99% user generated Content - have a critical short coming - Nobody gives a damn about them. User generated content has value only to those who create it. Here lies a paradigm of ” value” that we do not yet understand - which may hold the key to some important issues in the economics user generated products.

Last weekend, my kid was invited to a birthday party - at Build a Bear, a company that I had heard so much about, so this was a chance to check it out.  What I saw opened my eyes - to a new value paradigm.

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Co-Creation is bound to move from its current status of an observed phenomena into a main stream phenomena as many established companies recognize its value.  The forthcoming MIT Conference on smart customization will be discussing the top 20 companies, representing a wide range of activities and attempts at customization. All of them have overcome considerable difficulties that will be shared at this conference. These valuable lessons will soon be learnt, making it easier for other companies to do the same.

It seems that the first phase of customization/co-creation is  now firmly in place. These represent 1st degree customization where the companies set out the intentions and created successful environments for co-creation and customization.

What is next ? I like to call this 2nd degree customization - it  is when the intent itself is co-created. The out comes here are far less predictable and the challenges are phenomenally  greater. I have chosen 3 companies that are after  this holy grail.

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Co-creation is a new word. It is not even listed in wordcount which tracks and ranks words. The word customization  ranks as  61716 most used word  (did not know that I knew 60,000 words).

Now, this word Co-Creation is clearly new. Who created this word ?  Was it  co-created ?

Aren’t all the words we use co-created ? Isn’t Jazz co-created ? It seems that co-creation has been with us for a very long time, longer than customization, but no body seemed to have bothered to give it a name. No body seemed to have noticed it. Perhaps there was no need for such a meaningless word, as everything that was created was co-created.

I first heard the word “Co-Creation” speaking to folks at Philips Design about some of the Second Life technologies we are developing. Philips Design’s pioneering efforts in this area is something that I keenly follow in  Second Life.

Customization seems to be a more useful word, but is often confused with co-creation. The difference between the two was discussed by  Dew Hendriks

For me, co-creation is directly correlated to customization.  To the extent that the company and the customer share in the production, is the extent that it is co-created.  If the customer were allowed complete freedom to design independently of the company, then is would no longer be co-creation but simply creation.  For co-creation to exists there has to be some level of customization of pre-existing ideas, tools, etc., otherwise you just have creation.

So, Co-Creation seems to imply a shared production platform with pre-existing ideas, tools, etc. But then isn’t that the same as customization ? so what then is the difference ?

A much more comprehensive view is presented by Real Networks - Co-Creation as a spectrum, based on:

1. Who controls the process
2. Who is involved
3. Who benefits
4. What is the legacy

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Jeffe Bezos rightly points out :

Before long, “user-generated content” won’t refer only to media, but to just about anything: user-generated jeans, user-generated sports cars, user-generated breakfast meals. This is because setting up a company that designs, makes and globally sells physical products could become almost as easy as starting a blog - and the repercussions would be earthshaking.

- in conversation with Kevin Maney USA today

This is already happening. Genometri is working on some of the technologies that will take this much further. The prosumer economy is taking shape as the result of convergence of 3 major phenomena.

1. Online Content Creation

2. Mass Customization

3. Social Networking

This is bound to change the nature of products. How they are conceived, created and consumed. This is already happening.

Cuusoo Design based in Japan is one of the first companies to crowd source designs and tie up with manufacturers to make consumer created products. Ponoko is another excellent example of a new network of designers, fabricators and consumers opening up very interesting possibilities. Philips recently Launched Shapeways aiming to crowd source product possibilities to be fabricated using rapid prototyping technologies.

There are other well known companies that are based on 2d Printing technologies Zazzle, CafePress, Threadless and SpreadShirt and a lot more are in the making.These companies are the beneficiaries of Direct Digital Printing (DDP) - which now account for over hundred products. Etsy is an excellent example of the rapid growth in user created (handcrafted) products - fueled by the growing disinterest in mass manufactured commodities at the tail end of the industrial revolution.

A more interesting phenomenon is Open Sourced Products. OpenMoko is an excellent example of this. Open sourcing products - is inevitable as consumers become the primary contributors in the creation of the product.

Prof.Von Hippel from the Sloan School MIT had identified long time ago the source of many true innovations - the users. So users have been shaping products from the very beginning. The web brings in a new new dynamic to this, empowering users to directly shape what they want.

So far, we have seen user generated digital content in the form of blogs, videos and artwork. Quite a few companies that built successful businesses by printing such content onto real world products. We are now beginning to see more complex user generated 3D products being made possible by 3D printing technology.

Fabidoo - launched July 2007

JuJups - launched Dec 2007

shapeways - launched Aug 2008

So then, ” user generated everything ” seem to have got started.

This blog is about the design technologies that are helping to shape the way things are concieved, designed and made in a connected environment.