Makers: The New Industrial Revolution

by Chris Anderson

3D Robotics co-founder and bestselling author Chris Anderson takes you to the front lines of a new industrial revolution as today’s entrepreneurs, using open source design and 3-D printing, bring manufacturing to the desktop. 

In an age of custom-fabricated, do-it-yourself product design and creation, the collective potential of a million garage tinkerers and enthusiasts is about to be unleashed, driving a resurgence of American manufacturing.  A generation of “Makers” using the Web’s innovation model will help drive the next big wave in the global economy, as the new technologies of digital design and rapid prototyping gives everyone the power to invent--creating “the long tail of things”.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Technology, Economics, Entrepreneurship, Design, Science

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Chris Anderson was named in April 2007 to the "Time 100," the newsmagazine's list of the 100 men and women whose power, talent or moral example is transforming the world. He is Editor-in-Chief of Wired magazine, a position he took in 2001, and he has led the magazine to six National Magazine Award nominations, winning the prestigious top prize for General Excellence in 2005 and 2007. He is the author of the New York Times best-seller The Long Tail, which is based on an influential 2004 article published in Wired, and runs a blog on the subject at www.thelongtail.com. Previously, he was at The Economist, where he served as US Business Editor, Asia Business Editor; and Technology Editor. He started The Economist's Internet coverage in 1994 and directed its initial web strategy. Anderson's media career began at the two premier science journals, Nature and Science, where he served in several editorial capacities. Prior to that he was a physics researcher at the Los Alamos National Lab."

Reviews

[Meg · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reads like a poorly written magazine article that has been unfortunately dragged out into a full-length book. All hype and no substance (how many different ways can he really say, "production has gone digital"?)
I'll be honest and admit I didn't read the whole thing - I set it down halfway through. Was going to read all of it before panning it like this, but decided it wasn't worth the time. Anderson's lack of understanding of the economists he tries to draw on to make his points just became too frustrating for me. For instance, he says "The people now control the means of production." Which isn't true in most of the examples he's talking about - when you ship your designs off to a factory owned by someone else to have them make your invention, then you control the means of design, not the means of production - but beyond that, he actually contradicts himself almost immediately: quoting Eric Reis, he says, "It's not about ownership of the means of production, anymore. It's about rentership of the means of production."
It's sad, because I think there's a kernel of truth in some of what he's saying. But this is really just mock-populist, upper middle class pandering to people who spend too much time on some combination of Etsy, boingboing, and... well I guess, probably on reading Wired.

[Tac Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an important book. Maker's is basically a sequel to The Longtail. It's a deep look at what happens to the manufacturing (mostly in America) when physical manufacturing behaves like the digital world. If this book doesn't make you want to go out and buy a 3D printer or start putting together OpenHardware robots, I don't know what will.

[Kislay Verma]

From SolomonSays:

Makers should be read as an extension of Anderson’s idea of “the long tail”. In specific, he is building on the first condition for a long tail to exist. i.e. democratization of the tools of production which enables everyone to become a producer.The idea is that today there are far more and cheaper options for design, manufacture, and funding if you want go into the manufacturing business.As such, all these ideas have been discussed at length in The Long Tail, but here the focus is more on production of real world items, “atoms” rather than “bits”. But while the former unveils a radical new way of analysing consumer behaviour, this book is only a collection of case-studies and reinforcements of a particular paradigm.

I found Anderson’s discussion of online communities far more powerful. In the wired world, dedicated followers on the internet are the biggest asset any business can have. Makers explores this world of organized enthusiasts and semi-pros in depth and offers great advice on how to cultivate it for evangelizing your business.

Here, as in The Long Tail, Anderson’s tendency to over-quote a particular example is evident in repeated mentions of Etsy and the 3D printer. The 3D printer may in fact be the next super-empowering technology, but mentioning it on every second page is only annoying. Detailed descriptions of the working of manufacturing equipment also seemed quite besides the point and should have left for reference. Makers also suffers from a US-Silicon Valley focus. Everything is analysed from America’s perspective, while China is set as the nemesis which must be countered. A fairer treatment would include the rest of the world in its scope and consider the possibility that businesses there too could be players in this new industrial revolution.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm in agreement with a number of other reviewers of this book that it was repetitive and basically read like a drawn out magazine article. But as with Anderson's The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, it was the content (not the presentation) that interested me.

Working in the world of public libraries (which Anderson mentions as the originator of the Long Tail) I was interested to see what he has to say on the Maker front. Several public libraries have put together "Maker Spaces," complete with 3-D printers, 3-D scanners, etc. and I'm trying to figure out if such a venture would make sense for my library. After reading this, I'm leaning towards "yes."

Libraries, while providing many different services, have one core mission: find what is valuable and make it available to our respective communities. If the world of manufacturing is indeed moving from massive buildings to the desktop, then public libraries have a role to play in that transition. I think really exciting things could happen if a Maker community were closely intertwined with the entrepreneurial resources of the public library.

[FannyH · Rating 2 out of 5]

J'étais très curieuse d'en savoir plus sur le mouvement Makers. La première partie est très intéressante, un historique sur la naissance de la tendance qui part des geeks punks, de sa philosophie Open Source et des changements économiques, sociétaux et industriels que cela pourrait engendrer. Tout cela basé sur des exemples concrets. J'ai bien aimé aussi les explications sur les différentes machines impressions 3D, découpes laser etc.

Mais je suis déçue par la deuxième partie du livre qui est tellement axée business qu'elle s'adresse plus à des personnes qui cherchent à entreprendre dans le milieu. C'est une suite de sucess strory technique sur le modèle de gestion et la chaîne de production, j'ai zappé des passages.

C'est dommage le début du livre laisse entre-voir un beau modèle de société où l'innovation en ligne est bénéfique à tous, pour finalement entretenir le rêve américain du mec qui créer sa boîte dans sa cave et devient riche, toujours plus riche.

Ce qui est drôle c'est que ce livre a été écrit en 2012 pour prédire 2021. On voit qu'on est encore bien loin de ses prédictions, les imprimantes 3D ne sont pas monnaie courante. Il avait raison pour Alibaba, mais bon, il est aujourd'hui très loin d'incarner le mouvement Makers ...

[Artur Coelho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chris Anderson excede-se muito no tom optimista deste Makers. O que começa por ser uma visão abrangente do potencial da impressão em 3D arrasta-se para uma elegia rosada da nova economia onde as fronteiras entre amadores e profissionais se esbatem e pequenas organizações inovadoras conquistam interessantes nichos de mercado. São factos, mas tornam o livro demasiado superficial e centrado num optimismo financeiro e tecnológico. Não ajuda o facto do autor ser criador e investidor em parte das empresas cujo perfil traça.

Anderson tem o dedo naquilo que é o princípio de uma avalanche tecnológica transformativa. A combinação entre comunidades e partilha através da internet, o gosto pela criação técnica e a cada vez maior disponibilidade de materiais e ferramentas de software e hardware com custos em diminuição têm o potencial de revolucionar o conceito clássico de indústria. O modelo tradicional das fábricas e linhas de abastecimento está a ser complementado e desafiado por aqueles que nas suas garagens e ateliers constroem protótipos, criam produtos e desenvolvem tecnologias baseadas em plataformas open source. Num certo sentido, é um retorno às raízes locais de manufactura industrial possibilitada por ferramentas de alta tecnologia.

Uma tecnologia em particular está a destacar-se pelo seu potencial e iminência de abrangência ao grande público. A impressão em 3D saiu dos laboratórios, instalou-se nos ateliers e oficinas e ameaça chegar a todos os utilizadores. Pode parecer prematuro prever uma taxa de penetração destes equipamentos similar à das impressoras hoje, mas a comparação feita por Anderson é convicente. Hoje, uma impressora de documentos é barata e fácil de encontrar, possibilitando a quem o quiser imprimir em papel. Coisa mágica, se pensarmos que não há tanto tempo assim a impressão era domínio de técnicos especializados e maquinaria pesada. A adição da terceira dimensão já está aí e são cad a vez mais os exemplos de utilizadores que pegam nas suas impressoras 3D e software de CAD para usos que vão da impressão de brinquedos para os filhos à impressão de peças mecânicas caras ou raras. O mercado já está a prestar atenção. Sucedem-se os projectos de disponibilização de impressoras 3D a custos cada vez menores (se bem que ainda substanciais) e gigantes do software apostam em versões gratuitas de aplicações e pacotes de CAD a pensar na explosão do mercado de utilizadores pessoais. Nisto a Autodesk destaca-se com aplicações como a 123D ou 123DCatch, que democratizam o processo de modelação 3D e transformação num objecto real.

É intrigante observar esta explosão tecnológica, comparável às vagas iniciais da internet ou da computação pessoal. O fascínio humano pelo objecto físico encontra no virtual uma nova dimensão, e a possibilidade de concretização física do virtual abre novos e intrigantes campos de actuação. Num futuro muito próximo, será possível a qualquer um imprimir peças mecânicas, objectos artísticos, brinquedos, enfim, tudo o que a imaginação e o domínio de ferramentas de CAD e modelação 3D lhe permtir.

(Nota: iniciei as aulas este ano mostrando vídeos sobre tópicos bleeding edge das tic, entre os quais impressão 3D. Agora, os meus alunos começam a perguntar-me se os objectos que estão a aprender a modelar em 3D utilizando aplicações como o Sketchup poderiam ser impressos. Intrigante.)

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book frustrating for a few reasons. In part one you have to wade through a lot of euphoric optimism about the potential interventions of 3-d printing, CNC machines, and CAD software. While it's an interesting phenomenon, I am concerned with questions of access, even moreso than in other areas of participatory culture that have supposed democratizing potential. Equipment costs may decrease and shared equipment may become more readily available, but doesn't CAD software require specialized knowledge? This will require a different kind of literacy that is, at the moment, confined to fields that are already critiqued for not being diverse. Aside from the literacy issues, the way that this interfaces with consumer culture is a bit of a puzzle to me. Does the world need more stuff? There is artistic and expressive potential, but there is also a huge potential for this to merely shift the contours of consumer culture. An elite group of users printing more junk? Boring...

Part two is less burdened with euphoric rhetoric, but the focus on the revenue generating potential and 3-d printing / laser cutting as a business model was not very interesting to me. There are a few short case studies on successful entrepreneurs using these tools, which were interesting from a historical perspective. I wish the chapter on DIY Biology had been longer as it was probably the most interesting.

I was left with a lot of questions:
What is being done to extend access beyond a privileged group of tinkerers?
What are the environmental impacts of these machines?
Aside from lowering production costs in the U.S., what are the global labor impacts?
Aside from more sharing, what is the relationship to capitalism?

Ultimately, I suspect I was not the audience for this book. I think it is geared toward a more general audience who is already excited about the possibilities of 3-d printing.

[donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chris Anderson always connects the dots for me. If you want to know how the maker revolution has the potential to change the not so distant future, read this book. While I feel like I'm only peripherally part of this movement (being a librarian who is exploring the possibilities of libraries being sites for makerspaces) I knew enough about what is going on with the maker movement to have begun thinking about the possibilities. I particularly loved his connection between the DIY punk culture of the 80s and today's maker movement. I'd thought of this myself and was excited when Anderson mentioned it. The idea that anyone can be in a band - just pick up an instrument and learn to play. And the idea that anyone can publish their thoughts, just make a zine with a typewriter and a copy machine. Expand this DIY thinking to so many more possibilities and add the connectedness of the Internet, the crowdfunding of sites like Kickstarter, and the growing availability of 3-D printing and you can see why we have a new industrial revolution on our hands.

[Scarlet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I originally picked up this book because I thought it might have some useful observations about life as a micro-entrepreneur. Anderson does talk a little bit about this, and seems to have a particular fondness for Etsy, which is where I do most of my online selling. But his larger interest is in how on-demand manufacturing is beginning to revolutionize the global economy, with some intriguing asides about how Karl Marx might react to seeing the tools of production being put into the hands of the workers, and how he thinks the United States could become a world leader in manufacturing again.

There was a little too much about 3D printing to keep my interest, but given his investment stake in this industry, I guess it's understandable. And at least I have a better understanding of what it is now. People have been telling me for years about this cool newfangled thing, but I guess I didn't really get that it could be used for more than just making relief maps until I listened to this book.

[uosɯɐS · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are now in the midst of a new type of industrial revolution. Probably at least half of this book is about 3D printing, and all of the advantages that gives to small start-up manufacturing companies (or even non-company hobbyists and hobbyists internet communities) that cater to long-tail customization oriented clientele. To be sure, there are many advantages of 3D printing in that regard. However, in the context of so many other ideas and technologies: the internet, open-source mentality, crowdfunding, etc - we are set to see not just lots of cool, new options, but a true global economic revolution. Giant manufacturers of today are all very limited by their supply-chains; the new manufacturers will posses an agility that will easily out-compete these giants. Next stop? Nanobots, DNA construction workers, and Star Trek replicators ;-)

[Genevieve · Rating 4 out of 5]

* Originally reviewed on the Night Owls Press blog here. *

It’s easier than ever before to be an entrepreneur and start a business. This is a good thing. Chris Anderson starts with this basic premise in his book Makers The New Industrial Revolution. And he’s not just talking about web-based and cloud-based businesses that dominate the world of startups. He’s talking about the “Real World of Places and Stuff.” In other words, businesses that make things.

He’s talking about manufacturing… You’re thinking: Isn’t manufacturing dying? But consider this statistic. According to Anderson, the digital economy is roughly $20 trillion. Beyond the Web, the economy of things is $130 trillion. (Whoa. Yes, that got my attention, too.)

Manufacturing isn’t dying. It’s being transformed.

The central idea in Makers is that the same basic conditions of technology, funding, distribution, and demand in the economy of bits can drive a revolution in the economy of things.

Makers is divided up into two parts: Part One discusses “The Revolution”—what it looks like and why and how it’s happening. The most interesting chapter in that section is Chapter 4 “We Are All Designers Now.” Anderson starts off with a fascinating discussion about how we all became our own designers in the economy of bits when desktop publishing became all the rage. We take it for granted now, but think back to how MS Word and PowerPoint made it so easy to make digital documents that could then be distributed or printed from home. Printing and designing a document used to be a manufacturing process; printing presses were huge factories. From there, Anderson pitches readers the new frontiers being carved out in the world of things through 3-D printing.

It’s like the world of bits and things, which were largely separate in the 20th century, suddenly collided and recombined.

What are the possibilities? Enormous. Think: furniture, toys, machine parts, even human organs. A world that is sometimes called the “Internet of Things.” Think of the future of new industries focused purely on designing bespoke templates that could then be sold, shared, or circulated. With printers at home or at community hacker spaces (e.g., TechShop), individuals and households can become their own makers.

Anderson quotes MIT professor Neil Gershenfeld’s speech at Maker Faire:

“I realized that the killer app for digital fabrication is personal fabrication. Not to make what you can buy in Wal-Mart, but to make what you can’t buy in Wal-Mart.”

Artisanal, small-batch manufacturing. That’s the maker revolution.

Part Two of the book is boldly titled “The Future.” This section covers all the tools and conditions that make the maker revolution possible. Anderson discusses the familiar territory of new markets (Chapter 7), organizational changes (Chapter 9), crowdfunding (Chapter 10), and the cloud (Chapter 11). Granted, these ideas are only familiar to most readers because we think of all that in terms of web-based businesses or businesses in the digital space. Until five years ago, a microentrepreneur that made things didn’t really have access. It was expensive and time-consuming to make something at market-scale. Now what we’re seeing is a dovetailing of that technology that made it so easy for digital entrepreneurs with the manufacturing space.

It looks like this: You can create prototypes on your computer with off-the-shelf or free, open-source software like SketchUp and Tinkercad. The power of information-sharing through social networks and communication platforms makes it easy to collaborate on design with your end-users, fostering intimate connections with your markets. Then you can upload your prototype file to a 3-D printer or factory, which can then produce whatever you need, whether it’s a hundred or a million widgets. Need financing and captial? Crowdfund your product through Kickstarter or put your design on Quirky. From there, you can sell your product on Etsy, Alibaba, or other global marketplace, which takes care of distribution.

Inventing and creating are no longer separate processes.

What is the impact of this maker movement on growth? That is the darker question. Anderson argues that growth within this new economic paradigm means more productivity, albeit with less workers. This may be disturbing to some. The idea of massive companies with large workforces that sustain a middle class is more a throwback to the 1950s and 1960s than the future Anderson is imagining. Fewer jobs tend to sustain higher tech manufacturing. It is a bitter pill to swallow.

But Anderson is zealously optimistic. In a 2012 interview with Forbes, Anderson explained it this way:

“This movement, through the use of the traditional engine of the start-up economy, small business, plus the Web’s innovation model of opening up to lots more people, plus automation, ends up bringing more manufacturing back to the West, the United States in particular. I’m confident that digital fabrication technology, just like the personal computer and the Web before it, will ultimately be a job driver in the U.S.”

His book largely reflects this optimistic outlook on the 21st century workshop. Is it realistic? Too soon to say…

As a publisher of a previous book on the new economy, Working in the UnOffice: A Guide to Coworking for Indie Workers, Small Businesses, and Nonprofits, I have much to admire in Anderson’s Makers. The values that underlie the maker revolution are the same that feed the coworking movement: collaboration and openness. What is really revolutionary about the maker movement is the access it is giving people. Anyone can be a maker entrepreneur. Anyone can be a company. “The beauty of the Web is that it democratized the tools both of invention and production,” Anderson writes. “We are all designers now. It’s time to get good at it.”

The writing in Makers is analytical and insightful, yet personal, too. Readers will find personal, colorful anecdotes from Anderson entertaining. The book also includes a wonderful appendix of technical resources, including “Getting started with CAD,” “Getting started with laser cutting,” and “Getting started with CNC machines.”

Overall, Makers is a compelling book for people looking to get a glimpse of the future. It is wonderfully written and chock full of useful information even for those who aren’t budding makers.

[Disclaimer: I received this book from Blogging for Books for an honest and candid review.]

[Jeo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is not for all audiences and it is targeted for those who are really interested in the maker movement. Mr. Anderson is clearly an enthusiast, and the book is more about what some hobbyists have done than a real analysis of a new industrialization. In that aspect the book is very superficial.

Although there are several examples of startups and other hobbyists’ success stories, we don’t have statistics on how much the maker movement is making. I read this book several years after its publication, and few of the described companies are no longer in business or have changed their original purpose. Just a glaring example is “Tesla” that is no the big customization company that Mr. Anderson describes. The realities of economics changed that.

The “New Industrial Revolution” does not delve deep in how the revolution is really happening. No answers to how many jobs the “new industrialization” has created, and we don’t know how many jobs are around either. Is this a mirage? The reader won’t know because again there is not analysis, just a list of success stories.

On the other hand, if you are inclined to build your own stuff and entrepreneurship this book is a good read. The same success stories show a path that any person can follow. The author himself is an example of that.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Makers was published in 2012. I'm writing this at the very end of 2023. In 2012, the word "micropreneur" was taken seriously. I love the vision that Anderson paints for what should be possible in the Maker movement, but the last 11 years have not been particularly supportive of it.

Up front, he lays this out:

The beauty of the Web is that it democratized the tools both of invention and of production. Anyone with an idea for a service can turn it into a product with some software code (these days it hardly even requires much programming skill, and what you need you can learn online)—no patent required. Then, with a keystroke, you can “ship it” to a global market of billions of people. Maybe lots of people will notice and like it, or maybe they won’t. Maybe there will be a business model attached, or maybe there won’t. Maybe riches lie at the end of this rainbow, or maybe they don’t. But the point is that the path from “inventor” to “entrepreneur” is so foreshortened it hardly exists at all anymore.
...
We’ve seen what the Web’s model of democratized innovation has done to spur entrepreneurship and economic growth. Just imagine what a similar model could do in the larger economy of Real Stuff. More to the point, there’s no need to imagine—it’s already starting to happen. That’s what this book is about.

In the era of the Mass Market, every store had roughly the same major national brands, at least in the US.

One example I use: Tide had something like 70% market share for detergent, and the top 3 detergent brands combined had close to 100%. There are, however, many use cases that could use something more specialized, and, unfortunately, in a mass market world, where shelf space is limited and customer acquisition depends on presence in a physical store, there was no for niche detergent products to get to market.

For most of the past century, the natural variation and choice in products such as music, movies, and books have been hidden by the limited “carrying capacity” of the traditional distribution systems of physical stores, broadcast channels, and megaplex movie theaters. But once these products were available online in digital marketplaces with unlimited “shelf space,” for lack of a better phrase, demand followed: the monopoly of the blockbuster was over. The mass market in culture has turned into a Long Tail of micro-markets, as any contact with a teenager these days will confirm (we’re all indie now!). In short: our species turns out to be a lot more diverse than our twentieth-century markets reflected.

The web should allow for an entrepreneur to create a product NOT meant for the mass market, but for a "large enough" set of fans.

And by doing so, maybe these Makers of the future will carve up the market. Instead of one blockbuster product for the masses, they'll be a ton of niche products better suited to more specific use cases.

As Cory Doctorow imagined it a few years ago in a great sci-fi book also called Makers,3 which was an inspiration for me and countless others in the movement, “The days of companies with names like ‘General Electric’ and ‘General Mills’ and ‘General Motors’ are over. The money on the table is like krill: a billion little entrepreneurial opportunities that can be discovered and exploited by smart, creative people.” Welcome to the New Industrial Revolution.
...
Thus, the Third Industrial Revolution is best seen as the combination of digital manufacturing and personal manufacturing: the industrialization of the Maker Movement.
...
Nations have always had their tinkerers and inventors. But the shift to digital changes everything about the ability to get those ideas and inventions produced and sold.

I love this vision. It speaks to freedom, creativity, and consumer choice.

But, as I said, history has not been kind.

(As a quick aside, I loved this quote:)

Machines allow us to work faster, doing more in less time. That liberates those hours for other activities, whether productive or leisure. What the First Industrial Revolution did create, more than anything else, was a vast surplus of time, which was reallocated to invent practically everything that defines the modern world. Four hundred years ago, nearly everyone you’d know would be involved in producing the staples of existence: food, clothing, shelter. Today, odds are, almost none of them are. Rao writes: The primary effect of steam was not that it helped colonize a new land, but that it started the colonization of time. Many people misunderstood the fundamental nature of Schumpeterian growth [a reference to the innovation and entrepreneurship growth theories of the economist Joseph Schumpeter] as being fueled by ideas rather than time. Ideas fueled by energy can free up time which can then partly be used to create more ideas to free up more time. It is a positive feedback cycle.

Let's start by talking about the megatrends he identified that caused him to create this theory.

Essentially the megatrends are: CAD + 3D Printing (and CNC, Laser Cutting, etc.) + Outsourced Manufacturing + Marketplaces for Niche Products + Novel Capital Techniques (Crowdfunding) == Recipe for Industrial Revolution.

Maybe the most important of those is the democratization of product design and manufacturing.

Why? Because making things has gone digital: physical objects now begin as designs on screens, and those designs can be shared online as files. This has been happening over the past few decades in factories and industrial design shops, but now it’s happening on consumer desktops and in basements, too. And once an industry goes digital, it changes in profound ways, as we’ve seen in everything from retail to publishing. The biggest transformation is not in the way things are done, but in who’s doing it. Once things can be done on regular computers, they can be done by anyone. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing happen now in manufacturing. Today, anyone with an invention or good design can upload files to a service to have that product made, in small batches or large, or make it themselves with increasingly powerful digital desktop fabrication tools such as 3D printers. Would-be entrepreneurs and inventors are no longer at the mercy of large companies to manufacture their ideas.

And if you democratize creation, the market for the long tail of products is already there:

The Web, from Amazon to eBay, revealed a Long Tail of demand for niche physical goods; now the democratized tools of production are enabling a Long Tail of supply, too.

And there are REAL benefits to this. For example, Etsy is a going concern, and if I want something special or custom, I can go there. Amazon Marketplace (not kickstarter) has made many, many millionaires in the US.

Got a classic car, perhaps an old MG roadster? A few clicks in your browser and you’re in the domain of hyperspecialized suppliers who focus on making nothing but replacement bonnet release cables for car models that haven’t been made for a generation.

100%. That kind of thing is awesome.


Now, let's talk about what went wrong. The major mistake -- and I could simply be looking at this through the wrong timeline -- is the scale of the revolution. Makers have moved the industry, but they are niche players, and the growth curve never went exponential. That is, all the trends Anderson identified are true, but the structure of the market, especially around customer acquistiion and shopping centralization, have curtailed its potential.

He holds the web up as this amazing open place.

The past ten years have been about discovering new ways to create, invent, and work together on the Web. The next ten years will be about applying those lessons to the real world. This book is about the next ten years.
...
The Internet democratized publishing, broadcasting, and communications, and the consequence was a massive increase in the range of both participation and participants in everything digital—the Long Tail of bits. Now the same is happening to manufacturing—the Long Tail of things.

And it was, for a while. But in the last 10 years, "the web" has become a combination of centralized (Apple News feeds for example vs. RSS), closed (paywalls), and walled off (Facebook). The open web still exists, but it is not driving the conversation.

The same thing happened with physical product development. There was a golden age in the mid-2010s when a Maker could create a product, have it made in China, sell it on Amazon Marketplace, or through a Shopify store, and get drive traffic profitably via Instagram (and other social) ads. There were a ton of startup product companies that went live, many of which raised a ton of money (Dollar Shave Club, Bai Brands, etc.).

What happened is that the big players -- P&G, Unilever, etc. -- bought their way to the top of the search results. This made it cost-prohibative for a startup Maker to find an audience for a particular product niche. The golden age of relatively cheap customer acquisition via a new channel ended.

So I won’t be invoking “mass customization” much here. Instead, what the new manufacturing model enables is a mass market for niche products. Think ten thousand units, not ten million (mass) or one (mass customization). Products no longer have to sell in big numbers to reach global markets and find their audience. That’s because they don’t do it from the shelves of Wal-Mart. Instead, they use e-commerce, driven by an increasingly discriminating consumer who follows social media and word of mouth to buy specialty products online.

There is something -- and I don't know all the details -- really hard about running a profitable business that is "in the middle". More than just one personin a garage with a part-time Etsy shop, less than a full corporation with 8-figure sales. It's not exactly a dead zone, but it's not full of life. At some point, you're big enough that you have many of the problems that every other manufacturer of scale has, but without the "economies of scale".

There is no law that says that Maker companies have to remain small. After all, many of today’s biggest Silicon Valley giants, from Hewlett-Packard to Apple, started in a garage...

There may not be a law, but there does seem something innate to it. If you want to "go big" and break out, at some point you have to play by the rules of the mass market. This means managing distribution and mass market retailers and elbowing your way onto shelf space and everything all that entails. There is a gap between "we've sold a few things online" and "we're selling to America". Some tried to build physical locations to close the gap, and that turned out to be an extremely expensive mistake.

Lots of companies in the Maker movement, most profiled in this book, have either flopped or shrunk. Local Motors is gone. Pebble is gone. Etsy has struggled (there was an article about how could it ever scale while keeping its soul). Kickstarter has been treading water for years, and the most successful products are not from upstart makers, but from folks who already have relatively large audiences. Quirky went bankrupt. SparkFun is the exact same size in 2023 it was in 2012. Desktop Metal (3D printing) was acquired. Thrasio filed for bankruptcy.

There was a short boom, and then market forces caused it to crash or, at best, level off.

And he kind of gets at WHY this never became a revolution:

Given a choice between infinite options and products that are cheap, available, and reliable, consumers tended to go the safe, one-size-fits-all route.

That is, the Makers revolution has been awesome. It's empowered many, and made products available that absolutely never would have been made in the world of the mass market. But, on balance, the Long Tail of niche business ideas is just that: it's the long tail, it's not the fat head, and the fat head is where most (ie - well over 50%) of the action is at. There's a scale mismatch.

A final thought on scale mismatch: crowdfunding!

There was, however, another way. Over the past few years, a new phenomenon of “crowdfunding” has taken off, by which supporters and potential customers collectively contribute the money necessary to get the product made. Crowdfunding may take many forms, from glorified tip jars to formal loans backed by people, not banks. The one Andon chose was Kickstarter, a website where people post descriptions of their projects and anyone can chip in to help.

He was writing the book at the moment in time when "crowdfunding was venture capital for the maker movement". Like a lot of these trends, crowdfunding kind of peaked right around the time the book was published. It's still around. A lot of the growth has come from GoFundMe for medical bills and the like vs. for products. But it never became a societal-shaping force.

The interesting thing about all this is he spends a lot of time talking about how the Maker Movement can address niche use cases and is more about community than profit etc. etc.

“Markets of ten thousand” defines the successful niche strategy for products and services delivered online. That number is large enough to build a business on, but small enough to remain focused and avoid huge competition. It is the missing space in the mass-production industry, the dark matter in the marketplace—the Long Tail of stuff. It is also the opportunity for smaller, nimbler companies that have emerged from the very markets they serve, enabled by the new tools of democratized manufacturing to route around the old retail and production barriers.

I think this is right. The Maker Movement has allowed niche products to exist. It allows hobbiests to make money -- and sometimes careers -- from their hobbies. It doesn't disrupt established industries.


The other major mistake was in how far specific tech might come over what period of time. The tech he focuses on are: 3D printers, CNC Machines, Laser Cutters, and 3D Scanners.

This comment is right:

So now the 3-D printer is where Jobs’s Macintosh and LaserWriter were twenty-five years ago. As with the first laser printers, 3-D printing is still a bit expensive and hard to use; it’s not yet for everyone. We haven’t really figured out what the killer app will be.
...
Like then, the first users are a little lost. When desktop publishing was first introduced, tens of thousands of people discovered that they knew nothing about fonts, kerning, text flow, anchors, and all that; they had to learn a couple of centuries’ worth of publishing terms and techniques overnight. Many garish documents with a dog’s breakfast of typefaces ensued, but so did an explosion of creativity that ultimately led to today’s Web. Today, with the spread of desktop fabrication tools, a generation of amateurs is also being suddenly confronted with the baffling language and techniques of professional industrial design, just as they were in the desktop publishing era.

And:

Rich Karlgaard, the publisher of Forbes magazine, thinks that 3-D printing “could be the transformative technology of the 2015–2025 period.” He writes: This has the potential to remake the economics of manufacturing from a large-scale industry back to an artisan model of small design shops with access to 3-D printers.

Well, it's very nearly 2025, and we're not there. 3D printers are still hobbiest devices. There isn't yet a killer app. Industrially, they're still best for prototypes or very small batch manufacturing. He posits that 3D printers should give Toy Companies chills...I don't think Mattel is terrified yet (and, in fact, things like Brand matter a ton: you can't 3D print an "American Girl Doll"). What is the timeline here on the tech? And, when it gets good enough, what is the killer app? There is a chicken and egg problem that hasn't fully played out yet.

He also makes big claims about home-sourcing manufacturing because of 3D printing and automation. We've been treading water at best, and the home-sourcing that's happened has been due to efforts like Origin USA instead of technology-enabled broad trends.

In fact, the very factories in China that were powering much of Anderson's vision have turned into the biggest competitors to Makers in the US. You create a product and have it manufactured in China: the factory will make a knock-off and compete with you. This has gotten so bad many people are hesitant to use the factories there anymore.

Chapman works at a different scale. He continues to design the weapons in CAD software and prototype with his desktop fabrication tools. Once they look good, he sends the file to a local toolmaker to reproduce the mold out of stainless steel, and then to a U.S.-based injection-molding company to make batches of a few thousand. Why not have the parts made in China? He could, he says, but the result would be “molds that take much longer to produce, with slow communication times and plastic that is subpar” (read: cheap). Furthermore, he says, “if your molds are in China, who knows what happens to them when you’re not using them? They could be run in secret to produce parts sold in secondary markets that you would not even know existed.”

Shein -- the largest clothing manufacturing marketplace in the world -- was built on the concept of connecting the massive textile manufacturing capacity of China directly to consumers via a social app. This is what is capturing the "small batch" economic benefit. Not Makers in the US.

This is a world where America can compete. And so can China. And Germany and Mexico and Poland. Digital manufacturing levels the global playing field. Any country can make things. The question is only what can they make better than anyone else.
...
What kind of economic future does the rise of the Maker Movement predict? Is it one where Western countries like the United States regain their lost manufacturing might, but rather than with a few big industrial giants, they spawn thousands of smaller firms picking off niche markets?

I think this is broadly right, but we have yet to see it en masse.

Perhaps 3D printing and other tech will improve to the point that his vision becomes more true. Perhaps a trade war with China will reshape things. Perhaps tech regulation will open the web back up. Who knows?

For now: I love that Makers can reach their audiences on the web. But the movement, unfortunately, is not a revolution.

[Verda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting takes on the future of decentralized manufacturing. Feels like he is glossing over a lot of the things that would prevent this revolution from materializing. 3D printing *has* exploded but more towards highly custom and previously expensive parts in the aerospace and medical industries. Wonder what the author thinks about current state of desktop machines and the role of AI in this revolution...

[Rose Rosetree · Rating 4 out of 5]

Questionable ethics underlie this otherwise highly successful high-concept book.

I'll get to that ethical part later, but first...

Let's give credit where credit is due. Bestselling author Chris Anderson is a highly effective writer of commercial nonfiction. His expertise is evident right from the first chapter, where Chris helps us readers to fall in love with his grandfather (and, tangentially, trust the author as a good guy who's both knowledgeable and humble).

I'm giving this book FOUR STARS because Chris does exactly what he's set out to do, which is to offer enthusiastic praise for all the wonderful opportunities he sees in "The New Industrial Revolution."

Without bragging, yet quite consistently, Chris discreetly mentions how successful he is. Thus, he has earned the standing to write on this topic. His get-rich-easy enthusiasm is contagious -- or would be, except for readers who spot certain ethical problems. Namely, no ethical problems with Mr. Anderson's heartfelt cheerleading, but rather, problems inherent in a certain ethical cluelessness that's baked into all the rah-rah talk about a new Movement.

BY ALL MEANS, IF YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT ETHICS...

Stop reading this review right now. And let's face it, Chris Anderson is hardly the only ethically clueless person who is having a wonderful time, not caring much about ethics at all; according to his own standards, living as an outstanding success. (Maybe a model for all others?)

Statements like these from his book did bother me, though. Perhaps they will bother some of you other Goodreaders too:

Chris reassures readers that you don't have to make something original. Just alter somebody else's files. Then you're making something!

Isn't that wonderful? No need to come up with a single innovation of your own. Conveniently this lowers the bar for creativity! Because if you change one thing about somebody else's open source hardware or software, ta da! You're a MAKER.

"Intellectual property no longer matters."

The ability to remix files is the engine that drives... COMMUNITY.

And COMMUNITY is soooo important to what Anderson calls "The New Industrial Revolution"

HELLO!

If you do read this book, you might flag (as I wound up doing) how often COMMUNITY is perceived as the big social good that's achieved by all that sharing and kinda-sorta, mashup-like creating. But how true is that?

Chris would say, success today is all about sharing. COMMUNITY helps everyone to succeed.

One example he gives is that Makers can keep their day jobs. No bar to entry: At night they can volunteer to work really hard to enter a contest, which means they get to express themselves! How wonderful!!!

Plus, there's a teensy chance that a few Makers might even win a particular competition, then become so successful that their designs are adopted by a big company.

Although most small businesses fail? According to Chris, that's okay. Because, you see, a small fraction of those businesses will succeed, which will generate a ton of jobs for society. That way, everybody wins.

Evidently, given Chris's personal experience of "being in the right place at the right time" and making plenty of money... he doesn't care about all the idealists being swept up in this Makers craze. He presents only one possible scenario -- success like his. An understandable blind spot, for sure.

In his privileged world, does Mr. Anderson feel any ethical need to present the other side of this Makers story? Or did I somehow miss all the human interest examples in his book, examples of people who are not making money, not contributing much to society, but loving their important sense of COMMUNITY.

And so what if they've trusted in promises by authorities like Chris? So what if they figured that if they worked hard and played by the rules and give everything they could to COMMUNITY, they would succeed in every way?

Untrue, of course. No doubt Chris counts how many copies he sells of "Makers." Does it ever enter his mind to count all the broken hearts among readers who buy into his relentlessly upbeat cheerleading?

Nope, he'd rather add color to his story by telling us all about jellyfish.

WHY DID I READ MAKERS IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Look, my passion is helping people (and in an ethical way). Overall, the main thing I do is to create intellectual property. Developing the field of Energy Spirituality, I have filed 11 trademarks and generated plenty of other useful methodologies that I haven't bothered to trademark. All of them have helped people, real people.

Like Chris Anderson, I have a grandfather who patented an industrial process. (Details in my memoir, "Bigger than All the Night Sky.") Like Chris, I'm a writer.

Only there the similarity ends. For instance, my beat isn't the same as "Wired" or other bigtime reporting on today's mainstream society. My field involves emotional growth and spiritual awakening for individual people, not abstractions but people I care about; as a result I've devoted my life to helping clients, teaching workshops, indie-publishing books.

Originally, when reading this book I hoped that I might learn something useful. Or become inspired. Exactly the opposite happened.

Still, I kept reading in the hope of finding some acknowledgment of the truth: What are consequences, for instance, from negating the value of intellectual property, true originality? Is society really going to benefit much when folks (like Chris's readers) are discouraged from doing work that isn't totally mainstream?

LOOK, EACH OF US HAS OUR OWN PRIORITIES

While I certainly admire the author's clever writing, I do care about ethics, caring in ways that he clearly doesn't.

Like many today, Chris Anderson may believe that "Knowledge wants to be free"... provided that he has established a business model where, one way or another, he'll be well paid.

Toward the end of "Makers" Chris describes an experience he had with infringement of his work done by Chinese users, including making copies of his open source products (including translating a book into Chinese and selling it as though Chris and his team had nothing to do with it).

It floored me when Chris shrugged this off, elaborately acting like the most good-natured guy in the world. To him, no prob.

Personally, what has been my experience? Like my friend Sam, another writer I know, we've had the COMMUNITY experience of our books being sold illegally in China. And guess what? Unlike Chris we do actually care. Despite the fact that both Sam and I have been fortunate in our careers, so that our careers would count as American success stories.

Nonetheless, I doubt than any authentic creator of intellectual property can shrug off piracy.

* In fact, this might be the acid test for "Have you ever created anything worthwhile?" Because, if you have, you don't merely chuckle when somebody steals your work.

* You don't say "Gotta love my COMMUNITY" when copycats offer a shoddy version of something you worked for years to develop, something with integrity that helps people significantly.

* And if a person with shoddy ethics successfully offers a fourth-rate substitute that's supposed to be just as good as what you've created -- or maybe better? Hey, you don't kick up your heels in delight, telling everybody you know: "So what if the COMMUNITY is growing at the expense of quality and integrity? COMMUNITY is all that matters."

Actually, to some of us, quality and integrity still do matter. Although you'd never learn about that from "Makers."

ETHICALLY, I'M NOT A FAN OF "SHARING" HARD-WON INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

From my perspective, as a maker of ways to help people with personal growth, problems include:

* Lack of quality control, when copycats take the name of an authentically important innovation and then pretend to be offering the very same thing. (And, if you don't think that hurts trusting consumers, you haven't been paying attention.)

* Lack of payment for idealists, surely likely to happen to most in the target market for "Makers." Enthusiasts who are swept away by the COMMUNITY craze.

One man's COMMUNITY is another person's EXPLOITATION. Or maybe that same person learns, through the school of hard knocks that, of course, the sort of COMMUNITY being advocated by Mr. Anderson does usually RESULT IN EXPLOITATION.

In conclusion, I wonder why this is: Chris Anderson's extensive collection of vivid success stories didn't include your typical Etsy entrepreneur or independent publisher: Sweating. Dreaming. Working so hard. And so exhausted. Broke.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

After this book I'm a confirmed fan of Chris Anderson; both 'Long Tail' and 'Makers' have been solid books that broaden the horizon, I skipped 'Free' but may go back to read it now. That said I do think there are some limits to his theory that small-batch manufacturing will revolutionise manufacturing supply chains and represents the 3rd industrial revolution.

Makers is essentially an extended feature (slash sales pitch) on the idea that an open-source network of small-scale designers and manufacturers can out-innovate established, vertically integrated industrial giants. There are many moving parts to this, including social networks organized around specialized interests (e.g. robotics, jellyfish tanks, model helicopters, etc), 3D manufacturing and its offshoots (enabling relatively low cost manufacture of small batches of prototypes customised to fit the needs of particular consumer communities), and open-source financing (e.g. crowdfunding via Kickstarter). Anderson discusses how each part has significant advantages over the traditional process of inhouse corporate designers, bureacracy, product commodification and scale. To his credit, he also discusses the limitations of open-source manufacturing in areas that require large financial investment over a long period in, for example, safety testing, such as in the area of space/aviation.

The idea that the ultimte buyers of a product can be actively and intimately involved in its design and manufacture is attractive, as is the concept of small batch manufacture rather than excess inventory much of which ends in waste dumps. Another powerful idea is that of the multi-lateral social network as a model for industrial organisation, as opposed to the unilateral blog format -- not entirely new but more broadly applied.

But Anderson also argues that all this equates to 3rd industrial revolution and the democratizing power of the internet moving from the world of 'bits' (information) to the world of 'atoms' (stuff). He makes the point that the steam engine (1st IR) and mass manufacturing (2nd IR) had the broad life changing impact they had because they influenced hardware, as opposed to just software, and thus more relevant to more people and more parts of our lives. My problem with this is that: (i) 3D printing, etc, are applicable for only a small subset of things I would use daily, e.g. maybe toys for my cats; for slightly more complex things, like a toaster or microwave, even apparel, I couldn't conceivably manufacture on my own -- too complex, much easier to buy from a store. (ii) Humans already have too much stuff -- the 1st and 2nd IRs enabled mass consumption by bringing costs down, the 3rd IR may change how things are produced and allow for more customisation, but I don't see it as meaning that in 20 years we all have fives more stuff than we do now -- that would be a disaster environmentally. (iii) How applicable is all this outside the elite communities with high levels of internet access and literacy?

[Abdurrahman Turk · Rating 5 out of 5]

İlk olarak çalıştığı işten memnun olmayan, hayattan zevk almayan birisiyseniz bu kitabı kesinlikle okumanızı öneririm!!!
Belki bu kitapta anlatılan örnekler size ilham verir ve öncelikle hobi olarak sonrasında ise para kazandığınız bir iş alanı bulursunuz.

Do It Yourself (DIY) yaklaşımı sanırım kitle kaynaktan (crowdsourcing) daha bilindik bir konu. Living Lab / Open Lab gibi adlarla Türkiye'de de üniversitelerde hatta belediyelerin tahsis ettiği bazı alanlarda açılan atölyeler var (Kalkınma Ajansı desteğiyle son olarak Koç Üniversitesi Kuluçka Merkezinde bir atölye kuruluyor). Bu merkezler gençlerin yaratıcılıklarını geliştirmeleri ve girişimciliği artırmayı amaçlaya dursun başta Amerika'da olmak üzere birçok firma bu yöntem ile üretim yapmaya ve milyon dolarlar kazanmaya başladılar. Almanya'nın Endüstri 4.0 olarak adlandırdığı üretimde bilgi-iletişim teknolojilerinin kullanımının yaygınlaştığı günümüzde, 3B yazıcılar ve kitle kaynağın birlikte evirdiği yeni bir sanayi devrimine geçmemiz çok şaşırtıcı olmaz.

Kitap ile ilgili yorumlara hızlıca göz attım. Açık söylemek gerekirse biraz hayal kırıklığı ve üzüntü duydum. İnsanlar bir kitabı hangi beklentiler içinde okumaya başlıyor anlamıyorum. Bu tarz kitaplar size sunuluş şeklinden çok sunduğu bilgi ve kapsamı ile değerlendirilmeli. Bu kitap yaşlı-genç her kesimden insanın anlayabileceği ve eğer içinde küçük bir istek varsa kendi kendine birşeyler üretme isteği uyandıracak bir kitap. Konuya ilginiz varsa kitle kaynak üzerine de bir kitap okumanızı öneririm.

Eğer kitabın adına aldandınız ve asıl merak ettiğiniz konu teknolojinin ilerlemesi ve otomasyon/robotik teknolojilerin gelişmesi ile üretimde yaşanan/yaşanacak değişimler ise bu konuda Kemal İnan hocanın "Teknolojik İş(lev)sizlik" kitabını okumanızı öneririm.

[Zackbrooks95 · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Chris Anderson's book "Makers: The New Industrial Revolution", Anderson retells many accounts of technological innovations and the people and ideas that are behind them. Chris tells the story of a future where we can simply print off anything we need using futuristic 3D printers. He believes that the way our society is set up right now is causing this age to become a new industrial revolution. Inventors are in positions to make their ideas become realities in a fashion that is much simpler than it used to be. My favorite chapter of the book is when he tells the story of how "Square", a mobile credit card reader came to be. The inventor was a glassblower, and he needed to be able to accept a payment from someone in South America. Because he was unable to take her credit card info, he decided to invent something that would allow every day people to take this information and use it to sell their products. This book is full of stories like these. It's interesting to learn the background behind some of the technologies we know and love to this day. The book also talks about new ways for inventors to raise money, such as Kickstarter.com. Nowadays, any good idea can get the attention of thousands of investors by simply creating a video and setting up a page. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Chris Anderson's book. He creates an informative and personal story that helps you better understand the age that we're living in. His case studies all reinforce his hypothesis that the age we are living in is unlike any other. While I do believe he could have focused more on some of the negative affects these innovations are doing to the environment, I feel like I learned a lot and I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in technology.

[George Bounacos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I received this book free at GoodReads. Receiving a copy did not require me to write a review, and the free copy did not influence my opinion.


Makers is an important book in the same way that The Long Tail or The Tipping Point were important. Author Chris Anderson is a modern polymath, simultaneously serving as editor of Wired magazine, founder of a manufacturing company and taking over the popular TED conference series.

Anderson is a writer who lives on the bleeding edge. More than a decade at Wired and years at TED ensure he is constantly surrounded by thought leaders.

Makers delves into the nascent field of small businesses and individuals using 3-D printing technology that work in plastics and other materials to create things. Anderson traces the entire history of the movement, shares his vision for the future and profiles all parts of the maker ecosystem.

Readers will appreciate Anderson's deep knowledge and understanding of what makes this new manufacturing process the next big thing. And his projection is likely correct.

But as The Long Tail grew from an originally contentious magazine article and sprawled into a lazily edited book, Makers ultimately suffers from Anderson's storytelling style. Ultimately, this is a well researched story and too long by half.

The topic would make a brilliant long magazine piece or long TED talk. In its current form, it is too long for casual readers and too simplistic for early adopters of this new technology.

[Darcy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting concept. I think he makes a good argument, but fails to eliminate some counter arguments on some topics. Having said that, it inspired some ideas that can be implemented in my own non-Maker world.

Also, I should probably think about reading The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More as this is the second book of Chris Anderson's that I've read where he discusses it, but I'm still not clear on the entire concept. I guess it's time to speak to the VP and see if he has a copy in his office library.

[Senem Turhan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I agree with many of the things in the book such as opportunities of digital fabrication tools and open source, I am not so sure about the utopia that Anderson has pictured. The last half of the book made me think about how dystopia of maker movement would be regarding the situation of manufacturing employees, liability, safety of products or consumer protection. Many other questions have pop up in my mind. He has too much focused on the glow of digital FAB which distracted him to see the possible limitations of maker movement. That might be the business orientated nature of this book. I still recommend this book, since it helps you (if you are not from business or marketing background) understand why some people are so fascinated about digital fabrication.

[John Stepper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good. The book works on multiple levels. It reads like a journalist's well-written summary of he maker movement. And it also reads like a fist-hand account of someone personality involved with and in love with the trend. Finally, individual stories - eg the one about his CEO at 3D Robotics - are engaging and useful even if you aren't interested in the maker movement at all.

I saw the author present the same material at a conference in October and it was a fantastic talk. Great stories, well-told, that will teach you something and make you think.

[John Storey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished this book about 2 weeks ago. Since then I have already come into contact with a Makerbot and plan on manufacoring my first product this month. I'm so stoked on this you don't even know. In the same way personal computers changed our lives after being developed through the 70s-80s. That time is NOW for manufacturing, but at an economic scale 5 times greater than internet business! Check out my project: www.cstmstuff.com

[Phil Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

As in his previous books, Anderson introduces big ideas. In the near future, every home can be a de facto manufacturing facility. Rife with interesting anecdotes (including some personal ones), this is anything but a dry "techie" book.

Read this book if you want to see a glimpse of the future. Ignore it at your own peril.

[Barb Wiseberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it - from the first page to the last, Chris Anderson gives new hope and insight to what our future, and our children's future, could be.

The road to this new revolution is rocky, and nothing like we've ever seen before, but I look forward to it, don't you?

[Thomas Umstattd Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book predicts yet another revolution in business. I can't recommend it enough.

[Adriaan Jansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

''Makers'' tells the story of 3D printing and Open Innovation. The book gives the latest developments and offers some ideas and suggestions on how both 3D printing and Open Innovation may impact entrepreneurship, business in general, and the overall economy. As such, ''Makers'' offers some glimpses on what the future may hold in store for us as consumers, producers, entrepreneurs and employers.

Despite these glimpses of a possible future, most parts of the book are focused on the technical aspects of 3D printing and Open Innovation. This makes ''Makers'' an interesting complement to Jeremy Rifkin's excellent ''The Zero Marginal Cost Society''. Rifkin places 3D printing, Open Innovation and several related concepts in a broader context and gives an overview of what the future of capitalism may look like. In ''Makers'', Chris Anderson shares some of Rifkin's ideas, yet doesn't go as far as Rifkin in presenting us with a challenging bigger picture of how the latest developments in technology and human interaction will change our lives.

So where Rifkin gives the bigger picture, Anderson often focusses on how things actually work. He does this in a very personal way, when he describes the difficulties his grandfather experienced when trying to bring to market his inventions, his own shift from atoms (working as a child in his grandfather's hobby-workshop) to bits (among others, as a director of the magazine ''Wired'') back to atoms (with his own 21st century hobby-workshop with 3D printers and laser cutters) and, most importantly, his own experiences with Open Innovation with the internet community DIY Drones and his company he co-founded, 3D Robotics.

In recent years, much has changed from the situation faced by Anderson's grandfather, who, in the first half of the 20th century, had to invent and build his prototypes all on his own in his garage, then patent his invention and hope to sell licenses of his patent to a company to get his invention to market. Nowadays inventors can easily share ideas on-line, build on each other's discoveries and ideas, make a prototype with CAD (Computer Aided Design) software, print the prototype with their own 3D printer at home or send the CAD file to a local workshop for digital fabrication and have it printed there, and sell their product on their own website or more general sites.

The above is made possible by recent developments in digital fabrication. Chris Anderson describes the following technologies that play a crucial role in digital fabrication:
- CAD software: Computer Aided Design = Software programs that allow you to design 3D objects on the screen of your computer.
- 3D Printers: A 3D object is printed layer by layer, from bottom to top. A 3D printer has one set of motors that move horizontally, allowing a print-head to deposit material, often plastic, according to the instructions included in the CAD design. Once that layer is finished, a second set of motors moves the print-head vertically, up one level so that the next layer can be added. A 3D printer thus adds material to create an object.
- CNC Machines: CNC machines take the opposite approach and, in a way, work like sculptors: From a block of material, a CNC machine removes part of the material to create an object.
- Laser Cutters: On its own, not really a 3D device: A Laser Cutter cuts any 2D material into a desired shape, like scissors cut paper. Often, several of these 2D shapes are combined to form a 3D object.
- 3D Scanners: These allow you to turn a physical object in the real world into a digital file, just like a 2D scanner translates a page into a digital document.

These new technologies are complemented with how we have started to communicate and share via internet. Collaboration, community driven sharing of ideas and open source methodologies have flourished since the beginning of the internet to create open source software. The usual example of this Open Innovation is Linux, the open source operating system.

Anderson shows that the new 3D digital fabrication technologies and improved on-line networks have allowed communities of creators and inventors to also apply this bottom-up Open Innovation to the production of physical objects: Open Source Hardware.

As an example, Anderson describes how he first started an on-line community, DIY Drones (diydrones.com) and later, with the help of that on-line community, started a company, 3D Robotics (3dr.com). After a first try to built robots and planes for his kids sparked his interest in drones, Anderson decided to share his findings on-line. This was in 2007, and until then people often opted for a blog, allowing mostly for one-way communication, to share their ideas and creations on-line. Crucially, Anderson decided to create an on-line community, where everybody could contribute ideas and suggestions. Many people posted designs for drones, others contributed with corrections and suggestions. Using the designs, any member of the community could build a drone for himself.
Anderson realised that to make the designs and ideas of his on-line community accessible to a wider audience, he should offer not just the designs on his site, but sell kits that would make it easier for anybody to build a drone. Thus he started a company to sell those kits, 3D Robotics. This company sells kits for drones based on the designs made by the community. Crucial contributors receive monetary and non-monetary rewards. This is Open Source Hardware: Just as Linux is made by a community and companies like Red Hat sell services based on that community product, the designs for the drones are made by the community, and 3D Robotics sells a real life hard copy of the designs made by the community.

Obviously, with this open design you risk competition from cheap copies. In such an Open Innovation setting, there is no room for strict patents.

So what is the advantage of building a company like this? Anderson cites Sun Microsoft's Bill Joy to explain why. Joy's law states: ''No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else''. So if you limit the creation of new products and services to your in-house R&D department, you will depend exclusively on the bright people who work for you, which is only a fraction of the talent that is available worldwide. Conversely, in an Open Innovation setting, you can tap into all the talent that is available anywhere. Don't forget: Good ideas can come from anywhere. This, of course, explains part of the success of Linux and Wikipedia.

Anderson argues that, by using Open Innovation and tapping into all the available talent, new products can be developed faster and cheaper. Additionally, those products have a high chance of being better than similar products designed and produced by just one company. Of course, we have already seen this ''Faster, Cheaper, Better'' when it comes to software. New 3D Digital Fabrication technologies have made the benefits of Open Innovation now also applicable to hardware.

This has resulted in the ''Maker Movement'', of which Anderson describes 3 characteristics:
1. People use digital tools in their own homes to design new products and to make prototypes.
2. The cultural norm is to share those designs and to collaborate with other in on-line communities.
3. Common standards for the digital files of the designs are used so that anybody can send their design to commercial digital fabrication sites and have their designs turned into physical products in the amount they want.

An important conclusion: Location is less and less important when it comes to production of physical goods. Ideas are more important than geography. This is in line with what Luis Garicano also remarked in ''El Dilema de España'': El valor añadido en los procesos productivos hoy en día está antes de la fabricación (en I+D) y después de ésta (en servicios), no en la fabricación misma (The real value is no longer in the production of goods, but before production (ideas) and after production (services). With digital fabrication sites like Fab Labs (fabfoundation.org) and Techshop (techshop.ws), manufacturing is becoming a service in the cloud.

Besides turning manufacturing into a cloud-based service, 3D printing offers advantages that traditional large scale manufacturing can't offer:
- Variety is free: There are no additional costs to have the 3D printer make a different version of a CAD design. Unlike machines in a traditional factory, 3D printers don't require a change in set-up for a different product.
- Complexity is free: The cost of printing the a simple object and a complicated one will only depend on the time it takes to print and the type of material used. A complicated prototype of a skyscraper can cost as much to print as a simple tea-cup.
- Flexibility is free: To change a product once production has started, you only need to change the software instructions. The machine stays the same. Again: Unlike machines in a traditional factory, 3D printers don't require a change in set-up for a different product.

The result is that inventors and creators can easily build prototypes and small batches of their product. Once demand for a product is proven, mass production becomes an option, and traditional large scale factories will be more cost efficient: If economies of scale apply, traditional production will be more appropriate than 3D printing. Note that 3D printing has the same constant unit costs, independent of the amount of units produced.

On top of this easy access to the means of production (3D printers costs as little of $ 1000) that inventors now enjoy, also easy access to finance has become available, besides the traditional options of bank loans and venture capital: Anderson describes in some detail how crowdfunding works. A nice benefit of sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo is that a crowdfunding campaign is not only about raising money, but also a way to do market research and measure interest in the project or product. If the objective amount is not reached before a deadline, the project doesn't receive any funding (and money is returned to investors). Anderson argues that a product that doesn't reach its crowdfunding objective probably would not have been a success in the real world.

Makers is an interesting book that gives a first idea of the variety of ways products will be produced in the future. However, due to its focus on how the technology works and its detailed descriptions of concepts like crowdfunding, ''Makers'' runs a bit the risk of being quickly outdated because many of the concepts and technologies are becoming mainstream. ''Makers'' was written in 2012, and for example, I doubt that Anderson would have included such a long description of crowdfunding if he were to re-write the book in 2016.

Personally I would have preferred more focus on the future, perhaps similar to Jeremy Rifkin. At the end of the book Anderson gives some ideas that deserved to be explored more, like these lines from the epilogue: ''In a future where many more things can be made to order, as opposed to manufactured, distributed, stored and sold, an opportunity can be seen for an industrial economy less conditioned by commercial interests and more determined by social interests, exactly like already has occurred with software''. Too bad Anderson doesn't walk down this road a little further.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good book for someone who taking their first dive into the Maker space, though, if you're a seasoned veteran there probably isn't much in here that you don't already know. Below are some key topics covered.

1 – The DIY era of web and home improvement has made its way to manufacturing and just like open-source software has become ubiquitous, so too are open-source 3d models and manufacturing resources. Open source manufacturing is quickly allowing for demands to be met that might otherwise have not been – an example given is hobbyists developing 3d printable weapons for Lego figures. With Lego themselves being reluctant to create realistic weapons, Makers are coming together to develop their own open source ones to meet their needs – some of these hobbyists have even been able to develop lucrative businesses.

2 – With 3d printing becoming more ubiquitous, prototyping has become the cheapest it has ever been, enabling would-be inventors to quickly iterate on their designs for vastly cheaper than would otherwise be possible. The author asserts that 3d printing is in the early stages of its life, and like with the printing press, technological developments will enable it to become both cheap and accessible to most people.


3 - Crowd funding, while a great way to get funds for a project, is also a great way to test the water for the viability of a project. Don’t reach your goal? Maybe your product isn’t meeting the needs of your target audience. Having this test available makes new product ventures less risky because no production actually needs to take place, so no manufacturing equipment, stock, or components need to be purchased before knowing there’s a market for the product.
When you invest in a crowd funded project, you typically get access to the developers of the project, which fosters participation from supporters, which can lead to a feeling of involvement in the project for the backers, which then leads to the backers being more likely to share the project with others. An example used is the smartwatch project, Pebble, which within 3 weeks reached $10mil.

4 – Digital & open source manufacturing techniques as well as automation are enabling developed countries to rival the low cost of labour of less developed countries, which, the author posits, will result in an influx of manufacturing coming back to the developed world. Moving back to the developed world also mitigates other costs, such as environmental, political and stability issues with other countries, alongside wage strikes in places like China, currency fluctuations and global shipping issues.

5 – Reduced barriers to entry, cost and the wide availability of quality training for open source manufacturing and 3d printing will mean larger manufacturing companires are likely going to be competing with smaller manufacturers who develop products for niche markets. The author uses both publishing (Newspapers vs Wordpress) and broadcasting (Typical TV vs Youtube) as examples for what to expect to happen for manufacturing in the future, asserting that as the cost of 3d printing goes down it will become ubiquitous – creating a situation where we may never again have to rely on a major manufacturer.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

In "Makers," Chris Anderson gives a solid overview of important developments in software and manufacturing that allow hobbyists to easily create their own designs through AutoCAD or similar programs, get feedback on their ideas through online communities and see their products come to life, made either by small 3D printers or CNC machines, or through relatively seamless orders placed at factories, often overseas. Building on his arguments in "The Long Tail," Anderson waxes about a revolution in the way that products are designed, made and distributed.

In the five years since "Makers" was published, it's become clear that Anderson was onto a significant movement. I found his discussion of the different types of 3D printers and CNC machines valuable for understanding the options available to small manufacturers. I admired how his tinkering with drones transformed into a multimillion-dollar company, 3D Robotics. (It has since crashed, excuse the pun, and reinvented itself: see here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/... and here: https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/27/inv...)

The appendix at the end of the book is a good resource for those who want to dabble themselves. The technology I found most fascinating, printing organs, was in its infancy when Anderson published the book and has since advanced dramatically: https://www.economist.com/news/scienc....

Anderson is a utopian, and a weakness of the book is its failure to sincerely grapple with the downsides of the Maker movement. Most obviously, it relies heavily on mostly free and volunteer labor. Anderson has little patience for companies that have to deal with safety regulations and consumer protection (in a discussion of modern kit cars, he points out that if you care about features such as airbags, "this probably isn't the car for you"). He treats rampant issues with piracy and counterfeit goods on Alibaba as mere nuisances, though trade groups worldwide would disagree. (One study estimates that counterfeits account for 12.5 percent of China's exports, with Alibaba a prime offender: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ywang/20...). And perhaps because Anderson draws on his previous writing, parts of the book can feel repetitive.

The ecosystem Anderson describes is entirely male (try searching the book for the words "she" or "her," and you get only a few references to his mother and daughters). He discusses Etsy, which provides a marketplace for plenty of women artists. But he couldn't find any women in leadership at the nexis of tech and manufacturing? The "Maker heroes" he cites late in the book are: 1) an aerospace pioneer who sold out to a giant weapons maker; 2) a guy who makes contemporary weapons for Lego toys -- because Lego refuses to make them as a breach of its company ethics; and 3) Jack Dorsey. I can't quite relate.

[Tony Lawrence]

This book, subtitled ‘The New Industrial Revolution’, was written nearly 10 years go (2012), and i’m only just hearing about some of these ideas, I mean in recent months and years, and then mostly on the periphery of mainstream culture and business, or as evidence of a geeky underground movement. For example; crowdfunding, Maker spaces, Arduino (hobby electronics kits), 3D printing etc. I think this is two-fold; the USA are clearly ahead of the UK (and most of the world) in terms of most new technology adoption, and the support, funding and ecosystem that supports tech start-ups. However, more significantly this is a slightly amorphous ‘revolution’ which might become clearer with hindsight. Anderson is a very well informed serial entrepreneur and tech writer (Wired) who is passionate about ‘bits’ and ‘atoms’, but mostly about how the web is turning 19th & 20th century innovation, design, manufacturing and distribution on its head. At the time of writing he points to the relative size of the physical building of stuff compared to the ‘weightless’ economy, but I think the balance is shifting further to the latter. Some examples are; desktop design and prototyping tools (3D printings, CNC machine and laser cutters); public sharing of innovations and e-designs (inviting copying and improvements) which subverts the normal patent process and intellectual property; the massive reach of the web for remote or local on-demand manufacturing in smaller batches, and for niche markets and customisation; the web also affecting the job market, historically the biggest cost and key factor in business location and industrial growth. Now anyone can work anywhere and anything can be made anywhere (theoretically). As I say, these together sound a bit dry and nerdy, but they are real and will increasingly change the commercial dynamic from big slow industry (i.e. the ‘old' industrial revolution) to smaller leaner local or hybrid organisations. Fascinating stuff!