It looks like Wired editor Chris Anderson is developing a new ‘manufacturing’ theory for entrepreneurs: do it yourself, but outsource everything, Anderson told the Supernova 2009 conference yesterday. “We are entering a new manufacturing age,” said Anderson. “I’ve been thinking about being analogue and the world of manufacturing.”
“The past decade, Anderson’s latest theory goes, was about figuring out ‘the new weave of our culture’ online without many of the usual organisational or physical boundaries. But the next 10 years will [also] be about learning how to bring those lessons and tools back into the real world. We are now ‘democratizing the tools of production,’ he said. For example, he has a $750 three-dimensional plastic prototype printer in his basement.”
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“The result is that small-scale entrepreneurs can design, manufacture, and sell their own products by outsourcing nearly all of the work.”