Co-Creating Innovation

Co-creating innovation Version 2.1 August 23, 2008 The ECC Partnership  27 Main Street, Suite 8  Concord, MA 01742  978-369-6040 The enclosed material is confidential and proprietary to the ECC Partnership and is for the internal use of the addressee only.

The democratization of innovation Community crowdsourcing “ Outside-in” “ Inside-out” Customer communities Customer-driven research Online innovation engines Co-created design Co-created strategy Crowdsourced R&D Interactive communication

Trends in the co-creation of innovation

Customer-driven research

Customer communities

Community crowdsourcing

Online innovation processes

Interactive communication

Co-creating strategy

Crowdsourced R&D

Co-created design

Customer-driven research: SurveyGizmo “...a creative platform for your marketing, lead generation, and research projects.”

Internet-based survey applications remove the need for experts A wide range of features Resulting in high-grade surveys

Inexpensive, do-it-yourself surveys that don’t look amateur

SurveyGizmo is free or cheap.

Free until 250+ survey responses.

Then $19/month or more.

Integrates with Google Analytics web analytics suite.

Track survey conversions, path analysis, sources of traffic, and various versions of forms and surveys.

Google Analytics is free.

Looks like a Web page.

Customer encomiums:

“ This great little application is easy enough to use that you can just bypass IT altogether.” – Robin Seidner, President of CopyDiva

“ Thanks for making me the hero when I I didn't have an affordable option for our research & audience testing.” – Justin Kaiser, Director of Operations, WGFA Radio

“ We couldn't find an affordable survey tool that could handle our complex customer research & we were about to code from scratch until we found SurveyGizmo. It handles everything I've thrown at it!” – Jennifer Roos, Lawson Software

Crowdsourced R&D

Co-created design

Customer communities: Procter & Gamble’s Tremor program

Tremor is a marketing organization focused on customer communities.

Offered to outside clients.

Founded as a P&G unit in 2000.

“ Tremor generates breakthrough results for its clients by identifying the right target (connectors) and creating messages they want to share.

“ Our team includes experts in marketing, consumer understanding, market research, business intelligence and information technology.”

– Tremor

Tremor is co-creative marketing.

“ One new business at P&G is all about generating word of mouth in a way that is scalable. It is the essence of co-creation, and enabling consumers to be in control. ” – Charlotte Otto, P&G's Global External Relations Officer

Tremor homes in on “connectors”

Tremor seeks “connectors” – people who have wider social circles than average – among moms and teens.

How Vocalpoint works

Tremor operates two national panels in the U.S. market that clients can access:

Vocalpoint Tremor Teen

450,000 women with kids  230,000 teenaged girls and boys

78% 25 – 44 years old  70% 16 – 19 years old

$59,000 average household income  65% female

Tremor's Women With Kids Panel

The average mom talks to 5 people daily. A connector talks to 20 to 25!

Connector Moms are Caring Leaders:

“ I love talking to other people. I get energized when they ask for my opinion and take my reccommendation. I like searching for new knowledge and sharing it with others. This is my way of helping the community and making a difference in people’s lives.” – a connector mom

Vocalpoint is a viral advertising campaign emphasizing personal connections and experiences

Vocalpoint activities

Seeking opinions on P&G marketing ideas

After registration, Vocalpoint surveys new members for their reactions to specific marketing ideas.

Tremor panel #2: Tremor Teens

The Teen Tremor website

Recruiting members online

The Teen Tremor stamp of approval

We’re in the business of helping companies in industries like entertainment, fashion, music, food and beauty reach out to the teen market and develop successful word-of-mouth advocacy among teenagers.

Our Members help develop product ideas and marketing programs that teens want to talk about.

– Tremor

Capessa: P&G’s new social networking for gathering marketing insights Capessa.com is intentionally devoid of advertising or product references. Instead, it generates insights into what women are interested in and why.

Crowdsourced R&D

Co-created design

Community crowdsourcing: Kluster.com

Kluster enables group decisions Click to watch video

Community problem-solving

5 focuses:

Product development

Advertising and marketing

Event planning

Education

Brand association and loyalty

Defining goals: start with projects, break them down into phases

Solution methods: proposals (“sparks”) and enhancements (“amps”)

Deciding on best solutions: voting with watts, algorithms for decision-making

Kluster is free for participants and potentially lucrative for problem-solvers

Cost of participation: Free

Compensation for problem-solvers: Companies have the option of offering a cash reward for help with their project.

The reward is shared among all Kluster participants who contributed to the winning “spark.”

How organizations with no cash participate in Kluster: they designate their project as “bootstrapped,” and the project can be bid on by anyone who wants to take the idea to market.

Intellectual property rights are retained by the project founder.

“ If executives are going to rely on the wisdom of the masses for business help, it’s probably time the masses get a little compensation for it. That’s the theory behind Kluster, the newest in a lineup of companies using the Web to channel the collective wisdom of strangers into meaningful business strategies.” – The New York Times

The Kluster community A real-time tag cloud of the Kluster community’s capabilities

Kluster crowdsourced the development of a new product, a game called “Over There,” at the TED conference in Feb. 2008

Community crowdsourcing: CambrianHouse.com

The community decides on business ideas

64,000 registered participants as of early 2008.

Mostly software and Web entrepreneurs.

The Cambrian House process

The crowd vets, refines, and markets ideas.

In return, contributors get a share of revenues or royalties.

Evangelizing the wisdom of crowds

The cooperative model of ownership

How many community members benefited when Flickr was bought?

Zero.

How many community members benefited when YouTube was bought?

Zero.

Cambrian House is the first Web 2.0 community where members are owners.

– Cambrian House

Cambrian House’s leaders are elected by the community.

A funding mechanism through VCs

Crowdsourced R&D

Co-created design

Online innovation engine: MyStarbucksIdea.com [email_address] [email_address]

Customers post operational ideas for Starbucks, other customers comment and vote

Starbucks tracks ideas and decides which to pursue

The website sorts the commentary for easy viewing

The ranking system:

Most Popular - This ranking is determined by an algorithm based on number of points, number of comments and recency of post.

Top All-Time - A ranking of the top ideas based on point value alone.

Recent—Most recently posted ideas.

Comments - Ideas with the greatest number of recent comments.

A corporate innovation effort that turned into a community forum

MyStarbucksIdea.com debuted at a shareholders meeting.

The meeting “drew a crowd of 6,000 and was closely watched by Wall Street analysts hungry for details on the company's turnaround plans.” – Associated Press

About 300 suggestions were posted in the first hour after the shareholders meeting.

By the end of the week, 100,000+ votes had been cast.

Starbucks’ CTO Chris Bruzzo announcing MyStarbucksIdea.com at the March ’08 shareholders meeting.

Online innovation engine: Dell IdeaStorm [email_address] [email_address]

IdeaStorm is for specific suggestions by customers Customers post ideas, other customers comment and vote. Dell tracks ideas and decides which to pursue.

Weekly recaps by IdeaStorm site managers The site managers do not respond to individual ideas at length.

IdeaStorm visitors can raise any issue they want

8,859 ideas submitted by site visitors as of mid-April 2008.

613,638 votes.

66,882 comments.

Dell had implemented 20 of the ideas.

Warning: conversing with customers doesn’t necessarily make them happy

Dell’s Community website has become a portal to several interactive customer forums

Crowdsourced R&D

Co-created design

Interactive communication: Comcast monitors online complaints and responds

In early 2008, Comcast appointed a “digital care manager” to monitor public comments on blogs, message boards, and social networks and respond directly to complaints .

In five months, Comcast’s online monitoring/response staff grew from 1 to 7 people.

“ Comcast says the online outreach is part of a larger effort to revamp its customer service. In just about five months, Mr. Eliason, whose job redefines customer service , has reached out to well over 1,000 customers online.”

– The New York Times, July 2008

Other companies monitoring online commentary include Southwest Airlines, Whole Foods Market, and Zappo’s.

Frank Eliason, Comcast’s digital care manager.

A customer-company conversation on Twitter

Customer William Pomerantz (heading home to await his third appointment for a Comcast installation): “Wish me luck @comcastcares.”

Comcast’s digital care manager Frank Eliason (when a technician had not shown up after 3 hours): “I will get someone there!”

Pomerantz (commenting to The New York Times ): “The reaction was a thousand times better than what I was getting by phone.”

A technician arrived within 30 mins. of Eliason’s tweet.

Two more technicians called to say they could provide help if needed.

Online monitoring is an emerging practice.

Phone calls remain the leading customer channel.

“ Of course, most customers still call when they have problems. If they all started blogging and commenting instead, Mr. Eliason would be quickly overwhelmed. ‘This is a channel, but it is not the first step’ for customer concerns, he said.” – The New York Times

Interactive communication: DSLReports.com/ BroadbandReports.com

Aggregated consumer commentary:

In-depth reviews by consumers:

The leading information source on broadband and DSL was set up by a customer, not a company

In the late 1990s, a New York City resident named Justin Beech had trouble finding information about home DSL.

“ Although I worked on Wall Street as a systems administrator and had spent years in many cities doing trading-room networking, the task of finding the right DSL provider beat me. When something is hard and costly, what do you do? Yep, you start a web site! both to help others, and to allow the better DSL providers to stand up and be seen. ”

Beech founded DSLreports.com in June 1999.

He built the web site at home and initially ran it off his home DSL line.

Site traffic rapidly grew, soon requiring a dedicated set of servers and a small office.

Renamed BroadbandReports.com to reflect broadening scope.

Now the #1 site on Google for search terms such as “DSL” and “broadband.”

DSL/BroadbandReports has become a must-read for the industry

“ Every morning I check DSLReports for the latest feedback on our service. Usually, it hurts, but the complaints are accurate, if occasionally overstated.”

– A DSL company executive

“ DSL Reports is providing the industry an invaluable service , and must be checked by anyone interested in an ISP, whether as customer or investor.”

– A DSL industry newsletter

Interactive communication: ComcastMustDie.com

Introduction from ComcastMustDie.com, a consumer-oriented blog:

Actually, I have no deathwish for Comcast…What I do have is the earnest desire for such companies to change their ways. This site offers an opportunity – for you to vent your grievances (civilly, please) and for Comcast to pay close attention.

I advise you to include your customer number in your post; this will give Comcast the chance to contact you and work on your problem . If it does so, I encourage you to post an update, giving credit where credit is due.

Companies are paying attention to online complaints

“ Add a powerful media voice and a provocative site title to a blog, and it can have extraordinary impact. Bob Garfield, an Advertising Age columnist and National Public Radio host, lit up the blogosphere in October with a site cheekily called ComcastMustDie.com…

“ [He] suggested that customers post their account numbers on the blog…dozens of customers followed Garfield's suggestion; many report back, he says, that Comcast called them soon after they posted their account numbers and rants…

“ Marcelo Salup credits Garfield's blog for finally getting Comcast to show up on time when his Internet and cable connections failed. Years of dialing the call center for a technician yielded at least eight missed appointments by Comcast, he says, but a post on ComcastMustDie brought a phone call the next morning and, later, a lead technician who showed up on time. Now, Salup says: ‘Anytime I have a problem, I also post it on the blog.’ ”

– BusinessWeek, “Consumer Vigilantes,” Feb. 21, 2008

The new customer channel coexists uneasily with the old

Comcast’s response to online complaints:

“… reading blogs ‘is very new , at least to Comcast’”

“ The company is “expanding the number of ‘e-care’ representatives to help track and respond to blog comments and e-mails that come in…

“ A Comcast spokesperson says the company is making efforts to improve customer satisfaction and that it's reacting to other blogs besides Garfield's. Scenarios like Salup’s…are ‘not the type of experiences that we want our customers to be having. We're going to respond to our customers wherever and however they have voiced their experiences.

“ Ideally, we'd prefer it to be in the traditional ways.”

– BusinessWeek

Crowdsourced R&D

Co-created design

Co-creating strategy: You-and-the-RATP.net

RATP, the Paris public transportation authority, set up a web site in 2007 called You-and-the-RATP.

The origin was a web site set up in 2006 for customer complaints.

It soon expanded into a larger discussion about operations and strategy.

At the end of 2007, RATP posted the outcome of the discussion process: a 3-year strategic plan

Translated:

Discover the RATP’s strategic plan

Many meetings; 1,300 proposals from RATP employees; and 1,700 proposals – including 136 votes – and more than 11,000 comments from passengers on the platform "you-and-the-RATP.net“ : these participative dynamics have mobilized everyone in transport in the Paris region. Now that this plan is published, we thank all for the quality of their participation.

From the work that has mobilized RATP and travelers alike in 2007, 5 strategic thrusts and 22 priority projects have been chosen and as of today constitute the RATP’s commitments for the period 2008-2012.

We suggest you see these commitments for yourself today.

Download the 2008-2012 strategic plan

The 2008-2012 strategic plan was posted online

Stated performance objectives for 2008-2012 are based on the You-and-the-RATP discussion

You-and-the-RATP was so successful that RATP decided in early 2008 to make customer dialogue permanent

Translated:

After many months of contributions and exchanges on the future of public transport, this consultation space closes its doors…to reopen them better!

We are very happy to announce that these exchanges will be made regularly and that a new platform will be born very soon. This one will be a broad place for your experiences large and small , your relationship to your line, your station, and a dialogue with the men and the women of the RATP.

Some of you have already made suggestions on how to improve the exchanges between travelers and the RATP. As part of our attempt to create a new interface with you, we invite you to propose improvements for the new version of the vous-et-la-RATP.net site.

Co-creating strategy: The City of Charlotte’s performance management system

The City of Charlotte has had a long tradition of performance measurement for city services, having instituted Management by Objectives in 1972.

In 1994, the City began its implementation of the Balanced Scorecard.

By 1996, the City of Charlotte had developed its first Balanced Scorecard, the Corporate Scorecard.

– Source: City of Charlotte website

Charlotte was the first municipality to implement the Balanced Scorecard.

Inputs to Charlotte’s strategy map come from above and below

The City of Charlotte's performance management and strategic planning approach consists of:

Identifying organizational strategy based on City Council Focus Areas.

Translating and communicating the strategy through the Corporate Scorecard (developing corporate objectives and measures).

Implementing the strategy as described by the Strategic Focus Area plans.

Key Business Unit and Support Business Unit business plans – SOPs (Strategic Operating Plans).

– City of Charlotte website

City business unit Balanced Scorecards are published online

Excerpt of the Balanced Score-card from the city’s Aviation unit.

1 of 19 Charlotte business units to produce Strategic Operating Plans.

An annual performance report for the public

Available to the public.

This report is organized by the City’s four Balanced Scorecard perspectives:

Serve the Customer

Run the Business

Manage Resources

Develop Employees .

The perspectives provide a framework for evaluating performance that is focused on outcomes and results for the City’s most important indicators.

In addition, the report also provides checkpoints for planning, forecasting, and budgeting.

– From the introduction

Employee performance is linked to unit Balanced Scorecards

Example for a specific employee within a fleet management function.

Charlotte ties employee evaluations and compensation to scorecard goals.

Customer input on city performance

Charlotte citizen input to the city’s Balanced Scorecard and performance management system comes through customer satisfaction surveys.

Example: “ Police Services - Citizen survey results from November 2006 revealed that 70% of respondents rated the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) 7 or higher on overall impression (target: 7 or higher on 10 point scale); 76% rated CMPD at 7 or higher on courtesy and 79% on professionalism; and 74% reported feeling safe in their own neighborhoods.”

– City of Charlotte Corporate Performance Report

Crowdsourced R&D

Co-created design

Crowdsourced R&D: Cisco’s I-Prize

Cisco is seeking ideas for a major business opportunity.

A $250,000 prize for seeding a new business unit

Groups compete to come up with a marketable business concept.

Individuals can join teams independently.

The winning team can be hired by Cisco and share a $250,000 signing bonus.

Cisco promises a $10 million investment over 3 years to staff, develop, and go to market with the new business.

Three phases

The Basics

Register to submit ideas or to comment and vote on other ideas.

Consider what problems your idea addresses, how it’s new and different, and who comprises your target market.

Use the tag cloud and category listing to identify other innovators with whom you can form a team.

As teams advance through the phases, we'll ask for more specific information and provide templates for structuring your pitches and business plans.

Submissions are viewable by registered viewers, but contact information is kept private.

How the I-Prize came about

Employees suggested the concept on the Cisco I-Zone, an internal Web-based workspace where employees can submit new ideas.

Cisco’s CTO and the director of marketing at Cisco's emerging technologies group set up the program and an associated website in just 30 days on a shoestring budget.

They used BrightIdea.com, a hosted crowdsourcing service where participants can submit ideas, discuss them with others, and meet potential teammates.

Winnowing down the submissions

12 finalist teams from 10 countries on 5 continents are vying to be the winner.

Cisco originally said there were be no more than 10 finalists.

“ The quality, thoughtfulness and passion of the final presentations surprised all of us!” – Cisco

Presentations were made through videoconferences.

32 teams were chosen as semifinalists.

Semifinalists came from 13 countries on five continents.

20% of the semifinalist teams were multi-country.

Semifinalist ages are evenly distributed between people in their 20s, 30s and 40s or higher.

Semifinalist ideas fell into a broad range of categories : communications infrastructure, “the connected home,” e-learning, mobility, security, IT services, emerging countries, unified communications, video, virtualization, and Web 2.0.

1,100+ new business ideas were originally submitted.

Sample ideas from finalists

I-Prize finalists hail from all walks of life…

Jeremy Brown, a 21-year-old steamfitter from Toronto, would come home after 9-hour shifts to hone his team's idea, which focuses on home networking.

Another participant, Anna Gosen, 31, lives in Karlsruhe, Germany, where she works as a student assistant. Gosen came up with a new system for energy consumption and distribution that will make power lines safer and more energy efficient.

– BusinessWeek

Using a blog for contest updates

Cisco I-Prize Update and some questions

Just a quick update: We’re now solidly in the final phase of the Cisco I-Prize . There are 12 finalist teams from 10 countries on 5 continents vying for to be the winning team. Each team met face to face with the judging panel via Cisco TelePresence for their final presentation and the judging team is deliberating. The quality, thoughtfulness and passion of the final presentations surprised all of us! We’ll announce the winning in team in June, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, I’d like your thoughts on 2 topics:

1) Should we continue the Cisco I-Prize competition again ("Season 2")? If so, what should we change or improve? 2) We’re going to morph this blog into a discussion on innovation, not necessarily specific to the Cisco I-Prize . What innovation-related topics would like to hear from Cisco on?

Let us know!

Posted by David Hsieh at 08:21AM

Permalink, Comments (14) , Trackbacks (0)

The power of crowdsourcing

What made this contest unique was how open and transparent it was from day one. Everyone was able to see and contribute to each others ideas. This fostered competition and folks challenged us which created great dialog and kept us on our toes! These interactions with strangers acted as a catalyst to refine our idea. Two of these strangers became members of our team!

Chris Herbert Jun 16, 2008

– A post on the I-Prize blog

“ We got more ideas in two months from this mechanism than our internal [suggestion] site did in about a year and a half.” – a Cisco executive quoted in BusinessWeek

Crowdsourced R&D: Barrick Gold Corp.’s UnlockTheValue.com

Barrick Gold Corp. is the world’s #1 gold producer, but needs help

Barrick’s Unlock the Value program invites scientists, engineers and other inventors to solve a scientific conundrum. Geologists have determined there are 180 million ounces of silver contained in gold reserves in the ore at the Veladero mine in Argentina.

Because the silver particles are encapsulated in silica, current processing methods are recovering only 6.7% of the silver. The Unlock the Value program invites proposals for an economically viable way to significantly increase silver recovery from this type of ore. – Barrick release

Veladoro mine

Inventors invited, not necessarily miners

“ This opportunity will appeal to chemists, metallurgists, physicists, engineers, or any inventor with a new concept for improving silver recovery. Experience in mining is not required because we are looking for innovation and new approaches. ” – Barrick CEO Greg Wilkins

Offering to fund basic research:

“ The $10 million award is a substantial incentive to spur creative thinking but, beyond that, Barrick will fund research and development for proposals that have merit. Scientists sometimes have difficulty finding funding to take their good ideas to the next level, so we believe this will be a welcome aspect of the program. ” – Wilkins

A 4-step proposal process to win $10 million

Phase 1: Preliminary Submission and Selection of Proposals

Preliminary proposals will be assessed by a team of experts, who will evaluate the technical viability and likelihood of safely implementation at Veladero.

Authors of preliminary proposals judged to have merit will be invited to submit a detailed proposal.

Phase 2: Full Proposal and Definition of Test Program

If the detailed proposals pass muster with the team of experts, they will go on to further phases of development, testing and commercial evaluation.

Phase 3: Collaborative Development and Proof-of-Concept Testing

Phase 4: Commercial Scale Economic Evaluation

Barrick will fund research costs, R&D, consulting fees, and testing.

On top of that, the $10 million prize is a bonus for a successful silver recovery technology.

All submissions, whether they take traditional approaches or investigate new unique concepts, must adhere to Barrick’s commitments in the areas of Safety and Health, Environment and Social Responsibility.

UnlockTheValue.com got a big response

The program launched Sept. 2007.

By mid-December, 35,000+ people had visited the program website.

1,200+ registrants.

From 35 countries.

51 preliminary proposals received.

Initial deadline for preliminary proposals was Jan. 21, 2008, but that was extended to April 30.

“ The opportunity to earn $10 million has piqued the interest of scientists, and it shows the power of the Internet to generate global awareness and participation .” – Barrick Manager of R&D Peter Kondos

Real proposals advancing through the process

16 scientific proposals advanced to Phase 2.

“ Creative approaches to several technologies”:

Microwave  Electromagnetics

Laser  Inorganic and organic chemistry

Ultrasonics  Bioleaching and mechanics

The winnowing process:

238 preliminary proposals

From scientists from 26 countries.

An expert panel conducted an anonymous review process.

Phase 2 proposal deadline: Sept. 30, 2008.

Participants required to submit a detailed, viable plan for developing and proving the concepts presented in the Phase 1 preliminary proposal.

Plans with high potential viability will be selected to advance to Phase 3: Collaborative Proof of Concept Testing.

Barrick will fund the R&D.

“ We’re delighted with the response from the scientific community to this research project…There is still no guarantee we will find an economically viable solution, but we are hopeful one or more of these submissions may hold the key to unlock the value.” – R&D manager Kondos

Testing through the various phases is expected to take 2+ years.

Crowdsourced R&D: Imaginatik’s Idea Central

Idea Central is a web-based application designed to help organizations maximize the benefits from the creativity, expertise and knowledge of employees, customers, suppliers and other trusted third parties…

“ The next generation suggestion box.” – Imaginatik (developer of Idea Central)

A structured process for:

Idea capture.

Quick review (1-5 stars).

In-depth review.

Collaboration.

Team tracking.

Project workspace.

Other features:

Idea warehouse.

Rewards

The conceptual model of online innovation:

Step 1: Idea capture

“ The idea form is quick and easy to complete, and puts no con-straints on the type of informa-tion accompany-ing the idea...

“ The occurrence of duplicate submissions is reduced via an automatic search.”

– Imaginatik

Step 2: Collaboration

“ People from different parts of the organization can read and comment on submitted ideas and their conclusions…

“ The social networking functionality invites participants to find out more about each other and to establish interactions that go beyond the current event.” – Imaginatik

Informal review

“ Idea Central supports two broad types of review process: an informal, unstructured voting process for all contributors, and a formal, structured process for review team members…

“ The peer review gathers the broad opinions on ideas, and also helps share experiences and tacit know-ledge across the organization. Employees rate ideas as ‘thumbs up’, ‘thumbs down’ or ‘neutral’ and comment on them…” – Imaginatik

Structured review

“ In the structured review process, a team of reviewers analyses each idea. The reviewer assesses its merit according to a set of configurable criteria and recommends potential next steps.

“ Our software contains over fifty features to help manage the evaluation of ideas, and our services and training help clients determine the optimal process and the best tools.”

– Imaginatik

Final step: consolidation and conclusion

The review process consists of two main stages. First individual assessors create their own reviews to an idea…Recommendations are then aggregated in a conclusion document and a final decision is reached.” – Imaginatik

Imaginatik tracks the innovation process with a dashboard

Crowdsourced R&D: InnoCentive

Crowdsourced R&D: P&G’s Connect & Develop

Crowdsourced R&D: The Goldcorp Challenge

Crowdsourced R&D: BrainstormExchange.com

Crowdsourced R&D: CrowdSpirit.com

Crowdsourced R&D: Ideas4All.com

Crowdsourced R&D: IdeaConnection.com

Crowdsourced R&D

Co-created design

Co-created design: using Google Sketchup  Customers and potential customers of architectural firm Michelle Kaufmann can play with designs, including interiors and landscape.  “ Explore the possibi-lities of an MKD home on your site….you can insert a model on your site with Google Earth. Use the SketchUp tools to study the best way to situate your MKD home on the site…Share your ideas and dreams with us as we start working together. ”

Google Sketchup – 3D design for all

Google Sketchup is a popular 3D design application.

Free and “professional” versions.

Designs online for anyone to see and use

Michelle Kaufmann displays designs for anyone to play with at no cost.

Co-created design: Shapeways

Shapeways opens 3D printing to amateurs

“ 3D printing has been, in the past, usually geared towards higher-level 3D designers. With Shapeways, we hope to open the doors for all designers to have the opportunity to print, and even sell, their designs seamlessly.” – Shapeways

Building a business around a community 3D modeling and printing

“ Shapeways takes a major step towards the next generation of consumer co-creation and mass customization. Consumers without 3D modeling skills can shape, mash, imprint and design their own 3D products at Shapeways.com. Products are produced with a rapid manufacturing system … ” – Mass Customization News blog