Makers+-+The+New+Industrial+Revolution

=Introduction = toc  In other pages – such as the Apple economy and knowledge capitalism – and their related classroom sessions we have been investigating the manner in which the contemporary business environment is changing. One of the principal shifts we have identified and discussed is from ‘atoms to bits’, or from ‘brawn to brains’. In other words, we’ve been examining some evidence on the emergence of a knowledge economy over past couple of decades, or where the management and exploitation of knowledge is the key economic driver, rather than the emphasis throughout the previous century before on the efficient manufacturing and marketing of things. What is interesting and exciting about Chris Anderson’s new book - __[|Makers: The New Industrial Revolution]__ (Random House, London, 2012) - is his contention that some of the advances in information technology and computing - all components of the knowledge economy - are now facilitating a major transformation in manufacturing. These are large enough changes to be referred to by Anderson (perhaps with some degree of hyperbole) as ‘the third industrial revolution’.

In this page, I want to outline and explore Anderson’s audacious claim. But first here’s just a few words about Anderson himself. He is editor-in-chief of [|Wired] - one of the leading magazines documenting changes in the world of information technology and computing and their impact on businesses and society. He is also the author of two other brilliant books - __The Long Tail__ (2006) and __Free__ (2010) - and a true ‘king of the geeks’, happy messing around with almost any piece of technology.



=**The History of Capitalism (According to Anderson)** =

Since Anderson is discussing an emerging third industrial revolution, it is obvious that he has in mind two other earlier revolutions. So, what are these three revolutions?

 The first industrial revolution - as some of you will remember from your history classes at school - occurred during the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The arrival of new technologies (such as the famous spinning jenny), steam power, an intellectual renaissance protected by patenting laws and the growth in international trade were some of the principal drivers for this first industrial revolution. As a consequence, productivity increased, the UK population between 1700 and 1850 tripled and average per capita income grew tenfold. A working class emerged living in slums of the new industrial cities, such as Manchester and Birmingham, and working in the ‘dark satanic mills’ (although it could be argued that their quality of life improved considerably compared to the life of their rural ancestors prior to the revolution.)

 The second industrial revolution - from about 1850 onwards - was also driven by the emergence of new technologies - chemical industries, petroleum refining, the internal combustion engine and electrification. However, at the heart of it was a transformation in work organisation, through the use of assembly lines and the of scientific management in the manufacturing of products. (Ford’s Model-T assembly line is thought to be the first use of this new template.) As with the first industrial revolution, the second revolution had a very significant impact on people’s lives, since ‘it made us richer, healthier, longer-living, and hugely more populous’.


 * [[image:ntinm2/ford-assembly-line.jpg caption="ford-assembly-line.jpg"]] ||
 * The Assembly Line at Fords ||

We are now, according to Anderson, living through the third industrial revolution. The technological drivers are, as we’ve noted before in our discussions of the knowledge economy, the extraordinary developments in information technology and the internet, which have had the effect of ‘amplifying our brain power’ (and not just ‘our muscle power’ as in the previous two revolutions.) At the beginning of this revolution these developments only had an impact - albeit large and significant - on knowledge management and communication, but the process of manufacturing things was only marginally affected by it. It is only now that these developments are having an impact on manufacturing itself. We are therefore seeing the beginning of the third industrial revolution, which will affect the making of things and not just processing of information.

=The Features of the Third Industrial Revolution =

Let’s now turn to the finer details of Anderson’s notion of the third industrial revolution. His main thesis is that during the last two decades the main driver in the business world has been about exploiting new ways of creating, inventing and cooperating provided by advances in information technology and the internet. This is what we’ve characterised as the knowledge economy and we’ve also acknowledged its profound impact on many sectors of the business world - say, publishing of the printed word, music, electronics and retail. The next decade, according to Anderson, will be characterised by inventors and entrepreneurs using these developments in information and computing to make physical things and products. Or what we’ll be seeing is ‘the digital natives starting to hunger for life beyond the screen’. This is a revolution that is only in its infancy. Anderson suggests that it’s where computing was back in the 1980s when Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were still mucking around in a garage with early computer components. But Anderson’s best guess is that it is a trend that is going to grow and expand and will, with time, have a very significant and revolutionary impact on the manufacturing sector.

 The driver of this transformation are several technological and social developments that have enabled the making of things to go digital Or, as Anderson argues:

 ‘The process of making physical staff has started to look more like the process of making digital stuff...Today, anyone with an invention or a good design can upload files to a service to have the product made, in small batches or large, or make it themselves with increasingly powerful digital desktop fabrication tools such as 3-D printers.’

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> Furthermore, these technological developments have ensured that there are relatively few barriers to entry preventing an inventor entering the market. In the past, it was almost impossible for an investor to become a manufacturer, able to exploit the invention commercially, simply because, in order to get her product to market, she would have to invest heavily in manufacturing, logistics and marketing. Now it is no longer necessary for an investor to make these investments - with a few clicks of the mouse manufacturers and distributors can be recruited to do much of the work for you. As a consequence of these developments, inventors can easily exploit their designs, or ‘would-be entrepreneurs and inventors are no longer at the mercy of large companies to manufacture their tools.’ Clearly these developments should be of great concern to more traditional manufacturers.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> Anderson points to other recent developments promoting, sustaining and facilitating the embryonic stages of this revolution:


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">**Makerspaces** - these are shared production facilities, akin to a gym where you become a member and can make use of all the facilities there. There nearly a thousand makerspaces throughout the world, including one in [|Newcastle] and [|Cambridge].
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">**Web-based marketplaces** - such as[| Etsy] - where makers can retail their products, without having to reply on more traditional marketing channels.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">**Crowdfunding** - here funding for projects is raised from investors online and inventors do not have to reply on the traditional means for raising investment capital. For example, Kickstarter - a US crowdfunding organisation - found $100m of funding for 12,000 projects in 2011.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">**3-D printers** - these printers allow an inventor to design a product online and then send the design to a printer that produces it as a physical object fabricated from whatever material you want. You could do this from a local printer you own, or from a printer in a remote location (with the final product being sent back to you.) The consequence is that an inventor ‘can set factories into motion with a mouse click’. The steady lowering price of these printers, and their increasingly availability (there’s now one based in Bristol), means that 3-D printing isn’t any longer something that sounds like that would only be found in an episode of Star Trek!

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=<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 22px; line-height: 1.5;">**The Maker Movement** =

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">According to Anderson, what is starting to emerge in this new economy are makers that collectively form what he refers to as the Maker Movement. I think that what he has in mind here is something to akin to the Hacker Movement in the 1980s and 1990s populated by all of those freethinking and inventive hackers that, in many ways, were drivers in all of the developments computing hardwares and softwares that are ubiquitous today. The shared norms and expectations of the people involved in the Maker Movement are:


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">People use digital desktop tools to create designs for new products and prototypes (this is what Anderson refers to as a ‘digital DIY’).
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">There is a cultural norm that these designs should be shared with others in online communities and people should freely collaborate in the development of products.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">People should therefore make use of open hardware. Just as open source software was a product developed collaboratively without being owned by anybody, so hardware - things - should be developed in the same way. Here makers are working collaboratively in the design of things as diverse as electronics, scientific instrumentation, architecture and agricultural tools.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Common design file standards (such as the Maker-Bot language G-code) should be since this allows anyone to send their designs to commercial manufacturing services to be produced in any number

=<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 22px;">What Does This Mean to You? =

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Even if you take Anderson’s view of the future with a pinch of salt, I think we can still accept that he outlining the shape of things to come - and the world that you’ll enter as graduates once you leave university next summer. It is therefore a world that you need to understand in order to operate effectively within it. With this in mind, here are some questions you might want to ask about this new environment:


 * 1) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Does Anderson’s picture ring true? Does it correspond with your own observations of the changing business world?
 * 2) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Given the relative ease now of entering the market as an inventor, are you encouraged to do so?
 * 3) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">What skills do you think are essential to prosper in this new environment?
 * 4) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Due to earlier changes in computing and internet some businesses - say, publishing and the music industry - have struggled to adapt and survive. If you are a traditional manufacturing business, should you be concerned about the developments identified by Anderson? Are you able to defend your current position?