From Pixels to Plastic
Now here’s the thing. What we’re looking at is, in the words of Tim O’Reilly,
“a future in which the creative economy overflows the thing boundary that separates the ‘information’ from ‘stuff’”
Physical prototyping is getting as easy as going home, opening Notepad and writing HTML. Going to manufacture, as Tim said in his opening talk a couple of evenings ago, is also getting accessible for small companies.
So when Generation C are dissatisfied with products, we pay attention: They—we’re getting capable of making what we want for ourselves.
And this is the issue: If I’m Nokia, or HP, or Yahoo, how do I design products for Generation C, because if I don’t then they will? Or if I’m somebody in this audience, what products do I make that do well and even compete, just like the Web let small companies compete on the same field as the old gorillas?
There are lots of possibilities for new products – new product categories even – so what do we build?
Well, that’s what this talk is about.