Mass Customization & Open Innovation News

Free Webinar: Cracking the Code of Mass Customization

 
You are all invited to join a free webinar I am doing on this Thursday, October 13, 2011 1:00 pm. (EDT) (19:00 Berlin Time, 18:00 London Time) with BrandSquare.

The webinar is an updated presentation on our paper with the same title in MIT Sloan Mgmt Review, and also will serve well as an introduction into some of the topics of the MCPC conference.

Free registration via this LINK!

#MCPC2011 Program Highlights: Rapid Innovation and Manufacturing in an International Production Enviroment

 

In a series of postings, we present some of the program highligths of the MCPC 2011 conference. The following is just one of more than 50 sessions we will host on Nov 16-19 in San Francisco, CA.

In a world of global markets and constant technical innovation one has to live up to the challenge of not only surviving on the individual markets but to out-innovate any competition at the highest pace possible. It goes without saying that for producing companies, production speed is a key competency. In sessions 6.3 & 7.3 we will take a look at expert techniques to accomplish this tough yet vital mission. 

Sessions 6.3 & 7.3 (Nov 19): Rapid Innovation and Manufacturing in an International Production Enviroment

Rapid Response Manufacturing in RIO South Texas Region

Opening Session 6.3, Miguel Gonzalez, Jianzhi Li and Douglas Timmer (University of Texas-Pan American) will speak about their experiences with rapid response manufacturing techniques in their home region of South Texas.

Experiences in Disburse Engineering Design Education Targeted on Rapid Innovation & Manufacturing

In this part Jianzhi Li, John Lloyd, Miguel Gonzalez, Douglas Timmer (University of Texas-Pan American) will share some of their experiences on the topic of disburse engineering design education with a special focus on its application in rapid innovation and manufacturing.

Information Technology Suitability Index for Mass Customization

In their presentation, Douglas Timmer and Miguel Gonzalez ( University of Texas-Pan American) will discuss the suitability of information technology in regards of mass customization.

Case Studies of Rapid Response Manufacturing in an International Production System

As a response to intensified competition, changing customer needs and greatly shortened product life cycles, ALPS as a global parts supplier to major automakers has been implementing rapid response manufacturing and mass customization technologies in order to capture and satisfy customer requirements in a timely and efficient manner.

In their presentation, Edi Sanjoto (ALPS Automotive) and Miguel Gonzalez (University of Texas-Pan American) will introduce best practices and strategies which allowed ALPS to connect with customers effectively and to quickly identify product variations. Furthermore they will compare different configurations of manufacturing lines with mass customization in mind, based on which they will give their recommendations for rapid response manufacturing strategies.

Reconfigurable Strategies to Hammer Open Innovation Concepts into the Mass Customized Automobile Manufacturing

The manufacturing industry in general and the automotive industry in particular is distinguished by rapid globalization, high mass customization, regionalization, value chain restructuring and reduced product as well as innovation life cycles. This in turn has compelled the automotive manufacturers to open up their innovation process to better address the customer needs readily by exploiting efficient outsourcing strategies.

Sarfraz Minhas, Ulrich Berger and Christiane Hipp (Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus) will discuss the need for reconfigurable approaches in planning as well as in control to address mass- customization-induced complexities under the umbrella of open innovation. A reconfigurable production control will be proposed in the body-in-white production, encompassing the configuration of specific setups to enable co-development in a distributed production environment, exploiting ICT technologies to produce mass customized products.

Innovations in Mechatronic Products and Mass Customization

Mass Customization has been recognized as a successful strategy in the design and development of products tailored to customer needs. Global competition demands new products with added functionalities, as in the case of mechatronic products.  These products are becoming more and more important as a product type and new inventions have resulted in drastic changes in design and development of mechatronic products, both standalone and enhancing conventional mechanical systems.

In this part, Tufail Habib, Kaj Jörgensen and Kjeld Nielsen (Aalborg University) will present the particular structure and properties of mechatronic products compared to conventional mechanical systems.Following that they will give an overview of typical changes regarding functionalities from mechanical products towards mechatronic products.

Utilising Mass Customisation Methods for Modular ManufacturingSystem Design

In order to operate under and take advantage of the specific dynamics of today's markets, manufacturing processes have to be robust to product changes – a contradiction to traditional manufacturing systems developed as dedicated engineer-to-order solutions, tailored to production of a specific product or a limited product assortment. In response, modular manufacturing concepts are evolving, designed with the needed responsiveness in mind, being the manufacturing paradigm of Mass Customisation.

Research focus has been on the basic principles and enabling technologies, while modular architectures and system design have received less attention. A potential to fill these gaps by applying selected design theories and methods of MC has been identified. Based on a communality analysis between these theories/methods and the modular manufacturing approach, Steffen Joergensen, Alexia Jacobsen, Kjeld Nielsen, Ole Madsen and Kaj Jörgensen (Aalborg University) will discuss and evaluate the potentials and show possible obstacles of application.

Listen to the full content of these talks at the MCPC 2011, Marriot SFO Airport, San Francisco, Nov 16-19, 2011:

- Conference Website and Registration

- All info here in one compact MCPC flyer

- Conference hotel and travel (rooms fill quickly, book now!)

- All posts about the conference in my blog

#MCPC2011 Program Highlights - Developing Great Configuration Toolkits for Mass Customization

In a series of postings, we present some of the program highligths of the MCPC 2011 conference. The following is just one of more than 50 sessions we will host on Nov 16-19 in San Francisco, CA.

In our research on the core capabilities that characterize a successful mass customization enterprise, we have identified "choice naviagtion" as one of these capabilitues. This session of the MCPC 2011 conference presents the latest inisghts from managers and researchers on developing a great toolkit for choice navigation.

Sessions 5.3 (Nov 19): Customer Co-Creation and Configuration Toolkits

Customizing Complexity - Lessons Learned from Configurator Projects

Although the configuration process is the core of every mass customization project and crucial for the success, the high number of failures shows that the complexity of configuration mechanisms is continuously underestimated. What critical factors do play a role in making it right? Which peculiarities should be considered to avoid traps? Based on the data generated by cyLEDGE's configurator-database.com, Paul Blazek (cyLEDGE) and Klaus Pilsl (IndiValue) will take a look at different approaches to customize products and present the biggest barriers and most important enablers which they have verified in their own configuration projects. Their findings show the existence of recurring patterns that determine success or failure.

Definition of a Framework for Configuration

The review of literature shows a deterioration of the understanding of configuration. The definition of configuration has become ambiguous as different research groups defines configuration differently. In this presentation Klaes Ladeby (Technical University of Denmark) will propose a framework for configuration that permits a more precise understanding of a configuration system, an understanding of how the configuration system relates to other systems, and a definition of the basic concepts in configuration. The total configuration system, together with the definition of key concepts, comprises a strong frame of reference when working with analysing configuration systems.

Collaborative Technology in Online Value Co-Creation: The Emergent Practice of Electronic Mass Customization

In response to the wide ambiguity in terms of the underlying efficient value co-creation processes in mass customization, Krista Palmu, Jerry-Mikael Lindholm and Petri Parvinen (Aalto University) have conducted an exploratory study to examine how collaborative technology is used to facilitate online value co-creation activities between the buyer and seller. They will present their explorations of the emergent, yet insufficiently studied, electronic mass customization brought on by the advanced technologies. Based on in-depth themed interviews and netnography, they will provide a value co-creation framework for understanding how the use of collaborative technologies could benefit mass customization industry and, thus, develop competitive advantage for companies and additional value for customers.

Listen to the full content of these talks at the MCPC 2011, Marriot SFO Airport, San Francisco, Nov 16-19, 2011:

- Conference Website and Registration (reducted rates until Sept 30)

- All info here in one compact MCPC flyer

- Conference hotel and travel (rooms fill quickly, book now!)

- All posts about the conference in my blog

(updated) #MCPC2011 Program Highlights - Advancing Health Care by MC and OI

In a series of postings, we present some of the program highligths of the MCPC 2011 conference. The following is just one of more than 50 sessions we will host on Nov 16-19 in San Francisco, CA.

Service customization has been named since several years as a hot topic with too little research about it .Henry Chesbrough just broad Open Service Innovation into focus with his new book. In this session, we will focus on a special service application: Helath care. How can our health care systems and service delivered to their users being enhanced by mass customization thinking and methods of open innovation?

Sessions 5.1 (Nov 19): Advancing Health Care by MC and OI

The Market for Innovation in Healthcare in Europe: Can Open Innovation Help Overcome Embedded Inefficiencies?

The introduction of both innovative products and services and new organizational structures in the healthcare sector will be crucial to meet the goal of providing high quality care and optimal living conditions for elderly people at affordable cost. The costs of developing products for these markets are high for all companies. Yet innovative products are seen as means by which new forms of care may be afforded for a growing elderly population. Terence Mughan (Anglia Ruskin University) will present his findings regarding whether or not open innovation can help resolve this conundrum.

Implementing Additive Manufacturing in the Custom Orthotic Industry: Productivity and Design Implications

As Additive Manufacturing (AM) is being applied to a wide variety of fields it is recognized that the medical and particularly the orthotics and prosthetics fields require further analysis in terms of design, cost, productivity and quality. AM must be prepared to challenge currently established methods for the creation of orthotics. Javier Munguia and Kenneth Dalgarno (Newcastle University) analyze the case of the adoption of AM technologies by a SME dedicated to the customized fabrication of foot and Ankle Foot Orthotics (AFO). This includes the adoption of digital scanning technologies coupled with additive manufacture for the creation of a new generation of orthotics.

Variety Management of Personalized Braided Stents

Prefabricated, standardized implants do not correspond exactly to the shape and nature of the structure to be substituted in the human body. Tailor-made medical devices can offer a much more effective therapy than off the shelf products. To make long-term individualized implants accessible to a large number of patients, the development of a mass customization solution is essential. Silke Tomoscheit, Nina Laar, Fabian Schreiber and Annahit Arshi (RWTH Aachen University) will present how the technology of braided stents offers new opportunities in manufacturing for patient-specific implants for the treatment of arterial occlusive disease.

Individual Nutrition - Development and Application of a Classification System

The pursuit of health and happiness can be seen as strong trends influencing today’s economy. With the help of nutrition both aims can be achieved. Requirements regarding functional as well as hedonic solutions differ from person to person. Consequently more and more providers of customizable food / individual nutrition can be found. Dominik Walcher (University of Applied Sciences Salzburg) and Benedikt Goellner will provide an insight into the state of the art of this emerging field.

 

Listen to the full content of these talks at the MCPC 2011, Marriot SFO Airport, San Francisco, Nov 16-19, 2011:

- Conference Website and Registration (reducted rates until Sept 30)

- All info here in one compact MCPC flyer

- Conference hotel and travel (rooms fill quickly, book now!)

- All posts about the conference in my blog

Executive Seminare an der RWTH Aachen zu Open Innovation und Social Media Strategy

I'am glad to be able two more seminars as part of the open executive education program of RWTH Aachen University. The seminar language, however, is GERMAN -- hence, the following posting is in German language, too.

Zusammen mit der RWTH International Academy haben wir unser Seminarangebot für Führungskräfte an der RWTH Aachen stark ausgebaut. Ich darf Sie zu zwei Seminaren einladen, die unter meiner Leitung im 4. Quartal 2011 in Aachen stattfinden:

Social Media Strategy (13-14. Okt.): Zusammen mit meinem Kollegen Prof. Detlef Schoder, Leiter der Wirtschaftsinformatik an der Uni Köln und ein führender Forscher (und zugleich erfolgreicher Unternehmer) im Bereich Social Media bieten wir eine strategische Einführung in das Themenfeld Social Media. Dabei geht es weniger um operative Aspekte der Umsetzung als vielmehr um strategische Fragen und eine Orientierung in diesem Themenfeld für das Management. Einen besonderen Schwerpunkt wird hier auch die Innovation spielen  –  Stichwort "Social Product Development". Mehr information zum Seminar hier.

Open Innovation umsetzen (20.-21. Okt.): Open Innovation ist dem Status des Buzzwords entwachsen, und viele Unternehmen haben intensive Pilotierungen abgeschlossen. Doch wie wird Open Innovation in das Innovationsmanagement integriert, welche Anforderungen gibt es an die Organisation? Wie messen Sie die "Open Innovation Readiness" Ihres Unternehmens? Darüber hinaus gibt der Kurs aber auch eine intensive Einführung in die verschiedenen Methoden von Open Innovation und Co-Creation.Mehr Inforation zu diesem Seminar hier.

Übrigens: Beide Kurse bieten wir auch im Rahmen von "Customized Education" auf Ihre Bedürfnisse zugeschnitten als Inhouse-Seminar an.  Weitere Informationen dazu gerne!

Ich würde mich freuen, Sie bei einer der Veranstaltungen in Aachen begrüßen zu dürfen!

#MCPC2011 Program Highlights - CEOs of Open Innovation Accelerators Share Experiences at MCPC

In a series of postings, we present some of the program highligths of the MCPC 2011 conference. The following is just one of more than 50 sessions we will host on Nov 16-19 in San Francisco, CA.

In this session, the CEOs and founders of some of the most successful intermediaries for open innovation will reveal some of their secrets on how to employ open innovation and customer co-creation. I am personally looking forward very much to this session as in the past years, it has been these "open innovation accelerators" that have been the drivers behind the development of open innovation in practice.

Sessions 2.3 and 3.3 (Nov 18): Open Innovation Accelerators - CEO Presentations

9 Ways to Get Your Team Ready for Co-Creation

In this session Martijn Pater and Marieke Streefkerk of Fronteer Strategy, a consultancy specialised in innovation, co-creation and brand development, will identify various social, psychological and organisational barriers that can be encountered when starting co-creation within an organisation as a result of the change process set in motion when changing to an open innovation approach. They will offer 9 practical ways to overcome these barriers and to get your team ready for co-creation by providing clear direction, motivating them and creating a supportive environment. 

Open Innovation and Co-Creation: From Single Projects to Long-Term Programmes

Dr. Michael Bartl (CEO of Hyve) will  provide a conceptual framework how companies can implement co-creation activities in a permanent and enduring way. A holistic approach of collaborative innovation requires not only a skill set of tools and methods but also adapted innovation processes, organizational routines and cultures. The introduced programmatic approach implies the need to think of co-creation as a strategic programme rather than as a “just in time” outsourcing of innovation tasks.

The Co-Creative Organization of the Future

 While most brands embrace customer insight, direct involvement of customers in creative tasks is a relatively new approach. In this presentation Dr. Nick Coates and Jennifer Yazdi (Promise Corporation) will discuss why organizations that are going to move beyond tactical / sporadic co-creation will need to re-think some of their orthodoxies and start ‘being co-creative’. To demonstrate their points they will  present 2 case studies about co-creation approaches that start to show a pathway towards ‘co-creativity’.

Quebec Seeks Solutions: A Unique Setup to Profit from Open Innovation

This presentation will be held by Carl Viel and Christophe Deutsch. They will share the latest information on the Quebec Seeks Solutions conference -- a new form of offline co-creation.

To Be Or Not to Be - The Magic of Selecting the RIght Idea

In this presentation Andera Gadeib, CEO of Dialego, will reveal some very useful tricks that can help you to accelerate innovation process by reducing the great quantity of text based ideas using text mining techniques. The experiences discussed result from several innovation projects accompanied within different industries, mostly fast moving consumer goods companies (FMCG) in Europe.

The Creative Consumer

Current trends in consumer innovation have seen traditional market research focus groups and surveys increasingly replaced or complemented by crowd-sourcing, social media monitoring, neuroscience, and ethnography among others. Dr. Nick Coates and Jennifer Yazdi (Promise Corporation), however, believe that there is a bigger role for the customer which is supported by the development of prosumer technology and online collaboration tools. How can companies best use the creative potential of the creative consumer? Coates and Yazdi will try to answer this question by presenting their expert's guide to tools and techniques from our 15 years of experience working with organizations from all over the globe.

Listen to the full content of these talks at the MCPC 2011, Marriot SFO Airport, San Francisco, Nov 16-19, 2011:

- Conference Website and Registration (reducted rates until Sept 30)

- All info here in one compact MCPC flyer

- Conference hotel and travel (rooms fill quickly, book now!)

- All posts about the conference in my blog

#MCPC2011 program highlights - MC and OI in Architecture and Construction

In a series of postings, we present some of the program highligths of the MCPC 2011 conference. The following is just one of more than 50 sessions we will host on Nov 16-19 in San Francisco, CA.

One of the upcoming topics of in mass customization is the application of processes for  architecture and construction. A special stream of sessions will present the latest thooughts on this area. 

Sessions 1.6/and 2.6 (Nov 18): MC and OI in Architecture and Construction 

MC and OI in Architecture: An Introduction

Presented by track chair Poorang Piroozfar. Poorang also is the co-editor of an upcoming book (with Frank Piller) on Mass Customisation and Personalisation in Architecture and Constructio, to be published with Taylor and Francis in 2012.

Opening Innovation in the Built Enviroment -- Initial Lessons from an Open Innovation Initiative in Denmark

In this talk Mikkel Thomassen and Rune Westergaard (Smith Innovation) will discuss how open innovation can be used to leverage innovation in construction, based on empirical findings in the first analytical phase of a five year open innovation platform initiative launched 2011. They will debate if open innovation methods can be a way to shortcut the structural barriers to innovation in this major industry.  

A Digital Platform for Mass Customization of Housing

The concept of employing computer- based design systems towards mass customization of housing has been an interesting area of research during the last few decades as an outcome of emerging computation techniques in architecture. Different systems have been employed with the aim of efficiently engaging future home buyers in the design of their homes. Basem Eid Mohamed (McGill School of Architecture) discusses a systematically formalized approach for developing design systems for mass customization of housing. 

Open Innovation and the 'Patent Right' in Design: Striking a Balance Using the Game Theory

In Open Innovation, the factor of 'patent law', which is normally expected to result in higher costs, can become crucial. Building on their previous experience in introducing a toolkit based on Game Theory to facilitate MC in BE,  Poorang Piroozfar (University of Brighton) and  Ghashang Piroozfar (University of Calgary) use this theory to investigate whether or not a Nash Equilibrium can be struck between increased costs of intellectual property rights and the level of customer satisfaction as a result of open innovation in MC.

 

Mass Customization in Construction Industry: Closing the Gap Between Design and Production

Mass customization in construction industry is intended as a process able to give high level of personalization at lower costs, while increasing quality and meeting designers needs.Ingrid Paoletti and Elena Magarotto (Milan University) will discuss specific aspects of mass customization in construction industry with a swot analysis and present some examples of technologies by Italian suppliers in order to understand their skills or difficulties related to this specific context.

Adoption of a Modular Architecture in a Prefabricated System for House Building in the UK

Developing strategies that enable housing products to be customized within acceptable cost and order-to-delivery lead times is still a challenge. In this presentation Cecilia G. da Rocha, Carlos T. Formoso (Rio Grande University),  Will Swan, Carl Abbott and Michail Kagioglou (University of Salford) will examine the adoption of a modular architecture in the design of a prefabricated system for house building in the UK. They will give an overview of the state of the art and propose enhancements in modules design with the aim of increasing the economies of scope.

Modules in Historic Building Construction According to the Copenhagen Building Code

Christian Thuesen, Lars Hvam, Niels Henrik Mortensen (Technical University of Denmark) and Anders Kudsk (NCC.dk) will talk about their investigations, based on the theory of product architecture and product modularization, on whether examples of the use of well-defined interfaces can be found. They will show how the use of such interfaces has influenced former building processes and how they were implemented and kept stable over decades.

Listen to the full content of these talks at the MCPC 2011, Marriot SFO Airport, San Francisco, Nov 16-19, 2011:

- Conference Website and Registration (reducted rates until Sept 30)

- All info here in one compact MCPC flyer

- Conference hotel and travel (rooms fill quickly, book now!)

- All posts about the conference in my blog

#MCPC2011 program highlights - Customer Co-Creation for Ideation

In a series of postings, we present some of the program highligths of the MCPC 2011 conference. The following is just one of more than 50 sessions we will host on Nov 16-19 in San Francisco, CA.

One of the main topics of the MCPC 2011 will be co-creation with customes and users. We are glad that we could win a number of high profile researchers to present their latest studies on customer co-creation. This session focuses on co-creation for idea generation.  

Session 1.3 (Nov 18): Customer Co-Creation for Ideation

The Future of Crowdsourcing - From Idea Contests to MASSive Ideation

Johann Füller(CEO of HYVE), Katja Hutter and Julia Hautz (Insbruck University) provide an overview of crowd sourcing practices for the future and introduces the “MASSive Ideation” approach which supports generating and evaluating numerous ideas and allows for the further elaboration of top-ranked ideas into a handful of the most promising concepts. This is done in collaboration with a large and geographically scattered crowd. The software-based approach captures the advantages of both real-life innovation workshops and virtual online interaction to facilitate the generation of elaborated product or service concepts.

Coopetition in Virtual Communities: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Virtual communities provide an essential outlet for customer co-creation. Vera Blaszevic, Alexandra Gatzweiler and Evalotte Lindgens (RWTH Aachen University) and Sophie Einwächter (Bochum University) talk about how to use the concept of coopetition to study cooperative and competitive mechanisms in virtual customer communities and their effect on individual and community productivity. Learn how coopetition increases productivity and why it is important for the long-term survival of the community.

Value in Co-Created Content Production in Magazine Publishing: Case Study of Co-Creation in Three Scandinavian Magazine Brands

This talk taps into the evolving phenomenon of co-creation in publishing industry. Tanja Aitamurto (Stanford University) and Saara Könkkölä (Aalto University) identify the value emerging from content co-creation in three Scandinavian magazines in a shared content production process in which customers and editorial teams co-create a magazine. The study shares results of the business value of co-creation and its impact on reader-brand relationship,  increased revenue, more personalized products and other benefits.

The Relevance of Customer Co-Creation of Value for Service Companies: Does Co-Creation enhance Revenues and Satisfaction?

Ursula Grissemann and Nicola Stokburger-Sauer (Insbruck University) assess the effects of co-creation on customer satisfaction and service expenditures, highlight the effects of company support for the customer to co-create and analyze the consequences of customers’ satisfaction with their co-creation performance. They found that service expenditures increase the more customers are integrated into the service development process. Likewise, co-creation was found to positively affect customer satisfaction with the service company.

Listen to the full content of these talks at the MCPC 2011, Marriot SFO Airport, San Francisco, Nov 16-19, 2011:

- Conference Website and Registration (reducted rates until Sept 30)

- All info here in one compact MCPC flyer

- Conference hotel and travel (rooms fill quickly, book now!)

- All posts about the conference in my blog

Quirky in Numbers: Entrepreneur Magazine shares new data on Quirky's social product development business model

In the August issue of Entrepreneur, Jennifer Wang has a great story on Quirky, featuring the person of founder Ben Kaufman (everyone attending the MIT SCG Seminar in 2010 still remembers his presentation), but also sharing some great info on the company.

Read the full article here, but here are some of the facts I found most interesting:

Old world: If you have an idea and want to turn it into a product "Kaufman puts the upfront costs of building a company around a single product at about $200,000--just to get the paperwork done and the first prototype out." Combined with the risk, most people never get their product idea anywhere near retail shelves.

Quirky's approach:

Create an online community of 65,000 members (growing by 20 percent every month).

Have "every week hundreds of inventor hopefuls, or "ideators," submit their concepts online".

So called "influencers" than vote on the ideas and develop them further, together with Quirky's inhouse design team.

Requirement: Product ideas must retail for less than $150 and should not require integrated software.

Examples of products in the making and development: "an auto-stirring microwavable bowl with steam-release function; a modular tent-making kit for use with couch cushions and throw quilts; a yoga mat with magnetic or Velcro closures."

30% payoff: "Thirty cents of every revenue dollar goes back to ideators, and a number of them have already earned tens of thousands of dollars."

Typical income of inventors:

Michael McCoy, inventor of Cloak, a two-in-one iPad stand and case, that retails for $29.99. This item generated total sales of $100,128, and Michael got a share of $38,007 for this.

Jake Zien, inventor of the Pivot Power, an adjustable power strip with six outlets, that retails for $29.99. This item generated total sales: $13,021, and Jake got a share of $4,919.

Quirky's take: "The company retains the rights to all the cool ideas that are voted into the development process, and because the company gets validation from thousands of potential customers before making a move, Kaufman avoids all the costs associated with early design phases." => our idea of collective customer commitment at its best!

2011 revenue: Expected "to be between $6 million and $10 million"

Financing: Quirky has raised $12.6 million in funding.

Staff: Today 40, planned are about 80 by the end of this year.

Media: Ben is a master in self promotion and announcing his company, and so the Sundance Channel's will have a reality TV show featuring Kaufman, Quirky employees, the inventors and their stories, premiering in August.

Ben's core learning in running an online community:

"Face-time is important, transparency is important!" There's a whole department dedicated to "inventor services," and the company regularly holds virtual town hall meetings with the whole staff, inviting community members to log on and ask anyone on the team questions."

 For me, Quirky still is one of the best ideas of co-creation. Here is my earlier more extended analysis of their business model.

 

Mass Customization -- The Movie

We all know about the opportunities and principles of mass customization -- and there has been plenty of research, talks, press reports, and media coverage about this strategy. Still, for the general public, mass customization (or better: the fact that consumers today can create their own products and services efficiently and at rather low cost on the internet, ) still is very new.

I am always astonished how many people never have heard about this opportunity. So, one idea of our project SERVIVE, funded by the European Commission, was to present the concept of "create your own" to a larger public by a free educational movie.

The clip (16mins) has been directed by the London College of Fashion (LCF), under the leadership of Susan Jenkyn Jones, and has been produced by a team of professionals working for large Euopean broadcaters like the BBC or Deutsche Welle. The Movie had its first screening at the CYO 2011 Event in Berlin, and is now available for download and streaming at http://vimeo.com/25132966

Create Your Own - Mass Customisation from Sue J-J on Vimeo.

CYO 2011: Final Agenda - European BtC Customization & Personalization Entrepreneurs meet in Berlin

The "Create Your Own" event on May 30-31, 2011 in Berlin at Theater Aufbau Kreuzberg, Moritzplatz 1, 10969 Berlin.

The CYO 2011 is a unique opportunity to explore the reality and future behind individualisation, co-creation, and personalisation -- mega trends that are shaping the European consumption landscape. The event is co-organized by a consortium of European companies and research institutes in the field of mass customization. Here is the semi-final agenda. Participation is 200,- Euro only -- but register until May 1.

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Monday, 30th of May 2011: CREATE YOUR OWN 2011 Company Showcase & Evening

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The opening event will feature over fifty co-creation entrepreneurs, makers, researchers, technology experts, policy maker, and investors from around Europe. A press conference and special exhibition will present the makers and shapers of personalisation and customisation in Europe to a wider audience.

16:00 Registration starts

17:00 Opening Talk: Greetings & Event Overview

17:30 Showcase Exhibition Opening: Experience some of the best European CYO consumer good companies

19:00 Press event, film screening and recpetion: Create Your Own -- The Official Movie, produced and directed by the London College of Fashion
 

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Tuesday, 31st of May 2011: CREATE YOUR OWN 2011 Business Conference and Workshop

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  The business conference will provide a detailed look at innovative European start-ups that are quite literally giving the people what they want. At the seminar, plenary presentations and panels will look into the market for mass customisation, new business models connected with the trend, and the latest technologies that make it happen.

8.00 Registration starts

9:00 Welcome Addresss: John Cleuren, DG Research, European Commission

9:30 CYO Opening Presentation: The Mass Customization 500 – A Benchmarking Report of 500 CYO Offerings, Frank Piller (RWTH Aachen) & Dominik Walcher (Salzburg University of Applied Sciences)

10:00 Best Practice: How to sell dreams – The Success Story of Personal Novel, Jan-Christoph Goetze (Personal Novel)

10:30 Coffee & Networking Break

11:00 Best Practice: To be announced

11:30 Panel I: The market for customization & personalization – where will we go?

Moderator: Prof. Frank Piller, RWTH Aachen

• Thorsten Harzer, Boston Consulting Group/RWTH: “What about the MC market today?”
• Tom de Bruyne, Boondoggle: “How to sell your innovativeness”
• Michael Bruck, Chocri: “How to take the plunge to the US”
• Oliver Hickfang, Juuway: “Perspectives for European Companies to Sell Custom Goods to the Chinese Consumer”
• Rolf-Christian Wentz, Business Angel: “When are MC start-ups promising?”
• Paul Blazek, CyLEDGE: “Mass Customization at the Edge: the most curious CYO businesses”

12:30 Lunch

13:30 Panel 2: The power of communities - Qualified open innovation and mass customization
Moderator: Prof. Thomas Fischer, ITV Denkendorf

Panel Keynote: How to realize the ideas of consumers, Hervé Francois (Color Textil) & Niels Hendriks (KH Limburg)

• Hervé Francois, Color Textil: “Designers as professional customers”
• Niels Hendriks, KHLim: “How to satisfy customer’s needs”
• Ellen Mutchler, Color Textil/ Digifabrix: “How to develop professional exchange platforms”
• Sue Jenkyn-Jones, London College of Fashion: “How to support the customer by Style Advice“
• Michiel Willemse, TNO: “3D printing of jewellery”

15:00 Coffee Break

15:30 Panel 3: Business models and platforms to run a successful mass customization business
Moderator: Sergio Dulio, Milano

Joint Panel Keynote: Platforms as collaborative business models for the future of mass customization: The cases of BivolinoServices and Customax, Bas Possen, Customax, and Michel Byvoet, Bivolino

• Andreas Kortmann. Matteo Dosso: “Being successful in a BtoBtoC market within 12 countries”
• Carine Moitier, Bivolino: “Bringing art into the customized apparel market”
• Philip Rooke, Spreadshirt: “How to let customers make money with their designs“
• Martin Meuser, Customate: ”How to collaborate with big players“
• Lotta Nordin, Adidas: ”Aligning mass production and mass customiaztion“

17:15 Wrap up and results of the the “Makers Incubator” (workshop)

17:30 Reception and Exhibition

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Participation at the CYO 2011 is 200,- Euro only -- but register until May 1.

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SPECIAL OFFER: If your company is offering mass customization products or services, participate at the CYO 2011 showcase exhibition. This will be a great opportunity to showcase your offerings to a wider public, the CYO 2011 participants, and a large group of invited journalists and multiplicators. Participation at the exhibition is only 250,- Euro (including the 200,- Euro participation fee at the business seminar), but place is limited. For any exhibition requests, just check the CYO website.

Winning Logo of MCPC 2011 Crowdsourcing Competition – My Experiences with CrowdSPRING

Here is the new MCPC 2011 conference logo … to get it, we did what we preach and started a logo crowdsourcing competition at CrowdSPRING, one of the leading places in the internet to run design competitions.

I hope you like it … the logo will be used for the conference design and the final invitation brochures etc … I like the way how it connects the different backgrounds of our conference.

It was interesting to actually run such a contest. Here are my personal experiences with CrowdSPRING:

1. It is quite easy to launch a new project, even if you have never done this before and do not know anything about writing a briefing.
2. It is more expensive than often said. In some blogs or reports, crowdsourced graphic design competitions are said to be very cheap. Well, compared to hiring a design company for a new logo, CrowdSPRING is very affordable. But the average award is much higher today as it used to be in the past. As a non-profit conference and taking everything from my research budget, I decided to go low and just awarded $375 (The average contest is $1000 or more), On top, you pay about $150 transaction fees to the host (and expect to pay much higher fees if you want to have your contest promoted).
3. This is not much money, but for $500, you also will find many designers who will take such a job on a traditional contract base. But when you are new to the area and have not many great designers in your contact list, this is a great way to connect.
4. When you run a contest, reserve some time. Don't do it when you have a very full agenda. Participants expect instant feedback, and indeed your submissions get better when you give feedback just after every submission. I totally underestimated this.
5. You will not get better results when you keep the competition open longer than a week. Good entries only come in a few days before the closing deadline.
6. Get a few friends or colleagues involved helping you with the final voting. In the end, however, as usual, my wife made the decision for me :-).
7. The post-processing of the contest is very easy and well organized. Just a few clicks, and you have your files and the contract. This is where CrowdSPRING really provides value as a broker.

The winner of our contest was an experienced graphic designer who actually lives quite close to my German home, Raoul Camion. Raoul is a Belgium graphic designer who has specialized in logos projects. Without knowing, we selected a highly professional user: Raoul has participated in about 1000 projects at CrowdSPRING, and has won 87 of them. Sounds little, but is a lot given the large number of entries that are submitted for each contest.

So, we hope that you like the new MCPC 2011 logo!

CYO 2011: European Networking Event on Mass Customisation and the Creative Consumer, Berlin, May 30-31

This year will become the year of mass customization. First, the MCPC 2011 conference promises to become the biggest networking and knoweldge event ever. But it will be only at the end of November 2011... But before, there is a great opportunity for everyone in Europe to meet and network:

Supported by the European Commission, a consortium of European companies and research organisations is hosting the Create Your Own 2011 (CYO 2011) event in Berlin, Germany, May 30 and 31st, 2011.

The term "create your own" denotes a growing trend of start-ups and corporate entrepreneurship in Europe to create offerings catering to the creative consumer and serving the personalisation movement.

Together with local post-industrial design collective Cookies And Code and RWTH Aachen, EU research projects OpenGarment and SERVIVE will bring the vibrant global conversation about the future of making and selling personalised goods and services to Berlin.

The group is presenting its first annual "Create Your Own" event on Monday May 30, 2011 at the IMA Design Village in Berlin (17-20 h).  The opening event will feature over fifty co-creation entrepreneurs, makers, researchers, technology experts, policy maker, and investors from around Europe. A press conference and special exhibition will present the makers and shapers of personalisation and customisation in Europe to a wider audience,

On the following day, May 31, a full day business seminar will provide a detailed look at innovative European start-ups that are quite literally giving the people what they want. At the seminar, plenary presentations and panels will look into the market for mass customisation, new business models connected with the trend, and the latest technologies that make it happen.

The event "Create Your Own 2011" is a unique opportunity to explore the reality and future behind individualisation, co-creation, and personalisation -- mega trends that are shaping the European consumption landscape. 

The CYO event has three core objectives.

1. Give participants a thorough overview of what is happening today, what can be learned from the past, and what future already is here from key thought leaders in the field.
2. Help people in different fields of practice to explore how they can use mass customisation, co-creation and personalisation to get more out of what they do as a creative producer. This purpose will be served by a special workshop, the "MC incubator". 
3. Showcase some of the best and most promising products and customization offerings to a general public.

As the event is supported by the European Commission, registration is Euro 200,- only if you register early.Visiting the CYO2011 exhibition is free and open to everyone.

All information and registration at http://www.cyo2011.com

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SPECIAL OFFER: If your company is offering mass customization products or services, participate at the CYO 2011 exhibition. This will be a great opportunity to showcase your offerings to a wider public, the CYP 2011 participants, and a large group of invited journalists and multiplicators. Participation at the exhibition is only 250,- Euro (including the 200,- Euro participation fee at the business seminar), but place is limited. For any exhibition requests, just contact Evalotte Lindgens at [email protected]

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User innovation and co-creation are taking over the world -- recent articles in The New York Times and The Economist

In the last few days, two of the leading global media outlets, The New York Times and The Economist, had quite extensive articles on user innovation, customization, and co-creation.

On February 10, 2011, on page C1 of the New York edition of The New York Times, Patricia Cohen writes about "Innovation Far Removed From the Lab",

The article is a great praise and acknowledgment of the work done by Eric von Hippel: Here are some quotes from the article I liked most:

"[...] Since the Austrian economist Joseph A. Schumpeter published “The Theory of Economic Development” in 1934, economists and governments have assumed that the industrial and business sectors are where ideas for products originate. A complex net of laws and policies, from intellectual property rights to producer subsidies and tax benefits, have flowed from this basic assumption.

However, pathbreaking research by a group of scholars including Eric A. von Hippel, a professor of technological innovation at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management, suggests that the traditional division of labor between innovators and customers is breaking down.  [...]

Financed by the British government, Mr. von Hippel and his colleagues last year completed the first representative large-scale survey of consumer innovation ever conducted.

What the team discovered ... was that the amount of money individual consumers spent making and improving products was more than twice as large as the amount spent by all British firms combined on product research and development over a three-year period.

[...]  Carliss Y. Baldwin, a business administration professor at the Harvard Business School, called the research remarkable, adding: “What makes Eric’s work so significant is that it is unprecedented to try to measure the extent of user innovation. He shows that we’ve had on a set of mental blinders.”

This is the UK study the NYT is referring to is: Von Hippel, Eric A., De Jong, Jeroen and Flowers, Steven, Comparing Business and Household Sector Innovation in Consumer Products: Findings from a Representative Study in the UK (September 27, 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1683503

The Economist takes on another aspect that somehow is complementing user innovation: Fabbing and the rise of additive manufacturing technologies for the average consumer.

In the Technology section of the Feb 10th 2011 print edition, the article "Print me a Stradivarius: How a new manufacturing technology will change the world" reviews the recent developments of aditive manufactuing and what this means for the world of manufacturing. Nothing less than a revolution, the Economist suggests.

Again some quotes from the article:

"[...] By reducing the barriers to entry for manufacturing, 3D printing should also promote innovation. If you can design a shape on a computer, you can turn it into an object. You can print a dozen, see if there is a market for them, and print 50 more if there is, modifying the design using feedback from early users. This will be a boon to inventors and start-ups, because trying out new products will become less risky and expensive. And just as open-source programmers collaborate by sharing software code, engineers are already starting to collaborate on open-source designs for objects and hardware.

A technological change so profound will reset the economics of manufacturing. Some believe it will decentralise the business completely, reversing the urbanisation that accompanies industrialisation. There will be no need for factories, goes the logic, when every village has a fabricator that can produce items when needed. Up to a point, perhaps. But the economic and social benefits of cities go far beyond their ability to attract workers to man assembly lines. [...]

Just as nobody could have predicted the impact of the steam engine in 1750—or the printing press in 1450, or the transistor in 1950—it is impossible to foresee the long-term impact of 3D printing. But the technology is coming, and it is likely to disrupt every field it touches. Companies, regulators and entrepreneurs should start thinking about it now. One thing, at least, seems clear: although 3D printing will create winners and losers in the short term, in the long run it will expand the realm of industry—and imagination."

Both articles also show why the new "Open Source Hardware" definition is so important: It will become the intellectual underpinning of user innovators using the new fabbing technologies to produce -- and distribute -- the next wave of innovation collaboratively.

From Market Places to Problem Places: Report of the Quebec Seeks Solutions Conference -- A New Method for Open Innovation

What a great day! It was an experiment, a lab, a world premiere, and much fun! The 2010 Problem Conference in Quebec City.

More than 170 persons joined as active problem solvers in a packed room in the Quebec convention center on Dec 14. The idea of the event was simple: Turn a science conference upside down. Instead of sharing success stories, proponents of complex problems from various industrial sectors shared their problems and previously failed attempts to find a solution. During the day, attendees and problem solvers from very different backgrounds worked in three rounds to provide ideas for solutions (see here for a more detailed description of the idea).

This idea of this problem conference had been developed during a workshop on open innovation I directed in March in Quebec City (see the original idea sketch in the picture collection on the left). Problems were collected before in form of an open "call for problems". Finally, ten companies submitted a challenge (long version of problem descriptions), five more than we expected!

Behind the day was great team that made it happen. Directed by the conference host and champion, Christophe Deutsch, Vice President at INO, a technology company in Quebec, and Philippe Dancause & Jean-Sébastien Bouchard from www.grisvert.com (a great organization facilitating large group interactions), more than 20 people worked behind the scene to organize and orchestrate the event.

The set-up of the conference day was really interactive: The day kicked off with a number of welcome addresses and a short introduction in the idea of "broadcast search" and open innovation in general. Then, people moved to the "working room", set-up like a big experimental space. At the walls were covered with small "labs" for each of the ten problems, with plenty of space to both document the problem and collect the solution ideas.

Here is a time-lappsed video of the day:

Timelapse: Québec Seeks Solutions Conference Day from GRISVERT

Outcomes for solution seekers included:

• Many new contacts on a high level; Networking outside the "normal" network
• Generation of new ideas for applications
• A better understanding of the problem
• Initiation of research contracts
• Identification of more cost effective solutions (not better, but much cheaper)

According to the feedback forms and some conversations I had after the conference, there also was plenty of value for the solvers, who, by the way, paid $200 each to participate in the day and work on other's people problems:

• Better visibility of the R&D centers and the value of working with them
• Contact with real industry problems and networking for students
• Access to potential clients for technology providers in a very creative and different perspective
• Strong learning effects and the opportunity to challenge one's own assumptions
• Participating in an innovation community

Conclusions: There is a lot of value in local open innovation! 

When the idea was pitched to me for the first time, I was thinking: Well, why connect locally when you nowadays can connect easily to the world? But there were a number of good reasons for local open innovation, too – which all were confirmed by the day in Quebec:

Previous research has shown that the effectiveness of this mechanism can be enhanced by collaboration between potential solvers. Also, often the seeker and the solver need to engage in collaborative research activities to achieve the solution. Here, a regional conference offers much better opportunities for networking and collaboration.

Also, the perception of fairness and trust has been shown to be a key element in distributed problem solving. Face-to-face interactions and collaborative group work can enhance this important factor.  At the same time, the conference also can become a laboratory for experimenting open innovation for companies (especially SMEs) not familiar with this approach.

By lowering the barriers to entry and participate (as compared to an online platform), a "problem conference" will allow the companies to get a better idea of the benefits of open innovation. And so in the end, I would conclude, the day (and all the activities before) has been a large change management initiative for the Quebec region!


From market places to problem places™ 

 On a higher level, this conference is part of a much larger general trend: The development of problem places – communities and platforms where problems are being posted looking for potential seekers, enabling unobvious connections in many perspectives. From my perspective, "problem places" (instead of market places for technologies), are a core element of open innovation.

And these problem places not only exist on the web on platforms like NineSigma or Innocentive. They also can be created on a local level to facilitate unobvious connections in a local cluster. We will repeat this experience in other regions, and perhaps also make it a part of the MCPC conferences! So stay tuned for more to come!

More information

For more information on the conference and a documentation of the entire program and process, and many pictures and videos, head here:

• Conference website with documentation of the problems and the opening / closing presentations
• Twitter Feed of the day
• Video documentation

(Updated) Ten Reasons Why I Consider Quirky.com As Best in Crowdsourcing and Open Innovation

Since I learned about the company about one year ago, Quirky.com has become my favorite example of open innovation and customer co-creation.  We had Quirky's founder, Ben Kaufman, at our MIT Smart customization Seminar earlier this year, and his presentation even made me a larger fan.

If you do not know Quirky yet, think of idea contests meeting microfinancing meeting open development. Users can suggest a new product idea (for a fee). The Quirky community then starts with some research and votes on the best ideas that should enter the next stage. Here, ideas are turned into concepts jointly by the community and Quirky's own developers. Next, again an evaluation. Passed? Then the concept is out for community financing. Only if a minimum number of customers commit with their credit card to purchase the product later, manufacturing is started, and the product will be launched.

For a more detailed description, go to their website (you have to register to see most functions) or read a great article by Rob Walker in his "Consumed" column in the NYT Magazine.

And here are my ten reasons why Quirky.com really is "best in class" in open innovation and customer co-creation.

10. Demonstrating that the crowd can co-create products which make it Time Magazine's "Innovation of the Year" (2009).

9. Proofing that a good co-creation idea can get serious VC money. With $7 million in financing, up to now, Quirky.com has become a role model and inspiration for many other start-ups.

8. Bringing us new fun products no one really needs but which all have an "I want this" appeal -- once a week.

7. Mashing-up lead users, customer co-creation, open innovation, and crowdsourcing: Co-creation to facilitate input by users/potential customers on new product ideas (most Quirky projects start with an unfulfilled need by a (lead) user). Open innovation to turn the idea into a prototype with the help of external experts who participate in technical problem solving. Crowdsourcing to coordinate and facilitate the entire process (Quirky is a great example of applying the original idea of crowdsourcing according to Jeff Howe).

6. Demonstrating how fast innovation can be -- despite the involvement of so many participants and parties.

5. Lifting the Threadless model to another level -- and developing the idea further than "just" t-shirts!

4. Providing me with a great new example of the "collective customer commitment" method we described in our 2006 pape. At Quirky, new products are only produced if a minimum amount of customers show support (commitment to purchase) the product.

3. Providing a platform for products originating from deep user insights and offering anyone the platform of turning great ideas into real products -- and profiting from it (see below). Also, if your idea does not make it to a final stage, you get a great feedback report with the consolidated community feedback and research on the idea.

2. Demonstrating a great model of "hybrid" value creation between openness and closeness. Most activities are performed by the community and are freely revealed on the platform, but Quirky provides (hierarchical) coordination and takes over the more complicated developing steps, like finalizing the design and the technical development of the product.

1. Being one of the first companies that really(!) takes external contributors serious. Ben Kaufmann told us at MIT that the core challenge when launching the company has been to develop an algorithm that provides a fair distribution of 30% of all revenues' to the community members who contributed to a particular project. In average, 1200-1500 contributors are paid per product! Such a large-scale contribution scheme still is very rare in for-profit industries -- but should become a role model for the co-creation economy.

Update (Oct 24, 2010):

A few days ago, Quirky updated its website. Here are some of the new features that directly enhance the buisness model:

• Shopping cart functionality, with clear breakdowns of which products are in development, which are in production, and which are shipping now.
• New community dashboard, which makes it easier to connect with the more than 35,000 community members.
• New evaluation format that allows users to browse, vote, rate, and comment on ideas quicker and easier.
• More ways for users to track their activity on the site.
• Change to pre-order commitments: There no longer is a default deduct to all "pre order commtments from your account, but you just leave their credit card info with them.

Cognitive Surplus: Who has all the time to participate in co-creation? A review of Clay Shirkey's book

I just finished reading the book "Cognitive Surplus" by NYU professor Clay Shirkey. While in general I do not post book reviews here, I really liked the book as it provides a great summary of the one question I often get from people after my presentations on customer co-creation:

"Who has all the time to contribute to ... ", with "..." to be replaced by a user idea contest by a company, an open hardware project, a Wikipedia edit, a LEGO Factory hack, a long co-design session in a nice mass customization configurator.

Shirkey's answer on this question is covered in the first chapter of his book: There just is so much "cognitive surplus", i.e. all the free time we have in our recent modern society (for the first ime in the existence of mankind) and which we mostly waste for --- watching TV.

Every single year for the second half of the 20th century, the amount of television watched by humanity increased. Collectively, we now watch more than one trillion hours of television every year. US-Americans alone watch about 200 billion hours of television a year.

Just the 200bn of TV in the US represents, as Shirky notes, about 2,000 times the total human hours that have gone so far into creating Wikipedia. So just turning 1% (or even 0.1%) of the time invested into watching TV into participation already provides much capacity -- our "cognitive surplus" we can use to do something larger, more interactive and more participative than just watching TV.

At the same time, the cost for us to contribute also has dramatically been lowered thanks to the internet and devices and software helping us to interact. As a result, many new opportunities arise to participate in creativity and problem‑solving.

The remaining of the book is a nice summary of earlier literature on WHY people are motivated to participate in initiatives started by other people of commercial organizations, and often do so without demanding any monetary payment for their contributions. Here, Shirkey lays out nicely recent and older research on intrinsic and social motivation.

So, in conclusion, most arguments in the book are not new, but it provides a great review of research and a nice answer on "why the hell are people spending so much time in contributing to co-creation initiatives."

Context:

• There also is a TED talk by Shirky on the main arguments of his book.
• The book also has a website that provides the most comprehensive summary of a book on the web I ever have seen, http://www.cognitivesurplus.com

Invitation: Let's Meet at Customer Co-Design Event in Munich on July 15

Are you living in the Munich, Germany, area? Then you may be interested in this event on July 15 at the BMW Corporate Headquarters:

Customers as Co-Creators: Implications for theDesign Profession

  Organized by Bayern Design, an association of industrial designers in Bavaria, and Hyve AG (an OIA - Full Disclosure: I am on the board of directors of Hyve), this shall become a nice evening event that will allow a good update on co-creation and open innovation with customers, and also will offer nice networking opportunities for the Munich community.

The event is in German language, and so is the following announcement:

Der Kunde als Mitgestalter. Einfluss von Social Media und user-generated Content auf die Gestaltung - 37. Unternehmerforum Design

15. Juli 2010 -- 17 bis 21 Uhr -- BMW Welt, München

Das Web 2.0 bietet Unternehmen ganz neue Möglichkeiten, innovative Produktideen zu generieren. Durch die Zusammenarbeit mit Communities, durch Ideen- und Design-Contests im Internet oder in Workshops mit Lead Usern werden Kunden aufgefordert, sich aktiv an der Produktentwicklung und -gestaltung zu beteiligen und Produkte am Bildschirm zu kreieren, die individuell und einzigartig sind. Doch können Nutzer tatsächlich komplexe Gestaltungsaufgaben übernehmen? Welche Chancen und Risiken liegen in der frühen Kundenintegration? Wie kann effektiv und sinnvoll das große kreative Potential der globalen User genutzt werden? Steht uns ein Paradigmenwechsel in der Produktentwicklung und Kundenbindung bevor?

Antworten auf diese Fragen geben Wissenschaftler, Unternehmer und Gestalter in der BMW Welt in München. Wir laden Sie herzlich ein, aktiv an der Diskussion teilzunehmen. Es sprechen:

• Martin Ertl, Chief Innovation Officer, BOMBARDIER Transportation Deutschland GmbH, Berlin
• Dr. Johann Füller und Michael Schmidt, Vorstand, HYVE AG, München
• Dr. Gregor Matjan, Client Relationship Manager, KISKA GmbH, Salzburg
• Prof. Dr. Frank T. Piller, Direktor des Instituts für Technologie- und Innovationsmanagement an der RWTH Aachen

Teilnahmegebühren: 70 € zzgl. ges. MwSt. (50 € zzgl. MwSt für für Studenten).

Anmeldung ueber dieses Formular:  Download Anmeldung 15_07_2010

Mass Customized Art -- Can Art be Co-Created?

A long time ago, I wrote about some artists that have applied the ideas of mass customization and personalization for their works. Now, a much larger initiative has started. Called A.R.T. (for "Art-ReThought"), Donald Rattner, an artist turned architect, has created a new online shop for customizable modular art. He also recently launched a sophisticated new blog on modular design and architecture.

"Is art still art if the artist’s hand never touched it?" This somehow is the key question Rattner's site asks, and while he definitely has answered it with "Yes", I am not so sure if his offerings really meet the definition of "art" for many people who may call this more "decoration".

But the lines are blurring. And in any case, Rattner perfectly illustrates how digital innovations in manufacturing are impacting art and design. Mass customization, co-creation, modular design, production on demand, digital design, robotics, and other computer-driven technologies are changing the way things are made (and as a result, the way art is thought about).

Rattner calls this mixture “The New Industrialism". "As with so many things in our lives, a lot of the historical attitudes toward the creative disciplines are falling away under the influence of modern technology. For instance, today people are demanding more involvement in the creative experience, whether it’s collaborating in the design of their own clothes or specifying a new computer for purchase. Eventually we’ll see that sensibility infiltrate the art world, which until now has reserved the right to creation to the artist alone." Rattner recently is quoted in a press release. There is a great illustration of the "new" and the "old" art in the catalogue for his customizable items (download).

In his online shop (with a small configurator), he is selling Wall Art, a hanging modular wall sculpture system that comes in square, reticular and rhombus modules and Shelf Art, a simple, expensive but wonderful personalization option for home libraries (I love those!). Nice, fredh idea -- and a further sign of the broad appeal of mass customization.

Context: 

• Donald Rattner's site: http://www.art-rethought.com/blog/
• All previous posts on "Art Customization"

Success Factors of Implementing Open Innovation

 While the majority of postings in this blog is rather focused on mass customization and customer co-creation, a larger stream of research at our team at RWTH Aachen is on open innovation in the realization stage of an innovation project, i.e. transferring and utilizing technological knowledge from an organization's periphery to improve the productivity of technical problem solving.

Along this line of research, we work with a number of companies and industry associations on establishing an open innovation framework or utilizing the upcoming platforms and intermediaries for open innovation (see our study "The Market for open innovation"). Also, open innovation became the largest topic for executive education classes that I am giving this year.

From these projects and executive classes, I realized a number of repeating factors that seem to influence the implementation of open innovation. In a blog posting by Science Business, a UK news service that wants to facilitate the matching of buyers and sellers of emerging technologies, I found a nice article that supports my own observations. The report is about a qualitative interview study on the state of implementation of open innovation in the world’s 30 largest health care and manufacturing companies. The study has been carried out by the UK consultancy group PA Consulting.

In the report, open innovation is defined broadly (n the understanding of Henry Chesbrough) as the practices of a company to work with partners, agencies and other companies outside its organization to foster innovation (note that my own definition of OI is a bit closer and focused on practices that build on rather informal, ad-hoc and large-scale organizational mechanisms to connect seekers and providers of technical knoweldge).

These are my conclusions from the report and my own observations on the state of implementation of open innovation:

• Only few companies have so far adopted a structured or company-wide approach to practice open innovation. At the same time, open innovation and customer co-creation are becoming more and more separated. The term "open innovation" is used for technology or knowledge transfer for a given technological challenge in an innovation project, while the term "(customer) co-creation" is being used to address practice of integrating users and customers in the early stages of the innovation process. Both areas have different methods, different responsibilities, and different people driving them in an organization.
• Respondents in the PA Study felt that it can be difficult to gain buy-in and resources for open innovation projects and those involved in open innovation can feel marginalized and under pressure to show results.
• To be successful in open innovation, the top of the business have to champion the process. Leadership also is critical to building the outward-looking culture that is essential. An engaged, enthusiastic CEO or head of function can do much to engender a similar attitude in employees, and get open innovation accepted.
• Open innovation is seen as a strategic necessity in sustaining innovation leadership. Some also saw it as a possible cost-saving response to the present downturn. This is strongly confirmed by own observations in Germany. Many companies are interested in NineSigma or InnoCentive today as they see it first of all as a means to increase the efficiency of problem solving, i.e. save cost and reduce financial risk.
• Only few companies are yet able to construct and appraise an objective business case for open innovation, or have a reliable measuring system to proof the value it brings to their business. This is one of the largest fields where applied research has to start.
• Open innovation requires dedicated organizational capabilities like relationship building, negotiating and the ability to pioneer novel legal arrangements. Here, we still lack both theoretical and practical knowledge about the exact nature of these capabilities, their success factors, and how to build them best in an organization.
• An important observation was how to get "ready for open innovation". The only way to learn about open innovation is to pilot it. But in this process, formal training is an important part of its acceptance and its success. Often, one person is heading the OI initiative, but if you want to make it work, you need an entire team of people who all understand different aspects of open innovation across the entire company.

MIT Smart Customization Seminar (SCS 2010) - Update and Agenda - Registration now open

The MIT Smart Customization Seminar (SCS) 2010 provides a unique opportunity for thought leaders and reflective practitioners working on, implementing, or considering mass customization, personalization, and customer co-creation. It will take place in the new Media Lab Extension building.

The 2010 seminar's 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. Following the success of similar events at MIT in October 2007 and November 2008, the objective of the 2010 seminar is to take an intensive look on the success factors and "how to do it” aspects of implementing mass customization, personalization and customer co-creation in a smart way.

The seminar also will provide great networking opportunities for everyone interested in mass customization, personalization, and customer co-creation – inspired by the creative environment of the famous MIT Media Lab.

  Presenting companies at the SCS 2010

 The companies selected by the MIT SCG in 2010 represent some of the most prominent and interesting examples of mass customization, personalization, and customer co-creation in North America and Europe. Each of these companies has made some major achievements and has established a number of best practices for the industry.

For a more detailed description of companies that will present at the 2010 seminar, please have a look in the following postings:

- Leaders in mass customization ...

- Leaders in personalization ...

- Leaders in customer co-creation at the MIT SCG Seminar 2010 

In addition to these company presentations, there also will be two sessions where we share the latest research on mass customization, personalization, and customer co-creation.

Agenda

The final agenda has been published! Download it here !

Registration: Reserve your participation at the SCS 2010 @ MIT

This is an exclusive MIT Executive Education event. Space in the seminar is limited, so reserve your seat now, and also enjoy the early registration discount until May 10, 2010. The regular registration fee is $2400, or $1795 for registrations until May 10. So just save $800 by registering early! 

Register here

Special Start-Up Scholarship: For members of start-ups focusing on mass customization, personalization and co-creation, a number of MIT SCG seminar scholarships are available: If you qualify, your participation will be co-sponsored by the MIT SCG and will be $490 only -- an 80% discount! To apply for this scholarship, just send a short e-mail describing your business to Frank Piller ([email protected]).

For more information on the seminar, please head to the official event site: scg.mit.edu

Leaders in Customer Co-Creation Presenting at the SCS 2010

Managers from the following companies will present during the MIT Smart Customization Seminar 2010 (SCS 2010) how to co-create innovations with their customer community.

Even if you will not make it to the seminar, I believe this is a nice case study selection! Note: "Best practices" named in the following are my personal opinion.

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Smart is the microcar by Daimler AG (Mercedes Benz). Recently, smart launched a highly successful customer co-design contest where consumers created more than 10,000 custom designs within just a few weeks. The presentation also will present Daimler's new mobility service Car2Go which can be seen as another example of personalized mobility in the city. Best practices:

• Implementing customer co-creation in a traditional organization
• Thinking beyond the product by customer co-creation of services and experience

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Founded in 1999, Zazzle is one of the world's leaders in mass customization. But with its platform-based system, the company also has democratized the selling and retail process by enabling everyone in the world – being it Disney or the average consumer – to open their own merchandising store with a custom assortment. Best practices:

• Bringing mass customization to the next level by customer co-creation
• Cooperating with established brands and manufacturers to enable mass customization

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Quirky is a social product development company. It has established an entirely new model to cope with assortment variety and heterogeneous customer demands, crowdsourcing the entire new product creation process to its community. Best practices:

• Bringing customer co-creation and community innovation to a new level
• Establishing an entirely new business model in the consumer market

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This posting is part of a series on the MIT Smart Customization Seminar. See all relating postings here. Or register here to the event!

More companies presenting at the 2010 Smart Customization Seminar in May 2010 at MIT:

• SCS 2010 - Leaders in mass customization
• SCS 2010 - Leaders in personalization

The Market for Open Innovation: First study to compare the offerings, methods, and competences of intermediaries, consultancies, and brokers for open innovation

Our executive report on the market for open innovation finally has been published. It is the first study comparing the brokers and intermediaries in the open innovation domain. How do companies like NineSigma, InnoCentive, Yet2.com, IdeaCrossing, or Hyve work? When to contract which of these OI experts -- or any of the other 45 intermediaries reviewed in the study?

The 2010 Open Innovation Accelerator Study, by Kathleen Diener and Frank Piller

Get the full report as an eBook (PDF) or order a hardcopy at http://www.lulu.com/product/6149440/  Or first download an extended extract of the report here (free PDF).

Behind the term open innovation is a powerful message: Successful innovation is often created in a cooperative mode with external actors.  But which is the right method for open innovation? Which are the criteria to plan an open innovation project? Which intermediary or service provider has specific knowledge and expertise in, e.g., crowdsourcing, the lead user method, Netnography, idea contests, technology scouting, or broadcast search?

For the first time, this report provides a comprehensive analysis of the service providers and platforms for open innovation. These intermediaries can help organizations to accelerate their open innovation initiative – this is why we call them Open Innovation Accelerators (OIA). We take a detailed look on their methods, cost, and project structures.

Our motivation to conduct the research for this report was to support a manager's decisions when planning an open innovation venture. Managers shall gain an overview of the intermediaries available for open innovation from a global perspective and will get advice how to identify partners for their project in a directed way.

The report is based on hundreds of interviews with experts and service providers, survey data and self reports from companies specialized in facilitating open innovation, and extensive secondary data. An extensive appendix provides detailed information about each particular open innovation service provider.

Our conclusions

The market space of Open Innovation Accelerators (OIA): We find that OIAs operate globally due to the virtual characteristic of the business. The broad distribution of open innovation application over industry sectors demonstrates that this approach is not limited to certain branches or sectors. However, most recent projects were targeted to the B-to-C market. Most OIAs focus their service on both B-to-B and B-to-C markets.

Methods of open innovation approaches OIAs offer: We distinguish three main service approaches for open innovation – managing communities, providing special (social) software, or operating as an open innovation consulting agency. The community approach is the predominant service offered among all surveyed OIAs (84%). Yet we find combinations. In 37% of the cases the accelerators tend to offer a minimum two different approaches. About 44% of the surveyed OIAs are mainly consultants and community managers. 43% of all OIAs run competitions (mostly idea contests). Nearly 34% of the accelerators apply workshops (mostly brainstorming), often of different workshop types. Most of the OIAs offer tools and methods from several categories to accomplish their services.

Average costs for OIA services: Most OIAs demonstrate a good level of experience when taking the average number of completed projects in relation to the time of business activities. In average, they execute 75-167 projects per year with an average duration of three month (up to 24 month).

We find five different approaches for structuring the OIAs’ profit models: Charging a product license fee, billing person days, a subscription based model, charging a service or success fee, or demanding a posting fee. Prices float within a wide range. The overall minimum stated in our survey is $15 for an account, the maximum $400,000 for a consulting project. In average, an open innovation accelerator asks $25,000 for one project.

The development of the OIA market: The market of intermediaries for open innovation is rather young. More than 80% of the OIAs have been founded later than 2000. Today, new providers of open innovation methods and services are constantly emerging. Others are going out of business at the same time. Some fields, like offering brainstorming platforms and access to user communities, are highly competitive. We find a few already well established accelerators like Hyve, Idea Crossing, InnoCentive, Nine Sigma, Your Encore, Yet2.com.

Yet in general, the entire market is still under development and far away from being consolidated. The future will show which OIA has the right business model and successful projects to survive on that market.


Publication details

The 2010 report "The Market of Open Innovation" provides decision makers strategic support when setting up an open innovation initiative in their organization:

• Different methods for open innovation,
• The dynamics and success factors of an open innovation initiative,
• Typical project structures and project cost of an open innovation initiative facilitated by external service providers,
• A comprehensive overview of 49 service providers specialized in open innovation.

The Market for Open Innovation: Increasing the Efficiency and Effectiveness of the Innovation Process. By Kathleen Diener and Frank Piller. RWTH-TIM Group 2010. 144 pages. Full Color. Published and distributed at lulu.com. €795* (discount available for academic institutions)*

Download the full report as an eBook (PDF) or order a hardcopy at http://www.lulu.com/product/6149440/  Or first download an extended extract of the report here (free PDF).

*Note: Why is this study so expensive? We invested about two person years in conducting the research underlying the study. So we believe this is a fair amount compared to the work a company would have to perform to get this kind of information. The proceeds from this report will support future research of our PhD students and sponsor their participation at international academic conferences. It will also support exchange visits of graduate students from and to Aachen. However, for students and academics interested in the report, there is a special discount. Please contact me for further information ([email protected]).

Background info: What is the MIT Smart Customization Seminar?

Registration is open  -- more information is here!

After a big success in the last year, we just have finalized the set up of the next MIT Smart Customization Seminar. It will take place on May 20 and 21, 2010, in the brand-new Media Lab Building II on the MIT Campus in Cambridge, MA (Boston).

While the MCPC conferences are large networking events and focused on the latest research and a broader range of topics, the MIT Smart Customization Seminar is an Executive Seminar focused on implementing and managing mass customization and personalization successfully in a corporate setting. It is organized by the MIT Smart Customization Group, a research-industry group I co-founded with a bunch of great individuals at MIT in 2007.

If you want to get an idea of what the seminar is and what to expect, have a look at a great summary of the last seminar (Nov. 2008), as compiled by bestselling author Patricia Seybold:

Smart Customization Comes of Age: Best Practices from the MIT Smart Customization Seminar 2008. By Patricia B. Seybold, CEO and Senior Consultant, Patricia Seybold Group January 8, 2009.
Download Patricia's report of the November 2008 seminar here. (c) Copyright by Patricia B. Seybold, P. Seybold Group 2008.

Registration is open  -- more information is here!  It will become THE smart mass customization event 2010 in North America.

Ponoko opens manufacturing network hub in Germany. First step to original "mini factory" network idea

A few days ago, Derek Elley from Ponoko gave me the good news that Ponoko has finally signed up a network partner in Europe.

I wrote about Ponoko several times. It is an online marketplace for everyone to make real things. Just like eBay provides the marketplace for buyers and sellers to engage, Ponoko provides the marketplace for buyers and sellers of product designs and digital making services. More than 40,000 user-generated designs have been instantly priced online, made and delivered since Ponoko launched in late 2007. It is a perfect illustration of the "user manufacturing" economy that Chirs Anderson features in the recent WIRED title story.

A core idea of Ponoko is that they want to connect a network of independent "mini factories" where the digital creations of users are turned in the moment. For a long time, this vision only worked with the two making hubs owned by Ponoko in in San Francisco, California and Wellington, New Zealand. But now, the first independent network hub has opened -- and I am please to notice that it is in Germany.

Here, Ponoko now has partnered with fabber Formulor to open a making hub in Berlin. It means EU-based creators using the Ponoko online making system can now choose to have their products made in Berlin – paying just a fraction of the shipping costs which has made ordering products from Ponoko’s US and Pacific-based making hubs prohibitive.

The development also opens up the European market for creators around the world. Items can now be produced in the EU and shipped locally.

“It provides a glimpse into what we see as the future of Ponoko,” Ponoko CEO David ten Have  is quoted in a press announcement, “Over time we see our role expanding to be about connecting creators, digital fabricators, materials suppliers and buyers of goods rather than simply providing manufacturing services ourselves. So just like eBay provides the marketplace for buyers and sellers to engage, Ponoko provides the world’s first marketplace for buyers and sellers of product designs – and now digital making services.”

Ponoko is working with other digital making service providers to add more making hubs around the world.

The big question, however, is: Is this development particularly relevant given HP is now selling 3D printers and you can have your own manufacturing hub in your home?

Yes, I will argue.

• Shipping costs between the US and EU are reduced from $60 to $9 for for smaller goods -- so before you buy your own 3D printer, you can first try it out and get experience.
• US creators (like ESTY and Adobe users) can ship their products to EU customers at 85% less cost, and with less environmental impact.
• And the quality of home 3D printing and cutting may still be inferior to producing your stuff at a professional outlet.

But this is a very interesting question for research, one for which I hopefully will find time to think about more in the next months: When will you produce at home, when use a mini factory hub like Ponoko, and when just buy a standard product from your local superstore.

50%-Discount on 3-Day-Executive Seminar: Building a Customer-Centric Organization: Mass Customization, Co-Creation, and Relationship Management

(updated)  Building A Customer Centric Organization: Outperforming your Competition in Profitability

IE Business School, 2, 3, and 4th of March 2010 in Madrid, Spain

We are please to offer the first 2010 seminar of our highly successful Executive Education Program "Building the Customer Centric Organization" - An in-depth introduction into mass customization, user innovation. customer co-creation, and modern relationship management (CRM).

50% Discount for Readers of my Blog: While the program is expensive (but IE has been frequently ranked #1 Business School in Europe for this kind of programs), the organizers are offering a Pay1-Admit2-Deal. So when you want to participate with a colleague or friend, business partner or peer, let me know and I send you the info for a 50% reduction! And if you can not find a partner, let me know (e-mail), and I am happy to make a match!

The stagnation of consumption and the proliferation of highly heterogeneous and diverse customer needs are forcing executives today to refocus their product and service portfolios and respond to their client’s needs or risk losing them to the competition. Yet, for any organization to be able to manage this changing dynamic all aspects of the business must be aligned with the goal of understanding customers, revamping their product and service offerings to match the target customer-value proposition, while redesigning organizational culture, incentives systems and processes accordingly. Today’s executives must develop a holistic view of the principles around which organizations can redesign themselves to tap into the benefits of customer-centricity and gain insight into the issues and solutions associated to such vast organizational change processes.

Building a Customer-Centric Organization is a challenging three-day international executive program designed to help executives build their own winning customer-centric strategy and outperform their competition.

Program Objectives: This international program equips executives with the latest thinking and cutting-edge strategic insights to help them build a successful customer centric organization.

Participants will develop a sound understanding of how to:

• Analyze the impact of customer centricity on revenues, profitability and growth.
• Understand the organizational implications of customer-centric strategies and the changes that need to be made.
• Structure their organization by customer segments that establish ownership of the customer experience.
• Delight their customers by delivering value propositions that competitors cannot match.
• Achieve customer satisfaction by understanding and adapting to customer needs rapidly and efficiently.
• Identify and exploit all customer channels.
• Measure customer value for long-term profitability.
• Implement a customer-focused culture within their organization.
• Innovate by improving the value propositions offered to customers.

Program structure:

Strategic capabilities for customer-centricity: 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 can be enormous. This module examines the fundamental capabilities that a company has to develop in order to become customer-centric, and offers a comprehensive 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 a fast and efficient adaptation to customer needs.

Placing the customer / user 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 individual customer relationship: 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.

Faculty:

• FABRIZIO SALVADOR. Professor of Operations Management IE Business School, Spain.
• MARTIN BOEHM. Professor of Marketing Strategy IE Business School, Spain.
• FRANK PILLER. Professor of Innovation Management, RWTH Aachen University, Germany.

More information:

• Download Program Flyer (PDF)
• Program website
• And consider the 50%-deal described at the beginning of this posting!
  

SMART launches huge user design contest -- More than 10K designs submitted in first 10 days

After being rather inactive in the growing field of customer co-design and open innovation initiatives, Daimler AG, the automotive company, finally has launched a big bang: The Smart Design Contest.

10 days after its launch on Jan. 6, 2010, already more than 10,000 unique designs, 45,000 evaluations and 12,000 comments have been submitted.

The smart car always has been rather an expression of individuality ("than a car", some critics may add). And in its very original concept, one of the features was that drivers could exchange the body panels of the car easily during the usage stage and exchange them with others. While this option has been offered, I know no one who executed it. And also the colors which were available for the Smart are rather standard and not too innovative.

But now, at least in the virtual world, users can create really the Smart of their dream with regard to its exterior design. On a special site, smart-design-contest.com, participants have the possibility to either upload their own design(s) or use an on-line toolkit to virtually configure their designs. Participants can also actively contribute in the competition by voting for the best designs of other contestants and/or comment. It is a bit like a mashup of Threadless and Spreadshirt.

The contest has been programmed and is executed by HYVE AG in Munich, and hence has the typical features of the HYVE IdeaNet Software (Full Disclaimer: I am on the board of directors of HYVE AG, but have not been involved in this project), namely tools that make it users easy to contribute, Web2.0 functionality like commenting, further developing an other user's idea, community functionality, and an extensive evaluation function.

Daimler's motivation to run this project is, in my opinion, threefold:

1. This is a great (and rather cheap) tool for interactive marketing and brand building.
   
2. The contest submissions can provide input for the company's innovation process, i.e. which color combination people like, which themes are being addressed, which design languages used. This could be used for future internal planning and also a better targeted marketing campaign.
   
3. The user design contest could become the base of a Threadless-alike business models: User designers design, consumers vote, and the best designs are sold as tuning kits to Smart owners. In the small print, Daimler already has set a price in such a case: 1500 Euro is the honorarium a winning designer would become. Alternatively, the foils also could used in a Spreadshirt-alike-business model: User designers submit ideas, and Smart owners pick their own favorite, which is produced with print-on-demand technology individual.

This is what is stated on the site:

"The 'style your smart' design contest is an opportunity to graphically display ideas for creative exterior design(s) for the smart fortwo. These designs could some day be applied via foil. Thought starters for design themes can be but are not limited to ... environment, family, puzzles, animals, graffiti, art, urbanization, technology, sports ...  

The 'style your smart' design contest aims at helping to identify exterior graphic themes and motives that YOU and/or others like. The designs and themes could be used to inspire future smart fortwo exterior; instead of another color there might be gallery type graphic themes to choose from or even the possibility to have your own theme and graphics. ...

All submitted designs have the opportunity to win cash prizes amounting to a total of 5,000 Euros AND much, much more publicity and exposure."

But Smart also has prices just for participating by voting and commenting on the site, hence providing a great incentive for users to contribute -- and to generate traffic on the site. So in general, I would say the marketing aspect of the project dominates by far. But who knows: Once the company gets more experience and confidence, users may not just upload colorful drawings, but provide input to real innovation.

I am curious to see how many designs will come in overall. If the growth on the site increases as in the first ten days, at the end more than 100,000 design shall have been submitted.

Context:

• In 2007, BMW had a roof designer for its Mini (see my report here). While BMW's site was much more fancy and stylish, the concept itself was not so well executed and the incentive to participate rather small.
  
• For a comparison of companies like HYVE organizing innovation contests have a look in our Executive Report "The Market for Open Innovation"

TUM Research Excellence Award -- Customer Co-Creation and Open Innovation Topics Very Much Welcome

I am happy to announce the next round of the Peter-Pribilla-Foundation TUM Research Excellence Award. It is given by a small foundation associated with TUM Business School, my former place of work. The „TUM-Research Excellence Award“ is awarded to emerging scholars on the level of post-doctoral researcher as well as early career academics and professors doing "leading edge research on innovation and leadership". The price money is about US$ 15,000 (10K Euro).

As this blog is being read by quite a few young researchers -- and everyone interested in this stuff is doing leading edge research just by definition :-) -- I post the call for submissions here.

So take the chance and submit if you feel that you qualify. If you have any questions, just ask (I am on the board of this foundation, but not involved in the price committee, and so I can answer without a bias). For more information, look in this PDF.

[Updated] Exnovate and Open Innovation Forum: Two New Open Innovation Community Sites

Recently, two new blogs or portals covering open innovation went online:

Our colleague Wim Vanhaverbeke has initiated a great community service for everyone interested in open innovation: He just has launched Exnovate, an European Network of Excellence on Open & Collaborative Innovation.

Exnovate is just another name for the idea of open innovation that originated from the pioneering work of Henry Chesbrough and other domain experts. The site very much focuses on open innovation in a company setting, with a focus on getting access to technical solution information in the periphery of a firm. The topic of customer co-creation and user innovation (the "Eric Von Hippel School") is not so much in the focus of the site.

What is Wim's idea for Exnovate? In a statement, he says: "Exnovate aims to become a highly visible, leading European network of excellence on managing and oganizing open & collaborative innovation -- a place where OI best practices could be exchanged and where a genuine market for OI expertise would be prepared and organized for all stakeholders."

On the site, I found three features especially useful:

•  A list of case studies on open innovation for teaching
• A list of academic papers on open innovation, most with a link to download (while not comprehensive in the moment, it can become a great collection)
• A list of people working in the field

For companies, there is the possibility to join a company consortia, but this seems to be just in the making. On top, the site has also information for policy makers, service providers, and venture capitalists. Just have a look: http://www.exnovate.org

The OI Forum is a wordy, academic focused site that reports about latest research. It is facilitated by Stefan Hrastinski, a Research Fellow and Director of Master Studies at the Department of Information Science, Uppsala University, Sweden.

From the Open Innovation Forum’s perspective, open innovation involves all aspects of creating new business opportunities by engaging end-users in co-creative activities. Web 2.0 technologies has caused electronic collaboration to evolve, hence paving the way for companies to invite customers and employees to be involved in the refinement of their offerings. Ideally open innovation will create win-win situations where users get services that are more oriented to their needs and organizations will offer services that are more desired by the market.

With this perspective, the Forum is much more focused on "customer co-creation", just one aspect of the larger understanding.

Have a look at http://openinnovationforum.com (where you also will find a new posting by myself about a new paper and research project).

Customers #1 Source of Innovation, Global Innovation Study Finds

A new innovation report by Grant Thornton International (GT), a consulting and advisory firm, examined the thoughts and attitudes of business executives globally towards innovation. The report is based on a survey conducted by the renowned Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

Students, beware: As usual with these kind of reports, it should not be considered as a rigid academic research but more than a snapshot of company perceptions.of its authors. Still, the reports are good starting point for further study. Also, their purpose often is to drive the consulting business

In the GT 2009 report, the role of customers, along with the attitude of companies to their customers, emerges as a defining characteristic. "No longer simply passive recipients of goods and services, customers now help to shape the future of their own consumption." They are now the leading source of innovations globally (41 per cent), more important than anything inside companies, including research and development.

Firms in Asia Pacific are particularly attuned to what their customers want with almost half (48 per cent) of the best innovative ideas coming from customers against 40 per cent in Western Europe and 35 per cent in North America. Globally, heads of business units followed as the best origins of ideas followed by general employees and the inhouse R&D team (both 33 per cent). So the customer is king, then comes the boss, then the R&D team.

The report also asked about the notion of open innovation, broadly defined in the survey as "leveraging both internal and external ideas and information". The answers show an interesting picture: 33 per cent of the companies say they have applied open innovation and will continue to do so, as they regard open innovation as a key for future growth. This figure is lowest in North America (30 per cent) and highest in Western Europe (35 per cent). This seems interesting, but confirms my earlier notion that companies in Europe are better networked and organized in associations and university networks for innovation. But at the same time, a lot of companies also have major concerns against open innovation.

The report's authors draw four main conclusions:

• Pay more attention to what your customers say and their ideas for innovations
• Consider expanding your open innovation projects and working with more third parties
• Look outwards, explore new markets, rather than drawing back into your domestic market
• Capitalise on the great shifts of the age, the move away from carbon-based energy and the emergence of China and India as major trading nations with huge consumer markets.

GT offers the reports for free download here.

I got notice about the GT report by reading a blog posting at Promise, a UK innovation market research and co-creation company. Promise, together with the LSE, also recently published a good report on the status of co-creation and the role of customers in the innovation process.

Master Co-Creation and Crowdsourcing: Executive Masterclass, 12 Nov 2009, Amsterdam Airport

Thursday, 12 November 2009
Dorint Hotel Schiphol, Amsterdam Airport, Netherlands

A key challenge in today's new product and service development is to match new innovations with ever faster changing customer expectations. This Masterclass will teach industry proven tools and methods on how to place your customer and consumers at the center of your innovation process.
 
During this highly interactive and hands-on workshop, I will provide you with proven tools and methods to:

• Evaluate various Co-Creation and Crowdsourcing methods for your business
• Harness new ideas and innovations residing within your external community
• Overcome limitations of traditional consumer and statistical research methods
• Generate new ways of thinking, new product opportunities and new profit streams
• Understand why Co-Creation needs to part of any Open Innovation strategy
• Demonstrate how companies like Adidas, Levis, BMW, 3M, LEGO and many more have used Co-Creation and Crowdsourcing to fuel their Innovation Process

Download program brochure with full information (PDF)

Reserve your place and call +44 (0)1325 345 810 or register online at www.regonline.co.uk/co-creation

Distributed user manufacturing network started: Ponoko and ShopBot announce partnership to provide users access to over 6,000 digital fabricators around the world

During the 2007 US Presidential debates, journalist Tom Brokaw asked candidates Obama and McCain whether our challenges would be best solved by ... "funding a Manhattan-style project or by supporting 100,000 garages across America to encourage the kind of industry and innovation that developed Silicon Valley?"

A new website takes the second approach! Inspired by Tom Brokaw's question to the presidential candidates, 100Kgarages is a community of workshops all over the world that are run by "Fabbers", with digital fabrication tools for precisely cutting, machining, drilling, or sculpting the components of any user  project.

The site has been launched on Sept. 16 by Ponoko and ShopBot, expanding the opportunities for ordinary users to get almost anything custom made and delivered from local state-of-the-art digital makers.

I have written several times about Ponoko in my blog, an online marketplace for everyone to make real things. It brings together creators, digital fabricators, materials suppliers and buyers. Since its launch in 2007, more than 30,000 user-generated designs "have been instantly priced online" (the official wording in the press release, I believe this means "uploaded and finished", but not ordered and delivered).

ShopBot is a manufacturer of affordable, high-performance CNC tools for digital fabrication of wood, plastic and aluminum products. With more than 6,000 ShopBots in thousands of shops in the US and 54 countries around the world, ShopBot is one of the largest producers of CNC routers in North America.

With the cooperation of the both companies and the launch of the 100kGarages website, anyone can get their ideas made locally with the click of a mouse, and delivered within just a few days.

Users can go to the site to get things custom made by searching a map for a local garage workshop, or submitting a request and choosing from bids placed by a range of ShopBot owners to make almost anything. It’s free for everyone to search and submit requests, and for fabricators to post profiles and bids.

People are creating a wide range of products like tables, chairs, cabinets, car parts, signage, boats, musical instruments, gaskets, sheds, housing and all of those impossible to find things made from wood, plastic, metal and composite materials.

“Our partnership means everyone now has easy access to their own local 3D fabricator. This is the first step to providing a solution for the doers and makers out there who want to join in re-building America, one garage at a time.”, says ShopBot’s President Ted Hall in the press release.

In the moment, the site still looks a bit beta, but it is a great starting point and another sign of the coming age of user manufacturing.

Zazzle Launches in Germany to Continue European Rollout

Yesterday at around midnight, Zazzle.de went online, the Zazzle platform in German language. Being German, I of course were especially appealed (even if the translation at some places still is bumpy, it is difficult to translate the American startup slang in German, I suppose).

In addition to supporting the German market with full German-language translation, www.Zazzle.de will base its transactions in Euros and buyers will not need to pay additional taxes or customs duties beyond the product price. Customers on the www.Zazzle.de website will enjoy fast delivery of their order to any address in Germany at competitive prices. But the zazzle.de website will be a virtual front end, with all information being managed from the US.

But an interesting feature, and one that make's a lot of sense, is the promise of Zazzle to offer localized merchandising featuring German Sellers and content relevant to the German market. In the moment, this is Oktoberfest beerfest stuff.

The also promise a standard delivery across Germany at competitive prices with delivery typically in 5-7 days, with Express delivery in about three days (hence just a bit slower than Spreadshirt or other Germany-based companies).

I am curious to see how zazzle.de will develop and are happy about another strong case close to my home.

In the press release, Zazzle offers some more information about their business development. Zazzle's recent statistics include:

--  Monthly unique visitors to the Zazzle websites now exceed 12 million;
--  140+ percent year-over-year traffic growth;
--  Total number of members is 5 million+;
--  Total items shipped is more than 11 million;
--  Leading on-demand custom products marketplace in terms of traffic
    rank, page views, and other key metrics, according to alexa.com

PS: Zazzle will present at the MCPC 2009 conference in Helsinki about their recent achievements and future plans!

Brand Value and Open Innovation: Companies open for customer input are more popular, study finds

The connection between open innovation and branding has been explored in a few studies recently. The best probably is Johann Füller and Eric von Hippel's study on brand creation by users in the outdoor community "Outdoorseiten" (see the short summary in MIT Sloan Management Review).

In their study, Johann and Eric surveyed members of Outdoorseiten.Net (ODS), a community of German, Austrian and Swiss hikers, about their brand preferences — and found that ODS members showed significant interest in buying hiking products with the community’s ODS logo. For example, when community members were asked whether they would prefer to buy a backpack from their favorite commercial manufacturer or one that was of equal quality and price but instead had the ODS logo, slightly more than one-third preferred the ODS product, and an additional 17.7% viewed the two brands as equally attractive. User communities seem to have the potential to create strong brands at low cost. Such user-generated brands, they suggest, can represent potential competition for traditional brands — but they may also present opportunities for co-branding and collaboration.

This is where a new study by Fronteer Strategy starts, a Dutch consultancy on co-creation. Together with a market research firm, they looked on the impact of openness of a company on brand value. While not a scientific study with a very sophisticated measurement instrument, the study still is interesting.

Among some big consumer brands in the Netherlands, coffee brand Douwe Egberts, supermarket chain Albert Heijn and Rabobank are considered to be the most "accessible brands."  Accessible brands are open for comment, opinion and contribution of customers. Sometimes, customers are even integrated as a partner in the innovation process.

While more a definition of "customer centricity" and not "openness", the study still is interesting. The more accessible a brand, the more it is perceived as "attractive" and "innovative".  This study shows the impact of a new significant factor: accessibility. It calls for an intelligent and relevant use of input from a firm's periphery.

The finding of this research: "openness" (horizontal axis) and "brand popularity" (vertical axis) are highly correlated.

But there is plenty of work to be done on developing better scales and research instruments. For example, according to this study, Nokia, Samsung and Apple are competing for the best position in the electronics sector. But Apple, for example, is known as a counterexample of open innovation: Apple does not connect with its customers, it is not doing any open innovation with regard to customer input, and it is just dictating consumers how to use its products.

So the real conclusion may be vice versa: The more attractive a brand, the more "open" is its appeal ... even if it is a closed shop. More research definitely is needed here.

Context:  Use Google to translate the Fronteer study into English.

"Niching the niche": Observations from my visit at Zazzle's Silicon Valley HQs

How Zazzle is still growing with mass customization despite -- or just because of -- the economic downturn … and ten other facts that make this platform special

I recently had the opportunity to pay Zazzle an extended visit at their Silicon Valley Headquarters. Here is what I learned during this day:

Zazzle was founded by Bobby and Jeff Beaver as students at Stanford University. The unfulfilled need of a user again was the mother of invention: The two brothers wanted to create a cool t-shirt to advertise a party at their fraternity (in order to "draw in plenty of nice girls"). They realized how difficult it was at that time to get high-quality custom t-shirts without having to order larger quantities at a promotions company or to rely on the low quality of heat-transfer at the local copy store. Well, it didn't work out with the girls at that party, but the rest is history:

Since Zazzle's launch in 2003, its focus always has been on technology. It started with unique digital custom printing technologies that allowed the founders to really get high quality products out at a not known quality (at this time). Today, in every presentation Zazzle stresses the fact that being leading edge in technology is what makes them special.

It may be the proximity to the many technology companies in their area that keeps them emphasizing the technology part – but I do not see Zazzle as a technology company – they are a "market maker". In my opinion, their core capability is to create new markets for products that before could not be exploited in any way.

Sheryl Graham called this "Niching the niche". Sheryl is a Zazzle Proseller, making her living by creating products on the Zazzle platform and selling them to others (http://www.zazzle.com/sagart1952) -- most of them appealing just to a very small audience that traditional companies neither can recognize nor capture.

Starting from the scratch without any ballast or old knowledge or constraints, Zazzle created a mass customization ecosystem that has a number of unique features. Here are my ten points that make Zazzle special:

1.    Niching the niches: The unique vale proposition of Zazzle comes from utilizing the broadest possible scope of needs. Each day, about 50K new products are being created, most addressing a very tiny demand – but in total, this sums up. This also allows them to operate with almost no clear definition of target groups or target customer segments: While the "soccer mom" is the single largest customer of Zazzle, it is by far not its majority. The platform is build to cater to all different groups and clients.

2.    Event driven Marketing: The broad scope of users at Zazzle drives a lot of event-driven business beyond the traditional seasons. There is not just the wedding-season, but their has been Obama-Season, Client-#9-Season, Tax-Day-Season and so on … The core business driver is to enable (local) users with some very specific domain expertise to create products immediately for/after a special event in this domain.

3.    24-hour turnaround for most orders: While most mass customizers need weeks to fulfill an order, Zazzle very early realized that being able to process an order in 24 hours opens many more markets (think of the entire last-minute gift market).

4.    Modular manufacturing system: Their manufacturing system (in San Jose, CA) is build highly automated so that it can balance large spikes in demand without accumulating too high cost. In addition, a highly flexible work force allows to cover different demand cycles.

5.    Real-time rendering and focus on user experience: Zazzle has some impressive rendering capabilities that allow the website to create any product in any specification in very high quality virtualization in real-time. While many other mass customizers still work with pre-fabricated pictures, here everything is rendered just on the spot.

This also enables another signature feature: Showcasing all products in different settings: Most products can be virtually placed on many different models. Zazzle realized that not all designs fit to same style of mannequin. This also caters to the broad scope of clients that utilize the Zazzle platform.

Or consider the "stitching simulation videos" when you choose custom embroidery. This allows the user to see how detailed the self-created pictures will be produced – also contributing to the user experience and quality perception of pro-users of the site.

6.    Allowing clients to focus: Strong focus on creating a flexible platform for different kinds of relationships with different vendors. Their theme: "How to allow our clients to specialize on what they are really good at, and still sell an integrated offering at the same time". So, a traditional company like Pittney Bowes (zazzle.pb.com) can create its own custom goods offering on the same platform as a very design-driven initiative like artsprojekt.com. Compare the sites: They look extremely different, but are based on the same platform and fulfillment system.

7.    Relationships with brands: Zazzle has build some very strong relationships with brands like Disney and the Star Wars Enterprise that allowed these companies to go beyond merchandising and offer real "fan-based content".

8.    Openness and opportunity-driven growth: Zazzle created a platform that is flexible enough (with the help of their great engineers) so that vendors can come in and get (almost) any product they would like to offer customized.  There is no general restriction for new products. New assortment creation is driven by the clients and users.

9.    Generating customer knowledge: Zazzle enables brands and established companies to use Zazzle as a platform for experimentation and testing that even makes money. Disney used Zazzle to allow customization of products with the characters of the movie "Cars", and their large retail clients used the popularity of characters selected by Zazzle users to predict the number of merchandises products in large scale. Creating these aggregated customer knowledge became a large benefit for Disney.

10.    Growing strongly despite the present economic downturn: Although Zazzle realizes the slower economy, they still grow with high double digit figures. Corporate clients use the on-demand opportunities in these times as a more efficient way to create special assortments compared to building large inventories. And consumers that postpone shopping for high-priced items still use the affordable Zazzle products to get a high-touch emotional products ("if I cannot afford the diamond ring for my girlfriend right now, I still can give her a great custom made t-shirt as an emotional gift").

But Zazzle also has to focus on a number of challenges:

• Create a site and corporate image that appeals to many different stakeholders, from brand managers at Disney to freelance independent designers in the Gothic Scene, all using the same platform to distribute their products.
• Manage client conflicts: Zazzle enables its corporate clients to extend their assortment into the custom product line, but at the same time, Zazzle also creates competing assortments by other vendors in the same category. This can lead to channel conflict.
• Educate their customers: Being ahead in technology and mass-customization-thinking, Zazzle has to educate it different kinds of users what it is able to do – and what they are able to do with Zazzle.
• To keep technology leadership, continuous investments in the technology platform is required, also including more and more complex integration of new technologies into the current platform.
• How to grow really big: While Zazzle had remarkable growth in the past, it still has to become the Google of products. What is their strategy to put all the existing amazing technologies and market knowledge together and to create really scalable growth beyond the niches?

So I think we should stay tuned what Zazzle (and their equally strong competitors like Cafepress and Spreadshirt) are turning out in the next months … these are some of the most interesting players in the mass customization market out there in the moment.

Context: Zazzle Blog

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

Interview: The Next Generation of Architectural Design: Daniel Smithwick from Physical Design Co on a great way to build the garden house of your dream … and much more

Daniel Smithwick is the co-founder and CEO of Physical Design Co., a Cambridge, MA, startup that wants to start a revolution in building structures. His vision: To empower every consumer to transform nearly any custom design into easily assembled physical structures delivered to your backyard! This could be your next garden house project. Before, you either had to purchase an expensive standard house at Home Depot that was not only labor intensive to assemble, but often ugly and not fitting exactly your requirements. Or you could get your hands dirty and start a complicated DIY project, constructing it with 2x4s and nails. As a last alternative, you could hire a contractor to build you your dream house … but this comes with a heavy price tag and often delays of the construction crew.

Daniel wants to offer another alternative: You design your dream in SketchUp, the free CAD software by Google, and his company will translate your uploaded design in a custom kit of interlocking CNC-cut parts that you can then easily assemble after delivery. His promise: "With Physical Design Co Web Platform anyone can design, remotely manage production, and assemble their own full-scale inhabitable creations!"

In an interview, Daniel shared more information about his project and company and what he regards as the future of mass customization.

Daniel Smithwick is an architectural designer by training and he is currently a graduate researcher at MIT where he is a member of the Smart Customization Group and the Digital Design and Fabrication Group.  Daniel co-lead the latest research project by the Digital Design and Fabrication Group called, “Digitally Fabricated Housing for New Orleans,” a project commissioned by and exhibited at the MoMA in New York for their 2008 show, Home Delivery, Fabricating the Modern Dwelling.  Before coming to MIT, Daniel worked professionally as a designer for leading architecture and design firms including: Pompei Architectural Design in NYC, Loom Architects in Minneapolis, MN, and Howeler + Yoon Architecture in Boston.

FTP: Daniel, what is the idea behind your startup, Physical Design Co?

DS: The central idea behind Physical Design Co. is to provide consumers with easy-to-use online tools that engage them in the design and manufacturing process and enables them to become the producers of their own architectural-scale designs.  Our web platform also allows consumers to utilize local manufacturing via our distributed fabrication network which not only reduces carbon emissions, but it also strengthens local economies.  Essentially, we’re re-thinking how our built environment is designed and constructed – with the Physical Design Co, online users, whether they live in rural China, or they are busy professionals interested in design, they can now play an active and participatory role in the built world around them.  

Through our web platform, anyone can upload and transform their digital design – any inhabitable accessory structure, from doghouses to backyard art studios - into a customized kit of interlocking parts that are locally manufactured and that can be easily assembled.  Consumers no longer need to rely on the traditional labor-intensive and wasteful construction process: with the Physical Design Co all you need is a rubber mallet to assemble your creation.

FTP: How is this different to existing companies in the field like Ponoko, Replicator or Shapeways?

DS: The Physical Design Co distinguishes itself in two ways. First, we provide consumers with the ability to custom design, and have fabricated, life-size and inhabitable scale structures, as opposed to only hand-held items like fashion accessories and table-top objects.  We’re interested in offering consumers more than just personalization; our web platform engages the consumer in the design, manufacturing and delivery process – giving them the tools to make smarter decisions about how they impact the built and natural environment.

Second, we have developed a patent-pending technology which automatically translates the user’s design into a unique kit of interlocking, easy-to-assemble parts.  For example, let’s say you wanted to design a backyard shed.  Instead of having to digitally model all of the individual parts, consider how they all attached together, worry about the structural integrity and verify that it is indeed possible to put it all together, with the Physical Design Co., all you have to do is model the shape of your design.  Our technology automatically and digitally translates the design shape into a kit-of-parts that can then be CNC fabricated and subsequently interlock together without the need for nails, screws or any additional hardware.  

FTP: Dan, you recently presented your company and some creations at the Maker Faire of MAKE magazine, a large gathering of hardware hackers and DIY enthusiasts in Austin, TX. Can tell us some more about this exhibition and the feedback you received?

DS: In October of 2008 the Physical Design Co., in collaboration with ShopBot Tools (an innovative manufacturer of user-friendly CNC machines) designed, fabricated and exhibited the ‘Austin Shed’ for the Maker Faire in Austin, TX.  This is the world’s first digitally fabricated shed.

The feedback we received from the Maker Faire attendees was incredible.  Most were simply amazed at how structurally strong the shed was without any nails, screws or hardware holding it together.  However, the most rewarding feedback we received was from children.  At the faire, we pulled a few of the ‘skin’ panels off to reveal the grid structure of the interlocking ribs so that visitors could understand how it was assembled.  What surprised us was that 10 year-old kids would pick up the removed parts and correctly replace them back on the shed without any knowledge of how the system worked.  We were delighted to find that our assembly process is intuitive enough that children could put it together!

FTP: How do you master the manufacturing process; who are your cooperation partners?

DS: The great thing about the Physical Design Co and our manufacturing process is that we don’t need to build any new large and energy-inefficient factories to produce our users’ designs.  In fact, the manufacturing infrastructure already exists worldwide – it’s the tens of thousands of individual CNC owners around the world whose machines are online.  These are our cooperation partners.

Through our web platform, these CNC owners become members of our distributed manufacturing network through which they can promote their existing and on-going services.  This is how we enable the users and designers on our web platform to have their structures locally manufactured - which greatly reduces delivery costs both in terms of money and energy use. 

FTP: What are the next steps for your company, and how do you expect to grow it in the coming months?

DS: This summer, in collaboration with ShopBot Tools, Make Magazine and Google SketchUp we’re hosting a competition called the Get Physical! Design Competition which will take place at the Maker Faire in San Mateo, CA.  The top 3 winners will have their designs digitally fabricated using our web platform, assembled and showcased at the upcoming Maker Faire.  Keep an eye on our blog for more details over the next couple of months.

FTP: What are other trends you see with regard to mass customization?

DS: When answering this question I like to quote Eric von Hippel from his book, Democratizing Innovation:

“When the cost of high-quality resources for design and prototyping becomes very low, these resources can be diffused widely, and the allocation problem diminishes in significance.  The net result is and will be to democratize the opportunity to create.”

I think we’ll continue to see an increase in user-engagement not only in the design process but also in the production process of our built environment as the availability of digital fabrication equipment exponentially grows.  In addition I think we’re just beginning to understand the power of online user communities and crowd-sourcing.  Rather than just offering product mass customization to isolated individual users, we are starting to see that by enabling them to interact with each other through a web platform, their collective intelligence is boundless.

For more information, contact Daniel at [email protected]
http://www.physicaldesignco.com/
http://www.physicaldesignco.com/blog/

New toolkit for 3D printing: Turn digital pictures into 3D art

I previously reported several times about Shapeways, a spinn-off from the Lifestyle Incubator of Royal Philips Electronics, located in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The company provides 3D-printing capabilities to everyone.

Part of their mission is to provide users a set of toolkits that allow also the average consumer to create 3D objects without any CAD or programming skills. Today, Shapeways has introduced their so called "Photoshaper", a service that allows anyone to turn digital photographs into 3D printed objects.

Users can logon to Shapeways.com, upload any photo and order their creations directly from Shapeways. Now you not only can see your girl friend in your wallet when you are on a business trip, but touch her in 3D!

“Shapeways really makes 3D creation fun, easy and available for everyone,” commented Peter Weijmarshausen, CEO of Shapeways is quoted in a press release. “With Photoshaper we have empowered the average consumer to tap into technologies that used to be out of reach. In doing so Shapeways redefines online consumerism with direct access to unique and individually customized products that were never available before.”

Based on the contrast of the picture (light and dark) the Shapeways Photoshaper automatically creates a depth-layered 3D object that can be printed by Shapeways with the latest in 3D printing technology (I believe with a little bit of photoshopping before uploading the pictures, results can be improved a lot). The 3D photo will be produced and delivered globally within 10 days and costs between $40-50 (USD), including shipping. For best results. use a 1.5 megapixel or better picture. The size of the 3D photo is 13cm to 9cm (5.11” to 3.5”) landscape and portrait.

Context:

• Shapeways Photoshaper is available at: http://www.shapeways.com/creator/photoshaper
• Previous report about Shapeways: 3D Merchandising Platform

Angel Yourself - Print Yourself in 3D This (Well, Next) Christmas

Yes, this posting is late, too late. It may have saved your day and really provided you with the ultimate Christmas surprise. But I messed this up and posted this much too late. Sorry! However, just imagine a world (comimg soon) where everyone has a 3D printer at their home. Then you actually could DO this now in time for Christmas Eve what now you only can do for the next year ....

 Anyhow, this is what you could have done in time for this Christmas:

Tons of goods are being personalized this Christmas. While there are many companies do personalized gifts, JuJups is taking this to the extreme – a personalized gift of the person itself! JuJups, a Singapore based user manufacturing workshop, launched a new "Print your self into an angel" product. On their website, you can upload your portrait photo of your family and friends (and even yourself) which then be printed as cute figurine ornament.  JuJups' on demand figurine ornaments are made as you order with special 3D printing technology. Currently JuJups has an Angel, Santa and Elf figurine.

JuJups is a rapidly growing online co-creation platform that connects prosumers, content owners and manufacturing companies globally, to serve customers locally. JuJups is owned and operated by Genometri. Genometri is a Design Technology Company based in Singapore focusing on building tools for co-creation. It is funded by NVS and SPRING Singapore.

Context: In Germany, fabidoo is offering a similar service.

DemandMade launches YERZIES.com, extending apparel customization beyond screen printing by providing users access to advanced manufacturing methods

News from DemandMade and Scott Killian. Scott, together with his business partner Tim Brule, launched Yerzies.com, an online marketplace that "allows anyone to create, purchase or sell their own customized tee shirts, hoodies and other apparel items."  

Sounds familiar? Yes, Zazzle, Spreadshirt, Cafepress, any many more offer the same. But the differences are in the detail.  

Asked how Yerzies is different, Scott answers: "Although other Websites exist that allow you to design a tee shirt, we've dramatically expanded the variety of creative options and developed new approaches to the way users can profit from their creations."

Read an interview with Scott Killian in the next posting in this blog!

Beyond printed tee shirts, Yerzies enables the creation of stitched sweatshirts and mixed-media designs that include many advanced processes to create apparel which more closely resembles the design trends seen at retail. Yerzies' innovative product configurator allows users to access an unprecedented array of creative options including printing on dark garments, metallic foils, flocks, glitters, glow-in-the-dark materials, and stitched processes.

Buyers are also invited to "Make it Yerz", a feature that allows users to mix and match product options and in some cases, even make modifications to the content created by other users. Yerzies has also reengineered the way user-generated content is marketed.

When users are finished, they can purchase as little as one piece or sell their creations to the Yerzies community and keep the profits. All products are produced on-demand.

Yerzies thus combines advanced new manufacturing techniques with an innovative approach to crowd sourcing. It is another example of the developing trend of user manufacturing and my hypothesis that users are getting more and more advanced manufacturing technology in their hands.

In addition to providing a platform for user-generated content, Yerzies has also licensed content from third-parties including typefaces from designers such as Ray Larabie which users can incorporate into their designs.

Scott: "Helvetica and Times Roman might work nicely for writing a novel, but they don't necessarily look great on a hooded sweatshirt. We've licensed trend-right typefaces that will actually look cool on a tee shirt or hoodie."

The story behind Yerzies: An interview with Scott Killian.

Interview: Scott Killian, Co-Founder of Yerzies, DemandMade, and FanBuz

An interview with US mass customization veteran Scott Killian on what are his objectives with Yerzies (see previous posting) and what he sees next.

Scott Killian has been advising and operating successful e-commerce companies for 10 years — most notably as Chairman & CEO of FanBuzz, a leading e-commerce outsourcing and fulfillment company. Killian co-founded mass customization site FanBuzz in 1996. In 2000, Killian raised the first of two private equity rounds for the company totaling $10 million. Scott has been a long-time advocate for the use of mass customization to better understand consumer preferences, reduce inventory, improve assortment flexibility, and enhance the overall brand experience for consumer products. His insights have been featured in such national publications as USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and CBS Marketwatch.

Frank Piller: What is the idea behind your new venture, Yerzies?

Scott Killian: We began about three years ago with DemandMade, a software platform that helps manufacturers adapt their production processes to support units of one and online retailers to effectively communicate with these factories. As the network of manufacturers using our platform grew, a consumer-facing opportunity of our own began to emerge.

Retailers were taking advantage of the platform, but most of them lacked the expertise in product development they needed to really get the most out of the manufacturing options we made available to them. Yerzies effectively places the capabilities and the limitations of these factories into the hands of ordinary people. We've begun with apparel, but we will be adding more product categories soon.

Not only is Yerzies a platform for user-generated content, we're also entering into licensing relationships with a diverse group of brands that will allow us to offer a "long tail" assortment of designs and intellectual property from movies, television, lifestyle properties and consumer products companies. Customers will have the option to purchase or customize products bearing these trademarks.

Finally, we're also providing many of these same tools to other retailers and content properties who wish to offer products that are made on demand. For example, a major consumer brand is using DemandMade this holiday season to launch an entire apparel program which will be produced on demand in our factories.

FP: But your roots in mass customization are much older. You are a co- founder of FanBuzz, a large provider of customized sports apparel, started in 1996 as one of the first BtoC mass customization operations in the US. Later, you started DemandMade as a BtoB enabler of mass customization. How did you incorporate your experiences from FanBuzz and DemandMade into Yerzies?

SK: After we sold FanBuzz in 2002, I began providing advisory services to online retailers and consumer products companies, including several projects involving mass customization. DemandMade started in early 2005 and is now the parent company to Yerzies. All of these experiences required us to "get our hands dirty" along the entire length of the value chain and I think that was a tremendous advantage for us over somebody just getting into this business. We learned a great deal about licensing, how to connect the manufacturing processes with the end consumer, the danger of burdening users with too many choices, how to scale these programs, etc...

What's really interesting about Yerzies is that the entire business began with a three-year investment in the back office. When it came time for us to develop a consumer-facing application, we were able to do it on a strong foundation. Despite our interest in concepts and processes, we have strong roots in retail so we're really here to create merchandising programs that capture the hearts and minds of end consumers. This is always our first priority.

FP: What are future steps planned for Yerzies?

SK: We're just getting out of the gate right now so our immediate focus is on attracting an initial audience of users. In the coming months we'll be announcing some interesting twists to our business model which will help us draw an even larger mainstream audience, but we're satisfied for the moment to operate in beta mode while we whittle away bugs and garner feedback from early adopters. In the meantime, watch for a huge increase in the number of licensed properties. We've signed many that we haven't announced yet and we're currently in active discussions with many more. We'll also be expanding the array of embellishment options in Q1 of 2009. Despite the launch of Yerzies, DemandMade continues to support other retailers who are launching programs. We will be announcing several of these before the 2008/09 holiday season.

FP: More general, what are recent trends you see with regard to mass customization?

SK: If the first wave of innovation we saw online was about letting users create or configure a customized item, then the second wave is clearly about the intersection of social networking and mass customization. Although Etsy.com isn't a mass customizer, they have proven that users are not content to merely sell the items they've created, they want affirmation and interaction with other users. Since eBay has long dominated the online auction world, conventional wisdom would suggest that a start-up like Etsy would have no chance at success, but they provided a sense of community and a platform that respected the handmade items these folks were creating and that was perhaps more important to these users than the size of the audience.

If I've seen a trend, it's the recognition that these communities will be important to the long-term success Iof many mass customization programs. Ponoko and Red Bubble are two really interesting examples of this at work.

FP: What would be your main advice for a manager who wants to lead a mass customization implementation?

SK: In larger organizations, the development and execution of these programs often requires a diverse group of departments to coordinate their responsibilities. As you can imagine, getting folks from engineering, product development, legal, marketing, creative and operations to huddle around an entirely new concept they may not completely understand (or even believe in) is a major task. My advice to someone trying to develop a program like this within a major company is to make sure they have support at the highest level within the organization - they'll probably need it.

Regardless of the program size, unless the brand has some other strategic objective, most of these programs are still retail businesses at their core. As such, it should always start with the customer. I've been involved in the planning and execution of many mass customization programs, including some for major consumer products brands and I think it's very easy for management to project its own preferences or assumptions onto these projects without first identifying and understanding the customer. People create, modify and personalize products for many different reasons. Although it might be impossible to address all of them, I think it's critically important to understand what customers really want before investing in the idea.

Personal Fabrication for Dummies -- Teaching Videos at Replicator, Inc.

I just discovered the great new blog by Joseph Flaherty, founder of a start-up called Replicator, Inc. While the company will launch in full speed in February 2009, they already were quite successful in securing seed money and attention in a number of important start-up competitions (MIT 100K  (semi-finals), Princeton (semi-finals), and the Rhode Island Business Plan Competition (runner up prize winner)).

I hope that we can meet Joseph at the MIT Smart Customization Seminar in three weeks.

Replicator, Inc., manufactures and sells custom consumer products. Their first product is custom jewelry for tween and teenage girls, sold under the name WhirlyBelle. This is made possible by combining web-based design tools with custom manufacturing

His company blog not just has a recent posting about 47 words you can not use on custom Nike sneakers (which I do not quote here to get my blog not banned from your corporate content filter). In another posting, he has a great chart about the price premiums you can gain with mass customization:

A great number of postings covers user manufacturing and the new opportunities for users to produce anything they want. In one of my favorite posts, Joseph explains all technologies that enable personal fabrication. You probably also could Google those, but Joseph created a great posting with small videos explaining all technologies.

Many people think 3D printers are the way this will happen, but there are half a dozen other amazing technologies that allow people to make anything they can imagine.

While by no means an exhaustive list, his list is a is a very convenient overview for anyone interested in how the idea user co-design meets manufacturing. As Joseph writes:

"Combined with web-based design tools these technologies could enable a change as profound as the industrial revolution: increasing the options for customers while reducing the environmental impact."

His posting shows examples of these machines in action and provides a glimpse of what is possible already today:

1. 3D Printers (some notable examples: Z Corp., Dimension, 3d systems, Objet, Desktop Factory, Paragon Lake, Figure Prints, EOS)

2. Laser Cutters  (Notable Examples: Epilog, Trotec, Etchstar, Ponoko, VersaLaser)

3. Waterjet Cutters (Notable Examples: OMAX, Flow Corp, OCC)

4. 2D Plotter Cutters (Notable Examples: Cricut, CraftRobo, Xyron)

5. Print on Demand (Notable Companies: Blurb, Lulu, Shutterfly)

6. Direct To Garment Printing (Notable Companies: Cafe Press, Zazzle, Spreadshirt, Spoonflower)

7. CNC Milling (Notable Examples: eMachine Shop, Tech Shop, Craftsman Compucarve)

8. CNC Embroidery (Notable Examples: Singer, Brother, Toyota)

9. Cut & Sew Construction (Notable Examples: NIKEiD, Timbuk2, Freitag)

10. 3D Scanning (Notable Examples: Z Corp., Next Engine, 3D Digital Corp., Corpus-e)

Go to his web site to watch all videos

The next generation of user design: Forget about CAD, just handdraw your design, and Ponoko will make it

While this may be small step for mankind, it is a large step for user co-design and customization. Until today, users who wanted to get a custom product had to be able to use at least an online configurator, or, in case they wanted larger freedom of creation as offered by user manufacturing sites like Ponoko, eMachineshop, Shapeways, Fabidoo, or others, they had to be able to use some graphik design software.

Now Ponoko makes co-designing even more intuitive and easier. The crew today launched their service Photomake. It turns digital photos of hand drawings into real products simply by uploading them to the Ponoko website.

The company is again one step further to its mission of making "it super simple for anyone to make anything that is on their mind, at low cost."

Previously at Techcrunch40, Ponoko launched Designmake for designers to make things on demand – over 10,000 have signed up. Earlier this year, they also launched Ponoko ID for shoppers to request goods to be made just for them by these designers. Now with Photomake they're inviting creative people who don't know how to use design software to participate simply by sketching what they want on a piece of paper and uploading a photo of it to get it made.

Derek Elley from Ponoko said in an e-mail that "One of the cool things about Photomake is the quality of the result – it's truly hand drawn. Because digital making is so very precise every tiny bump in the hand drawn creation is picked up and made for real. This gives a very natural and human feel to the things you make."

The trick behind Photomake is some very clever file conversion technology that is more accurate than anything that has come before it. It is designed so that what you draw is what is made, without any touching up required in a design software program.

This is a major revolution in the democratization of design and innovation. We know from empirical research that many users innovate and have creative ideas ahead of the market. Up to today, they either needed a manufacturer listening to them and turning their ideas into products. Or they had to have specific skills to turn their ideas by themselves into a design and get it produced. The later process was made much easier in the last few years, but still required skills in using design software and how to place a design on a machine. Now, even this hurdle blurs ... driven by new technology that allows this process at rather low cost.

So, go ahead and just hand draw your next Christmas presents.

Context:
- Press release by Ponoko on their new service.
- Video showing the entire process: http://www.ponoko.com/photomake
- On the upcoming MIT Smart Customization seminar, Cathy Lewis, CEO of Desktop Factory, will present what will be next: Transfer your custom designs into products in your home as easy as today printing a document.

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.

Genometri is spinning-off new user manufacturing start-up, JuJups

Customization veteran Sivam Krish (CEO of Genometri.com) is in the progress of launching a new company, JuJups. The idea of JuJups is to create a kind of Über-Personalization site combining ideas we have seen at Ponoko, Shapeways, Fabidoo ... etc.

JuJups.com shall become a new generation 3-D design creation gateway that allows consumers to create their own 3D content. Through JuJups, a worldwide community of users will come together to co-create, share, and co-produce designs - designs that can be realized as real-world products.

3D printing and Rapid Manufacturing methods are now maturing into affordable and reliable technologies which are increasingly accessible to companies. Combined with online design tools, this is opening up a whole new dimension of product possibilities where products can be designed, personalized and customized by customers themselves. Given the great capabilities Genometri has with regard to 3D design tools, this is a venture to watch!

In a new blog, he is reporting about his venture. http://genometri.com/blog/ In today's posting, he provides a nice quote by Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos (old, but not known to me before):

"Before long, “user-generated content” won’t refer only to media, but to just about anything: user-generated jeans, user-generated sports cars, user-generated breakfast meals. This is because setting up a company that designs, makes and globally sells physical products could become almost as easy as starting a blog - and the repercussions would be earthshaking."

In his blog post, Sivam summarizes neatly that this already is happening. His company, Genometri, is working on some of the technologies that will take this much further. The prosumer economy is taking shape as the result of convergence of three major developments: 1. Online Content Creation, 2. Mass Customization, 3. Social Networking.

Read his full blog post for a good summary of recent companies in the field.

Shapeways Launches Consumer-Focused Customizable 3D Merchandise Platform

Shapeways is spinning-out from the Lifestyle Incubator of Royal Philips Electronics, located in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. The site can be seen in the lines of Ponoko, Zapfab and other user manufacturing sites allowing users to create and manufacture their own design with a large freedom of design.

The site very neatly incorporates all elements of a good user manufacturing system I outlined some time ago in this blog:

- A 3D model library
- An easy-to-operate 3D-design toolkit (well, not at this stage yet)
- A flexile manufacturing system producing the users' design (more or less) rapidely

Utilizing a 3D model library, (starting with a lamp and a bowl), consumers can manipulate the structure, look and feel of their own products. Users can twist, mash, and create their own 3D objects which then are being produced within 10-days or less. Shapeways then verifies objects to ensure printability and provides a real-time cost estimate. Within 10 working days, a tangible 3D product will be produced and arrive at the consumer's home globally.

Browsing over the site, it still looks a bit beta, and their co-design toolkits is an external Java-based software that demands quite some time to download and install separately. Using it then however was easy (despite some annoying comments that I should create a profile). But it is a start ...

Anyway, Shapeways takes a major step towards the next generation of consumer co-creation and mass customization. Consumers without 3D modeling skills can shape, mash, imprint and design their own 3D products at Shapeways.com. Products are produced with a rapid manufacturing system, and in the moment they all still have this white prototyping look :-)

From lamps with a personal message to fruit bowls linking back to memorable moments, the Shapeways Creator Engine has a beta library of predesigned product templates which the company will grow rapidly over 2009.

"We recognize the desire of consumers who want to own or give something that is unique and has their special, personal touch," Peter Weijmarshausen, CEO of Shapeways, is quoted in a press release.

"With the Creator Engine, now anyone can participate in the artistic process and create something that is truly a reflection of their own needs and tastes. With the Creator Engine, we have broken the currently existingtrade-off between freedom of design and the complexity of the design process."

Shapeways can be seen as a new application of rapid manufacturing in the consumer space. I recently attended the Rapid Manufacturing Conference at Loughborough University. While a posting on this event is overdue since weeks (especially after Jochen Krisch invited one publicly), I refer you to Matt Sinclairs's great report about this conference which also provides you much more insights in the kind of products we can expect in the future on platforms of Shapeways.

Context:

- My earlier posts on Fabbing and Rapid Manufacturing.

- Matt Sinclair's report on the 3rd RM Conference

Keds & Zazzle Are Bringing Footwear Customization to a New Dimension

(updated - Aug 13, 2008) Customizing footwear has been a long theme in this blog. RYZwear recently offered a fresh approach to this (see my report), and now the evolution of custom footwear continued one more step. US shoe brand Keds just launched its new custom footwear offering, called Kedsstudio.com. While looking at the first glimpse like a copy of NikeID or Timberland's Custom, a closer look on the site convinced me that Keds went much further.

Keds is an iconic US brand that actually invented the term ‘sneaker’. Since 1916, Keds is offering its classic champion sneaker and a large variety of other styles. Keds is a subsidiary of the Stride Rite Corporation, which again is a unit of Collective Brands, Inc.. Collective Brands is the owner of Payless ShoeSource, a more than 4,500-store retail chain in footwear, and thus one of the very big guys in the international footwear market.

With kedsstudio.com, they created a mass customization offering that goes far beyond the present state of the art in this industry. Their advancements are with regard to two dimensions:

First, users can upload any design or picture on their shoe. So it is not just picking color options for pre-defined components of a shoe, but really getting what you want. Shoes are manufactured with an advanced digital printing technology that offers great variety in high quality. The customized sneakers are produced in China within 24 to 48 hours, and will be received by consumers within one to two weeks, depending upon the shipping method selected.

Secondly, and more interesting, Keds is one of the best examples of a new trend in mass customization: Keds actually did not build any mass customization operation of its own, but outsourced most of the process to mass customization intermediary Zazzle. Keds Studio is one of the finest examples for the benefits of the new MC infrastructure providers.

In an e-mail, Gregg Poulin, who initiated and implemented the Keds mass customization program as the e-commerce director at Keds, described how this collaboration worked (Gregg has left Keds to become CEO of compete.com). When Keds' management decided to profit from the mass customization trend, Gregg had to face a tough challenge:

"Essentially I had no budget and very little partnership dollars to create a custom shoe program that as you know can cost millions of dollars. In order to complete the vision I needed to be creative and find partners."

While browsing the web looking for a solution, he found my blog and a report on Confego, the company of Brennan Mulligan that later became part of Zazzle:

"One [solution] I found through your writings is Confego. They were the second key to the solution. I had the brand, they had the process/systems. Now I needed the community, which is where zazzle.com fit in."

With this partnership, Keds has beaten Adidas, Nike, Puma, Timberlands and the other large players in the industry with a very elegant solution: It truly is the first 'custom' shoe program that enables people to not only design their own shoes from the ground up but also to sell their own collection to others and make a profit. Gregg told me:

"Within 48 hours, there have been over 18,000 designs published on Zazzle. Can you imagine the dollars it would have taken an internal team to accomplish that feat? No inventory to carry, not guessing on what will sells. At $60 per pair everyone is making margins well above, including the factory!"

The configurator is executed well and has all the elements of a good mass customization configurator. It also features functionalities like sharing designs, getting inspirations, using templates, saving designs, etc. which are part of the Zazzle online experience. For Zazzle, Keds also is a large win as they now could add an entire new category to their assortment of customizable products. For Keds, mass customization is just seen as a continuity of what consumers used to be by their own:

"Since the launch of the Champion in 1916, consumers have been enhancing their Keds with their own personal style using markers, paints, pens and other creative tools," G. Ribatt, president and chief executive officer of The Stride Rite Corporation, Keds' parent company, is quoted in a press release.

"This growing form of expression was the inspiration for Keds Studio. Through our relationship with Zazzle, we can now offer Keds customers the opportunity to bring an uninhibited range of design options and a more professional design aesthetic to this classic shoe."

Keds Studio and its cooperation with Zazzle is a great case of what you can achieve in mass customization with creativity and little money by using the existing infrastructure of mass customization enablers. And, by the way, Zazzle does not care whether you are Keds or just an average consumer: They may not launch an entire new product line for you, but like every consumer, you can turn your creative ideas and market opportunities in your own offering (Spreadshirt or Cafepress are offering similar services).

Update Aug 13, 2008: In a mail from Zazzle, they told me that one week after the launch, more than 30,000 user-generated designs for custom shoes were created in the community.

Jeff Beaver, co-founder and chief product officer of Zazzle, reports:

“We have an incredibly diverse and talented community of designers, and had high hopes that the opportunity to create custom shoes would get them excited. We’ve simply been blown away by the response, both the volume and variety of user-generated designs have exceeded our expectations. 

Some of the most popular themes include art, music, animals and politics, but you can already find pretty much anything.  Developers are also taking advantage of the platform – within 48 hours after launch, one blogger created a Google Maps mashup so that you can get a map or satellite photo of your hometown on your new kicks.” 

Redesign of RedesignMe: Dutch user innovation catalyst starts new service

Everybody knows about some product he or she struggles with once in a while. Maybe you even thought of a solution. Now you can upload these solutions to a website and share them with the world.

RedesignMe is a great Dutch company focusing on open innovation and user co-design, It was founded by designer Maxim Schram who was frustrated that he had some great ideas how to improve existing products, but had not opportunity to get companies listen to his ideas.

So he started his own web site posting his ideas for improvements – and inviting others to do the same. 

His company, RedesignMe, aims to improve the products and services around us by collectively rethinking bad products into better products and good ideas into great ideas. The offering is called Design Critique. Maxim even came up with a simple toolkit so that users are able to quickly capture ideas. Actually it is not more than a simple, easy to use drawing tool that allows you to draw on a photo of a product. But is a great help to really express what you are going to say.

With Design Critique, RedesignMe collects the best product improvements based on their users input and communicates that back to the original product designers & producers.

RedesignMe contacts the companies behind the products in question to show them the feedback and encourages them to reply directly to the users and eventually fix the problems.

RedesignMe also encourages the companies to work more closely with their end-users by setting up RDM Challanges, their second product.

RDM Challenges are conceptual or design-driven challenges initiated by companies that want to involve their customers more closely into their product development process. RDM Challenges clearly describe a (design) problem and participating users are rewarded for their input through their RDM system. Feedback can be in form of a comment, sketch, set of pictures, mood-board, movie, prototype or total redesign. They just started the first RDM Challenge for the DECT Forum, for concepts based around their new CAT-iq technology: http://cat-iq.redesignme.com

As an incentive, participants can earn points (RDMs) by co-designing products with manufacturers. They can redeem these RDMs in their online shop.

In a short while, RedsignMe also plans to introduce the "RDM Challenge Pro", where they invite people to come to our office to co-design products, and discuss with manufacturers.

So another opportunity for you, the consumer, to place your creative ideas.

Threadless - the full story: Inc. Magazine Feature on Threadless

Max Chafkin, a staff writer the US Entrepreneurship journal Inc. Magazine, has written a great report on Threadless  for the June 2008 issue of the magazine. It is available in a free online pre-press version now.

Max tells the entire story of Threadless, starting with the episode of a meeting at MIT where the Threadless guys gave one of their first public presentations. I had the privilege to be part of this meeting, and it is fun to read about it in paper (especially as I am at MIT in the moment, writing these lines from the same building where we had the initial meeting with Threadless).

Max did a great job in documenting the history and genesis of Threadless, but also reflecting on its future. Here are some quotes of Max' analysis of the case, but head to the website to read the entire article:

On Threadless' Size and Development

This rapid engagement propelled the company through four years of phenomenal growth, beginning around 2004. The user base grew tenfold, from 70,000 members at the end of 2004 to more than 700,000 today. Sales in 2006 hit $18 million -- with profits of roughly $6 million. In 2007, growth continued at more than 200 percent, with similar margins. Though Nickell refuses to disclose the exact revenue number -- perhaps because he now counts Insight Venture Partners, a New York venture capital firm, as a minority shareholder -- it seems fair to assume that Threadless sold more than $30 million in T-shirts last year.

Ask Nickell what he makes of his company's whirlwind success, and he will respond rather sheepishly. "I think of it as common sense," he says. "Why wouldn't you want to make the products that people want you to make?" Indeed, the idea that the users of products are often best equipped to innovate is something many entrepreneurs know intuitively.

And it is supported by a growing body of research. A study published last year in the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal suggested that the vast majority of companies are founded by "user-entrepreneurs" -- people who went into business to improve a product they used. Meanwhile, studies by von Hippel and others show that in industries as diverse as scientific instruments and snowboard equipment, more than half the innovations generally come from users, not from research labs.

On user innovation and the resistance of traditional companies to adopt it

Some companies actually punish these people by cracking down on unauthorized innovations. Apple has famously "bricked" -- that is, electronically disabled -- iPhones that have been enhanced by their owners. Other companies pay lip service to user innovation but have trouble following through on the concept. "Companies are very good at creating platforms for external input, but they're very bad at using this input," says Frank Piller …

Threadless is an exception to this. "You could say that what Threadless does is trivial, but it's not," says Harvard's Lakhani. In fact, the very triviality of Threadless's product -- something as low tech and as commoditized as a T-shirt -- proves that vibrant online communities can drive all sorts of nontechnical businesses. This should be encouraging news to entrepreneurs. Customer communities have become exceedingly inexpensive to build and manage; blogging software and social network platforms, for example, are now available for free from a handful of start-ups. "We thought that open source could only work in software, and now it's being successfully applied to a product as mundane as a T-shirt," Lakhani says.

On Threadless' Corporate Culture and Work Style

[Today], the company is suspiciously companylike. The go-carts generally stay parked, the buck stays mute, and the Ping-Pong table serves as a gathering place for impromptu meetings. "When I started, we spent half the day playing," says Lance Curran, a bearded 29-year-old wearing a beanie, jeans, and a flannel shirt. "That doesn't happen anymore." This is not to say Curran doesn't like his job. On the contrary, he nearly glows when he talks about his rise from a temporary warehouse worker in 2005 to the warehouse manager in charge of a staff of 18 today. ...

Like Curran, most of Threadless's employees come with no obvious qualifications for their jobs. The oldest staff member is 33, and many are under 25. The employees do, however, arrive with a deep and abiding love of Threadless, having joined the community long before they entered the work force.

Joe Van Wetering, a 21-year-old illustrator who works in the production department, was a frequent visitor to Threadless's offices as a teenager before taking a job in the warehouse in 2006. Ross Zietz had won seven competitions while studying art at Louisiana State University before he took a job as the company's janitor in 2004. He has since been promoted to art director, charged with helping the winning designers get their entries ready for printing. In fact, 75 percent of the company's 50 employees were community members before they were hired.

On other product categories Threadless is exploring

Now, Nickell is set to let his club loose on other businesses. In addition to expanding to children's clothing and retail, Threadless will begin selling prints and posters online. And later this year, the company will add a range of products, including handbags, wallets, and dinnerware, under the brand Naked & Angry. Each item will be adorned with patterns submitted by users, with a new product launched each month. "I think Naked & Angry, if handled properly, has the potential to be way bigger than Threadless, because we have the flexibility to do everything," says Kalmikoff, who envisions moving into high-end clothing as well as housewares. Jeff Lieberman, managing director of Insight Venture Partners and a board member, is even more bullish. "To say it's just a T-shirt company is absurd," he says. "I look at it as a community company that happens to use T-shirts as a canvas."

 
And Max' final evaluation of Threadless' Business Model: A fundamental economic shift

The way Eric von Hippel sees it, Threadless has tapped into a fundamental economic shift, a movement away from passive consumerism. One day in the not-too-distant future, he says, citizen inventors using computer design programs and three-dimensional printers will exchange physical prototypes in much the same way Nickell and cohorts played Photoshop tennis.

Eventually, Threadless-like communities could form around industries as diverse as semiconductors, auto parts, and toys. "Threadless is one of the first firms to systematically mine a community for designs, but everything is moving in this direction," says von Hippel. He foresees research labs and product-design divisions at manufacturing companies being outstripped by an "innovation commons" made up of tinkerers, hackers, and other devout customers freely sharing their ideas. The companies that win will be the ones that listen.

This may or may not come to pass, but the lesson of Threadless is more basic. Its success demonstrates what happens when you allow your company to become what your customers want it to be, when you make something as basic and quaint as "trust" a core competency. Threadless succeeds by asking more than any modern retail company has ever asked of its customers -- to design the products, to serve as the sales force, to become the employees. Nickell has pioneered a new kind of innovation. It doesn't require huge research budgets or creative brilliance -- just a willingness to keep looking outward.

Context:
- My earlier reports on Threadless are here and here.
- The full Inc. Magazin article

Spreadshirt Reveals New Crowdsourced Logo

Remember the Spreadshirt Crowdsourcing contest to get a new logo from its community, the Open Logo Project 1.6 (OLP) ? I was part of the judging panel, and it was a fun activity to do. "We wanted to take this to the community who use, create and live our product, rather than to an agency", Jana Eggers, Spreadshirt CEO, is quoted in a press release.

The results were in at the end of the year, and now finally the winning logo has been placed on the site and all CI materials. Kim Larsen’s ‘Love Tab’ was the winning design, chosen from 2,800 submissions (from 45 countries). Kim is a 23 year old graphic and interactive media designer from Sweden.

"I wanted to make personal branding visually simple and to embed a symbol everyone can relate to.", he says, "The heart resonates with the feeling of love you have for something you’ve created and the stitching with the hand-crafted nature of the product."

Context:
- My previous report about the contest.
- The official contest site
- Press release at Spreadshirt (and I do not know whether being a web 2.0 guru is a good thing or not today).