【第131回】“Makers” by Chris Anderson

Chris Anderson is also famous about his former book “FREE”. I was interested in it, and it taught me about upcoming trend of FREE business about three years ago. Now, I’ve read his new book called “Makers”. It is also interesting and I felt excited while reading this amazing book. There are four points which I was really interested in.

First point is about accessibility to make ourselves entrepreneurs. It means not inventors but entrepreneurs. Consider about more than ten years ago. Of course, there were many people who worked by themselves. But, most of them did only small business, and they could reach their goods and services in very limited areas close to them. At that time they were just inventors, not entrepreneurs.

But as information technologies and other social network became more progressive at the “rabbit” speed, world has changed. They can sell directly to consumers around the world online through their own websites. So, it is easy for  them to public in global market. The point is that the path from “inventor” to “entrepreneur” is so foreshortened it hardly exists at all anymore.

Second point is network effects. Of course, Web enlarged the world wide network dramatically. But what the Web brought us amazingly was the power of “network effects”. It means when we connect people and ideas, they grow by themselves.

So, anybody who have enough talent can make anything though using network effects. It is easy for them to turn his or her prototype into a product, without having to build his or her own factories or even have companies by  himself or herself. And they can give feedbacks from many people easily and quickly. Making and enriching our community, it will become our powerful marketing channel.

Third point is that Web changed the rule of makers. To understand this point, let’s think about China era at 2000s, mass-production era. At that time, China factories made the same one-size-fits-all products. It defined the mass-production era.

But now, in new midsized business, they’re going to be starting with one-size-fits-one and building from there, finding out how many other consumers share their interests, passions, and unique needs. It’s totally different from one-size-fits-all business. According to Anderson, especially considering about midsized manufacturing company, US and Europe companies can compete with low-cost labor in China by using digital manufacturing techniques to automate.

Last point is called Third Industrial Revolution. It is defined as combination of digital manufacturing and personal manufacturing. It has deep impact from the viewpoint of people and work. Web allows people to show what they can do regardless of their educational backgrounds, because they can make network and last to learn by themselves though using Web. And it makes easy to form groups and work together easily outside of a company context, though it is not their formal “jobs”.