Friday, May 28. 2010Comments (0) Trackback (1) Talk on RepRap at MIT Innovation Lab March 2010
In March 2010 I gave a talk at the MIT Sloan School of Management on RepRap and the democratization of Fabrication Technology and emergence of open hardware communities, entrepreneurial spin-offs, etc. Bre Pettis and Zach "Hoeken" Smith took the stage right after me and they really rocked with their Makerbot and Thingiverse story (due to form and substance)!
The Innovation Lab meeting was organized by Professor Eric von Hippel at MIT and author of Democratizing Innovation (available under Creative Commons license). I finally took the time to upload the slides. Mit Innovation Lab March 2010 View more presentations from Erik de Bruijn. Source: OpenOffice Feel free to ask questions or provide suggestions (other than about the formatting, which Slideshare messed up a little). Thursday, May 27. 2010Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) RepRap in Dutch newspapers again
A while ago I put on my RepRap ambassador hat again which resulted in a newspaper entry in a Dutch newspaper. Since it's slightly old news now and I'm allowed to cite works that I'm mentioned in I believe it's okay to share it now:
For those who don't read any Dutch, here are some highlights that the article mentions:
Wednesday, May 19. 2010Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Meta-innovation: Surprise boxes!
What I really like about the Thingiverse physical object repository is that people are not just adding awesome, innovative [1, 2] and useful [1, 2] new content. They also innovate in how they publish content and how to use the content, exploring and sharing new and innovative ways of (applying) digitally assisted making. They explore and share what works and doesn't work for them. They get other people excited to try their ideas and techniques and improve upon them. And... they find very original ways of packaging objects:
There is an interesting phenomena on Thingiverse lately: Surprise Boxes! It looks like an ordinary box right? But the secret is that there will be something 3D printed inside the box! What will it be? You won’t know until you make it become a reality on your MakerBot or other 3D printer! From: Makerbot Blog The important message is that this digitally assisted making around RepRap and the many derivatives is a social phenomenon as much as it is a technological one. Both are critical enablers. Thingiverse every day proves itself to be a sustainable source of creative ideas and value produced by a community. At the same time it endorses and is a showcase example of open source development beyond software. This makes it different from the platform products that most for-profit 3D printer vendors or service bureaus would set up, who have a more closed and organization-centric mindset. Of such platforms, not just the level of participation is different, also the degree of commitment and the motivations that drive the individuals are different. The more traditional for-profit companies have little awareness of communities and the value created around community-centric "products". Though there are some notable exceptions... |
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