In today’s information avalanche, it is critical to express ideas concisely.
Along this line, I like the concept of onesentence.org, where stories need to be explained in one sentence only.
E.g.: “You never wrote back, and today I stopped expecting you to.“
Besides short, conciseness can be beautiful… I wonder if we could apply the same principle to email…
Hmmm… R&D is getting boring, specially when the R is just for decoration… And not only because R is more interesting, but also because there is in my opinion more added value. Developing a product is extremely important and challenging, but sometimes I wonder if we could outsource that too -but that’s another war.
Or even better, let the customers do the D, that’s World 2.0… That’s it, focus on research and business, only. It is about profitable research, it is about R&B…
What do you think?
Fab, the visionary book of Neil Gershenfeld, describes the principles of Personal Fabrication. Among many other interesting thoughts, he points out that in the future people will be able to fabricate their own products.
There are many supporting examples: Printers used to be big expensive machines. Today, you have a printer at your desk which prints whatever you need. Computers used to be big expensive machines. Most authorized voices claimed that there was no interest for individuals to have a computer – less than 30 years ago. Today, who hasn’t got a computer? Manufacturing lines are big expensive machines. Today, wouldn’t you say that we will be able to build objects ourselves? That is Neil’s vision, which I think it is great.
Fab labs are set-up to implement the fab concept. Basically, they give tools to students to build their own products. Check out one of their outputs, the screambody:
As you can see, world 2.0 is at the next corner!
Many people ask what is web 2.0.
Here is a simple definition: web 2.0 = “user-generated content”.
Classic examples are YouTube, where the web itself is only a repository of users’ videos. It can be taken a step further, where content is created collaboratively, such as in wikipedia. More subtle 2.0 can be google, where the search rank is determined by number of links to that page, that is, determined at the end by the users.
I also very much like Reed Hastings definition: ”Web 1.0 was dial-up, 50K average bandwidth, Web 2.0 is an average 1 megabit of bandwidth and Web 3.0 will be 10 megabits of bandwidth all the time, which will be the full video Web, and that will feel like Web 3.0.”
If you want this blog to be really 2.0, just add a comment…
Last week I attented a talk by John Maeda, who is the author of “The laws of simplicity”. Simplicity has always been one of my favourite subjects, and I’m looking forward reading this book. However, I was a little disappointed with Maeda’s talk. He gave an overview of his creations, life experiences and so on, but didn’t really made it to a point. He gave good advices, such as the importance of mentorship, or the old idea that it might be very complex to reach simplicity, but overall, there was a chaotic feeling. He mentioned that an old man once told him: “Your work is empty”. Interestingly enough, I felt a little bit the same. Ideas, but no conclusions. Maybe I’m not sensible to to his art, or creations, but to be honest, I felt it was a little bit childish, and as a visual artist, not very interesting. An engineer trying to be an artist. Maybe the event (OFFF, Barcelona), was not the appropriate audience for him.
So the question is: Have you read “the laws of simplicity”? Do you think it is worth reading it?
It all started with Lulu. Just like Amazon, you can browse and buy books. With a difference – you can also sell your books. I’m not referring to old used books, I’m referring to books you wrote. From your sofa, you can sell hardcopies worldwide. And you can do the same with cds!
And then, Cafepress. You can upload books, cds but also t-shirts, cups and all sort of objects. From designer to customer. No zero-added-value intermediaries, no hang-arounds.
So, when will 2.0 make it to consumer electronics?
For example, a gifted user can design a toaster set from his/her home, and sell it worldwide. As long as creators have the right tools to communicate with manufacturing plants, it is possible. And technology is there, off-the-shelf. That’s products on-demand, that’s world 2.0.
Actually, major manufacturers do not manufacture anymore. So what’s the difference? And many already let you customize your product, like Dell or Apple computers. So, why do not take it to the next step? Why do not let customers directly define the products? Millions spent in focus groups, market research and strategies… why don’t let the market define the products they will buy in the first place?
And then, we can take it to a real 2.0, where products are defined collaboratively. But that’s been enough for a first post…
What do you think?
