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Newbury Comics is a retail chain in New England that builds miniature palaces to pop culture. It started out as a comic book store on Boston’s Newbury Street 2o years ago, but has evolved over the years to sell music, toys, gadgets, fashion, and a whole bunch of Twilight ephemera.

Founder Mike Dreese is an MIT Alum who applied the intelligent analysis and blunt tone of an engineer to the more traditionally right-brained worlds of fashion and pop-culture. He gave a talk at a ecommerce event I attended last week and shared some interesting thoughts on his business and history.

Scott Kirsner moderated and recorded the audio, which is well worth a listen, but a few quick hits follow:

• Newbury Comics has 30 stores, ~$70MM in revenue, ~$25MM of which is collected online.
• Dreese was candid and said that 80% of CDs in their store could be had cheaper online, but retail was often about impulse or urgency.
• Retail is all about merchandising. Find “winners”, the products people must have. Buy a lot of them and charge 20% more than you normally would. Dreese said a replica pin from the “Hunger Games” was an example of this. They pre-ordered a bunch and when they proved to be popular, they raised the price making it one of their best performing products.
• Retail is collapsing. Newbury Comics is opening new stores in malls which used to be out of their price range. They have been able to rent mall space now because the rents are coming way down and not because their business has become better. His outlook for Best Buy and Target were especially grim.
• They grew their online business from $10 Million to $20 Million in one year by leveraging Amazon and Ebay. Dreese repeatedly stated that he believes the future of ecommerce is on sourcing products and taking risk on warehousing and production, not creating new distribution channels.
• Retailers have to take risks. One of the things that gives Newbury Comics an edge is giving product partners working capital to manufacture goods to ensure they have supply. Bigger retailers do this routinely, but few at Newbury’s scale do.
• There are many other nuggets, so listen to the podcast for more insights.

VistaPrint uses print on demand technology to mass customized business cards, wedding invitations, and other printed ephemera. They are easily one of the largest mass customization businesses with revenues of close to $750MM. They have recently started to dabble in television advertising and the subject of their commercials are the small and medium sized businesses they serve. The commercial embedded below highlights a small company called “YouBar” which will customize a granola bar to your taste from a list of fixed ingredients.

It is a neat milestone in that it is one of the first major mass customization companies to utilize mainstream marketing (the custom M&M’s are the only other example that comes to mind). It is also great to see them focusing on another business that combines the internet and physical production to customize products for end users. Hopefully, the campaign will continue and many more interesting businesses will have a chance to draft of Vistaprint’s pioneering success.

I’ve been writing about 3D Printing since when I first created this blog in late 2008. I wrote about MakerBot when they were first announced and many, many times subsequently. I was impressed by the concept and thought the team was cool, but wasn’t sure about the utility. I had a lot of doubts:

- My company had a $50K 3D printer and compared to that, the output from the MakerBot was pretty weak. Why bother?

- What would I do if it broke? The buzz in maker circles was that the tech support wasn’t great.

- What could I do with such poor resolution?

- Did I have the skills to actually build this thing? What if I spent $1,000 and 40 hours and it didn’t turn on.

But, my arguments started to wear down. The MakerBot guys kept improving. Interesting capabilities were demonstrated by pioneers of this new technology. I saw sample parts at MakerFaires. A freshman in high school told me he built one. I was putting off prototyping simple projects on the machine at work or with Shapeways because the cost was so high. I got tired of typing and wanted to start tinkering.

Then I saw the RC Koopa Shell racers and decided to buy one. This product finally made it clear that at the right scale and with the right the design, the MakerBot could be an amazing tool. I waited until the Thing-O-Matic went on sale after Thanksgiving and and pressed the virtual print button.

I’ve successfully assembled my kit (with a fair amount of frustration), started printing, and will be sharing my builds soon.

The Rice Krispie treat has remained largely unchanged from its origins in the 1920′s to the modern day. Maybe your mom would throw in chocolate chips, but I had never seen as wild a variation as this multi-color version made with Fruit Loops.

It also took the Kellogg company over 7o years to start selling a packaged version of the treat that has been a bake sale staple for its entire existence. This seems like the food equivalent of not putting wheels on luggage for 30 or so years after wide spread commercial aviation.

The DIY culture seems to be changing this. Last year, a woman invented a new kind of cookie by baking an Oreo inside a chocolate chip cookie. Within 2 weeks the recipe had evolved on the internet and many experiments were conducted.

Just like Darwin’s finches adapted to the varied environments of the Galapagos, DIYers are adapting to the “fame” that the internet provides. Adaptation doesn’t lead to survival in this case, but social capital. Inventive chefs now have an audience that might only include their Facebook friends, but still they become the Martha Stewart of their circle. In some cases, a cake a mother makes for her child can end up in the New York Times as was the case with Anya Richardson’s Angry Birds cake.

Fruit flies are the common medium to do experiments in genetics because of their quick reproduction cycles. I think food might be the equivalent in the DIY world because of the low cost of experimentation and easy access to tools. Today we see the DIY influence in cakes, tomorrow cars?

Having gone to art school I’m used to eccentricity. Working alongside amazing scientists and engineers I’m also used to the mix of intelligence and quirkiness. Alex Hornstein is eccentric and seems like a really smart guy, but also possesses a dash of maniacal boldness I’ve never quite seen before. When I first chatted with him he explained how he was hacking a very dangerous medical device – and testing the product on himself. Since then I’ve followed his activities which similarly straddle the line between brilliant and crazy.

For his latest adventure, Alex and his partner Bilal Ghalib are driving around the country in a Prius filled with cheap 3D printers (Hooked up to the car’s power supply).

They are using this blog to launch the Pocket Factory project a business that will design, produce, and sell products made on 3D printers (MakerBot Industries was kind enough to donate two).

They’re documenting successes, failures, and pit stops along the way (and 3D printing in road side diners while they’re at it). Their goal is to help people make a living off of their designs by reducing the friction by reducing the steps required to pressing the “print” button.

If you are at all interested in 3D printing and next generation manufacturing check out their blog. Its content is protean, but also practical, and certainly thought provoking. For instance in a few random posts you will read about:

• Using 3D printed parts to cast metal
• A tool kit they are developing to easily model model rocket nose cones
• Surface model capture of 3D objects with photos
• New materials that you can force through a 3D printer

…And a whole lot more. So much writing about 3D printing is about the future possibilities they unlock and how they will transform industries over the coming decades. Alex is actually pushing the boundaries of the industry and trying to hasten the arrival of the future.

Any child of the 80′s will remember this “Idents” from MTV, the creative animations that would pop on between videos to reinforce the burgeoning brand. At the time they were the most avant garde design work most Americans could see on a regular basis. Looking at this collection, one thing that pops out is the pure physicality of these clips. Every one was made with a camera on a stand, taking pictures of clay or by scratching and coloring pieces of celluloid. This was a world before FinalCut and AfterEffects. A time when making a movie literally meant MAKING movement.

The world has advanced and largely for the better. We live in an age where anyone with a MacBook, some video editing software, and talent can create animations and digital videos that garner millions of page views and Hollywood contracts. Still, these movies are a fun time capsule where media was MEDIA and not “0′s and 1′s”.

Maker and educator extraordinaire Chris Connors shared this tweet which was presumably about making vs. buying gifts for Christmas. It is an interesting insight into the psychology of someone who is interested in making stuff, but see’s more barriers than opportunities.

+ Tools – This is a major barrier for many people and few are lucky enough to have a well appointed workshop, but there is always the Singer Problem. If tools were the major problem, why don’t more people sew their own clothes (sewing machines are cheap and wide spread), experiment more with cooking, or create computer graphics master pieces.

+ Supplies – Again, there is a kernel of truth here, and you may not be able to cheaply and readily source exotic hardwoods or performance thermoplastics, but fabric, food, and pixels are all affordable.

+ Time – I think this is the biggest creativity and maker killer. At the most basic level, you can interpret this as the time it takes to actually make one widget, but there are many other facets:

+ Procrastination – It’s easy to put off making forcing you to buy something at the last minute. I think this tendency to put things off has its basis in fear. Fear of:

+ Ideas – Will I think of a clever enough idea?

+ Quality – Will I be able to execute this well? What if I invest a couple hours and my product isn’t impressive enough?

A little bit of fear and trepidations is probably a good thing in the world of DIY, otherwise we’d be flooded with horribly knit sweaters and inedible fruit cakes, but removing fear and maybe giving people “Hand Turkeys” we could help amplify new voices and create new customers.

BattleBots, Food Network Challenge, Iron Chef America, Chopped, Project Runway, Cupcake Wars. These are justsome of the TV shows that combine DIY projects with a competitive format.

The conventional wisdom is that competition and artistic expression don’t mix. There isn’t one right solution in art the way there is in math. A landscape painting by Thomas Cole is no better than one by Vincent Van Gogh, or Richard Diebenkorn. While it is true that artistic endeavors are some what subjective, competition and judging adds a lot of value.

+ Competitions have calendars – The biggest barrier to DIY projects has to be time. It is way to easy to put off starting to learn a new skill or tinkering with a project if you don’t have an external deadline. Competitions force you to finish your gingerbread house or combat robot at a fixed time.

+ Competitions create awareness – Competitions have audiences. These people get exposed to the craft or skill and some percentage will want to participate. The other portion will be spectators and make the practitioners ”famous” which sets the bar higher while providing a psychological reward.

+ Competitions diffuse knowledge – Competitions are like patents that last for 17 days instead of 17 years. When you compete, you are sharing new ideas and innovations. Your new designs provide a short term advantage, but once demonstrated spread in the community helping to raise everybody’s game.

+ Competitions force practice – No one wants to be embarrassed in front of friends or foe so they step up their game and really try to build their skills. Absent public pressure, it is easy to fall into a rut and not experiment or improve.

+ Competitions are social – Win or lose, competing brings together people with similar interests and temperments. People talk shop, build bonds, and make memories that outlast the outcome of a single day.

A barrage of basic cable programs have shown us what is possible when creativity and competition are combined. Hopefully, this trend will spill out of the television and onto kitchen tables across the country.

This has been a great week for metal working enthusiasts who also like nightmarish subject matter whether your taste is 13th century Italian poetry, or 21st century zombie pop culture.

This amazing suit of armor would fit perfectly into the Walking Dead or other Zombie fare.

Via Makezine

And this stunning knife does a great job capturing the story from Dante’s masterpiece.

Via BoingBoing

The juxtaposition of these two projects reminds me fondly of art school where a subject and media would be assigned, but the solution to the problems could come in dramatically different forms.

This holiday season there has been a torrent of articles about how bricks and mortar retailers are facing increased competition from ecommerce and mobile apps. Amazon was widely criticized for offering app users a coupon not to buy something at a bricks and mortar store. Slate provided a blue print for how physical retailers could fight back, but the trend seems inevitable.

Some people are upset by this, especially as it relates to emotional product categories like books, but this increase in competition can only be a good thing. Take this example:

Is the retailer adding much value? Educating customers about which tools is useful in a given scenario? What powers this will confer upon them? No, it is a mess and offers no help to the user except for immediacy and the ability to inspect the product.

Hope is not lost. This display gives a hint of what a retail display could do:

With this display you see what tool should be used in a given context and what purpose it serves. It isn’t perfect, and doesn’t help solve the larger structural problems inherent in the conflict between retailers and ecommerce merchants, but it does use the physical space to help a customer make a smarter decision.

Considering the Swiffer costs ~$20 and the average price of the power tool hovered around $100 I expect more from power tool display. Traditional retailers have challenges ahead, but they also have an amazing stage to educate and inspire their customers that no ecommerce sellers can match. Hopefully they will think more like Broadway producers rather than community theater players, otherwise their will be few frowns when the show closes.