Mike Kuniavsky @mikekuniavsky (Author of Smart Things: Ubiquitous Computing User Experience Design, Co-founder of ThingM) has posted his slide deck and notes from a recent Solid State Startups event he spoke at.
In it he looks at past difficulties of creating Hardware focused companies and asks how we can import ideas from lightweight internet startups into the manufacturing space? How can we be more like Github and less like General Motors? and positions this in the context of recent developments like the emergence of marketing and distribution systems like Kickstarter and platforms like Arduino and Pachube enabling new types of lean hardware startups.
"I think that there's another way. I think that it's time to move the design and manufacture of physical products out of the Industrial Revolution cycle of design-make-sell. I think that it's possible to use the modern tools of digital fabrication, online collaboration and ecommerce to create a new way to make things, one that's much more responsive to customer needs, much more manageable for company founders, much less risky for investors, and one that does not create the waste that traditional make-first manufacturing creates."
View his complete notes on the presentation and learn more about his latest work at: http://orangecone.com/archives/2012/02/lean_hardware_s.html
