Mass Customization & Open Innovation News

MC2012: 10th Edition of Our German-language MC Community Conference: Profiting from Customer Integration

Note: This conference will be held in German language. Find much more info in German language here.

On June 28/29, the German speaking mass customization community will again assemble in the city of fine arts, Salzburg, Austria, for the MC2012, the 10th edition of our German-language mass customization and co-creation community meeting. 

Created and organized by my dear collegues Dominik Walcher (University of Applied Sciences, Salzburg) and Paul Blažek (founder/ CEO of cyLEDGE and initiator of the Configurator Database) as well as myself, this edition will be all about strategies to profit from customer integration of various kinds. 

The conference will be heading off on Thursday, 28th of June with an intensive workshop conducted by Dominik Walcher and Paul Blažek on principles and practical application of MC and OI. Following the demonstration of the concepts by use of numerous case studies, participants will be invited to and assisted in practicing their newly gained knowledge by employing it on a chosen real life case. This workshop is especially interesting for those not very firm with the MC concept yet and can be booked individually from the second conference day (29th)

On the following day, Friday 29th, the main event will take place in the halls of the University of Applied Knowledge of Salzburg.

Divided into seven panels we will (try to) cover all main aspects of (applied) Mass Customization and Open Innovation. Each panel will consist of presentations by three to four experts from science and business with a strong stressing of professional practicioners from successful MC companies. The will share some of their knowledge, experiences and invaluable tips & tricks on the topics of

• Brands
• New media
• Startups
• Retail and
• Configurators

While these are the main topics, other aspects of successful MC/ OI employment will be part of the presentations as well. As you can see the conference will adress a broad range of aspects to be considered when setting up or expanding one's own innovation strategy, ranging from the underlying design to technical realization, creating a successful brand around the business and finally get customers to actually buy the product. 

In addition, we are also organizing an exhibition with numerous MC companies demonstrating their offering.If you are interested in presenting your (MC/ OI/ Co- Creation related) company or institution as part of the exhibition, just send an email to Dominik Walcher for more information on free ehibition space and the possibility to become a conference sponsor with special ways to present yourself.

Special offer:

• Early bird conference rate: Use the early bird ticket offer until the 31st of May.
• MC2012-MC500 Bundle: Get the MC 500 study at a special reduced price. Please do contact Dominik Walcher to inquire about this special offer as well!

In some upcoming posts, we will present the individual panels and speakers in more detail, so stay tuned.

I would be glad to meet you all in person there and discuss the latest development and future perspectives of MC and OI in person! All further info on the MC 2012 conference website.

Winners Announced: Idea Bird Contest by Deutsche Telekom came to a Conclusion

Some weeks ago I posted about Ideabird, q large scale ideation contest on M2M-Communication hosted by Deutsche Telekom, Deloitte, Hyve and RWTH Aachen. Last Friday, the jury decided on the winning ideas. 

As you may remember, the contest's intend was to to create awareness for the positive effects that M2M applications can have for life, work and society and to stimulate innovation across industries. By gathering opinions and ideas from a broad base of creative participants and challenging them with a scientific point of view, future fields of research within this area were to be identified.

Participation was far beyond any prediction with several hundreds of submissions being sent in, despite the rather specific topic of this contest. Another great example that idea contests can reach and activate a really large audience, even if the questions asked would at first glance indicate a rather closed (small) community of experts.

Picking the very best out of the large number of really innovative, sometimes easy-yet-brilliant ideas was really no simple task. After long and intense consideration, confering and discussion we finally decided to award the three first prices (third was a split, just could not decide...) to the following ideas which we deem really really interesting:

1st Price ($5000)

Emergency triangle

The Submission: The idea is to incorporate an chip in the emergency tringles, alerting other drivers to the dangers they will encounter on the road.
How it works?

When the car has a breakdown or accident on the road is required to signal the Occurrence to other drivers. When mounting the triangle on the road, he activates a chip that transmits a warning signal by GSM to your Gps device on car or other alert system. The signal has a radius of 1 km, to not create confusion to drivers. Simple to apply, low cost and very useful for ensuring security in regional roads with low visibility.

Jury Statement: "The Emergency Triangle convinced us because it is a unique and innovative idea with the goal of increasing safety on the streets. It's a typical product, which everybody knows, and at the same time the idea offers a new and very concrete benefit that only becomes possible through M2M. Therefore it fits perfectly to the contest. The potential for such a solution is also huge - it may be placed in cars by manufacturers or offered as a valuable present for clients."

2nd Price ($3000)

M2M Remote Parking Disc

The Submission: In many countries parking discs are a common way to for authorities to see how long a car parks on a short term parking spaces. For example in germany there are parking lots where you are only allowed to stay for 90min.
Everybody has made this experience: One coffee too much in Saturdays shopping fever, overslept maximum parking time, got a ticket.

The idea is a parking disc which is controlled by a mobile phone or smartphone. When parking you send a sms or datapush by your smartphone to set the time - for example: 90min - the parking disc sets the wheel on the right time. After 85min the parking disc sends a SMS with a warning, so you have enough time to get back to the car, without getting a ticket.

Extra function: When the parking-disc is in "parking-mode" but suddenly moves (changes GPS coordinates) you get a warning, that your car might have been stolen. So actually the parking disc is also a alarm system for your car.

Jury Statement: "The Remote Parking Disk is the most innovative gimmick we have seen in the contest. It provides great help in our everyday life, fits perfectly to the contest and inspires many other applications. "

3rd Price (Split decision, $1000 each)

#1: Pizzatracker - where is my pizza?

The Submission: What a nice benefit: You know exactly when your ordered pizza will arrive!!!

Often the pizza supplier says: "....in approximately 30 minutes you will get your pizza". This could be 20, 25, 30 or e.g. 40 minutes. Nobody knwos it exactly, the answer knows only the wind.

With a tracking-code, which is given during the order-call, the customer gets a self-service possibility to trace the delivery and knows exactly when it will arrives. A delivery tracker would be a new service for the customer and therefore a unique feature compared to other delivery services: The communication in advertising!

Advantages:
- use the delivery time very effective for other doings - you are flexible
- you will get nervous until reach the 30-minutes-border: now you are safe, that the pizza service haven`t forgot the order
- the acitvation on suppliers website will increase
- process costs will decrease
- new and innovative communcation opoortunities

Jury Statement: "The Pizza Tracker addresses an interesting business by providing an innovative M2M-based solution to industrialized delivery services. It may fascinate customers of these services who probably like using online tools, and could boost service quality to a new level. It also provides great benefits to the service provider as an excellent tool for differentiation. "

#2: Modern Hide & Seek

The Submission: The idea is to modernize tradition game of Hide & Seek and bring kids back to playgrounds. We are all witnesses of today's kids behavior of mostly playing games in front of computer monitors and spending most of their time in front of it. This idea aims to change such unhealthy behavior by upgrading the game of Hide & Seek to 21st century standards.

Product would consists of bracelet/receiver with display.
Bracelet would have two basic functions:
- send location signal;
- receive location signal;
Traditional game of Hide & Seek is mostly static, but with idea of bracelet locator it could become more intense.
Hiding players would be allowed to move around predetermined territory making game more interesting.
Bracelets would also have delay setting so if you want to make the game a little bit harder, you would just set higher value for delay signal (15 seconds for example).

Additionally parents could download dedicated app to their smart phones and watch location of their children at any time.

Jury Statement: "With the help of M2M, Modern Hide & Seek brings one of the most popular children's games into the age of geocaching. It thereby allows bunch of new rules - really the next generation of Hide & Seek. "

These and more submissions as well as the lively community interaction can also be seen on the official contest website.

Congratulations to all winners! Even if your idea did not make it to the top three (four...), thank you very much for your participation! As said, picking the winners was an extremely tough, close decision and I really look forward to your ideas in one of the upcoming idea contests (that I will keep you up to date on in this blog)!

Open Service Innovation: BOSCH Launches OI Community Dedicated to Auto Mechanic Services

Bosch, one of the world's leading suppliers for (professional and personal) electronics and tools, has taken another interesting step in opening their innovation process. 

Bosch is not a new player in this field, already providing a general idea plattform where you can both submit solutions to specific problems and get the chance to send in and present your very own revolutionary idea for the next big product (enhancement). 

Now Bosch has taken things one step further. Seeing how automotive componentes and electronics are a major branch of their business they decided to go where problem-knowledge and improvement-ideas are most likely to be found: with the professional employer of Bosch's tool, the mechanic. 

In light of this realization, Bosch has recently launched the Bosch Open Innovation Plattform, specifically dedicated to professional garages and their employees. 

The concept of this community (which is so far in German language only) is twofold: The core-piece is a forum where professionals can discuss problems they may encounter during their work with Bosch's tools as well as exchange tips and tricks with colleagues from all over the nation (and the world, provided they understand German). Dedicated Bosch staff is also present on these forums so a direct interaction with company representatives is possible.

Next to this the plattform features an "Idea" section in which users (upon free registration) can submit their ideas about product enhancements and new solutions that they deem helpful/ necessary to better employ the company's products in "real life". Browsing through already submitted ideas is possible without registration. And of course you can submit ideas on how to improve the plattform itself (there even is an own section for this topic). 

A complementary "News" section is used by the company to transmit additional information deemed valuable for their target group. 

So far Bosch's concept seems to be rather successful with 400+ registered users and already 72 submitted ideas as of today, ranging from improved knowledge databases to concrete improvements of software provided by Bosch. It will be very interesting to observe where this communty of experts will go and which concrete outcomes it will produce. In any case a very good example of open innovation employment beyond "just" putting another idea website out there and wait. 

Executive Training: The Customer Centric Organization - three perspectives to profit from the fact that all people are different

Today I would like to inform you all about an intensive workshop that my colleagues Fabrizio Salvador and Martin Boehm as well as myself will be conducting at IE Business School in the beautiful city of Madrid, Spain. Three days dedicated to one of the most contributing factors in building and running a successful business: Putting the customer's desires first.  

Building a Customer-Centric Organization
Outperforming your Competition in Profitability 

June 18th - 20th, 2012
IE Business School, Madrid, Spain

Building a Customer-Centric Organization is a challenging three-day international executive program designed to help executives turn their customer's heterogeneous needs into an opportunity for value creation through the development of concrete capabilities applicable to any organizational setting by evaluating three fundamental aspects within their firms:

• Their customer base
• The state of their competition and 
• The technological capabilities and innovation mindset available to them.

The stagnation of consumption and the proliferation of highly heterogeneous and diverse customer needs are forcing executives today to refocus their product and service portfolios and respond to their client’s needs or risk losing them to the competition.

Yet, for any organization to be able to manage this changing dynamic all aspects of the business must be aligned with the goal of understanding customers, revamping their product and service offerings to match the target customer-value proposition, while redesigning organizational culture, incentives systems and processes accordingly.

Today’s executives must develop a holistic view of the principles around which organizations can redesign themselves to tap into the benefits of customer-centricity and gain insight into the issues and solutions associated to such vast organizational change processes.

Participants will develop a sound understanding of how to:

• Analyze the impact of customer centricity on revenues, profitability and growth. 
• Understand the organizational implications of customer-centric strategies and the changes that need to be made.
• Structure their organization by customer segments that establish ownership of the customer experience.
• Delight their customers by delivering value propositions that competitors cannot match.
• Achieve customer satisfaction by understanding and adapting to customer needs rapidly and efficiently.
• Identify and exploit all customer channels.
• Measure customer value for long-term profitability.
• Implement a customer-focused culture within their organization.
• Innovate by improving the value propositions offered to customers.

Additional information about this executive  program, a detailed schedule and all important registration data can be found on the workshop website (courtesy of IE Business School). I'm looking forward to discuss these challenging concepts with you in person in Madrid!

Participate at Idea Contest: Brining the Walking Frame (Rollator) into the Future

Our German readers can find a German version of this post here.

Mobility is one of the key requirements for maintaining an independent lifestyle up until a high age. Today, most seniors are able to depend on themselves - as more than 90% of all 65-years olds live under their own roof in good health.

But what happens, when leaving home, to go shopping or to meet with friends, is getting increasingly difficult with a higher age? What if somebody’s mobility declines, even though he or she does not depend on help permanently?

A small daily help in such situations can be a walking frame. In Germany, there are almost two million walking frames in use, with a yearly selling rate of another 500.000 pieces.

Unfortunately, not all of these are as fancy and safe as one would wish. Furthermore, the German consumer protection agency Stiftung Warentest found insufficiencies regarding stability and safety of walking frames tested last year.

But what could the superstar of walking frames look like? It has to be handy and safe, yet also has to incorporate personal desires concerning the design and accessories to overcome it's still somewhat dusty image.

To find answers to these questions, German League of Seniors, in cooperation with partners from both the business and academic world and sponsored by the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, has initiated a large-scale idea contest to improve the famous walking aid. 

In the context of the idea contest “Stil:sicher unterwegs”, everybody is asked to give their input on how to improve the walking frame.

If you want to be on the team for developing completely new and innovative solutions for the walking frame of the future, here is your chance! May it be a GPS-assisted emergency notification system, an attached reading aid or a built-in minicomputer that helps to identify (individually) tolerable food: the only limit is your imagination. 

On the project homepage you can find more detailed information on the contest and the process of turning in your own ideas. Submissions are open until June 15th, 2012. You can also view and comment on already submitted ideas. Afterwards, a panel of experts will decide on the winning ideas which will be presented to interested companies and institutions and hopefully make it into future products. 

So, what is your idea (incremental or wild) to bring the walker /rollator into the future? Submit it here!

PS: The modern walker, the Rollator, of course itself is a lead user innovation, invented by the Swede Aina Wifalk in 1978, herself a polio sufferer.

Featured Research: New Forms of Collaborative Innovation and Production on the Internet

In my series of featured research on open innovation and mass customization, today I would like to present you a book (also availible as free downloadable pdf) published by my colleagues Volker Wittke and Heidemarie Hanekop (Goettingen University). They present an interdisciplinary view on the effects of broad (online) collaboration on innovation and production.

New Forms of Collaborative Innovation and Production on the Internet

By Volker Wittke and Heidemarie Hanekop (Editors)

Published byUniversitätsverlag Göttingen, 2011, ISBN 978-3-86395-020-0

Availible for free download and hardcover purchase at Universitätsverlag Göttingen

 

The Internet has enabled new forms of large-scale collaboration. Voluntary contributions by large numbers of users and co-producers lead to new forms of production and innovation, as seen in Wikipedia, open source software development, in social networks or on user-generated content platforms as well as in many firm-driven Web 2.0 services.

In their book, editors Volker Wittke and Heidemarie Hanekop take a nuanced look at the (online) collaboration landscape, presenting a collection of papers contributed by international scholars from sociology, management research, economics, and law. Complemented by a number of very interesting case studies, this book provides a good (academic) overview on the "big picture" of online-based collaboration in innovation and production.

Large-scale collaboration on the Internet is an intriguing phenomenon for scholarly debate because it challenges well established insights into the governance of economic action, the sources of innovation, the possibilities of collective action and the social, legal and technical preconditions for successful collaboration. Although contributions to the debate from various disciplines and fine-grained empirical studies already exist, there has been a lack of an interdisciplinary approach. This is exactly where this book provides great value -- and as it is open access and free for download, it may serve as a good starting point for the debate.

Note: For more books on open innovation, co-creation, and corwdsourcing, head to the Knowledge Base of my website.

Featured Companies from the MC500 (Part 3): Selve - women's best friend

In our series of postings introducing companies that performend very well in our Customization 500 study, we are introducing the next mass customizer. Remember:  The order of these feature postings is more or less randomly!

 

Today: Women's best friend, custom shoe supplier SELVE.

Feet are by far not as standardized as the shoe industry would like them to be. Neither is the individual customer's taste in shape, color and details. Until a decade ago the only way to obtain shoes that do both fit perfectly and look exactly as one wants them to, was to take a rather pricy trip to the cobbler. Selve went new ways with their offer to tailor shoes, custom built to the client's demands in individual size and look, shipped to your doorstep after a convenient visit at www.selve.net. (even if most customers prefer to visit their store in Munich or London for a personal consultation and foot scan).

More info: Selve's chairwoman Claudia Kieserling will be telling more about the selve-concept at this year's edition of the GERMAN Mass Customization Meeting, the MC2012, helt on the 29th of june in Salzburg, Austria.

 

Note: Please see this post for detailed information on how to interpret the above data.

APMS 2012: International Conference on Advances in Production Management Systems has two special sessions on Mass Customization

The international conference on "Advaces in Production Management Systems" (APMS) goes into its 8th iteration in 2012. This year the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) has dedicated the event to the main topic of Competitive Manufacturing for Innovative Products and Services.  

Next to many topics going far beyond pure production management there will also be a number of special sessions. Amongst those, two are especially interesting for mass customization researchers: 

• Manufacturing and Supply Chain in a Mass Customization Enviroment and
• Design for Mass Customized Products and Services.

The organizers are still accepting papers for these and other special sessions so if you have some interesting research to share, submissions can still be sent in until May 15th. More information on the submission process and relevant dates can be found here. 

Even if you do not want to turn in any paper of yours, visiting the conference might be interesting if your field of work/ research is anywhere near innovative products and services manufacturing. The event will be helt in Rhodes Island, Greece on 24.-26. of September, 2012.

Open Local Innovation: Engage the ISPIM 2012 participants to solve your challenge in managing innovation

Did you like the concept of our second problem conference in Québec but can not participate for one reason or another?

Here is another (free) opportunity -- and you also can get help in solving one of your problems of managing innovation in your company. 

As part of the upcoming ISPIM conference (one of the largest European conferences on innovation management), we are hosting a special workshop to simulate a "problem conference" in 1.5 hours.

The idea is simple:

• Instead of telling everyone in a conference talk how good you are, you share a current challenge from your innovation management process.
• Participants (i.e. experts from around the world in innovation management) then will engage in a 1 hour life problem solving exercise to jointly develop a solution (solution ideas) for your challenge -- practicing "open local innovation".
• This workshop is modeled after our very successful event in Quebec called "Quebec Seeks Solutions", where people engage in a similar approach to solve technical R&D problems (see http://www.quebec-solutions.com) -- it worked perfectly (to my own surprise)!

 

      Click to enlarge

For details and additional information please see: http://ispim.seeks-solutions.com 

The workshop, led by Jean-Sébastien Bouchard (Grisvert), Christophe Deutsche (ISPIM & Telops), and myself will take place on Tuesday, June 19, in Barcelona. 

Interesting problems can be submitted until May 24th, free of charge (all you have to do is to register to the normal ISPIM conference, http://conference.ispim.org, to participate once your challenge has been selected).

I am looking forward to a great workshop and really hope to meet and discuss with you all in person there!

Event: Québec Seeks Solutions. On May 15-16, the Problem Conference goes into its second edition in Québec City

A while ago I posted about the second edition of "Québec seeks solutions", a unique problem solving conference hosted by Québec International and partners. Back then, companies were invited to turn in interesting challenges they are facing in their actual operations and which they did not find a satisfying solution for so far.When the deadline was reached, ten very interesting problems could be chosen to be the object of collaborative solution-finding during the conference.

Amongst them are challenges that every innovative company faces sooner or later, such as the question how to effectively and efficiently identify the individual knowledge of employees in large organizations or new ways to foster inter-company collaboration.

Now these Problems await their challengers. Everybody interested in solving real Problems for real Companies and  having the chance to network with innovation experts from around the world is invited to join the conference. The event will be hosted on the 15th and 16th of May, 2012 in the beautiful setting of Quebec City in Canada.

Just like in Dev 2010,we expect two days of very productive workshopping. Although it was hosted for the first time, the results of the 2010 edition have proven the concept. 

When surveyed about 4 months after the conference, 90% of the seeking companies have stayed in contact with people met during the event. Even after 10 months, 50%  were actively working on solutions suggested during the event and continued to collaborate with partners met there. All participating companies have expressed their interest to participate in another edition of the conference for both the high concentration of excellent innovators and the opportunities to connect to potential partners from all branches.

            Exemplary company, rated perceived impact of their participation

Registration is open now, detailed information can be found here. I'm looking forward to meet you there in person!

Also: There will be a special workshop for everyone who would like to host a "Problem conference" in their own local community!

Event: "Introduction to the IMP³rove Approach“ in Duesseldorf, Germany on May 15-16, 2012

The IMP³rove - consortium, an independent spinn-off from  A.T. Kearney, seeks to establish effective innovation management in small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) since its foundation as part of a project founded by the European Commission in 2007.  

With an integrated approach consisting of the four stages assessment - training - networking and research, SME are supported in their strive for a better overall innovation ability and management capability. 

The programme of the IMP³rove –European Innovation Management Academy is designed mainly for Innovation Management professionals and for certification as IMP³rove Consultant.

For those interested about this great opportunity to get innovation assistance from some of the leading experts in the field, the IMP³rove Team has announced their next entrance seminar
"Introduction to the IMP³rove Approach“ in Duesseldorf, Germany on May 15-16, 2012.

The course will cover the following topics:

• The holistic IMP3rove approach to Innovation Management

• The IMP3rove benchmarking process

• The IMP3rove platform and services for professional

  support providers

• Preparing for a successful IMP3rove feedback workshop with SMEs 

For more information about course structure and organizational details please see the official information sheet which you can download here. More information about IMP3rove on the project homepage.

 

New Blog Series: Featured Companies from the MC500 (Part 2): Converse.com

In our series of postings introducing companies that performend very well in our Customization 500 study, we are introducing the next mass customizer. Remember:  The order of these feature postings is more or less randomly!

 

Today: Street Style Classic Converse.com

 

Founded in Massachusetts in 1908 and today a subsidiary of global producer of sport goods Nike, Converse allows consumers to create footwear with an absolutely distinctive style. Originally designed as basketball shoes (and still to day worn by some NBA superstars in their games), the converse sneaker was one of the early products in this category that can be customized by every consumer. 

 

Note: Please see this post for detailed information on how to interpret the above data. 

New Blog Series: Featured Companies from the MC500 (Part 1): Mymuesli.com

The Customization 500 is the world's most comprehensive benchmark study of online configuration and mass customization offerings. In a new series of weekly postings, we will introduce some of companies that our expert evaluators pointed out as best in class. The order of these feature postings is more or less randomly! We will try to introduce different industries among the following weeks.

 

Today: Custom Food Specialist my muesli.com

 

Today's featured company is mass customization pioneer mymuesli.com. Established in 2007, the German company offers it's customers to create their very own mix of cereals from 80+ ingredients. There is likely a fitting mixture for everybody in the about 566 quadrillion possible combinations. After a strong growth just from the beginning, company has been developing very well in the last years. Recently, they installed the world's largest automatic muesli mixing machine.

 

Note: How are these figures to be interpreted?

We used more than 40 parameters to evaluate the state and design features of each toolkit in our study:

This objective data was then matched with the performance outcome of the toolkit, i.e. the perception of our trained experts of the configurator.

For this evaluation, we used five criteria to measure the performance of a configuration toolkit in our sample:

• Visual Realism was measured by means of one question “How realistic do you assess the visualization of the configuration process?”
• To measure usability, the evaluators were asked to rate: "The configurator is (1) intuitively usable, (2) user-friendly as well as (3) clearly and (4) logically structured".
• The creativity factor consisted of two items: "(1) The website gave me a lot of freedom", and "(2) I could give my creativity free rein while designing the product".
• To determine enjoyment, the experts had to rate: "The configuration was (1) fun, (2) delight, (3) pleasure, (4) entertaining and (5) interesting".
• To assess uniqueness following statements had to be evaluated: "My created product (1) is unique, (2) is different, (3) helps me to differentiate; and (4) no one else has such a product."

Interested in more? Here is more information about the Customization 500 (and the option to order the full study now so that you do not have to wait for 41.6 years to read all profiles).

Featured Research: From Social Media to Social Product Development: The Impact of Social Media on Co-Creation of Innovation

For our series of featured research on open innovation and mass customization, today -- in another act of shameless self-promotion -- a new paper from our group at RWTH Aachen University in which we discuss the impact of social media on co-creation of innovation.

From Social Media to Social Product Development: The Impact of Social Media on Co-Creation of Innovation

By Frank Piller, Alexander Vossen, Christoph Ihl (RWTH Aachen University)

Published in: Die Unternehmung - Swiss Journal of Business Research and Practice, Volume 66, No 1 (March 2012), pp. 7-26.  Free download at nomos.de

 

In this paper, my fellow researchers Alexander Vossen and Christoph Ihl discuss with me the impact of social media on customer co-creation in the innovation process.

Customer cocreation denotes an active, creative and social collaboration process between producers and customers (users), facilitated by a company, in the context of new product or service development. We propose a typology of co-creation activities in order to develop conceptual arguments how social media can impact the relationships among customers involved in co-creation as well as the relationship between customers and the hosting firm.

Interestingly, the impact of social media on customer co-creation may be two-sided: Social media can make economic- exchange relations more collaborative and social, but may also turn relations formerly based on social-exchange into “money markets” with strong competition among actors.

As a result of this paradox, we develop a set of questions that can lead future research in these regards. Read the article for our full argument.

Invitation: The Personal Economy - Free Seminar Talk at MIT Media Lab. April 10, 2pm

Great chance for anyone in the Boston area to reconnect!

THE PERSONAL ECONOMY: From Custom Sneakers to Personalized Medicine
A strategic framework to turn heterogeneous customer needs from a thread into a huge profit opportunity

MIT Smart Customization Group Seminar Series

2-4pm, Tuesday, April 10, 2012
New MIT Media Lab (E14), 6th floor Lecture Theatre

Location: http://whereis.mit.edu/?go=E14 (street parking is very limited)

What started with customized jeans, personalized sneakers, and engineer-to-order machine tools has become the core element of disruptive industry development: personalization and customization of products and services. Credit card contracts are being customized to a consumer's spending profile, broadcasted radio changes to a media stream fitting just our mood and preferences, blockbuster drugs are being replaced by personalized medicine based on real time data tracking, and instead of a "world car" we just buy mobility when we need it where we need it how we need it.

But what are the fundamental elements of a successful mass customization enterprise? Over the past decade, we have studied mass customization in more than 200 different organizations. Recently, we finalized the MC500, the world's largest benchmarking study of mass customization companies in the consumer goods industries. We found that mass customization is a strategic mechanism that is applicable to most businesses, provided that it is appropriately understood and deployed.

To do so, we have identified three core capabilities that allow companies to profit from mass customization: robust process design, choice navigation and solution space definition.  This presentation will use a mix of case studies and empirical data from the ongoing MC500 research initiative to show the relationships between these capabilities and their impact on firm performance. We will comment on implications of our research for entrepreneurs, managers in established companies, investors and VCs, and for future scholarly research.

The seminar talk is a free public event -- just stop by!