by Wendy Bryan, Senior Advisor New Media
Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Employment and
Ministry of Research and Innovation
The Canadian Digital Media network threw a fantastic Canada 3.0 conference recently. Their opening keynote was Chris Anderson, the former editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, now CEO of 3D Robotics, and Founder of DIY Drones.
Chris spoke passionately on the digital manufacturing revolution. “We’re now where desktop publishing was in 1985; we’re now doing the same thing with manufacturing that we did with publishing. It is as easy to make physical things now as it is to publish a blog post . ‘Manufacture’ has become a button on your browser” (like “publish” now is).
Just as the industrial revolution replaced muscle power with machine power, and then the digital revolution give us the democratizing power of the Internet, now goes the digital manufacturing movement, or the “maker movement.” And he believes strongly that we have a richer culture because of it.
Among the provocative things he said was that “the act of consumption has become an act of creation. With your cell phone and the right app, you can have a 3D scanner in your hand. You can make anything.” Yup, today, we’re all industrial designers. Pretty exciting stuff!
In fact, he has a 3D printer at home. He told us a wonderful story of his kids going online to get open source furniture design plans from a Broadway set designer, and 3D printing their own perfectly-sized custom-built doll house furniture that they then painted in their choice of colour—instead of paying $35 for some ill-fitting standard issue piece at a store. How cool is that?
It made me want to go out immediately and purchase a 3D digital printer — which now run for about $1,000 — for my family to experiment with! Do you remember when you bought your first desktop computer? Mine was a very early Mac — for about $1,000.
Chris’s point was that we’ve invented a new innovation model. And as things become digital, they automatically become collaborative.
I had a few minutes to sit down one-on-one with Chris and took the opportunity to ask his best advice for entrepreneurs and innovators. And as you might expect, it was thought-provoking.
His Best Advice for Entrepreneurs
I am sorry to be so cliché, but just do it! It has never been easier to experiment. Publish, create, prototype, manufacture. Tools are easier, cheaper. The services are all available. Open source, blah blah blah, it’s all out there. There is nothing stopping the leap from idea to realization. You don’t need venture capital. You don’t need to start a company and you don’t need to register paperwork. Just do it, and build them now.
The Best advice He Ever Received
The best advice I have gotten has always been life advice. I have a board member — and he is a very accomplished entrepreneur — but his main bit of advice to me and the team is to take pictures of everything, document our journey. Someday we’ll look back at these moments. People always tell you to live in the moment, appreciate the moment, but there is nothing like dignifying a moment by taking a picture of it, or a video that causes everyone to reflect on the import; this is a magic thing we’re doing and if you document it, it feels more magical.
Another bit of advice I got from Nassim Taleb the author. He said only receive news in the social context. Don’t watch television, don’t read newspapers, don’t go to news sites. Only receive news when somebody tells you about it. Someone you trust. So that could be face-to-face or it could be in the social media context . But I only read stories that somebody I trust has pointed me to. And as a result, two wonderful things happened. First of all, the news only comes to me via people I trust and second of all, it matters enough to them to tell me. And all the noise and nonsense goes away. And it becomes a much more positive view of the world. So if something bad happens I’ll hear about it, but by and large its stuff that really matters in the end to the people I care about the most. And I am oblivious to the nonsense that distracts many of us.
If you want more information you can visit check out Chris’s new book Makers: The New Industrial Revolution
His Twitter: chr1sa
Our Twitter: @ontinnovation
