@JennWebb, a blogger at O’Reilly media has posted a couple interesting posts to the “O’Reilly Radar” the publishers all purpose blog. Both are worth a read, the first covers the tumultuous world of publishing in 2011 and what it portends for 2012. The second is a shorter piece about “$0.99” pricing in the book world. What struck me was how open and self reflective the posts were.

Imagine if GM had a blog where they openly discussed the issues that shaped their market. Pointed to Ford if they were doing something interesting? Linked to a new announcement that Toyota made? Most companies would say that such a strategy was suicidal, but O’Reilly pulls it off.

O’Reilly is a proponent of business model innovation – and they come up with a novel access strategy in the form of Safari.

O’Reilly is staunchly anti-DRM – and they walk the talk by leaving their books free and open.

O’Reilly promotes and supports the “Maker” movement – and they create “trade shows” to make their customers famous and then create a retail division to help distribute these inventions while diversifying their revenue.

O’Reilly talks about “spreading the knowledge of innovators” and does that with every part of the corporation from publishing technical manuals to funding early stage companies.

It makes sense for O’Reilly to do this since a big portion of their business is selling conferences and the intellectual exchange they facilitate and it may not scale from a $100MM business to a company with a 12 figure market cap, but imagine if if P&G discussed the environmental or resource issues that shape it’s strategy? If Target wrote about the demographic shifts that are impacting retail or how they were dealing with the rise of ecommerce? If every company had an ambition that was as broad as O’Reilly’s:

“A diversified media company that focuses on emerging technology communities and what we can do for them”

Amazon has just announced the creation of a new publishing imprint for mystery books called Thomas & Mercer, joining four other imprints they created in a continued attempt to vertically integrate the publishing industry.

Apple’s retail stores are celebrating their 10th anniversary this month, a notable achievement as retail was Apple’s last step in the vertical integration of the computer market. While many analysts predicted Apple’s failure, the stores have been instrumental to the launch of Macs, iPods, iPhones, and iPads and helping make it the largest tech company in the process.

These two news stories dovetailed with an idea a friend hypothesized, that we may be entering a phase where we see a “Moore’s Law” for atoms. The analogy between general purpose computing devices and general purpose 3D printers breaks down pretty quickly, but it is apt in another way.

The first computer was designed on paper. The second computer was designed partially on the first computer, the third on the second, and so forth. The history of the last 30 years of technology has been self-reinforcing with each previous generation of technology enabling a faster and better delivery of the next.

This phenomena is especially apparent in the last 5 years of web innovation where Amazon’s Web Services platform has enabled entrepreneurs to permeate every nook and cranny of the consumer web because the technical infrastructure details have become almost trivial.

In the “Maker” world we are beginning to see “EC2 instances for atoms”. Services like Ponoko let you get started with a CAD file and a credit card. Once you have a product ready to go to market, Protomold can make a proper injection mold for less than the cost of a big screen TV.

My guess is that the increasing availability of small scale manufacturing tools will lead to more vertical integration. Product inventors will be able to fund their designs via Kickstarter, produce them at Protomold, create a store front using Shopify, and send products to customers using Amazons “Fulfillment By Amazon” service.

This vertically integrated approach will increase the margins of product creators and allow them to produce and sell more unique offerings. More SKUs will be introduced by smaller and smaller vendors. There will be more friction than with web innovation, but I have a feeling we will soon see a Cambrian explosion in the physical world as CAD, production, and fulfillment become available to anyone with an idea.

Shutterfly, CafePress, Blurb, Moo, and a bunch of other Print On Demand focused companies could be thought of as a “1.0″ phase of printing digital photos. All of these services (and more) let you upload photos and have them printed as books, cards, calendars, and coffee mugs.

With a variety of new mobile based photo sharing apps like Instagram and Hipstamatic making wavers there are some interesting new Print On Demand companies coming up to service them.

Printstagram is one company trying to commercialize social/mobile photo sharing. Their products seem largely undifferentiated from other providers, but neat none the less.

BlaBaBooth is a company with a lot less buzz, but a more interesting approach. They take the traditional photobooth concept and add a digital sharing element. You get a physical artifact in the form of the photostrip, but can also share them on the big social networks.

The user experience of Photobooth 2.0 leaves a lot to be desired, but it shows the potential for “Bits & Atoms” especially when it comes to the world of photographs and memory preservation.

Related articles

• With Tilt-Shift And A News Feed, Instagram Is Ready To Rock SXSW (techcrunch.com)
• Is DailyBooth’s Photo Sharing the Next Big Thing? Investors Say Yes (mashable.com)

My company has been on a hiring binge recently and as I’ve interviewed a number of candidates for product focused roles a few common traits have popped up. One that I’ve seen is a nerdy enthusiasm for parts of their craft that goes beyond a professional interest.

My co-worker Tim is a great example of this, able to tell you where every badge on his sports car is located. Another colleague, Alyssa, is a research maven and has a handle on every new development in our and adjacent spaces faster than most professional analysts.

Some designers can talk at great length and with surprising enthusiasm about plastic composites, others are acoustical aficionados, or have a need to build custom tools to perform the job they want, but most of the talented folks I know geek out on some odd aspect of their profession.

This exchange from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation sums up Clark’s personality nicely:

Bill: “What’s that new thing you got over there at food and drug?”

Clark: “Oh the Crunch enhancer? Yeah it’s a non-nutritive cereal varnish. It’s semi-permiable. It’s not osmotic. What it does is it coats and seals the flake, prevents the milk from penetrating it.”

Bill: “Yeah it’s a beautiful product.”

Clark: “Yeah I like it.”

Back to the Future 2 deserves a spot on the American Film Institutes top 100 film list if only because it gave us the “Hoverboard“. A skateboard that hovered above the ground (but not water) by means of magnetic levitation captivated a generation and was such a genius idea that urban legends about its existence proliferated.

It is an amazing piece of industrial design whose secret to success is simplicity and recognizable form. It is a product that looks as real and approachable as anything that exists today, but it has a capability that transforms it from mundane to magic. It is not real, but is such an exciting concept, people are willing to believe it does.

Smart phones are enabling a new class of magical devices. Ordinary products are starting to take on magical capabilities. Take glucose meters, used every day by millions of people with diabetes, as an example.  An industry standard meter is on the left, while an iOS compatible meter is on the right. The basic functionality is the same, you apply a small drop of blood on the thin piece of plastic at the bottom of the device and you receive a message about how much glucose is present in the sample. However, the design on the right offers many more capabilities. With this product (called the iBGStar) you can instantly review past results in graphical format, annotate the result to help better understand it in context, and share your information with a health care professional. It turns a dumb diagnostic device into the hub of a digital health management system. A small difference can create substantial amounts of value.

This kind of innovation won’t be limited to medical devices. Everything from toys to locks and even assault rifles will soon be made into current day “Hoverboards” by virtue of mobile and tablet computing.

CTO of Bestbuy pushing bits and atoms

BestBuy’s CTO is pushing a “Bits & Atoms”  vision where drawing apps on the iPad could be outputted and printed as physical books. We can already do that via services like Blurb, shouldn’t be that hard for a company like Penultimate.

Don’t Know your Helvetica from Arial?

Get schooled on Typography from a RISD student named Karen Kavett. I would be dollars to donuts this kind of video will largely have replaced RISD in the next 20 years.

Via @JohnMaeda

Retro Doritos Sell like Crazy

Software designer and junk food connoisseur Cabel Sasser photographically proves that a novel/retro package does indeed move units on a store shelf. This is a good “Natural Experiment” for customizers that shows a “custom” package can drive sales.

KleekBots – iPhone powered Lego Mindstorms

KleekBots aims to bring a smartphone powered Lego Mindstorm system to the masses along with a database of construction instructions. I have some doubts that they will pull it off based on their over serious video, but if someone approached the product the right way it could be a fun business.

Arduino Xmas Tree

I’m a little late on this link, but basically you can control a families Xmas Tree lights via the web. I would gladly pay a premium if I could have an iPad controlled version for my tree next year.

There are a lot of products I have thought about combining with the iPhone and other tablet computing devices. Medical devices, toys, scientific equipment, robots, consumer electronics, but never, ever locks. I am wildly behind the curve, because there have been at least 2 high profile stories about companies or individuals doing just that.

Lockitron – YCombinator Lock Startup

Lockitron is a YCombinator startup that is replacing physical locks & keys with smartphones. The process looks super simple and the app UI is comprised of just two buttons. My first thought was that it was cool tech, but didn’t have many useful applications until I remembered that almost every corporate office with more than 30 people has an badge system to open doors. It would also be an awesome product for hotels.

The downside is that the smartphone UI is a little less convenient than having a dedicated “key”, but there are probably some other good use cases this technology enables.

Lockitron Demo from Daniel R. Odio on Vimeo.

Foursquare Door Unlock Demo

Web development firm Apartm.net also developed a way to unlock a door via Foursquare check in. They seem less commercially focused, but have shared more details about how their systems works (if you want to find a way to make Foursquare even more useful to potential thieves).

The big lesson from both of these companies is that we shouldn’t underestimate how pervasive smartphone technology will become and how many aspects of our lives it will touch. If your iPod touch can replace a key, what chance do other consumer electronics devices possess?

Modernist design brought the term “Truth to Materials” into the lexicon of designers. It means that the true nature of a material should be celebrated not hidden or doctored. If you are building a structure out of concrete, don’t mold it to look like bricks, but rather accentuate its innate attributes. This thinking can lead to design icons, like the Eames DCM chair (right) which uses industrial materials and process in a way that doesn’t attempt to mask either. Compare that to the more traditional chair on the left and “Truth to Materials” becomes clear.

Photo Credits: http://bit.ly/bXmyT8 & http://bit.ly/bMaYVe

The evolution of 3D printing has not been in the modernist tradition. 3D printers are evaluated and purchased largely on their ability to simulate the output of other machines, namely injection molding. The engineers who buy and use them want to replicate traditional plastic molding processes as closely as possible and aren’t so interested in the disruptive potential of “Direct Digital Manufacturing“. They see 3D printing as “Rapid Prototyping”, a way to shorten the product development cycle, not a way to rethink the manufacturing process.

A new project highlighted on the Freedom of Creation blog aims to change this. In conjunction with the London School of Fashion, FOC is creating garments that are produced in final form straight from the 3D Printer. Designers have been making fashion items and jewelry with 3D printers for some time, but they are usually constructed from multiple parts in multiple materials. These garments are different.

Just as industrial materials ushered in the modernist/minimal age, 3D printers promise a new future. The black dress below hints at the future of where design will go:

Intrinsic features - Look at how the two lapels join at the navel. There are no seams or means of joining the parts. The plunging neckline and materials are joined without the intervention of human hands. This is going to allow design features that would  too time consuming or not within the potential of the material now.

No waste - In fashion based industries there is a lot of waste. Major clothing stores scrap 40% of their inventory. Even more is lost in manufacturing where the pieces used to construct the clothing are cut from larger pieces of fabric.

New Materials - Comments about these clothes on other sites have derided plastic as a clothing material probably not considering the lycra and polyester clothing they already own. The gauge of chain mail on exhibit is probably too extreme, but what if it was 4X smaller? It is light, breathes well, could hang in interesting ways. Perhaps not in clothing, but upholstery? In any case it shows that old materials will be reimagined in exciting ways.

I don’t think fuchsia plastic chain mail is going to replace the inventory of Banana Republic any time soon, but this project is exciting. These are high quality visualizations of whats to come in fashion and other product categories.

Robot Chess – Building on the Shoulders of Giant (Robots)

There are a lot of interesting robot projects that you can find in Make: or other blogs and magazines. I remember a couple years ago, a Lego powered robot made the rounds on blogs because it could autonomously solve a Rubik’s Cube. This project takes the the same problem solving concept to a whole new level. More robots, interaction with the environment, and multi-robot communication. This seems like the product of ambition combined with the bedrock that has been formed by all the amateur robotocists that preceded it.

KopyKake Projector

People are going NUTS about the MakerBot and 3D printers generally. I’m a huge fan of both, but their ability to reshape the way we make things is dwarfed (in dollars and lives touched) by the development and impact of crafting technology. The CriCut personal paper cutter is a $250MM a year product. Now specialized technology is starting to move into the kitchen. In this case a projector that shines designs onto cookies which can then be traced by confectioners. Even if the designs aren’t your cup of tea it is hard to argue with the quality of craftsmanship in these cookies.

Core-Toons

Core77 is the best blog on industrial design and a recent addition to their content have been very funny cartoons (Core-Toons) lampooning design culture, products in particular.

Johnson & Johnson Donates Garbage to Make Custom Made Footballs

Johnson & Johnson is one of the largest companies in the world, they make health care/wellness products that could make a difference in the lives of millions of the world’s poor, and are bragging about giving them garbage instead. In their JNJBTW blog they use the World Cup as a way to bring up how many people in developing nations make their own footballs out of trash so they can emulate their heroes and play the beautiful game. I thought JNJ would be talking about providing real balls, maybe Band Aids to help cover up the inevitable scrapes, but not their waste materials! It is better than nothing, but I would not be bragging about it if I was a corporate citizen of their size. While JNJ’s actions aren’t classy the story of the world’s poorest using waste material to build products is inspiring. We shouldn’t forget that “personal fabrication” was a common event for people across the globe prior to the industrial revolution.

Hershey’s Customization

Mass customization holds a lot of promise, but hasn’t been an engine for a lot of high growth companies, yet. Part of this is due to the fact there is still a lot of experimentation with business models going on. Hershey’s is channeling Disney by making a customized chocolate bar creation station part of their factory tour. The economics of mass customization aren’t as good as mass production, but charging for the experience might close the gap.

If you have any interest in building things, children that need a catalyst to get involved in science and engineering, or need a dose of inspiration, go to Maker Faire. The best description I can muster is that it is DisneyWorld for nerds. Built on the vision of Dale Dougherty, but spread into different “Worlds” from steampunk to tesla coil art and beyond. Highlights of the event follow:

PedalSense

One exciting thing about Maker Faire is the way it levels the playing field between individuals and corporations. Alex Gourley is an engineer at a famous web startup, but on his evenings and weekends has been building a video game controller that interfaces with exercise bikes. The faster you pedal, the faster your car moves in the game. He is currently taking preorders for the system via KickStarter.

Provocraft

For all the excitement about 3D printing technology, Provocraft’s CriCut personal paper cutting machine generates 3X the revenue of Stratasys with less R&D cost and with FAR better margins.

They also demonstrate how much room there is for improvement in marketing customization equipment. They did two things well.

1. Put popular licensed characters on the top of your booth. This ensured a massive crowd around their booth all day.

2. Giving away tchotchkes works. Be it with doctors and pens or faire attendees and tote bags. Cleverly, the Provocraft people set up their 3 or 4 customization machines in line, gave attendees a tote bag, then demonstrated how each machine could embellish the bag, sending them home with it as a souvenir/advertisement.

iFixit

The big booths with slick marketing aren’t just for companies with nine figure revenue lines. iFixit is what you would get if you merged Wikipedia with every instruction/repair manual. It is a great site with a compelling mission, solid revenue, and a rotating logo at the top of their booth. Sparkfun, the electronics supply wunderkind, had similar production values in their booth. Neither company has raised any venture capital, but had the largest crowds of the day, easily.

Instructables

Maker Faire features an amazing number of hands on demos. Instructables, the community powered tutorial site, had a really fun, kid height, “Lite Brite” to keep little ones occupied while their parents got pitched on the educational value of the site.

Atoms & Electrons

Chris Yerga, another Big Company guy hacking atoms by moonlight, exhibited a number of really interesting projects. My favorite was the needle in the lower left corner of this picture, which weighed the popularity of two terms at any given time on Twitter e.g. the names of the two American Idol finalists. His blog, Atoms & Electrons, is a must read.

Shapeways

Shapeways, the 3D Printing web service had a nice display. They are continuing to make 3D printing more affordable by aggregating demand and driving down prices as well as continuously releasing new materials to print with. Their glass modeling capabilities were on display and very cool, but I was SUPER impressed with their gold plating of stainless steel models. The color was gorgeous and the finish was very slick. I’m very excited to see where they are going to go next.

Ponoko

Ponoko, Shapeways’ 2D counterpart also had a well attended booth. Their promotion was the ability to construct a little toy out of pre cut plastic components. They were also highlighting their new service where you can cut a MakerBot chassis out of a variety of materials, including this one that has a nice anthropomorphic feel.

MakerBot

Speaking of MakerBot, their printers were in full effect eliciting oohs and ahhs from everyone who passed by. It was also surprising that so many people attending MakerFaire were floored by the very concept of 3D printing, never mind that one could now be had for <$1K.

The highlight of this display was The BreFormer, a Transformer like toy that can change from a model of a MakerBot to a robotic Bre Pettis, the company founder and front man. I’ve held off on buying a MakerBot to this point, but a few more fun projects like this and I may invest.

Kits

Continuing the DisneyWorld comparison, there was a well stocked gift shop where kits and books of all kinds were available. It seems like a cottage industry, but when you read about SparkFun’s explosive growth, it is inspiring to see how many people are buying them.

Fighting Robots

It wouldn’t be a Maker Faire recap without at least one fighting robot picture. I think BattleBots are due for a comeback. With all the excitement around arduino in the last 3-5 years and the increasing access to laser cutting, 3D printing, and PCB fabrication I feel like the market has caught up to the vision.

Hobby Product Design

Zillio is a toy/game used to teach mathematics principles. I’m not an educator so I don’t know how good a product it is objectively, but I was impressed by the story of its creator. She was a super bright engineer/mom frustrated by existing math teaching tools. She developed a prototype, learned enough about manufacturing to mass produce it, and many awards later she has a real product on her hands. Another example of atoms becoming as accessible as bits.

Evil Mad Scientists Labs

The good people at EMSL, makers of the CandyFab 4000 sugar 3D Printer, are back again applying math and engineering to weird/fun projects. In this case, drawing ornate geometric patterns on eggs.

See their latest creation, the EggBot, below. Their projects always seem to border between artistic statement and useful tool, but I can’t think of many quicker/more impressive/approachable ways to get a youngster inspired about electronics, parabolic geometry, physical hacking, art than one of these devices.

Artisans

I always like talking to individual artisans, in this case a guy who does glass lamp work which is like mini glass blowing. The best crafters are able to combine virtuoso technical skill with an easy manner and canned jokes that make the performance almost as impressive as the artifact.

BOOK YOUR TICKETS FOR 2011!

his overview is really just a fragment of what was at the Maker Faire. Hundreds of artisans, thousands of enthusiasts, and countless sights made for an exciting event. If you want more Maker Faire, check out this video and do yourself a favor and attend in person next year.