[via Kottke] One of my favourite reads, The Economist, has an article — The Rise of the Creative Consumer — with ideas that I plan to use in my own role as the Tucows Developer Relations Guy…
LAST November, engineers in the healthcare division of General Electric (GE) unveiled something called the “LightSpeed VCT”,
a scanner that can create a startlingly good three-dimensional image of
a beating heart. This spring Staples, an American office-supplies
retailer, will stock its shelves with a gadget called a “wordlock”, a
padlock that uses words instead of numbers. In Munich, meanwhile,
engineers at BMW have begun prototyping
telematics (combining computing and telecoms) and online services for a
new generation of luxury cars. The connection? In each case, the firm’s
customers have played a big part (GE, BMW) or the leading role (Staples) in designing the product.
How does innovation happen? The familiar story involves boffins in academic institutes and R&D labs.
But lately, corporate practice has begun to challenge this
old-fashioned notion. Open-source software development is already
well-known. Less so is the fact that Bell, an American bicycle-helmet
maker, has collected hundreds of ideas for new products from its
customers, and is putting several of them into production. Or that
Electronic Arts (EA), a maker of computer games,
ships programming tools to its customers, posts their modifications
online and works their creations into new games. And so on. Not only is
the customer king: now he is market-research head, R&D chief and product-development manager, too.
And in case you needed proof, here’s the press release from the office of New…
The saying is doubly true for anyone who works under Florida Governor Ron DeSantis: “No…
This recent article in the New York Times [it’s a gift link, you’ll be able…