A recent study in the United States suggests that the phenomenon described as ‘The Daily Me‘ can also apply to groups of people who hold a particular point of view.

‘The Daily Me’ is a term used to describe the risks attached to personalized news services.  In everyday terms, a newspaper or online news aggregator tailored to the personal tastes of a person on a given day will lead to too much positive feedback in that direction, in other words, the person’s existing outlook and views would be re-inforced by their choice of reading.  The Daily Me theory postulates that, in the absence of exposure to viewpoints that are not in line with their own, the person is actually likely to become more extreme in their viewpoint on a particular issue.
A recent edition of UK Financial newspaper The Financial Times reported on a 2005 study in the United States suggests that the theory is true, not in individuals as might be expected, but in groups.  The article reports that, as part of the study:

“About 60 US citizens were put into 10 groups. They deliberated on controversial issues, such as whether the US should sign an inter-national treaty to combat global warming and whether states should allow same-sex couples to enter into civil unions.  The groups consisted of predominantly either leftwing or rightwing members.  The groups, not mixed, were screened to ensure members conformed to stereotypes. People were asked to state their opinions anonymously before and after the group discussion.”

The study found that, in almost every group, people ended up with more extreme positions. The largely leftwing groups favoured an inter-national treaty to control global warming before discussion; they favoured it far more strongly afterwards. In the rightwing group, people were neutral on that treaty before discussion; discussion led them to oppose it strongly. Same-sex unions became much more popular in the leftwing group and less so in the rightwing group.

The Financial Times report continued:

“Aside from increasing extremism, discussion had another effect: it squelched diversity. Before members talked, many groups displayed internal disagreement. These were greatly reduced: discussion widened the rift.”

Three reasons are given for the findings.  First is the exchange of information. The members of the predominantly rightwing group offered many justifications for not signing a climate treaty and a lot fewer for doing so. Since people listened to one another, they became more sceptical.

The second reason given is that when people find their views corroborated, they become more confident and so are more willing to be extreme.

The third reason involves social comparison. People who favour a position think of themselves in a certain way and if they are with people who agree with them, they shift slightly to hold on to their preferred self-conception.

The full Financial Times article, which suggests that this trend holds significant challenges for democracy, can be read here.  The article was written by Cass Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago in the United States, who analyzed the implications of the Daily Me in his book, Republic.com.

My personal view is that the most effective way of combatting the risk of the ‘Daily Me’ phenomenon is that any medium used to disseminate personalized news should have a ‘window’ through which the reader can easily access alternative viewpoints on the topic under discussion, especially where it is the subject of conflicting views.  In the case of online news aggregators, this could consist of a small sub-section of the page which could be called the ‘counterpoint window’ or some similar term to identify it as the source of viewpoints likely to be at odds with the reader’s own.  In a printed publication which is personalized, the corresponding outlet would be a ‘counterpoint page’.
In the case of groups, however, penetrating the shared viewpoint is more difficult - the viewpoint is likely to be what brought the group together in the first place.  It is far more difficult for the alternative viewpoint to penetrate the shared group outlook.  Maybe the solution is to actually encourage the growth of personalized news aggregation coupled with the counterpoint window, so that the individuals who join the group have a better chance of being exposed to the alternative viewpoint beforehand.  They may still hold to their chosen view, but they at least would know why the opposing side thinks the way it does.

A report in issue 264 (January 2008) of UK computer magazine PC Plus details Intel’s current research in various fields (no online version of this article unfortunately).  While many of the areas covered relate to processors, and as such are outside the scope of this website, one project is very interesting from the point of view of customization:  Intel is working on ‘Dynamic Physical Rendering‘.  This involves not just the shrinking not just of electronic circuits, but the mechanical aspects of systems.  It apparently involves the use of magnetic fields to intelligently manipulate nanonscale particles.
Justin Rattner of Intel is quoted in PC Plus:

“Imagine nanoscale particles that work together, that adhere to one another or don’t adhere to one another under software control.  They can move and change shape.”

The process is contrasted with three dimensional printing (also called digital fabrication).  Whereas digital printing creates a static object with no intelligence, “with dynamic physical rendering  one can imagine this blob sitting on the table that responds to wireless commands, configures itself into different shapes, is capable of locomotion and can draw power from ambient energy.”

What this means is that an object could actually change it’s own shape in real time - science fiction made real.  PC Plus suggest that it will be at least a decade before this research becomes a product.

It almost seems that every month there is some new announcement or development that shrinks the gap between the physical world and the software world.  Now it seems that our most basic assumptions about physical products may need to be re-built from scratch.

Custom furniture maker Context Furniture has launched a new website called Design Democracy ’08 – Power to the People, which they describe as a grass roots event aimed at raiseing awareness about mass customization.

This website offers curriculum for DD08 ‘citizens’ (members) to learn about mass customization processes, philosophies, materials, design elements and software/hardware applications.  Most interestingly, to prove that mass customization is a viable alternative to mass manufacturing, Context Furniture will produce and display designs chosen from this website at the 2008 International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York.

DD08 is a symposium and not a competition - the designs chosen for display at ICFF will not be put into production by Context Furniture.  The initial focus of DD08 is in attempting to prove that there is a demand for Mass Customization.  While there is currently not a feature on the site that allows for a user to get a quote and initiate production, Context Furniture’s goal moving forward is to incorporate features such as cost analysis and quoting, as well as production times for those parties interested in the realization of their products.
Each entry will be posted on the www.designdemocracy08.com website where participants can discuss ideas, rate each others designs and read articles pertaining to mass-customization, product design, manufacturing, and related software technologies.

A panel of industry professionals will review all entries and decide upon designs to be produced and debuted at the 2008 ICFF.  In addition to being viewed on the website each entry will be visually represented at the 2008 ICFF Context Furniture booth in New York City.  A “people’s choice” design will also be produced as ratings from the website and on-site ICFF voting are tallied.

Context Furniture encourages everyone and anyone to participate. The design districts will include, design enthusiast consumers, students, and design professionals.  Any image, from a scanned napkin sketch drawing to a 3-D model can be entered for submission, and a Design Democracy Citizen may contribute as many designs as they choose to.

Designs to be produced for the ICFF will be selected from submissions posted before March 21, 2008.  Context will be giving the manufactured pieces to the individuals whose designs are chosen for display at ICFF as a thank you for their efforts and participation.

An interesting trend which is growing among mass customizing enterprises is a new focus on the environmental benefits of mass customization.  Context Furniture is excited about the prospect of changing from a mass manufactured model to a mass customized one partly because they find it environmentally friendly.  Mass manufacturing concepts are based upon producing and item for as cheap as possible.  Mass customization, though not the cheapest, does compete on price point, but has environmental advantages.  “We consider making a product that we know has a specific demand a more responsible way to produce, says Bryce Moore, co-owner of Context.  Kerry Moore adds, “This event is about addressing the idea of how the world interacts with the goods it creates. Mass manufacturing has been the standard for over 100-years.  Isn’t there a better way, a new way?”

Kerry and Bryce Moore wrote a number of interesting articles on mass customization in the furniture sector in 2007, which were referenced on a previous MadeForOne.com post.  Their articles have been re-published on the Design Democracy website here.

Context Furniture’s design process began by drawing simple outlines in graphics software applications, then translating those graphics into furniture by using laminated plywood panels, digital technologies, and CNC routers.  Context has produced three collections using these processes, from solid pieces, to component based designs, to flat-pack RTA furniture.  The versatility of the process allows for limitless design possibilities.
Designs can be uploaded to the DD08 website in a wide variety of file types.  By providing for non-digital drawings, Context Furniture has allow users who do not have access or choose not to use digital programs for designing an acceptable way to participate; these users can upload a text file to describe in accurate detail the sizes, dimensions, etc within their designs.

Of particular note is the equitable terms under which members’ designs are submitted:

“We will absolutely not sell your design to a third party, because it and its copyright belong to you.  However, there is the future possibility of licensing your design for sale, if mutually desirable. That process would involve setting the terms of an arrangement with royalties and fees payable to you, the owner. You can sell your design, manufacture on your own, etc. at any time you choose with whomever you choose however you choose.”

As customer-design for manufactured products is generally at a very early stage of development, comparisons between the IP terms of DD08 and other customer design sites is not realistic.  However, in the wider context of user-generated intellectual property, the DD08 IP terms are in stark contrast to the massively one-sided terms imposed by many websites that rely on user-generated content for their existence.

Presently, the DD08 contains a handful of designs across a variety of categories.  The uploading of designs is a very simple process.  Critical to the success of the initiative will be its ability to attract a critical mass of participants that will enable a momentum or ‘buzz’ to develop around the DD08 site and the design symposium.  Context Furniture are to be complimented on their efforts to publicise and advocate the mass customization model through the DD08 project.

I would very much have liked to attend the MCPC (Mass Customization and Personalization Conference) 2007 , which was held recently in MIT, Boston and HEC Montreal, however I was unable to do so due to other commitments.

Therefore, I’m making a small contribution to the MCPC 2007 by gathering the thoughts of some of those who did attend.

First off, Peter Semmelhack of Bug Labs, who spoke at MCPC 2007, wrote briefly about the event on the company’s BugBloggers weblog. Bug Labs is is producing an open source, modular consumer electronics platform which they say makes building hardware just as easy as writing software or Web applications. Wade Roush, of the Xconomy website, provides a good description of what Bug Labs is trying to achieve in the ‘long tail of consumer devices’.

Elaine Polvinen, Professor of Fashion Textile Technology at Buffalo State University, published her thoughts on MCPC on her Virtual Fashion Technology blog. Her focus is primarily on areas of interest relating to Virtual Fashion Technology Education.

For Justin R. Saunders, the highlights of the day included Wikinomics author Don Tapscott.

Michael Galpert, Chief Operations Officer of Worth 1000, a Photoshop competition website, wrote some notes on MPCP 2007, which he hopes to transfer to his Michael Galpert blog shortly.

Adrian Bowyer of the RepRap digital manufacturing machine (3D printer) project, posted about his journey to Boston and how he set up one of the ‘Darwin’ 3D printers in the conference lobby.

Dave ten Have, founder and CEO of Ponoko posted on his personal blog a picture of a shoe which was shown as a proof of concept at MCPC 2007. The shoe was created using a 3D printer by TNO of the Netherlands.

MCPC 2007 Conference Programme Co-Chair Frank Piller posted a preview of the event before it began, and I am sure he will publish his account of the event when time allows.

If there is anyone else that I have missed who attended MCPC2007, and has written about the event online, please leave a comment and I’ll update this post later.

Update 24/10/2007:  Ruben Robert of innovation intermediary FellowForce has published a short summary of his MCPC presentation ‘The Business Smarts of Strangers’ on the FellowForce blog.

Wikinomics, or to use its full title “Wikinomics - How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything” is a chronicle of how traditional collaboration - in a meeting room, a conference call, even a convention centre - has been superceeded by collaborations on an astronomical scale.

The book opens by telling the story of Goldcorp Inc., a mining company that was on a downward slope due to strikes, lingering debts, and an exceedingly high cost of production. The company’s fifty year old mine in Ontario was presumed to be nearly exhausted. Goldcorp CEO Rob McEwen, a newcomer to the mining sector, approved $10M of investment in additional exploration. Results were positive, with test drilling suggesting large new deposits of gold, but pinpointing the exact locations of the gold was proving to be an insurmountable challenge for Goldcorp’s employees. By coincidence, McEwen attended a conference where the subject of Linux, the open source computer operating system, came up for discussion. McEwen had an epiphany - why not adopt the open source model for Goldcorp’s mining activities? This is exactly what he did. In March 2000, the “Goldcorp Challenge” was launched with $575,000 in prize money. All of Goldcorp’s geological data was published on the company website, with an invitation for anyone to contribute their knowledge on how the gold might be located within the 55,000 acre property.

By the time the process was completed, entries arrived from geologists, graduate students, consultants, mathematicians and military officers. The contestants had identified 110 possible targets on the property, of which over 80% proved correct. Since the challenge was inititated, eight million ounces of new gold deposits have been found, and Goldcorp has moved from being a $100M company to being a $9Bn company.

Goldcorp is perhaps one of the best examples of how a business can benefit from breaking down the walls which exist between it and the outside world. The traditional thinking has always been that research is secret, and only trusted employees should be involved. However, the success of community-based activity for non-commercial projects like Linux and Mozilla has presented new possibilities and a new outlook for many companies, who are re-thinking their traditional viewpoints on how they interact with customers, competitors, and the world at large.

Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, the authors of Wikinomics, build a convincing case for the benefits of breaking down barriers between business and potential outside sources of competitive advantage. They highlight the growth of new movements that are both a cause and a reflection of this new thinking. Firstly, the Peer Pioneers, most typically associated with free software projects such as Linux, but who have applied open source principles to create a multitude of products made of bits - in other words, information products. These include the many millions of contributors to open encyclopedia Wikipedia, and collaborative projects in many different areas of software development and scientific research.

Another development gathering pace is the ‘Ideagora’ - a marketplace for ideas, where questions can find solutions and solutions can find questions. Williams and Tapscott suggest that it is comparable to a classifieds site like craigslist.com, except rather than job ads and personals it posts a list of ideas and inventions that are ‘for sale’ or ‘wanted’. Examples of ideagoras are Yet2.com (which was new to me) and Fellowforce.com (featured on this site here recently (and again).

The next trend highlighted in Wikinomics is the growth of ‘Prosumers’. This term will be familiar to anyone who has studied mass customization. Originally the term was coined by Alvin Toffler in his book ‘The First Wave’, and referred to the ‘producer and consumer acting in concert’. It was sometimes used to label those customers who sought out mass customized products. However, Williams and Tapscott use the term differently, to describe the growing number of customers who are prepared to ‘hack’ products and adapt them in ways never envisaged by the producers. Wikinomics notes that the idea of amateur innovation goes back many years.  A perfect example is the story of how hot-rodding of cars developed in the late 1940’s and 1950’s.  Today’s amateur innovators have the advantage of the web where, instead of just sharing an idea with their neighbour, they can share it with thousands of fellow product hackers through online communities.

Examples of prosumerism today include communities that have grown around platforms such as Lego Mindstorms, the Apple iPod, and the Toyota Prius.  In many cases, after initial reluctance, the producer has engaged with these communities and involved them in the official innovation process.

Next up in this gallery of trends are a group of people called ‘The New Alexandrians’.  The original Great Library of Alexandria is reputed to have contained volumes on all the scientific knowledge then known.  Now, in the period of the fastest and broadest accumulation of human knowledge ever known, there is a new generation of Alexandrians who are again collating all the knowledge that exists.  These Alexandrians range from Google to librarians at institutions such as Harvard, Oxford and Stanford, who are scanning thousands of books and turning them into bits.  Along with media of all varieties, these digitized books will be sewn together into a universal library of knowledge and human culture.

This Alexandrian culture is also giving rise to a new age of collaborative science.  As Tapscott and Williams state:

“The emergence of open-access publishing and new Web services will place infinite reams of knowledge in the hands of individuals and help weave globally distributed communities of peers.  The rise of large-scale collaborations in domains such as earth sciences and biology, meanwhile, will help scientific communities launch an uprecedented attack on problems such as global warming and HIV/AIDS.  All considered, leading scientific observers expect more change in the next fifty years of science than in the last four hundred years of enquiry.”

Many different examples of scientific collaboration projects are described in the book.  Projects like the Human Genome Project, and Bioinformatics.org all use collaborative open source techniques to advance biological and medical research.  In  documenting this trend for a wider audience, Tapscott and Williams are providing a very effective rebuttal to those who have suggested that participants in open source initiatives are only interested in electronic gadgets.

Wikinomics also examines the ‘Platforms for Participation’ - the technical environments that have been developed to facilitate user innovation and interaction.  In many cases, these are application programming interfaces (API’s), developed by the likes of Google, Amazon and eBay, that enable small businesses and individuals to build innovative applications never envisaged by the companies themselves.  Such platforms do not just exist in the commercial sector.  Many not-for-profit organisations have built systems that examine publicly available data (in the U.S. at least) on pollution, crime and social cohesion.

The book also looks at what the authors call ‘The Global Plant Floor’.  This examines the possibilities for digital fabrication.  It also examines the possibilities for open architectures (i.e. an open basic design to which components of various kinds can be added, such as that used in personal computers) to be used in many other industries.  The book profiles the Lifan motorcycle company, that uses an open basic architecture on its motorcycles, which means that components from many different sources can be used without changing the basic design.  Tapscott and Williams use the example of Lifan to dismiss the idea that peer production is only suited to creating information-based goods.  They note that if physical products are designed to be modular, then, theoretically at least, large numbers of lightly co-ordinated supplies can engage in designing and building components for the product, much like the thousands of Wikipedians add to and modify Wikipedia’s entries.

The book rounds off with an examination of the ‘Wiki Workplace’.  This, as you can imagine, is a working environment which places far greater levels of reliance on staff to contribute towards organisational development and innovation in business process.  It is very hard to argue with the ideas put forward, especially when one reads the the account of how Geek Squad, an IT home-assistance service, has applied them to its business.

Personally, I have found books that deal with the trend towards peer production and open collaboration models to be interesting, but sometimes lacking in flow and not always easy to read.  Wikinomics is both informative and entertaining - it’s actually enjoyable to read.  I must admit that I got a little bit of satisfaction from the account of Lifan’s use of open architectures on motorcycles, as I had suggested something similar for the auto industry a few months ago.  Of course, few would believe me when I say I hadn’t read the book first.

Business books tend to go out of date quickly.  However, I expect that Wikinomics will be read for generations to come as a chronicle of how many of the existing assumptions about business fell away to be replaced by a new, distributed and collaborative approach  in the early 21st Century.
The authors and publishers of Wikinomics have adopted the open collaborative strategy themselves:  An addition to the book, called the Wikinomics Playbook, has been compiled using peer production techniques and is expected to be published shortly.

A recent post on this site profiled FellowForce, an open innovation project that acts as an intermediary between enterprises and individual innovators. At the time I had noted that the FellowForce website had certain limitations which limited the prospects for success. However, since then FellowForce has made an innovation of its own that should enable the project to have a reach well beyond direct users of the site: an Open Innovation widget for other websites.

Jeff Crites, Fellowforce.com Director in North America, explained: “We started our platform for Open Innovation two months ago, and since then we’ve received ideas and suggestions for leading brands worldwide. The idea for this new service is due in large part to a submission in our own innovation box. A Fellowforce ‘Fellow’, Marcel Heinkens of the Netherlands, suggested we offer an Open Innovation widget for websites. Today, four weeks later, we’re introducing the ‘Innovate Us’ button, enabling any business to welcome ideas from a global force of innovators”.

FellowForce describes the ‘Innovate Us’ button as being like a ‘Digg-this’ application for innovation, empowering and encouraging consumers to submit ideas to company controlled (Fellowforce enabled) innovation boxes. “We prefer to call them Innovation Boxes because consumer participation is more than just a feedback tool”, adds Crites, “it’s a driver for innovation. And for companies, this is like having a souped-up RSS aggregator to manage idea feeds.”

The basic ‘Innovate Us’ button is free of charge, but companies can also upgrade for full facilitation, customization and complete open innovation box solutions. Consumers can see status reports on their submissions, so the process is transparent between parties. Fellowforce says it will soon launch an Innovation Forum, giving companies the option to take ‘Innovate Us’ ideas into the open for feedback from Fellows - adding an important social networking element to the innovation process.

Among the early adopters of the widget are FloorWindo International, the Mindtrek Conference, Telme Clothing and BizzFlip, described as a niche Craigslist for business.

Companies can post ‘innovation challenges’ on the FellowForce Challenge Board, and the  ‘Innovate Us’ button will be connected to their ‘Innovation Box’.  This means that users of the companies’ websites, who might never otherwise be aware of open innovation, have a means to propose innovations to the company in question through the FellowForce system.

With this new widget, FellowForce can bring open innovation to a potentially huge audience of visitors to the websites of other companies.  It reduces somewhat the need to spend large resources on publicising the FellowForce website.  The marketing focus is likely to shift towards persuading as many companies as possible to adopt their service and use the FellowForce widget on their websites.

Springwise recently reported on developments involving the new trend of crowdsourced band management, which can also be referred to as ‘crowdfinancing’ as the participants pay a fee for the privilege of being involved in deciding the direction of a band. The first entrant in this new marketplace, Sellaband, recently celebrated its first anniversary. The Sellaband crowdfinancing model enables fans to sponsor bands, and get a piece of the action in return. Fans can select an artist that they like on SellaBand.com. For a fee of US$10, they can buy a share, or ‘Part’. Once the band has sold 5,000 parts, SellaBand arranges a professional recording and other management services. Those who voted for the band in question receive a limited edition cd of the recording.

Springwise reports that, over the last year, fans have invested over USD 1,000,000 in various bands through Sellaband. Seven bands have so far raised the US$50,000 required (by having 5,000 parts sold at $10 each) to get to the recording studio. Three of these have already produced and launched their first album, and the other four are currently in the recording studio. In total, 4,806 artists signed up to SellaBand. The first band to raise USD 50,000 was Nemesea, which did so in 83 days.

A second crowdfinancing project called VIPbandmanager is recruiting 50,000 band managers to propel a band to stardom. VIPbandmanager is somewhat different in its approach, concentrating on the creation and management of a single group. For a STG£20 lifetime fee, which is collected after 50,000 people have signed up, managers get to vote on every aspect of the new group. According to Springwise:

“After the band has been formed, members will continue to make all the behind-the-scenes decisions and plans that artist managers and record labels make: choosing producers, helping pick tracks, deciding on the band’s image and promotion, organizing a UK tour and, of course, reaching the top of the charts. The latter will be aided by the viral marketing clout of 50,000 fervent fans.”

The 50,000 particpants gain perks including “entrance to exclusive parties” (which could be less exclusive if they all come to the same one!), goody bags and backstage access.

The principals of VIPbandmanager are founder Mark James Bowness and manager Sam Bush, himself a former participant of the UK reality TV show Shipwrecked.

These two projects take different approaches to the crowdsourcing model. Sellaband is fits more closely within the conventional undrstanding of crowdsourcing, whereas VIPbandmanager is probably closer to a reality TV show in its format. The returns for the participants in each case might, at first glance, seem to be paltry. However, it must be taken into account that the users do not contribute intellectually to the projects (e.g. no-one is asked to contribute guitar riffs or lyrics). So while the projects are using participants contributions of €10 or £20, they still have to put in the work themselves.

The Economist, a weekly UK magazine that is one of the most influential business publications in the World, recently undertook a project which it described as crowdsourcing but is probably closer in nature to open innovation. The magazine asked its readership what new directions it should take in leveraging its intellectual capital and resources. They called it Project Red Stripe. Read the rest of this entry »

CreateSpace, part of the Amazon.com, has recently announced a new online Books on Demand service.

CreateSpace was originally founded as CustomFlix Labs, Inc. in 2002 and acquired by Amazon.com Inc. in 2005. Prior to launching the Books on Demand service, CreateSpace was already providing inventory-free, physical distribution of CDs and DVDs on Demand, and video downloads via Amazon Unbox.

In addition, the company is no longer charging setup fees for books, audio CDs and DVDs. Authors, filmmakers and musicians can now offer their works on Amazon.com, CreateSpace.com and via their own free customizable eStore without any inventory, setup fees or minimum orders.

“The new CreateSpace Books on Demand service removes substantial economic barriers and makes it really easy for authors who want to self-publish their books and distribute them on Amazon.com,” said Jeff Wilke, senior vice president, North American Retail, Amazon.com. “The service will also give millions of Amazon customers access to an even greater selection of books, just as CreateSpace’s DVD and CD on Demand services are adding significant selection to our movie and music catalogs.”

Books on Demand works the same way as CreateSpace’s DVD and CD on Demand offerings. CreateSpace books sold on Amazon.com are printed on demand, display “in stock” availability on Amazon.com and can be shipped within 24 hours from when they are ordered. The books are automatically eligible for Amazon programmes such as “Search Inside!”, “Amazon Prime”, “Super Saver Shipping” and so on.

There are no setup fees or minimum orders for the CreateSpace on-demand service. Members are required to purchase and approve a proof copy of their book, CD, and/or DVD before titles can be produced on demand. Books published via the CreateSpace Books on Demand service are printed with high-quality, full-colour paperback covers. Black-and-white or color interiors in multiple trim sizes can be selected as options. Members can also order high-quality copies of their book, DVD or CD at competitive wholesale prices.

An important aspect of the CreateSpace service is that the creator of the work retains the rights to the work. There is no attempt to ‘muscle in’ on the future earning potential of the work, should it become successful.

The scope of the CreateSpace service certainly provides plenty of options for content creators, especially in video. They can sell in DVD, HD-DVD or video download. Blue-Ray is due to be added to the roster in the near future. Additional services include assistance with cover artwork, conversion of videos to DVD’s, high definition capture and authoring to HD-DVD, and high volume disk replication.

Steffen Hoellinger, writing on the Openeur website, compares the retailer’s share of a commercial DVD sold on Amazon.com will with that for a DVD sold on CreateSpace. The content creator retains a much higher percentage of the selling price when the product is sold through CreateSpace. For example, a 100 page black and white book with a list price of $25.00 sold through a CreateSpace E-Store would earn the author a royalty of $14.85 per sale. This raises the possibility that CreateSpace might become a distribution channel of choice for authors, film makers and musicians. If a writer or artist already has a public profile, is it necessary for them to contract with a publishing company to publish their work, if they can sell directly to end users and keep a much higher portion of the retail price for themselves?

The CreateSpace on-demand publishing service is not the only one of its kind - Lulu.com also offers self publishing services for books, digital downloads, CD and DVD. If CreateSpace provides publishers with an effective level of access to Amazon.com users (in other words, items available on CreateSpace show up in the search results on Amazon), then Lulu.com may find itself being squeezed out unless it can form an alliance with another heavyweight such as a mainstream search engine or social network.

The Make Magazine Blog recently carried a short post about a demo page depicting an ‘online digital manufacturing’ service on the site of 3D technology company Digital Reality. The copy on the page says that users can “create and sell custom toys, jewelry, motorcycle accessories, accurate fine scale modeling parts, promotional products, and millions of other unique products”.

I enquired with Chris Norman, President and CEO of Digital Reality Corp. as to the status of this development. He informed me that the company is currently focused on patent prosecution globally, and that the online marketplace project is at a very early stage. The company has filed non-publication requests for their patent applications until such time as they are granted. The marketplace project is likely to be progressed further by the last quarter of 2007 or the first quarter of 2008.

It appears that Digital Reality intends to position itself as a technology provider for enterprises wishing to enter the digital manufacturing sector in the future. The demo page referred to above would be shown to potential clients to show what they could do with Digital Factory ™, their core product currently under development. It is based on a patent pending process called Made-To-Order Rapid Manufacturing Enterprise. MTO-RME integrates web 2.0- based internet, CAD/CAM, Enterprise Resource Planning & Rapid Prototyping hardware to create an online design, sales and manufacturing system using Direct Digital Manufacturing.

Edit 11/08/2007: These pictures show a motorcycle headlight and that has been “personalized” using what is commonly referred to as a 3D displacement map. If you look at the first picture, you will see that the headlight bowl is smooth. The second picture shows the headlight bowl embossed with ‘flames’. Chris Norman explains: “Basically, it (the 3D displacement map) allows someone to use an image to create a terrain mesh which is effectively a 3D mesh on a surface. Using this technique, it is possible for the general public to do all sorts of things to objects without messing with the underlying design intent of the product. This is one powerful tool Digital Reality is developing and coupling with our WYSIWYG 3D-based product system we like to call Made-To-Order Digital Manufacturing Enterprise. We use 3D CAD files as the actual products and print them directly from the CAD files using 3D printing technology (commonly called Rapid Prototyping). What’s special is that we are going to allow designers to publish designs in our system and allow consumers to “tweak them”, letting them see in near real time the modifications and how they affect to the product in 3D. The 3D object that the customer sees is in effect the digital representation of their physical manifestation, a complicated way of saying that what they see is virtually what they get. In this case, a Cast Aluminum & polished motorcycle headlight.”

To create this representation, a mesh was wrapped on the surface through a tool that Digital Reality has developed. This tool will form part of the customer-facing functionality. When a customer uses it, they make their own product and it gets printed via 3D RP with the customer driving the sale and production.

According to Chris, one of the implications of this is that Digital Reality can establish connections with bureaus around the world and send the 3D files across borders without any of the costs associated with manufactured goods.

The Openeur website, which focuses on open innovation and entrepreneurship, has published a very comprehensive list of projects that use a crowdsourcing methodology, and also related agencies and platforms.  The post adopts a new label for the projects that use crowdsourcing to raise finance for things like managing rock bands or football clubs.  They call it ‘Crowdfinancing’ and I think I will use it from now on to describe projects of this type.

Although it might be seen as simply another new buzzword, it helps to avoid the over-use or the crowdsourcing term, which in my opinion should be limited to projects where individuals or groups, working within a defined framework, propose designs that are then assessed through a process that uses a degree of democratic selection (i.e. other participants in the crowdsourcing project have a means of voting on the submission which they consider to be the most suitable).

Mikko Ahonen, who runs the Beyond Creativity blog on open innovation, creativity and technology, has posted an interesting evaluation, of Fellowforce, a service that acts as an intermediary between companies and individual innovators or problem solvers.

Fellowforce is a collaboration between Building Better Business, a Dutch organisation that promotes entrepreneurship and a related business called Partners In Perspective, along with Generation Europe, a Belgium based youth-oriented market research company.

On Fellowforce, new users create a profile where they specify their areas of expertise and their industry background. Following this stage, the user can see the “My Challenge Alerts” page where one can respond to advertised ‘challenges’. Users can also select a company from a list and propose an innovation of their own.

Mikko Ahonen notes that, while the Fellowforce interface is easy to use for individual users have no facility to communicate with each other. He also notes that the site itself is somewhat over-reliant on email for communication with members - the site has few characteristics of a social network. However, he compares the Fellowforce site favourably with that of Ideawicket, another innovation intermediary site.

His closing comment is very valid:

“The challenge of Fellowforce is to get enough ’solvers’ and ’seekers’. Let’s see.”

The absence of social networking on sites like Fellowforce may be an impediment to growth. At this point in time, the absence of social networking functionality that allows members to interact with each other is an essential component of any site hoping to generate ‘momentum’. The most successful sites are those that grow in popularity virally, by members interacting with each other and spreading the word of their positive experience to non-members. Particularly in the area of innovation, the facility to interact with others and exchange views and ideas is an essential ingredient for success. Most innovations are the product of collaboration - relatively few are the result of the ‘lone wolf’ working late at night alone in a workshop or at a desk. The first innovation intermediary that designs itself to reflect this reality will be much more likely to achieve widespread acceptance and commercial success.

In recent months, technology magazine Wired in collaboration with NewAssignment.Net has embarked on unique project - to launch a reporting project that would focus on a particular trend or area of interest, and then open up its reporting process to outsiders, who would work with the Wired editorial staff to carry out interviews with key individuals in the area of interest being analysed. The project is called Assignment Zero, with the tagline ‘Pro-Am Journalism Opens on the Web’.

Appropriately enough, the first subject matter for the Assignment Zero participants was crowdsourcing itself. More than eighty interviews were carried out by the participants, and have since been published at Assignmentzero.net. A selection of the interviews, considered to be the most significant or well written, have also been published in Wired magazine.

Jay Rosen, Executive Editor of Assignment Zero, explained the philosophy behind Assignment Zero: “Inspired by the open-source movement, this is an attempt to bring journalists together with people in the public who can help cover a story.

” The investigation takes place in the open, not behind newsroom walls. Participation is voluntary; contributors are welcome from across the Web. The people getting, telling and vetting the story are a mix of professional journalists and members of the public — also known as citizen journalists. This is a model I describe as “pro-am.”
“The “ams” are simply people getting together on their own time to contribute to a project in journalism that for their own reasons they support. The “pros” are journalists guiding and editing the story, setting standards, overseeing fact-checking, and publishing a final version.”

Also on the professional team for Assignment Zero is Jeff Howe of Wired magazine, who wrote the original article on the topic which kick-started interest in the crowdsourcing concept. In a recent post on his own blog, he analysed the initial Assignment Zero project and described it as “snatching a qualified victory from the jaws of defeat”. He notes that a crowdsourcing project must have a central link (i.e. a person) who will control the flow of the project.

“Crowdsourcing projects are generally characterized as being the product of a few super-contributors and a mass of people who contribute some minor bits. I’ve heard this called the “dirty little secret of open source,” the fact that most of the heavy lifting is done, not by the crowd per se, but by a few select individuals from within the crowd. I’d like to posit another rule: Any crowdsourcing project must install one go-to guy (or girl) who will thanklessly toil day and night to keep the project on the rails.”

He also emphasises the importance of maintaining the community itself during the process:

“The plain fact is that in the future, journalists will have to develop these skills if they want to succeed in a future in which their readers are also their writers. The crowd does not contribute in a vacuum. They do so as part of a community of other contributors. I see this again and again in researching my book and, no surprise, it was true with Assignment Zero as well.”

The Assignment Zero project has produced a wealth of high quality interviews with key individuals who are influencing the direction of crowdsourcing in different ways. No doubt, other media organisations will have been following the Assignment Zero project to discover whether they can apply crowdsourcing methods to their own titles, or perhaps wondering at the back of their minds whether crowdsourced journalism might someday sweep them away entirely.

An interesting idea recently covered by Springwise is custom blended teas. Blends For Friends is a British company that sells custom-blended teas, mainly ordered as gifts. The buyer is asked to provide some information about the chosen recipient, although only some basic details are obligatory. However, there are many more optional pieces of information that can be provided, which are used to increase the level of personalization in the blending of the tea and the packaging of the product. The service is as much about the person receiving the tea as it is about the tea itself.

Blends For Friends is run by Alex Probyn, who worked as a master tea blender for a number of years with one of the world’s leading tea brands. He became frustrated with the restricted styles and flavours of tea that he could use for large-scale commercial packs of tea. In an attempt to exploit his knowledge and to test his creative skills, he began to blend individual teas and herbal infusions for friends and family based on their personalities. The idea caught on, and now Blends For Friends offers customers across the globe the same service.

It’s fair to say that the current pricing for Blends For Friends is reflective of a craft-based operation rather than one which is mass customized. Every original new blend costs GBP27 plus postage for 100 grams of loose leaf tea, packaged in a gift-wrapped tin caddy with a bespoke label referring to the recipient and the different teas used in the blend. Reorders are priced at GBP7 plus postage. In addition to individual gifts, Blends For Friends also creates custom blends for corporate clients and for weddings.

While this is an innovative idea, the price is likely to make it attractive only to very affluent consumers. It does present an interesting question though: Why has the market for tea not generated the same level of fragmentation in Western countries that has taken place with wine or coffee? The market for coffee has changed significantly in recent years, with many consumers seeking out new flavours, and a growing market for niche blends of every description. This innovation in coffee can be attributed in no small way to the massive growth of one company - Starbucks. Tea has lagged behind to a large extent, perhaps because it does not have the same level of popularity as coffee in the United States, where most Western consumer trends originate. Here in Ireland, we drink more tea per head than anywhere else in the World, so one would imagine that a ‘Starbucks of tea’ might originate in this country, or in the UK, where tea also outranks coffee in popularity. It is difficult to shake off the perception that ‘tea is tea’, and that they all taste pretty much alike. I say this from personal experience as much as any observation of trends.

Perhaps if BlendsForFriends is successful, it would serve to generate more interest in niche or custom blended teas, and might open the door to more fragmentation of the market, presenting new opportunities for artisan and mass customizing tea blenders and outlets.

Zazzle, the online marketplace for personalized products, may be close to securing funding of $30M from a hedge fund investor. This was reported on Friday last on Techcrunch.

No official statement has, as yet, been issued by Zazzle regarding any investment.  If true, it would continue a remarkable run of success for Zazzle in attracting high profile investments.  In 2005, it secured funding of $16M from John Doerr and Ram Shiram, venture capitalists with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures respectively.  Doerr and Shiram were early investors in Google.