Beyond Consenting Nerds: Lateral Design Patterns For New Manufacturing
On 17 November 2015 I was so happy to give my long awaited public lecture to formally get installed as a Research Professor at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. After a long day of workshops and interaction with a huge audience, I delivered my lecture entitled “Beyond Consenting Nerds—Lateral Design Patterns for New Manufacturing”.
Here is a very brief summary—and the download.
Radical changes are happening in manufacturing. New digital technologies render manufacturing more versatile, more flexible and more accessible. ‘Making’ has become the term to describe how ordinary individuals use these technologies as a hobby and as a route to generating business.
Some digital manufacturing technologies, including 3D printing, have already become a desktop convenience that allow ordinary people to design and produce their own technical products. Entrepreneurs develop boutique manufacturing as an emerging industry situated between artisanal crafts and traditional mass manufacturers. Incumbent industry is adopting Making as an innovation strategy to achieve what concurrent engineering, rapid prototyping and open innovation so far have failed to deliver. Making is changing how schools teach engineering and technology, and cities are redeveloping former industrial areas for the new entrepreneurs of Making and boutique manufacturing. The impact of Making goes far beyond being a pastime for hobbyists and consenting nerds. It implies a general socio-technical and economic paradigm shift.
