Hasta La Ideas

Apple recently decided to completely withdraw all current and future products from the globally accepted green electronics registry and rating program EPEAT because the standards involved no longer fit their “design direction.” The message that this sends to the design community is profound. That the decision was made in the name of design is disingenuous and a disservice to all designers and engineers. But was it, in fact, a necessary step for Apple to take in order to keep running as fast as they are, year after year?

EPEAT is one of the most open, stakeholder-driven, equitable and sophisticated multi-variate eco-labels in the world, covering everything from lifecycle, energy, materials, packaging, recycling and social equity issues. It is a model eco-label that has transformed the industry towards cleaner, greener and more sound practices. Its existence benefits a wide-ranging and global value chain touching hundreds of related industries and markets. The standard has helped environmental and social NGOs working to help solve e-waste and promote effective recycling globally, and the innovations in materials and energy efficiency standards that have evolved from the adoption of the standard have had positive consequences on energy use and the flow of toxic chemicals and compounds in the mining, production and recycling phases of the life of electronics globally.

As one of the companies intimately involved in building the EPEAT standard, it’s a remarkable shift for Apple, who have, up until this decision, used their product track record of being rewarded the highest EPEAT Gold ratings as a badge of honor in talking about their environmental commitments. Steve Jobs mentioned the rating by name several times from the podium in product announcements. Apple’s continued commitment to reducing packaging, improving the energy efficiency performance of their products, reducing the impact of toxic materials, support of recycling and recent efforts towards improving social equity and manufacturing standards are all in line with the mission and guidelines of the EPEAT rating system.

On the surface, the decision, combined with a lack of communication about it by Apple, effectively sends a message of disregard for the combined work of dozens of organizations, NGOs and even entire countries who have collaborated for years to build a multi-billion dollar, stakeholder-driven, transparent, sustainable market for green electronics. The specification of EPEAT rated products in purchasing and procurement policies has been adopted by institutions, municipalities and is now recognized and required by many countries for their government purchasing. Can you imagine how pleased EPEAT member companies like Samsung, HP and Dell are now with the idea that the U.S. Government and many others can no longer purchase Apple laptops, computers, and monitors?

Owing to the lack of official announcement by Apple, one theory is that this is a symbolic case of technology outpacing the eco-labelling organization’s ability to keep up with the constantly shifting manifestations of consumer electronics. In a world in which the distance between cinematic, futuristic visions and real-world applications of holographic, touch-based, virtual surfaces and devices is narrowing rapidly, the ability to re-define and update standards that keep pace with these platforms is incredibly challenging. The unrelenting push of Moore’s Law towards higher computing power in more ever more compact, miniature forms exceeds the ability of standards setting organizations to keep pace, and EPEAT—as of this writing—only covers desktops, notebooks and displays. Imaging equipment, including TVs, printers, copiers and scanners are on the near horizon to be included in the standard.

There are equivalents of technology outpacing standards in other sustainability-based design rating systems. The U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED standard has for years been criticized on a number of fronts, including its lack of teeth and ability to evolve quickly. Alternate, innovative and holistic standards like the Living Building Challenge have risen to fill the need for more forward-looking architects and builders. But for all of its glacial pace, LEED has without question transformed the entire building industry globally, and has transformed entire markets, while raising worldwide awareness about sustainability in the built environment. It’s not perfect, but it serves a purpose and moves a very large needle forward through a coalition of the willing.

The EPEAT process is known to be very slow due to its stakeholder driven, peer-reviewed decision-making process. It can take years for new standards and product categories to be included in the program, and for updates to filter their way through the organization’s vetting process and make it into the published standard. The iPad, for instance, is currently not covered by the “PC” standard of EPA’s Energy Star, which is one of the base requirements to participate in the EPEAT rating program. The “Slate” category that the iPad falls in is currently in the process of being approved by Energy Star, and in so doing, would open the iPad up for scrutiny by the EPEAT rating process, which it would have very likely failed on the ease of disassembly requirement, despite being very energy efficient. This could very well have been one of the factors that triggered this decision by Apple, along with the most recent MacBoook Pro which has been found to be exceedingly difficult to disassemble.

There is an implicit conceit that in order to continue to design things on their own terms, Apple needs to run free, unconstrained, to innovate and produce objects of desire and profound beauty and performance. These products define their brand and have re-defined an entire industry, making them the most valuable company in the world. Year after year they pioneer new and often environmentally friendly technologies in their products. But did they have to abandon EPEAT in the name of design?

(more…)

After working his way through the South, Dave talks with innovators of the automotive industry in Phoenix and Los Angeles. Keep up-to-date with all of the adventures on Route 77 by following @DaveSeliger on Twitter!

Day 13

The newest generation of the Rally Fighter

I was very excited to find out that Local Motors, a crowd-sourced car company, was based out of Phoenix, AZ—right in the middle of my four days driving through the desert. Local Motors released the first generation of the Rally Fighter in 2010 and is now rolling out the second generation. The company has also hosted design competitions for a variety of clients, including DARPA and Peterbilt. However, Local Motors faces stiff criticism that the company is effectively lowering the value of designers through their design competitions. I sat down with Local Motors’ Adam Keiser and Alex Fiechter to learn how the company is attempting to disrupt the auto manufacturing industry through crowd-sourced design, as well as increase the value of designers along the way.

Local Motors’ Adam Keiser

Local Motors’ microfactory

Local Motors CEO Jay Rogers initially came up with the concept for a community-driven (no pun intended) car design company while a student at the Harvard Business School. The point behind having a community—called the Forge—design a car is to have them design the car they would want to buy and then make that car a reality. In this way, Local Motors has an established niche market before the car is even produced. This is in stark contrast to the current paradigm of auto manufacturing. “You can’t walk into Ford or GM and say, ‘I want a car exactly how I want it designed,'” said Keiser. Moreover, Local Motors is set-up to have an extremely quick turnaround from initial sketches to a working prototype; in the case of the Rally Fighter, this timeline was only 18 months.

The first generation of the Rally Fighter

The prototype Rally Fighter

At the very foundation of this business model, though, is having a dedicated community of designers and engineers that will design whatever this car is. Fiechter argued that the compensation for the winning designer is more than fair. In the case of the Rally Fighter, winner Sangho Kim received $10,000 when Local Motors started to develop the car. The implicit understanding is that the prize money is representative of Local Motors purchasing the designer’s IP. Given that each competition only lasts for 3 to 4 weeks, and that a majority of competitors are students or recent graduates, “that’s pretty significant compensation for that amount of time,” said Feichter.

Ride along after the jump…

(more…)

Jellyfish Tanks by Alex Andon

A meetup for hardware startups brought 200 people to a warehouse in San Francisco’s Dogpatch. All around were jellyfish tanks, a business started by Alex Andon, and featured in Make Magazine last year. The meetup was organized by Nick Pinkston, the founder of CloudFab, who thought that people designing hardware products wanted to find each other more easily. I found new startups doing e-textiles, robots, medical diagnostic adaptors for the iPhone, a new kind of coffee maker and others, including a foldable kayak.

Orukayak by Anton Willis

Over on Kickstarter, hardware products such as Pebble, Twine and PrintrBot are raising the bar on raising money via crowdfunding. While hardware projects are raising millions, traditional sources of investment such as venture capitalists don’t seem to be interested in hardware. One exception is Brad Feld of the Foundry Group who has invested in MakerBot, the 3D printer startup headed by Bre Pettis and located in Brooklyn.

A large chip company is now hiring makers in its research and development organization. Another software company is looking for “maker advocates” who can help them understand how to connect with the maker community and develop products that meet their needs. Others are starting to look at makers as extension of their own R&D efforts.

There’s something new happening in hardware, and we’re seeing a new wave of innovation from new sources, inspired by the maker movement. The combination of open hardware, collaborative design practices and personal fabrication tools are making it possible for a whole new group of creatives to develop physical things, reconnecting to the world around us. It’s a prototyping revolution that allows almost anyone to take an idea from sketch to functional prototype.

(more…)

Scaffolding: Construction work at the Lehrter Hauptbahnhof, Berlin. By Tup Wanders, via Wikimedia

So. You have an idea. You’re sold on crowdfunding. Now you’re ready to jump in head first. Where do you start?

In this part of the crowdfunding series, I will cover how to get ready to launch your project. There are two aspects to launching: The Structural work (boring) and the Storytelling work (exciting).

Structural work refers to setting up the way your project will work. Figuring out how much money you should raise, how long your project should run, how to set up your Pledge Tiers, etc. It’s boring stuff, but extremely necessary to making things run smoothly.

Storytelling work refers to how you will describe your project to the world. This involves shooting a video, getting needed imagery, writing copy, etc.

Turns out there is a lot of ground to cover for both of these aspects, so we’re going to split this post into two parts. This part will focus on building your structure and on Monday, the post about Storytelling will be published.

Note: From here on out, this series will focus mainly on Kickstarter. They are the go-to site for product design projects, and it only makes sense to talk about how to work within Kickstarter’s parameters.

Before you launch.

I won’t go into how the product development process works. Presumably, you have some experience in design and I wouldn’t be telling you anything new. But it’s important to talk about how you may need to modify the process to work for crowdfunding.

Every product design project creator should first decide what phase they will launch their project from. Lets go back to that development timeline I talked about last time.

Click for larger image.

Do you launch from the Manufacturing phase? Refinement? Proof of Concept? Obviously, the further along in development you are, the less chance for delays and surprises you will have. My recommendation for anyone starting a crowdfunding project? Do as much as you can on your own dime, before you try to crowdfund your product. The earlier you launch the more unpredictable the timing of delivering your project will be.

I launched my project somewhere between the Proof of Concept and Refinement phases. I had a working proof of concept, quotes from vendors, and a pretty good sense of how my Stylus Caps were going to be made. More importantly, I went as far as I could go on my own money. I had several surprises still ahead of me, but looking into crowdfunding was the only way the project was going to continue.

So how about you? At minimum, I wouldn’t even consider launching until you have a working proof-of-concept prototype and production quotes from multiple vendors. Launching with anything less is crazy. You owe it to yourself, your potential manufacturing partners, and your future Backers, to have done your homework on these two things. You can’t responsibly run a crowdfunding project without knowing if your concept will work and how much it will cost to produce.

In case you were wondering, a proof of concept is a prototype that mostly looks and works as the final product is intended. It exists to tell you that your idea works, that it’s manufacturable, and to communicate to others what your intentions are. It doesn’t HAVE to be completely final, but it should answer most, if not all, of your questions of how you will proceed with your development. You will also need it to help you demonstrate your idea in the video that will be on your main project page.

Production quotes are cost estimates that you receive from vendors that tell you how much it will cost to produce your idea and how long it will take to make it. Its good practice to get multiple quotes and make sure you have trust in the people you will eventually work with. Make sure you put all of those quotes plus any other anticipated costs into a Bill of Materials or BOM, that will give you a detailed look at how much money it will take to make your idea.

Once you have a proof of concept and production quotes you feel comfortable with, you can think about how to set up your crowdfunding structure.

Let’s talk about money.

Let’s be brutally honest with ourselves; designers have a very complicated relationship with money. We mostly suck at getting the money we deserve. We design because we feel compelled to design, not because we are looking to get rich. A living would be nice. When money starts to come into play we get an icky feeling. Money seems like it would pollute our “noble” reasons for being designers.

This is the wrong way to look at money. All money is, is fuel to accomplish things. Nothing more. Louis CK put it best when he said: “I never viewed money as being “my money.” I always saw it as “The money.” It’s a resource. If it pools up around me then it needs to be flushed back out into the system.”

(more…)

By Edward Betts (Own work.) via Wikimedia Commons

If I could convince you of one thing, it would be this: Crowdfunding is not Nyan Cat. Nyan Cat will be the answer to a Trivial Pursuit question in 10 years or so. If it’s lucky. Crowdfunding is radically changing the way things are made.

That’s why it bugs me when I see the inevitable Internet eye-rolling starting to take place. “Oh great, another Kickstarter project.” Look past the avalanche of Apple related accessories. Lower your designer snark rays for just a moment. Just because something is trending on the Twitter, doesn’t make it bad.

Crowdfunding is the most important thing to happen to industrial designers and people who are interested in making things since, oh I dunno, CAD? Outsourcing? 3D printing? User-centered research? I know that’s pretty big talk for something that’s only been in the design community consciousness for a year or two, but think what crowdfunding means for a solitary designer or a small team of people who have a *really great* idea and the know-how to get it made, but no money.

Think of all of the times you have been in meetings with people who make decisions that designers are generally not allowed to make. Think of bringing your hacked up prototype to a bank and explaining to the loan officer that “Yes, even though this is made out of blue foam, the actual thing will be made from molded plastic.” Think of building up enough courage to go it alone, and then staring at the ceiling at night worrying if you are committing your family to eating ramen for the next couple of years while you chase your crazy dream. Think of having investors tell you they love everything about your idea, except 80% of it. And the color.

Now think of side-stepping all of that. You refine your idea on your own. You talk to manufacturers and see what it would take to get it made. You work out the budget. You shoot a video marketing the idea and explaining what you need to get it done.

You launch it.

Maybe it doesn’t get funded. But at least then you can say that you tried and failed on your own terms, without going tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt. At the very least, you have an interesting portfolio piece to talk about and maybe if you’re feeling frisky, you refine it further and try launching it again.

But what if it does work? You get funding. You get confirmation that your idea is good and should exist. Holy crap.

Herein lies the revolutionary aspect of crowdfunding: Product designers can finally tap into the Internet money pipe. For years we have had to sit on the sidelines while nascent web companies attract investors or bootstrap it themselves. It’s not because we’re lazier than Mark Zuckerberg. It’s because the cost of entry into shipping atoms is dramatically higher (both in time and money, but especially money) than it is to ship electrons.

To start Facebook you need the skills, a laptop, a server, and a few months of late nights. (This is a dramatic oversimplification. Sorry Zuck and every software/internet developer ever.) To start a company that gets something manufactured, you need all of that plus a ton of cash. Prototyping, tooling and fulfillment are tremendously resource intensive. Have you ever wondered why VCs tend to back web startups, but for the most part leave hardware startups alone? Money. Crowdfunding lowers the money barrier.

Ok great, so some dude can get the money he needs to make an iPhone case that mounts to his forehead. Hey, what did I tell you about the snark rays? Let’s think bigger picture here. What are the long-term implications of designers having a lower barrier for funding their pet projects?

(more…)