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.

It is an excellent and comprehensive article detailing the nature of desktop manufacturing and how it could bring about a new industrial revolution will enable people to live where they like and produce what they need locally.

Mr. Rhoades concludes his article with a prediction for the new economy to come:

“Even if products are designed remotely, however, production will be done locally. Physical objects will be produced “at home” or “in the neighborhood” from locally recycled materials. Thus, cities will lose their economic advantage, and urban populations will be dispersed.

Although the revolution promised by these technologies could have great benefits for consumers in developing countries, the economic advantages of manufacturing in areas with comparatively cheap labor will be ultimately unsustainable, and workers in poor countries are likely to suffer. Consequently, our energy and creativity must also be focused on finding other paths to economic parity in the value of equivalent human labor to hundreds of millions of low-wage workers throughout the world.”

Sadly, Mr. Rhoades died on April 21st last.  Even though he will not see the Tranformation of Manufacturing realised, his article lights the way for those who will follow, and highlights the responsibilities that go with the pursuit of progress.

Keynote speakers include B. Joseph Pine (who wrote the book ‘Mass Customization – The New Frontier in Business Competition’ in 1993, which can be said to have kick started the whole area of mass customization), Eric Von Hippel of the Sloan School of Management and author of ‘Democratizing Innovation’, Marvin Minsky (‘inventor’ or artificial intelligence, and William Mitchell (Professor of Architecture and Media Arts and Sciences at MIT Media Lab).

Mark Proffitt notes that:

There are two obstacles to providing eye glasses to people in developing countries. The first is determining their prescription and the second is providing them with affordable glasses.

He describes how Saul Griffith, a student at MIT, solved both obstacles with novel but cheap technology. To solve the problem of not enough doctors to issue prescriptions, he made a fully automated device that calculates the prescription. To solve the problem of providing affordable glasses, he used a 3D printer to make the prototype and 3D printer techniques to make the glasses. The result is glasses in 10 minutes for $10 anywhere in the world.

Uses of 3D technology such as this illustrate its potential to improve the lives of people in low-income countries, by revolutionising many expensive products into something much more affordable. Digital manufacturing isn’t just for hobbyists in rich countries. If anyone involved in developing digital manufacturing systems is reading this, I’d like to say the following:

“Keep going. You’re needed.”

According to the article:

“Users can control the length of a composition up to ten minutes, choose instrumentation, add ambiance effects and create theme-oriented cues. Once the user has created a sound that they like they can download a free preview.”

The service is targetted at multimedia producers who are are tasked with providing their clients effective music tracks on limited budgets and tight deadlines. The cost of the service ranges from $49 to $99. Pre-assembled versions are available for $19, and all come with a royalty-free, buy-out licence.

I had a quick look at the site, and while I didn’t try any composing, I thought that one very good feature is that samples of the individual pieces, of music can be played on the site before opening an account.  The quality of these snippets is very high, and making them ‘listenable’ on the site will be a big plus in attracting business.

Von Hippel notes that:

“In an array of industries, producer-centered innovation is being eclipsed by user-centered innovation—the dreaming up, development, prototyping, and even production of new products by consumers. These users aren’t just voicing their needs to companies that are willing to listen; they’re inventing and often building what they want.”

He notes that many items that are commonplace today were invented by users, such as heart-lung machine and automated drug pumps (invented by doctors), energy drinks and gels (invented by athletes).

Von Hippel notes that “70% to 80% of new product development that fails does so not for lack of advanced technology but because of a failure to understand users’ needs.”

He finds a new trend in government moving to encourage user-centric technological research. In 2005, the Danish government became the first in the world to establish as a national priority, in the words of a government policy statement, “strengthening user-centered innovation.”

Ways in which this is done include:

“Programs that improve manufacturers’ understanding of users’ needs (through ethnographic research, for example) to techniques for identifying user-developed innovations that manufacturers can produce. Successful approaches will be studied in Danish business schools and shared with interested Danish firms.”

Von Hippel believes that, if this paradigm shift is successful in Denmark, many other nations will follow their example.

Part of the initiative is the Danish User-Centered Innovation Lab. This is hosted by Copenhagen Business School and staffed by professors from both CBS and the Aarhus School of Business. The goal of the Danish User-Centered Innovation Lab is to help bring Danish firms to the world forefront with respect to the profitable exploitation of leading-edge user-centered methods for product and service development.

Firms initially participating in the Danish User-Centered Innovation Lab are Bang & Olufsen, Coloplast, Danisco, Lego, Novo Nordisk and IO Interactive. From May 2006, innovation experts from these firms and Danish and MIT academics have been working collaboratively to develop and implement world-class user-centered innovation practices. Best practices that are developed will then be diffused broadly to any interested Danish firms – ranging from the largest to small and medium-sized enterprises.

The Lab is modeled on the functioning of the MIT Innovation Lab, which has been directed by Professor von Hippel himself since 1995.

Swedish-based product configuration software company Tacton Systems will launch and demonstrate its TactonWorks application.

Conference attendees will see how TactonWorks and SolidWorks allow manufacturers to automatically configure complete assemblies and drawings to meet customer specific requirements.

As a SolidWorks Solution Partner, Tacton has embedded their product configurator into the SolidWorks Window, empowering engineers to interactively engineer-to-order a complete 3D assembly by defining the customer’s requirements, and reviewing how the design changes for each selection. Engineers can define the configuration rules in a point-and-click environment, leveraging powerful configuration constraints.

Tacton says that SolidWorks parametric capability makes a perfect match with Tacton Configurator, to provide design automation for engineer-to-order manufacturers. “We are looking forward to showing live demonstrations of this joint solution and discussing reference customer cases at SolidWorks World.” said Klas Orsvärn, Executive Vice President, R&D, Tacton Systems.

Also, British company DriveWorks Ltd will be showing the latest release of its Rules Based Design Automation software for companies that Design & Engineer-to-Order. DriveWorks is owned and managed by Co-founders Glen Smith (CEO) and Maria Sarkar who have been working with the SolidWorks Channel since 1996.

DriveWorks is the SolidWorks Certified Gold partner product for Design Automation. The company says that their implementations can be deployed to the web and set up for use as a front end Web-Based Product Configurator, whilst still generating all the manufacturing data required in the background.

Hod Lipson notes that rapid prototyping machines currently cost from US$20,000 to US$1.5 million, whereas the standard version of their Freeform fabricator can be assembled for around US$2400.   But the researchers are not intending to commercialise the venture – quite the opposite in fact.  Full documentation on how to build and operate the machine, along with all the software required, are available on the Fab@Home website, and all designs, documents and software have been released for free.

The article quotes Evan Malone:

“We are trying to get this technology into as many hands as possible,” Malone told New Scientist. “The kit is designed to be as simple as possible.” Once the parts have been bought, a normal soldering iron and a few screwdrivers are enough to put it together. “It’s probably the cheapest machine of this kind out there,” he adds.

It uses additive processes to create objects layer-by-layer.  This involves squeezing material from a mechanically-controlled syringe. It is also designed to be used with more than one material, which is not always the case with rapid prototyping machines, even the more expensive ones.  The article describes how the process has been made almost as simple as adding paper to a printer:

So far it has been tested with silicone, plaster, play-doh and even chocolate and icing. Different materials can also be used to make a single object – the control software prompts the user when to load new material into the machine.

The researchers have clearly aligned themselves with the open source approach with the Fab@Home project.  They are hopeful that it will grow into a community of enthusiasts who share designs for 3D objects and even modify the machines for themselves, aiding the emergence of widespread personal fabrication.

The New Scientist Article also looks at the research being carried out on low cost rapid prototyping machines at Bath University.  This research was described in an earlier post on this site.  Adrian Bowyer, head of the Bath University rapid prototyping programme (the RepRap project), is complementary to the Fab@Home project.  The Bath University programme also envisages machines being distributed freely, and one of their examples is even intended to replicate copies of itself.

Adrian Bowyer is quoted as saying “I can imagine people swapping plans of things to make online, or paying to download them instead of going to the shop.”  This is the Long Tail of Everything made real, which Chris Anderson discussed in the final chapter of his book ‘The Long Tail‘.  It was also discussed in the One Word For Many Trends article on this website in November 2006.

It is interesting that both the Fab@Home and RepRap teams have used the open source model in their projects.  The big question mark which remains is whether the idea of an accessible home fabricator can generate enough momentum to become a self-sustaining community.  Perhaps the best chance of success is to encourage those engaged in web and software development to try their hands at this more three-dimensional type of development.  By reaching out to software developer communities, these projects may find a willing audience who will bring the lessons learned from open source software development to this new area.  In fact, the Fab@Home website indicates that this approach is already being taken.

The next step for me is to study the Fab@Home website and see if I can figure out how to put one of these rapid prototyping machines together.  I’m not sure how well I will get on.  They say man is separated from the apes by his ability to use tools.  They never thought about the blogger with a soldering iron!

See also: Reference article on digital manufacturing on this site from 2004.

The first event of interest is a German language-only event MC2007 Salzburg (Mass Customization Tagung für Deutschland, Österreich und die Schweiz). This takes place from 15-16 February 2007.
On February 27th, a workshop called DIY-Design will take place. This has been jointly organized by A*Star Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology and Genometri (a design technology company developing specialized form and colour software), and will be held in the Nanyang Technological University.

This workshop examines how Intelligent Modeling and Generative design technologies are enabling customers to design products. The World Wide Web not only allows users to purchase items, it also empowers consumers to design what they like. The objective of this workshop to understand the critical issues involved and to demonstrate that such a method is possible.

The workshop will allow the participants to customize a blue tooth earphone, see how it looks on their face. It will allow the participants to vote online on the best design. The best design then will be rapid prototyped.

A parametric model of the blue tooth device will be built with:

1. Internal Components
2. Measurements of the users ear and face dimensions
3. Manufacturing constraints
4. Other engineering constraints

All these considerations will be used in structuring the model – in a way that the user can try out variations without knowledge of these issues.

Once the Intelligent Model is built, the participants will be able to manipulate the design by using scroll bars. They will also be able to select surfaces and change the material and apply colour.

An online workshop will be held allowing those overseas to participate in the workshop. They will be able to participate in the design of their own blue tooth device using WebEX.

The 18th Annual Conference of the Production and Operations Management Society takes place from 4-7 May 2007 at the Fairmont Hotel, Dallas, Texas, USA. The conference includes a track on mass customization.

On June 21-22, the Joint Conference of IMCM’07 (International Mass Customization Meeting) & PETO’07 (International Conference on Economic, Technical and Organizational Aspects of Product Configuration Systems) takes place in Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH).

Both of these conferences have already cooperated in 2006 in order to drive forward the research on mass customization and to close the gap between theory and practice. The 2007 international conference will be co-organized by the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), Technical University of Denmark, University Klagenfurt, and Instituto de Empresa Business School.

The Joint conference strives to advance research on mass customization through providing the scientific community and practitioners with a platform, organized on a regular basis, in order to exchange ideas with respect to the new advancements taking place in this area of research. The operational implementation of mass customization reveals serious challenges on management and operational systems, which must be mitigated adequately. Therefore, practitioners and re­searchers working in this field are invited to submit papers, in which they present original works and innovative ideas in mass customization. This can refer to theoretical concepts, information and managerial tools as well as best practices.

It is well-known that the design phase determines 70-80% of the costs that incur during the product lifecycle. Mass customization is especially sensitive to the outcome of the design stage and product architecture because of the high variety induced in this environment. A poor design drastically increases the costs of manufacturing and related operations. To maintain an efficient cost position, customer needs should not be mapped into single products but into a family of products, from which many variants can be derived. In this context, the product architecture determines the extent of the solution space and degree of customization to be offered to the customer.

Mass customization is generally more than a mere “fine tuning” of existing operational capabilities, regardless of the current position of the manufacturing firm, be it mass production or custom manufacturing. Instead, major changes in process capabilities and design are required. This may call for radical configurations and redesigns of the complete operations structure within the plant. The application of mass customization principles can also be applied in service operations. Especially in this area, there is a high requirement for research with the objective to develop and validate methods and techniques for the design and implementation of highly innovative service products and processes. Thus, to tackle these important topics, IMCM’07+PETO’07 are seeking for best practices and original research papers, which address the issues of design, control and modeling of products and processes in mass customization.

All the papers will be published within the conference proceedings in the form of a hard copy. The selection of the best papers will additionally appear in a book by Springer.

Due to the complex and interdisciplinary disposition of these conferences, contributions are expected from the fields of Business Administration & Economics, Engineering, Computer Science, Psychology, Natural Sciences, as well as cross-disciplinary contributions from practitioners. Ongoing or completed research as well as papers with a main focus on practice and case studies are welcome. More information on this event is available at http://www.manufacturing.de/calls/imcm07+peto07 .

The biggest event this year is the 2007 World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization (MCPC). Bridging academic research and management practice, the conference provides an interactive and interdisciplinary platform to share ideas about mass customization strategies and to discuss the latest technologies and enablers.

To be held in October 2007, the MCPC will include two parts. The first part, MCP Research & Innovation Conference, will be held on Oct 7-10, hosted by the MIT Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Boston, USA with an interdisciplinary focus on the new advancements in the field. The second part, the MCP Business Seminar, will take place on Oct 11-12, hosted by HEC (Haute Études Commerciales) Business School in Montreal, Canada, with a focus on applying mass customization & personalization in a retail setting.

The objective of the MCPC 2007 is to extend the dialogue beyond today’s boundaries and to explore the future of MCP. The theme “Extreme Customization” asks for leading-edge examples of customization, non-traditional and emerging new concepts of personalization. The manifesto of the organisers is to shift the mass customization debate from a physical product perspective to a total life cycle experience. They propose that mass customization should be more than just configuring a piece of hardware, but should be seen as the co-design of an entire system, including services, experiences and human satisfaction at the individual as well as at the community level. For the technology community, the Conference will attempt to identify critical research issues and technological challenges with a rigorous methodology.

The MCP Research & Innovation Conference is designed to engage academics, business leaders and consultants in fundamental debates through a set of plenary presentations, discussion panels, and paper presentations. In addition to the traditional functional conference streams of the MCPC conferences, submissions are especially welcomed from managers and consultants reflecting upon the conference theme.

The organisers of the MCPC are inviting, in the form of an open call, contributions from a wide range of specialists in the engineering and management community to participate in the larger debate of customization. Mass customization studios, a co-creation challenge, and several focused workshops will elevate the quality of exchange during the conference.

It is expected that more than 600 participants will attend MCPC 2007, given the locations of the conference (the first time that this event has been held in North America) and the growing appeal of the topics of mass customization and personalization. The call for papers can be accessed here.
The MCPC 2007 will be followed by a special session in Montreal focused on case studies for mass customization. The idea is to develop material to teach mass customization better. Submissions are invited which are case studies dealing with mass customization and personalization. Cases must be original work based on real events, people, and organizations. They must be accompanied by a teaching note and not have been previously published or accepted for publication. The presentation of the cases will be held in Montreal on October 12, 2007. Authors of the best cases will be invited to submit their work to a special issue of the International Journal of Mass Customization or a special issue of the International Journal of Case Studies in Management.

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Dash Navigation Inc. has made a deal with search engine Yahoo! that allows Dash Express users to search Yahoo! Local for nearby products, services or businesses from their cars.

Dash Navigation is located Mountain View, Calif. and is funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Sequoia Capital, and Skymoon Ventures. The company says that Dash Express is the first auto navigation device that will leverage two-way connectivity and the network of other Dash devices to provide consumers with the best routes based on current traffic conditions.

When a user enters their search term into their Dash Express, the device wirelessly begins a Yahoo! Local search on the web. The results are formatted into address cards and presented to the user as a simple listing of nearby businesses. The user can then select one of the locations listed and the Dash unit will provide the route to their chosen destination.

Yahoo! Local also allows drivers to use a wide variety of search terms to get relevant results. Examples given include a Dash user who types “croissants” – they will see a list of bakeries, cafes and stores in the area that sell the pastry. Another Dash user who discovers that the local hardware store is out of a needed plumbing item could type “plumbing supplies” from their car in the parking lot and see a list of other nearby stores with directions to each location. In many cases, relevant Yahoo! Local ratings and reviews are also presented to offer users instant feedback from other consumers about merchants and services.

According to Dash Navigation Chief Executive Officer, Paul Lego, “For the first time, drivers will be able to leave their homes knowing that they can easily find whatever they need – right from their car. It’s that simple.”

The Dash Express is scheduled for availability in California, USA in the spring of 2007 and in the remainder of the U.S. in the fall of 2007. It follows a trend towards ‘geo-personalized’ services, which provide information based on a user’s location rather than a set of specified preferences.”Yahoo! is committed to providing innovative ways to help consumers find relevant information when, where and how they want it,” said Paul Levine, general manager of Yahoo! Local. “Working with Dash takes us one step closer to that goal and provides consumers with another meaningful and relevant way to interact with our products.”

For anyone attending the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas (Jan 8-11), Dash Express is on display at the Dash stand on the show floor in the Central Hall, Booth #9841.

Apart from being an interesting development in the advancement of geo-personalization, this deal is also of significance because it is one area where Yahoo! has out-innovated Google. For a number of years, Yahoo! has been generally considered to be in a permanent game of catch-up with Google. For once, Yahoo! has been first to the line with a new variation on web search.

The meeting, the IEEE 2407 Personalized Health Informatics Workshop, will be hosted by Motorola and the Mobile Information and Network Technologies Research Centre at Kingston University.  The workshop is open to all professionals interested in helping to develop IEEE 2407™, “Architecture and Framework Reference Implementation for Personalized Health Informatics (PHI)”.

The IEEE Standards Association, a globally recognized standards-setting body, develops consensus standards through an open process that brings diverse parts of an industry together.  These standards set specifications and procedures based on current scientific consensus.  The IEEE-SA has a portfolio of more than 870 completed standards and more than 400 standards in development.  It has more than 375,000 members in approximately 150 countries.  Through its members, the organization is a leading authority on areas ranging from aerospace, computers and telecommunications to biomedicine, electric power and consumer electronics.

The IEEE produces nearly 30 percent of the world’s literature in the electrical and electronics engineering, computing and control technology fields.  This nonprofit organization also sponsors or cosponsors more than 300 technical conferences each year.

IEEE 2407 will create an Internet-based system that places the individual at the center of a broad set of services designed to enhance health.  This health-improvement system will encompass nutrition, environmental issues and other health information and help individuals manage all relationships that influence their health.

As now envisioned, PHI-compliant systems will be implemented by trusted third parties, such as banks, government agencies or private providers.  The consumer would pay an annual fee to maintain an account with a PHI (Private Health Insurance) provider.

Included in the Style and Design category are Unto This Last, described as a ‘mini-Ikea’. The Springwise site describes how:

“Like Ikea, prices are low and many products are sold as flat-packs (pre-assembly optional). Unlike Ikea, everything is manufactured uber-locally, and the designs aren’t overly familiar. The workshop uses the latest 3D modelling software to design and produce innovative and inexpensive furniture, which it sells directly to the public. Orders are manufactured to measure, within a week, at mass-production prices.”

Also of interest in this category is ‘Naked and Angry‘, which crowdsources ideas for wallpaper designs. Springwise describes how:

“Anyone can submit a pattern design, which is scored by other Naked & Angry users. The highest scoring designs are manufactured in limited runs, with patterns providing inspiration for what the actual product will be.”

Perhaps the most important entry in this category is CrowdSpirit, which has taken the outside innovation model into the world of electronic consumer products:

“What blogs, citizen journalism and YouTube have done for media, CrowdSpirit hopes to do for product development. The Scottish-French venture’s focus is on harnessing the power of crowds to allow inventors and adaptors to take their products to market. By involving end-users in every aspect of a product’s life-cycle, CrowdSpirit aims to set off a crowdsourced manufacturing revolution.”

CrowdSpirit is a perfect example of how the social internet has enabled the growth of customerism, extending the original mass customization idea from just configuring your own purchase to direct customer involvement in product development.

In the Entertainment category, two examples from the music industry jump out. The first is “Bands funded by their fans”:

“Sellaband has created a platform that enables fans to sponsor bands, and get a piece of the action in return. How it works: fans, dubbed Believers, find an artist they like on SellaBand.com. For USD 10, they can buy a share, or ‘Part’. Once the band has sold 5,000 parts, SellaBand arranges a professional recording, including top studios, A&R managers and producers.”

While this idea doesn’t really fall under the heading of mass customization, it is a type of crowdsourcing. However, it differs from other examples in that a contender for votes (in this case a band rather than a product design) automatically gets accepted when it reaches a pre-set level of popularity, rather than being a straightforward competition where the most popular entries win. It is also, it should be said, a banker for Sellaband, who get paid the recording costs upfront and know in advance which act is most likely to be successful.

The other idea here that caught my eye is the ‘Retail approach to recording’:

Taiwanese Timestudio (Hua Shi Dai) offers studio recording sessions for everyone. Located in the busiest pedestrian areas in Taipei, Timestudio’s two mini-recording studios let consumers record a professional cd for around USD 30. The studio features a sound booth and a control room manned by a professional audio engineer. A glass wall facing the street means that the ‘artists’ can be seen by passing shoppers, adding an element of momentary fame.”

This is a textbook example of the Experience Economy, where the recording process is what is really being sold. For most customers, the piece of musical cacophany which comes out at the end is (probably) just something to have a laugh with your friends about afterwards.

In the Telecom and Mobile Business category, Springwise notes that “Slowly but surely, established brands are climbing aboard the customer-made bandwagon, inviting consumers to co-create…true co-creation can only blossom if brands share revenues resulting from consumer generated content with those same consumers.” It provides the example of Vodafone Netherlands’ new KijkMij TV (Look at Me TV) initiative, “which not only involves customers uploading their funniest, sexiest or most informative cameraphone)videos, but also pays these minipreneurs 10% of revenues generated when other customers download their video.”

The co-creation/crowdsourcing movement has been viewed with some cynicism by some business observers, who view it as little more than ‘free labour‘. Given the choice between contributing and getting something back, or contributing and getting nothing back, it is fairly obvious which option the co-creators will go for. The rewards may be financial, or some other tangible benefit, but attempts to get something for nothing in an exploitative relationship are doomed to failure.

In the Tourism and Travel category, Springwise include ‘Minipreneur travel agents’ – “Joining the customer made revolution, Belgium tour operator Wasteels has set up a division called Club Tours, which allows amateurs to create travel packages that are sold to the company’s customers.”

The food and beverage category includes Moobella, the made-to-order ice cream vending machine (covered recently on this site), and Austrian manufacturer Frenkenburger, which asked customers to come up with new flavours for its all natural hemp milk drink, Trinkhanf. Creative customers were challenged to create tasty new flavours using fruits, herbs, or other natural ingredients. A panel of judges selected a winner, which would be put into production. Aware that co-creators should share in profits, Frenkenburger will pay the winner one euro-cent per bottle sold.

The Trinkhanf case is probably not true crowdsourcing, in that it is a once-off competition with a single winner. But it does contain the vital ingredient (pardon the pun) for successful crowdsourcing: the winner gets something tangible in return.

All of the categories in Springwise Top 10 Business Ideas are worth reading. They provide a degree of inspiration in that they show how the capacity of people to come up with new ideas is never diminished.

ShapeShiftedTV is a term first coined by John Wyver of media producer Illuminations to describe stories whose narratives can be affected by choices made by the viewer. Illuminations is a partner in the NM2 project.

Viewers were able to see their SMS messages and will hear the characters respond to their texts. A glowing heart showed whether their messages are warming or cooling the hearts of the romantic couple, and the relationship developed according to the viewers’ wishes. If the romance didn’t progress as viewers wish on the first occasion, they can try again later: four runs of the programme will be broadcast showing ten different evolutions of the love affair; each will be different, each will react to the viewers’ wishes.

While concepts such as this are described in terms of the ‘personalization of television’, it is perhaps more accurate to describe it as the ‘crowdsourcing of television’. The path of the drama is influenced by the flow of text messages from viewers, as the NM2 technology monitors the opinions of viewers submitted by text message. This ‘democratic’ approach means that the wishes of the majoraty will be followed in deciding how the story develops. However, all viewers see the same story – it is not that each viewer gets a different outcome to reflect their own voting pattern. It is a remarkable development nonetheless, and is a landmark in the evolution of television from a passive to an interactive entertainment medium.

NM2 is an Integrated Project under the Information Society Technology priority of the European 6th Framework Programme. The main goal of the interdisciplinary project is to create new production tools for the media industry. These tools will enable the easy production in technically standardised formats of non-linear, personalised media genres based on sound and moving images suitable for transmission over broadband networks. NM2 is running from September 2004 to August 2007.

Doug Williams, NM2 Project Director at BT says: “The introduction of interactive TV changed the way viewers consume television programmes. Looking to the future, production companies need to seek new and more innovative ways to personalise the programmes they create. ShapeShiftedTV is the ultimate in personalisation, and NM2 is the driving force making it happen.”

ShapeShiftedTV stories are described by what the makers call a ‘story world’, whereas traditional linear programmes can be described by a timeline. According to the publicity material, NM2 describes this story world “using a new computationally-supported language of narrative represented on a screen using a “narrative canvas” and simple graphical elements”. This somewhat complicated description requires explanation in more everyday language:

• The narrative of the programme automatically responds to text messages sent by its audience.
• Text messages received from viewers are moderated and processed by the production team using a special tool which is linked to a dynamic model of the drama’s narrative structure.
• A ‘Realisation Engine’ holds a detailed representation of the “Accidental Lovers” ‘story world’ as defined by the production team using the NM2 tools. It continuously analyses viewers’ text messages and automatically directs the mood and pace of the narrative, choosing how the video, audio and graphics layers should be assembled, delivering these as a continuous stream of instructions to the playout system.
• NM2 uses PubliTronic Indigo4 playout hardware to render a broadcast-quality MPEG-2 video stream, which is delivered via a fibre-optic link to YLE’s Helsinki studios. Indigo4’s advanced multi-processor engine can composite up to 10 heterogeneous layers in real time.

The NM2 tools are being developed using numerous pilot productions including eight in the current project, covering genres as diverse as News, Documentary, Advertising and Drama. These productions are looking beyond broadcast to the delivery of personalised ShapeShiftedTV over broadband Internet and IPTV.

NM2 has 13 partners from 8 European countries. On the technical side, the participants are BT (UK), Joanneum Research, Austria; Goldsmiths College, UK; Telefónica I+D, Spain; Sony Netservices, Austria; and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.

Media production partners are Cambridge University Moving Image Studio (CUMIS), UK; Illuminations Television Limited, UK; University of Art & Design Helsinki, Finland; University of Ulster, School of Art & Design, Northern Ireland; Malmö University, Arts and Communication, Sweden.

Consumer behaviour & business analysis for the project is carried out by the Netherlands Organisation For Applied Scientific Research, and administration and financial management of the project by Eurescom, Germany.

The full broadcast schedule for “Accidental Lovers” on YLE TV1 is as follows:

Wednesday, 27th December 2006, 22:45 – 23:30
Friday, 29th December 2006, 23:00 – 24:00
Wednesday, 3rd January 2007, 23:00 – 24:00
Friday, 5th January 2007, 23:00 – 24:00

“Accidental Lovers” is produced by Media Lab’s and Media Centre Lume’s joint research group, Crucible Studio, in the University of Art and Design Helsinki.

Kantor notes that the lowering of technology costs has made personalized everyday products far more affordable that would have been the case a few years ago. He cites brands that would be well-known to readers of this website, like Zazzle, Shutterfly, Cafepress and Stamps.com.

He also notes with some surprise the extent to which technology has allowed the cost of eye glasses to fall dramatically. This type of offline customization has been used for many years by companies like Paris-Miki in Japan and Specsavers in the UK and Ireland. Andrew Kantor’s article refers to a number of brands which use the same business model in the United States.

The concept of the eyewear chain store that matches a customer’s chosen frames with made-to-order lenses, produced in-store at low cost, is one of the biggest success stories in mass customization. In fact, the everyday nature of the business may sometimes cause the eyewear sector to be overlooked in discussions about how mass customization can be implemented – something which I did myself in the recent article on customerism.

Another interesting element is that mass customization is now being described in the tabloid news sector of the U.S. media – a sure sign that the idea (and the phrase) will soon no longer have to be explained at all, just as ‘mass production’ is understood by almost everyone today.

The first, by Erick Schonfeld, editor-at-large for Business 2.0 magazine, concerns startup digital manufacturing company EoPlex in ‘The Next Net’ blog. The article describes how EoPlex “has figured out a way to print small parts in mass production from the size of a poppy seed to a deck of cards”.

The interesting thing here is that the process used by EoPlex allows a part to be printed using more than one material. Erick Schonfeld describes how:

“EoPlex can take any CAD design for complex, small, three-dimensional parts that would be too difficult to otherwise manufacture, and print it. It slices the object to be manufactured into hundreds of layers much like a CT scan does to your body, then reassembles it by printing the layers one at a time and burning away the parts it does not need.”

EoPlex CEO Arthur Chait is quoted as saying that EoPlex can make parts out of combinations of ceramic, metal, and many other materials. (The trick is to bind the material as a powder to a polymer ink). Erick Schonfeld’s opinion:

“What’s really disruptive about this approach is that it costs no more to print a complex object than it does a simple one, just as it costs no more for a newspaper to print simple words than an elaborate illustration. And if you want to change the design—add a gear here, a chamber there—virtually no retooling is required. Just alter the CAD file, make some new screens or masks, and print out a new part”

EoPlex plans to move into production trials next year with several customers. While this article doesn’t mention the idea of 3D printing at consumer level, it does show that the technology exists to carry out 3D printing of an object using more than one material. Arthur Chait explains that:

“EoPlex uses a layered approach that is much more like semiconductor deposition than RP. The EoPlex process deposits various ceramic and metal powders in ink form to build panels of complex 3-D parts and then sinters the entire stack to form the channels, conductors, insulators, catalysts etc. The process is unique and addresses market needs that can’t be done with RP (rapid prototyping).”

The big question here is whether this innovative process could ever be used with hardware that would be affordable at consumer level. Certainly, semiconductor manufacturing processes are extremely complex and require considerable investment. While the technology may exist to print parts using semiconductor manufacture methods, the conversion of this process to a consumer environment has not, to my knowledge, been explored to date.
The second article of interest is by Matt Sparkes, who is Web Executive at the New Scientist magazine. In his blog, mattsparkes.org, he has posted a detailed article on the work of the Reprap project at Bath University in England.

This project, headed by Adrian Bowyer, aims to create a cheap rapid prototyping machine that also allows the creation of printed circuits. This is interesting in itself, but the method by which it would be distributed is even more interesting: the machine would self-replicate. This means that a person with one machine could create two more to pass on to others. (This is almost like the theme of the film ‘Pay it Forward’ that was released a few years ago!)

The key to achieving this is to make a machine that can produce almost all of its component parts, to make self-replicating machines, according to Adrian Bowyer.

To do this requires creating a machine that walks a fine line between complexity and simplicity; complex enough to manufacture its own constituent parts, but with constituent parts simple enough to allow this.

To date, most of the component pieces of the machine have been designed and tested, and the next step in the project is to combine them all into a working prototype.

In order to improve the design, and to allow replication, the plans will be made freely available under the GNU licence, as will the software to design parts and control the machine. This is a perfect example of outside innovation if there ever was one. Contributors to the project are based in the U.S. and New Zealand as well as the U.K.

According to the article, the ultimate aim is to create a machine that can also create electrical conductors, and once that ability is combined with the 3D plastic forming, any device can be created, even electrical motors.

The article suggests that having the ability to create complex devices at home could lead to new ways of doing things, most notably in communication and medicine. One example is an open source, peer to peer, mobile phone network that doesn’t rely on a service provider. This would be made possible by creating phones that also act as base stations, routing traffic from one phone to another towards it’s destination. The absence of a service provider would theoretically make the service free.

A second example given relates to medicine. Matt Sparkes’ article states that, because patents don’t apply to personal production, an individual can make a copyrighted drug as long as it is for strictly personal use. Bowyer imagines that Reprap could someday provide the means to do this. It is suggested that the hardware cost of a machine that could produce drugs for individuals might work out less expensive than the oveall cost of those drugs purchased through conventional channels. This would be most applicable to newer drugs administered on a long-term basis.

The Reprap project is also investigating a new raw material that would be used by the machines. This is a polymer called Poly-Lactic acid, that can be created by fermenting starch, either from corn or potatoes, which would be carbon neutral and easily available in developing countries.

There are many interesting elements to these two articles, and both are worth reading in full. While the two technologies involved are still at the developmental stage, the progress being made by the likes of EoPlex and the Reprap project are all significant stepping stones to a time when digital manufacturing is as common in the home as printing documents is today.

Both of these articles are well worth reading.