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On the January 30 & February 2 episode of Spark, Nora interviewed Ian McCarthy about mass customization. As promised, the full interview is here. Click above to listen, or download the mp3.
Interview with Ian McCarthy
– January 31, 2008Posted in: Audio, Interviews
This concept is far more important that some people may understand. As the citizens and consumers out there outgrow the resources available on this planet, mass customization could become to mass production what the 100 mile diet is to food production.
Mass customization allows for aggregation of specific wants in real time. The reduction in market waste would help to reduce the surplus we see sitting in dumps or in storage.
Businesses dump plenty of hardware and clothing rather than sell at deflated prices in order to save “brand value integrity” Knowing the exact needs of a market segment could alleviate the problem of guessing what the market will absorb.
This won’t work in all areas due to competitive reasons – why would Apple pre-empt the introduction of the iPhone by asking everyone what they’d like in the product beforehand, thereby giving competitors a chance to undercut the product’s impact with copycat products matching its features. But the modularization of technologies is making such options a possibility.
Considering though that as energy increases in value that hitting the “sweet” spot with mass customization could in the short term give us one more tool to use in meeting such mundane things like carbon output targets.
What the future holds – who knows? The possibilities that mass customization unleashes is interesting to behold. Lets keep an eye on this.
Regards,
JB
Mass customization could be a compelling idea, possibly being another way in which we could cut down on energy expenditures. One idea that comes to mind is that with mass customization is that you could diversify production locations, physically getting closer to markets and cutting down on transportation costs. But, for something like clothes we already have customization readily available…tailors. Yes they still exist.
@H, Ha! Yes, I would love a tailor.
Interesting to speculate on energy expenditures. I worry a bit about what Ian talked about…that maybe it would just encourage people to create more and more stuff. On the other hand, if the future is one of making the stuff yourself, that would cut down HUGELY on transport costs/energy.