Hotel chain Le Méridien is marketing itself as a destination for art enthusiasts. As part of its “Unlock Art” programme, it has cut deals with local contemporary cultural institutions to allow hotel guests free entry by presenting their artist-designed room key cards and it has hired modern art curator Jérôme Sans to organize special exhibits. Ultimately, the goal is for every Le Méridien hotel worldwide to have partnerships with leading cultural institutions.
7. MAKE IT YOURSELF
Let’s have a more in-depth look at the participation sphere where Generation C consumers have come to expect to be able to create anything they want as long as it is digital, and to customize and personalize many physical goods. The next frontier will be digitally designing products from scratch, then having them turned into real physical goods as well. In fact, expect MIY (make it yourself), and then SIY, or Sell It Yourself ventures to become increasingly sophisticated in the next 12 months:
New Zealand-based Ponoko is offering consumers a new way to turn their creative ideas into real-world objects. After uploading their own design to the website or choosing a free design, users can choose from a variety of materials. Ponoko then runs the design through a laser cutter.
Besides offering access to professional tools to manufacture products, Ponoko also helps users bring their products to market. Once they’re ready to sell, members can add photos of their product to their profile page, together with a description and pricing information. Products can either be delivered to the designer for assembly before being shipped to customers, or self-assembly products can be sent directly to the endcustomer.
As well as being a manufacturing platform, Ponoko also serves as a community where fledgling one-off fabricators and designers can exchange ideas and help solve each other’s problems. The larger goal, according to Ponoko, is to be a catalyst that helps bring personal manufacturing of individualized products to the masses.
Swedish design group FRONT has launched Sketch Furniture, which is a method to materialize freehand sketches. Pen strokes made in the air are recorded with Motion Capture, and the resulting 3D patterns are output digitally to a laser sintering machine. Over several days, the machine produces the object by shaping and hardening 0.1mm layers of liquid plastic. Sketch Furniture is on view and on sale (about $10,500 or Rs413,700 per piece) at the Barry Friedman Gallery in New York.
The Desktop Factory 3D printer, with a list price of $4,995, uses an inexpensive halogen light source and drum printing technology to build robust parts from composite plastic powder, layer by layer. Desktop Factory envisages that within three years, Desktop Factory’s 3D printers will be affordable for home use.
Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport opened the Schiphol Babycare Lounge by Nutricia
8. CROWD MINING
Crowd mining is simply a moniker for how we see crowd-based business concepts evolving in 2008.
SellaBand lets fans sponsor unknown bands and artists by buying the band’s shares or parts. Once a band has raised $50,000 by selling 5,000 parts, SellaBand sets up a professional recording session. The recorded songs are sold to new fans, and both the artists and owners of their parts receive a share of the income generated through music sales and advertising revenues.