Well, it actually was a very orderly day. What I did? Today I had the honor to speak about the democratization of production trend, the user generated object and how Shapeways is enabling these developments at the Creating Chaos 2008 event.

Again, from the responses to my session and from remarks in the hallway it is clear that a lot of people would really like to bring their creativity physically to life but were unsure how to. They were pleasantly surprised that Shapeways is doing just that via our 3D design upload service and our Creator. 

Would you like to have a look at what I presented? Here it is! 

Just feel free to drop any remarks, questions or feedback in the comments box.

Jochem

Within the Shapeways team, I'm overseeing Marketing. Getting here was an interesting journey, in many ways.

 

A little over a year ago I joined Peter to bring an innovative & entrepreneurial project then named U-Design to life. It took quite a bit of inspiration and transpiration (the proportions I will let you fill in) and a great team (e.g. Robert joined shortly too) to get where we are today. But now Shapeways has a brand name, a team of about 10, a vibrant community and is happily interacting with the external world. All very inspiring indeed. Did you know that Google has already registered 126000 mentions of Shapeways!?

Before my wife, 2 children and myself moved back to Holland, we were living in the idyllic village of Versoix, at the border of Lake Geneva in Switzerland. As it was unlikely that our friends and family would join us there, my wife and myself decided that we wanted to move back to Holland at some point. Shapeways came up just at the right moment. After the unavoidable move, we're enjoying Holland again. So much in fact, that my kids (Karlijn of 4 and Marnix of 2) will shortly get accompanied by a baby. This will make sure that we will not get bored, if that was ever possible with Shapeways

Coming back to Holland ended my 9 years with P&G, where I learned a lot about international consumer marketing in different assignments: introducing new brands like Swiffer and Pringles as well as numerous new Beauty Care line extensions on brands like Head & Shoulders and Olay. Also, I worked on Olay skin care innovation, resulting in new products and marketing campaigns introduced across western Europe.

Now there is nothing wrong with FMCG-style innovation, but bringing Shapeways to life is just in a different innovation league, and simply the best job in the world!

Credit: Lake Geneva by Erik Charlton (released under Creative Commons license for commercial use)

How about actually building a real house yourself, according to your inspiration, needs and tastes? Cool idea, right? With digital fabrication it's not as futuristic as you might expect.

Via Contour Crafting, a layered fabrication technology developed by Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis of the University of Southern California, you could basically 3D print with concrete instead of plastics or metals. Using this process, a single house or even a group of houses, each with possibly a different design, may be automatically constructed in a single run. Best of all, embedded in each house are all the conduits for electrical wires, plumbing and air-conditioning.

On top of opening up new creative possibilities, Contour Crafting can significantly reduce the cost of commercial construction while speeding up the process significantly. Projections indicate costs will be around one fifth as much as conventional construction, while construction projects will be accelerated. A 2000 square foot house can actually be constructed in less than 24 hours. 

Now this would effectively put an end to the terror of monotonous new neighborhoods springing up, which unfortunately is so common these days (especially in Holland, known as VINEX locations).

The Long Tail in housing enabled by digital fabrication is firmly in sight!

I'm sure you remember Bart's Monkey Babies post from 2 months ago. Today we are proud to announce the birth of a new addition to the monkey family: now in vibrant white SLS! We'll call it White Strong & Flexible.

As a 3D designer, you will be interested in the flexible nature of this material, opening up new possibilities such as including live hinges or springs in your design. EOS was so kind to provide us with an interesting example.

As every marketer knows deep down, the truth is that a brand is owned by its customers: “user-generated branding is happening whether companies want it to or not”.

We have taken that thought a step further by developing a brand that allows co-creation with you and the 3D objects you create: in our logo your 3D objects are taking center stage. They will inspire all of us every time.

Obviously, we are very conscious of the fact that your models are your personal creative expression, so we will ensure that you remain in control of your 3D designs.

We really love what we are doing and we hope that you will become passionate about Shapeways and want to be an active part of our creative community.

If you have feedback, please tell us how you feel in the forum, or drop us an email. We will listen and work hard to exceed your expectations time and time again.

Passionate about creating, indeed!

Cheers,

Jochem de Boer
CMO Shapeways

Okay, I know, while technically true, perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit. But I'm simply very happy to announce that after a small delay we can offer you now a choice: between 2 very relevant but also very different materials.

On top of the White, very strong material we've offered so far, we've now made available a Transparent material with a very high resolution (meaning it will look very nice & smooth). Obviously, there are other differences too: for example the transparent material is less suitable to resist temperatures ahead of 50 degrees Centigrade. This temperature perhaps sounds far fetched but e.g. a car standing in the sun could reach this temperature.

Anyway, this announcement suddenly offers you a choice between function and form. While the costs are similar. We'll continue expanding as we go, if you have any specific requests just don't hesitate to tell me in the comments.

Cheers,

Jochem

Marketing Shapeways

A new day, a new name: as of today we are all part of the Shapeways community. While now this is just a name, over the coming weeks and months we'll work hard to turn it into a likeable brand.

Something that will inspire and enable you to create something beyond what you thought was possible; something that is fun to interact with and that is something different to each of us. All of this will apply to the branding too as we'll invite you to create the brand with us. Just as we are passionate about bringing ideas to life, together.

More to follow!

Cheers,

Jochem

[image by dro!d, released under a Creative Commons license]