Manufacturing vs. Design

 

Mark Tomlinson, Exec Director & GM of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers proposes that economic recovery should really be about supporting the making things instead of supporting unproductive financial services.

We tend to agree, with a few caveats. Certainly there always must be manufacturing (or physical services) present at the base of the economy, otherwise what would financial derivative products be based on?

But we feel there is definitely a role for financial services, if nothing else to provide a means for smoothly moving capital from investors to new or expanded manufacturing ventures. Without this flow of capital, many companies simply could not expand or even start up.

But sketchy financial services of the type provided by the failed investment houses or Bernie Madoff are not the kind required by any investor.

The desktop 3D printing industry needs investment, now more than ever. In fact, we're anticipating a large expansion of 3D tech in the future as prices drop, features increase and ease of use improves. So don't write off all financial services quite yet, we're gonna need 'em.

Via Society of Manufacturing Engineers

Succeed with Ponoko

Ponoko, one of the pioneers of distributed personal manufacturing and sales, has posted an interesting video that describes their methodology and cites two amazing examples of how people are succeeding with this new technology approach.

Alan Chao designed a beautiful coaster of letters and brought it through the idea, design and build stages to be on sale at Ponoko in only 16 days. After selling out his stock several times, he was picked up by a major design company only 8 weeks after he started.

Jess & Jesse made an amazing necklace (pictured) that quickly led them to a six-figure annual business.

Ponoko has published case studies and interviews available in which you can find out much more about how these and others have succeeded using the Ponoko platform.

Via Ponoko