Brits have me thinking again

On BBC Radio 4, I was listening whilst working to a very intersting segment about micro-innovation. That's where basically there are "FabLabs" that are basically desktop fabricators. It makes the point that the "Digital Revolution" is over, and now it's a manufacturing one (which makes a whole lot of sense from sitting in the spot I am in Michigan).

But the focus of the story was micro-innovation.. where these farmers in India were inventing their own gadgets and improvements to make their own lives easier. The link to the place is here.

What's also interesting is that when the inventive force isn't necessarily profit, lots of common-sense solutions develop. It sorta turns the whole process around.

Not saying for-profit innovation is bad; nothing of the like. But what I am saying is that it is interesting when it's done for a completely different reason. It personalizes products; and creates markets of 1 to a million.

Why do I mention this? Because it ties into perfectly to what we talk about. Digital media has really been the first way that people can serve micro-markets well and cost-effectively. Whether it be digital audio (music, podcast, etc) or software for specific tasks (those of us using Macs know all about small programs that do one thing really, really, really well), the world market has been turned upside down with this.

And, in turn, I think some people looking at outsourcing as the death knell to our way of life need to remember that we're always innovating forward... what are people going to do when you can fabricate what you're looking for on your desktop? You already can receive/create/distribute all kinds of digital goods (which doesn't shut out professional work - it's commonly part of the quality differentiator; and for businesses, they always are going to need to look outside for expertise in things).

Now, I don't think we're going to start making cars in our living rooms, however, if fabrication techniques keep changing, you may completely eliminate people from the manual labour/fabrication side of the equation (save for managers/engineers/etc).

It's interesting, scary, thrilling, all at the same time. Only time will tell where it ends up.