There’s an interesting entry over on the Core77 site discussing a presentation at Parson given by retail researcher Paco Underhill. Nice read with some interesting statistics at the end. Check it out at this link (but know that Core is switching blog engines so this link might lead nowhere in the near future).

Just wanted to post a follow-up to an earlier couple of entries on the “rocket launcher” (first mention of this is here along with a recent update on some additional effort). After shipping the 3D files off to another Second Life resident, programming whiz Jeffrey Gomez, I watched from inside the virtual world as he imported the object triangle-by-triangle using his import scripts. Although I’ve been aware of his scripts for some time, I’ve not used them, so watching the object slowly and methodically reconstitute itself inside SL was a treat (pic). It actually reminded me of the original (potential) destination for this file – a rapid prototyping machine, as this felt a little like that animation of the nanofactory concept I linked to some months back (find the animation for that here), except I was there inside the machine. For a better sense of scale, here’s a screencap of my avatar next to the final output (the new standard in BFG’s) and another image with me standing amongst the pieces. Cool stuff. Imagine all the possibilities.

Picking up where I left off with my previous post, there’s a nice read over on Wired today called “Imagine, Make It Real in Fab Lab“. Nothing terribly new here but this part got my attention:

“I’m not worried about being out of a job, but I think there would be new uses for this technology that people can’t even imagine,” said Gianfranco Zaccai, president and chief executive of Design Continuum, a Boston design and development firm. “It might be a harbinger for the return of the village craftsman in a world of high technology.”

Sounds very much like how I explained this on the Core77 forum over a year ago:

There’s an argument for two kinds of IDer: those that exist in big corp product machines, pumping out cell phone give-aways to entice people to sign service contracts; and those that address the more fickle and competitive niche markets too small for the corporations to care about. Corp job will be safer (at least in appearance – anyone can get fired). The indy IDer will have to be more scrappy and agile. Maybe form a small community and probably exist more like the underground film industry (an interesting community, for sure).

I’m describing something more like the evolution of craftsmen (“person” for the pc). A ceramicist has tools like a wheel and a kiln. But as RP drops in price, an IDers tools may be a PC and SLA machine (or just access to the service)

Now the question on my mind is, does Zaccai lurk over on Core?

Jerry P (aka SNOOPYbrown Zamboni) asked this past week if I could ‘port the Pro/E “rocket launcher” file (see my earlier post which explains what that is) into the Second Life simulation (something to do with MAKE magazine’s Phillip Torrone giving a presentation). Unfortunately I don’t really have time to do it all. More importantly, because I never intended to take that particular 3D file back into a virtual environment, I didn’t concern myself with surface complexity. It was intended for fabrication. And real parts are complex. Importing that mess of triangles is going to be… interesting.

Anyway, after spending almost an entire day on the main conversion this weekend and getting a lot of messages like “Unable to triangulate part Q3ROCKET-FZ. Aborting output.”, I got something out to a mesh file (a vrml) and shipped it on it’s way. What a major pain that was; especially the surface repairs. Glad this one is out of my hair. But now that I’ve spent all that time cleaning up the surfaces to go “solid”, I’m considering making a working toy from this. Wonder if it’s worth the trouble. More importantly, what would id have to say about that?

Brand Autopsy has posted an excerpt from Douglas Rushkoff‘s forthcoming book “GET BACK IN THE BOX: Innovation from the Inside Out” which is especially interesting to me given my recent revelation. I’m going to focus on the very first first line from the excerpt:

American companies are obsessed with window dressing because they’re reluctant, no, afraid, to look at whatever it is they really do and evaluate it from the inside out.

Exactly the point I was making recently in my earlier post when I said:

Followed logically, it raises the possibility that viral marketing – and my ideas related it – may be too close to core business and marketing issues (like corporate culture, brand identity, aso) for comfort.

In years past when I’d traveled overseas, especially in Asia, I was consistently amazed at the entrepreneurial efforts of local businesses; so much so I wondered why Americans didn’t exhibit the same level of capitalist behavior. I’d return fresh from a trip and wonder “What happened to us? Why isn’t every kid in America today itching to erect a lemonade stand during the summer?” It’s been decades since I’ve seen a lemonade stand (in real life, not one on television).

I’ve always suspected something but now more and more I believe it to be the case. Average people have for years followed their cues from big businesses. But increasingly big businesses have themselves forgotten what real capitalism is about. They’re so busy lobbying officials, forging high-level deals with other companies, and/or protecting their assets, that it seems they’ve largely forgotten what it is they do. In my opinion it’s not that the box needs redefining or expansion. It needs to stop shrinking.