Watch out! Star Trek Tech is here – 3D Printing

For those of you who are cool enough to remember what the picture above is about, I want to tell you something.

It’s happening.

No, we haven’t really invented a way of transporting people by employing space age gadgetry and spouting the line “Beam me up Scotty”. But it’s fairly close to the teleporting phenomena which has long had a presence in every respectable sci-fi show or movie about space. 

3D printed Seat? Art? Anything? Who cares? It looks awesome

Now imagine, getting the Crockery Set within a day if not within a few hours because a certain technology lets these companies “Teleport” the product to a local production centre from where it is delivered to you, at little or no extra cost.

Improbable? Amazing? Crazy?

Well that’s what the world is moving towards. Thanks to 3D Printing.

3D printers work like normal inkjet printers do in the sense that they spray layers of resins (polymer or powder) and combine them with adhesives to form the object required. A laser hardens the resins as they get sprayed one layer at a time. Usually the entire product is cut into various parts which are fabricated separately by 3D printer and then joined later on. This object is formed by feeding a blueprint into the computer.

So basically whatever you can design using software, it can make as hardware (as long as it follows the laws of physics).

3D printing workshop

It will be surprising for many to know that 3D printers have been around since 2003 but back then they were large and extremely expensive. Today we are in 2012 and things have REALLY changed.

Most companies now aim to sell the home base version of this printer for as low as $350 which is around Rs. 17,500 (No idea on what taxes are applicable here). So you could end up buying this cool tech for lesser than a low end desktop! And unlike before, they look snazzy, can be set up for you office or home and almost anyone can use it.

Here are a few mind boggling changes that c0uld occur due to the proliferation of this technology

Amazing 3D print Lamp

1. Leapfrogging the Manufacturing Age – A number of countries, including India, have been facing developmental issues because a Manufacturing base was never created. All that could change since 3D printers don’t really require major government/private investments and infrastructure creation to develop products. A cottage industry made up of creative, imaginative and skilled 3D printers could leapfrog the traditional manufacturing age to a fulfilling Micro-Manufacturing age.

2. Logistics Industry – Logistics is based on shifting stuff from where it is made in the least costs and efforts to where the demand exists. But with 3D printers one could easily create production centers near the markets where the demand exists. This could change the face of logistics or even made logistics co-opt this tech to service its clients better.

Parts of the Iron Man 2 suit were made using 3D Printers

3. Hardware Piracy – Now that all you need to create a shirt, mug, chair and even TV is the software blueprint, it is foreseeable that in the future, piracy hubs could be delivering ‘As good as the original’ products once they get their hands on the right software files. Hell, rather than downloading pirated music at your homes you could be making pirated shoes from Adidas.

4. Intense Open Collaboration and Crowdsourcing – This technology will allow the world to do, what is already a major driving force and phenomena in the online and software world, Collaboration and Crowdsourcing. If millions of servers can run on free, crowdsourced software and the world considers Wikipedia the best source of knowledge today, then even hardware, which may now be infinitely customizable and shared, can be created based on the free and voluntary work of m(b)illions.

5. Reducing Development Cycles –  Automobiles, Airlines, Healthcare and Architects can now use this tech to reduce the time and money it takes to come up with a better or all together new product. With the saved time and resources one can expect not only higher quality products but also far more innovation since 3D printers take out a lot of pain of the traditional innovation model.

Citroen GT - The 2008 concept car made real using lots of 3D Printing

 6. Revolutionizing Healthcare – Creating better prosthetics, surgical implements, dental material even artificial organs will make healthcare not only far more innovative and affordable, it will lead to best practices and faster feedback since results and blueprints can now be sent across the world in a file. Villages and small towns will be able to benefit from the most cutting edge technology in ways not possible today.

 7. Localizing or Relocating Outsourcing – Outsourcing is basically shifting production and service centres wherever the cost of operations are the least. With 3D printing the skill of printers, designers and geographical proximity to markets may matter more than just the cost of labour at a particular place. Outsourcing hence will be based on the cost of raw materials for 3D printing, availability of skilled labour and most importantly proximity of customers. These factors are still the same considerations as today, the difference will be in the importance and weightage attached to them in the future.

Candy made using a 3D printer

8. Proof of concept Stage for Startups – Most Startups buckle under the pressure of creating a product that works, testing it in the market, collecting feedback and finally creating a better product based on that feedback. This process requires money and resources which few startups can manage. Hence the proliferation of services based startups where the initial costs are low. With 3D printing the development cycle will become shorter and cheaper leading to more breathing space and hence success for startups.

9. Food – No, this is not some flight of fancy. MIT scientists and some chefs have been able to create food from 3D printers which use edible material. Soon it will be possible to buy a Food printer for your house starting at $1000 (Rs.50,000 only). 3D printers let you control a number of variables of texture, colour, structure and even nutrition. In the future, it will be possible to make Hamburgers diet friendly by playing around with the structure of the food, Chicken burgers that are pure veg, whole wheat bread that is just right, pastas that taste Italian even though they are being ‘printed’ in Ranchi… Food which is not ‘Food’ will suddenly be the new food.

Stuff you can make at home!

10. Become a BOSS (Build Own Stuff Simply) – Now you can make whatever you want without having to learn a million complicated advanced skills. Microsoft Kinect (The Gaming Motion Sensor) may soon be equipped to hook up to a 3D printer and let you make stuff in software using your hand motions. So if your 5 year old can make a Lego City Model on the soffware, you can print it for him. Now that is awesome stuff!

Please do share what you think are the possibilities in the comments section.

After all, if we are going to collaborate on Hardware, we might as well collaborate on Thoughtware (Ideas)!

Real Value & Competition – Not among Products but Environments

Today Facebook filed for a 5 Billion $ IPO. To put this number in perspective we must convert it into INR.

Rs. 24,500 Crores (49 Rs = 1 $).

Note:  In 2009-2010, Maharashtra emerged as the state with the Highest fiscal deficit among all states at Rs. 26,562 crore (Yes The Entire of Maharashtra) 

 

Understandably this has led to hoorahs, congratulations, amazement and…. disbelief.

Disbelief because many people, including some of the shrewdest investors, do not understand how the intrinsic value of a young Social Networking site can be valued at a 100 Billion Dollars. After all, with a little less that $4 Billion in revenues last year, its valuation is an unprecedented 25X of revenues. And for a company which is 8 years old and based primarily on the sale of online ads, itself a fast changing precarious commodity, this sounds like madness. 

And it may well be, unless we understand that a major shift has happened in our world over the last decade. Though only recently visible, it always existed in principle, since the evolution of a monetary system because of its predominance in technology and how it has enveloped our lives.

This shift is of Real Sustainable Value and Competition – From Products to Environments.

When we think about competition in a corporate or capitalistic sense, we see images of Coke Vs Pepsi, GM Vs Toyota, Rin Vs Wheel, Airtel Vs Vodafone etc (For ease of understanding I have clubbed Brands and Products as one)

This is because of a number of reasons – positioning of products, market size, penetration, brand connection, loyalty, advertising etc

99% of us, especially well bred, old paradigm educated, propaganda fed students of MBA, think of today’s consumer driven competitive landscape in this way. A vast battlefield of competing logos, brands, strategies, PR activities, taglines and consumer engagement.

But that 1% realises that the paradigm has shifted, in fact they realise that the real paradigm of interest is not to win battles at the battlefield… it is to ensure direct/indirect control of the battlefield itself.

 

No, this isn’t another version of the Blue Ocean Strategy or a treatise on how to control the market with brute force, monopolistic laws or just plain illegal stuff.

I want to show how certain organizations (like facebook) and investors, have gone beyond winning battles i.e. creating better products/services than your competitors, to controlling the battlefield i.e. controlling the environment in which products are created and compete.

 

Now before I tell you how and why, can you name a class/type of organization which makes the most amount of money in the world??

Think Hard.

The answers, surprisingly, isn’t energy, though it is certainly close. It’s called ‘Governments’.

Governments across the world make a ton of money using taxation, excise, customs, surcharges, trade payments, investments etc. And how do they do this? By making laws, controlling the police and the army, collecting taxes, providing security, developing infrastructure, declaring war or peace, developing international relations etc. Basically governments make revenue by controlling the overall environment of a country. Yes, Governments do run for-profit companies, but they constitute a small portion of total revenues.

The USA, understands this and hence profits from the commerce of crude Oil. Hence, it is susceptible to jitters from its relationships to Oil Exporting Countries. Its focus on securing and stabalizing sea routes, pipelines, countries and infrastructure for oil trade is partly explained by the fact that Oil is traded in Dollars in the world’s main futures exchanges – NYMEX (New York) and the ICE (Europe). Add to this the American companies which control the technology, resources, expertise, infrastructure, connections, distribution and delivery network. What you get is a Government-Corporate complex which controls the Crude Oil Industry in the world (The Environment) without having the oil reserves, even to service its own needs.

 

But what about Facebook? It is not even close to the kind of influence and power that is exhibited by the above 2 examples. 

Well, Newsflash! It’s not just Facebook, but Google, Apple, Windows, X-Box, Salesforce, Amazon, eBay and many of the other New Age Big Boys, who were until recently scrappy startups, are all dealing in creating, maintaining, enhancing and controlling environments. They now exhibit similar influence and power in the environment they wish to control.

Facebook (FB) today controls a large chunk of a very well developed social networking environment. Today we see videos, pictures, ratings etc using the FB platform. Our networking, messages, connections, social planning is also done there. Already, millions are using FB to buy real and imaginary products, especially through social games. While the race for monetizing that fantastic data produced by FB has already begun (At the core of it, FB sells data and access to people willing to pay for it), new ventures based on FB, like selling credit cards using your profile info, insurance, offering product discounts and even selling Daal/Rice have proliferated. 

So what have they done? Facebook has created a rich environment where others can connect, profile, sell and expose their products/services to prospective customers. The real game changer here is the fact that they know enough details about you to let companies and brands target and approach you far better than previously possible. And since FB controls all the laws, rules, elements of this environment (somewhat) all it has to do, is to take care of it and take a cut from all those products fighting for market share. It is this ability that is being touted, in part, by Morgan Stanley, the lead banker for the IPO.

Google today knows and compiles most of your data online. What you searched for, how you used it, what’s happening on your gmail, what you posted on google+, which cat video was viewed on youtube, which book you searched for etc. And with the recent news of its new ‘simplified’ privacy policy, it is clear that Google is hell bent on tightening its own environment, which until recently was fairly fluid.  

The real game changer for Google is poised to be the Android OS which is currently being given out for free, simply because it promotes better and more precise search for smartphone users. Search still contributes 98% or so, of revenue to Google and it is competing head-on with Apple and now Microsoft.

All of them are fighting for control of the Smartphone OS environment simply because their reach in the market creates pressure on developers to pay them a cut, just to sell apps on those smartphones.

Amazon recently released the Kindle Fire, because it wanted to be part of the online/e-commerce environment through which it will be easier to sell since the purchase experience will be as frictionless as possible. It is notable that most analysts feel that the Kindle is being sold at either cost or lesser. Why? Because it lets Jeff Bezos control e-commerce.

 

Other notable examples like Ebay (Online marketplace and e-Commerce environment control), Windows (Desktop/Smartphone environment control), Xbox with kinect (Gaming platform, online interactive motion control environment), Apple (Hi-end Personal electronics environment control) show that the world of technology is fast moving towards a set of players who will soon control platforms or environments, in which we may be forced to operate in, simply because these platforms are established, provide access and moved in with a grand vision early on.

 

It will be some time before we can see an Indian Startup with the balls, resources and vision to control an entire environment. Only then can we truly say that we have ‘Arrived’.

Lessons from E-Cigs (Electronic Cigarettes)

This one if for all those entrepreneurs who smoke. The lessons from this recently successful product will be easier to connect with.

It’s meant for others too, but just like me, you will have to put yourself into a smoker’s shoes.

Cigarette consumption is an irrational choice and as per the understanding of classical economists, any normal person should not be consuming it. But as we know, their concept of rationality is based on prejudice and a ‘mental model’ of the world.

Every smoker will tell you that cigarettes are harmful. They blow up your lungs, give a high, increase risk of heart diseases, cancer and generally screw up your system. Thanks to new tax laws, they are also expensive. Add newly minted social norms and laws, with restrictions on smoking and you are looking at a major well-to-do section (they can afford branded cigarettes) of the middle classes feeling rather shifty.

So why would people still smoke. Habit is part of the reason but that does not explain why hundreds and thousands take it up every day.

By most accounts it is a combination of ‘the Mental’, ‘the Social’, ‘the Physical’ and ‘the Habitual’.

E-Cigs is just one of those amazing new age products which disrupt present paradigms by offering benefits relevant to today’s environment.

 

E-Cigs is basically an electronic cigarette with a battery, which looks and works like a cigarette, without the parts that make it socially and judicially unacceptable.

It doesn’t lead to second hand smoke since there is no smoke for outsiders to inhale (they claim), nicotine liquid doesn’t cause any health harm (they claim again), it still makes you carry on your oral fixation and lets you go on with life as before

Now to be sure, there are a number of states and countries who are considering, if not already enacted, a ban on these products since they are considered a drug and it is still not clear whether they do any harm to your body and mind.

 

So what are the lessons here?

1. Work on the intrinsic, physcological needs. Patches, medicines, chewing gum, will power – all of these have been tried but just like every person, we all need a crutch. For some it is smoking, others it is chocolate, tea, muffins, coffee etc. Some people just need to get over the guilt but don’t want to make that drastic shift yet… or ever. Products that are made to fulfil intrinsic rather than extrinsic needs and are hence pitched as such, are known to do better. It’s not for nothing that every pitch made by Steve Jobs about his products included the ‘sex’ they brought to that category.

2. Make it Social. Not only is this product socially acceptable, but some brands of E-Cigs vibrate when other users are around. Smokers are known to connect to other smokers. And in this small exclusive group of E-Cigs user, this can be a real conversation starter. Make sure you product can be shared in one way or another. If not the product in itself, then the benefit and if not the benefit then the information. If the information isn’t appropriate to share, just create a hook for starting conversations.

3. Play to the environment, rather than fighting it. The social/political/judicial environment created around smoking has become highly restrictive for many smokers. Many entrepreneurs find similar conditions for their products in terms of licenses and approvals. A thought process which looks at legally circumventing this environment to bring similar or better benefits to your customers is the need of the day. For E-Cigs this meant that retailers no longer had to have tobacco licenses to sell cigarettes, FDA approvals weren’t required, taxation was lower and people keep coming back to retailers for refills.  Suddenly no law applicable to smoking mattered.

4. Use your opposition to your advantage. Manufacturers have been very smart by using various articles, activists and court cases against them to publicize the positive effects of smoking E-Cigs. It’s the best free publicity possible and it made a small industry, a national phenomena. Be happy if you have people/organizations/competitors resisting your developments. Just learn how to play your shots well.

5. Managing Image. Celebrities light up all the time. Especially in Hollywood. Some manufacturers used them to start promoting these cigarettes simply by handing them out. Using Ex-Marines, War Veterans and other tough men to promote this product shed its image of being a fluffy substitute for the real thing.

6. Play the higher Goals. Don’t just sell personal benefits. Your pitch should include how the product is going to make the world a better place aka Higher Goals. e-Cigs does that by letting people know how they are making the world a healthier place and helping people kick addiction.

7. Keep innovating. When the first few variations of the e-Cigs came out, they did really badly. No one wanted them. But they kept taking customer feedback to make the product better because they knew the need existed. Our first products might be well meaning, but they almost are never perfect.

8. Roll out variants. Demand of the e-Cigs really ramped up when manufacturers came up with other flavours and concentrates. It also came out with non-nicotine variants, variants for men and women. This led to a product which was true to its core but was also broadly accepted.

9. Make Substitution Easy. The most important of all points. Cars had to do it when they wanted people to get rid of their carriages by making cars look exactly like them. So if your Target Group uses a product and you know the time for change has come, then make it easy for them.