a vital community of practice in this field.
The group is part of the MIT Design Lab, an interdisciplinary center at MIT bridging design, architecture, engineering, and management research. The head of the SCG is Professor William J. Mitchell, Professor of Architecture and Media Arts and Sciences at MIT and director of the Media Lab's Smart Cities research group as well as the MIT Design Lab. He was formerly Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning and Head of the Program in Media Arts and Sciences, both at MIT.
Other prominent members include B. Joseph Pine II, Ryan Chin, Kent Larson, Marvin Minsky (Yes, THE Marvin Minsky, godfather of artificial intelligence) and myself (I act as a co-director).
For more information on the group, head to scg.mit.edu.
BONUS MATERIAL: After you register at the SCG site (lower right corner of the page, free registration), you get access to plenty of resources on mass customization and personalization, including all full text proceedings of the MCPC 2001, 2003, 2005, and 2007 conferences !!! More than 400 papers and presentations! (You see: It sometimes pays to read long, apparently boring blog postings).
One question remains: What is Smart Customization?
Smart Customization is the understanding and development of the underlying principles to effectively and efficiently provide custom products, services and experiences - to master mass customization & personalization.
Or, in other words, it is applying the capabilities of mass customization in an efficient way to profit from the fact that all people are different.
And a last question: Can I join the MIT SCG?
For academics and scholars, participation is by invitation only, and restricted to MIT affiliates. For companies, the group however offers a great opportunity for interaction and joint research with the MIT.
Following a consortium model, companies can join the SCG' as an industry member. This comes at a price (in the very lower end of typical MIT membership models), and includes the following benefits:
- Access to a productive group of researchers and executives who exchange information and network with each other, and furthermore, who efficiently use new models, concepts, and results of the latest research within the group.
- Industry members will become familiar with, and be able to articulate methods of mass customization; become familiar with recent research in the area of mass customization; to think critically in this area; and to articulate their own methods.
- Get access to the latest research from focused Smart Customization Group initiatives at MIT and other leading universities and labs.
- Group members will develop and extend their own mass customization capabilities more successfully.
On the 2010 Smart Customization Seminar, we will introduce a current opportunity for joint research. Participate at the 2010 SCG Seminar for more information on this opportunity. Or just go to the MIT SCG website for more information.
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