"o tal futuro que já está entre nós, mas mal distribuído"

Encontrei no WSJ de 19.12.2019 um artigo que representa o tal futuro que já está entre nós, mas mal distribuído:

"On the night “The Mandalorian” premiered on Disney+ last month, Arlene Esplin could be found snuggling up with her family in rural Idaho. As the Star Wars show drew to a close, Ms. Esplin, like millions of viewers across the country, was introduced to the 50-year-old green infant whom fans have christened Baby Yoda.
.
Instantly Ms. Esplin not only wanted—she somehow needed—to have it. Unable to find any Baby Yoda toys for sale, Ms. Esplin, a maker of lifelike infant dolls known as “reborns,” took matters into her own hands.
...
“I knew I had to see what I had in my doll room,” said the 33-year-old mother of five.
.
She rifled through her stock of baby parts, eventually figuring a chimpanzee kit would work best. Over a week, Ms. Esplin slowly dyed the monkey’s body green, sculpted pointy ears out of polymer clay and adorned its head with white fuzz. Her children suggested she post the doll, which didn’t look quite right for their tastes, on Etsy Inc. ’s online marketplace. She did, writing in her ad: “If Yoda had a long lost baby with an ewok...this could be it!”
.
Ms. Esplin sold her Baby Yoda for $599. Then she made and sold a second doll, which more closely resembles the character, for $1,000.
...
Since the character first appeared on Disney’s new streaming service, Baby Yoda has become hugely popular, launching countless memes and causing obsessed fans to scour the internet in search of merchandise. The problem is, customers can’t buy an official Baby Yoda they can hold and admire—at least not in time for Christmas. Sanctioned Baby Yoda dolls, figurines and plush toys won’t be available until early 2020.
...
Cottage manufacturers and obsessed do-it-yourselfers are filling the void. “All I want for Christmas is a Baby Yoda” T-shirts, Baby Yoda Christmas ornaments and an odd-looking collection of Baby Yoda dolls made from felt, yarn and resin are for sale. Baby Yoda giving a sweet look adorns a coffee mug, with the words “Yoda Best Dad.”
...
DIY merchandise hitting the market is a trickier legal question. The notices sent by Disney are “good legal housekeeping,” said Mr. Sammataro, since it can prompt sellers to shut down voluntarily and can signal to a judge that Disney took steps before suing if it goes that far. “You have to teach people how to treat you,” he said"

Trechos retirados de "Disney Strikes Back—Against Sellers of DIY Baby Yoda Dolls" publicado no WSJ de 19.12.2019

Correntes e tendências

Ontem apanhei este título "William De Vijlder: “O telhado da economia portuguesa está na melhor forma de sempre”" de onde sublinhei o lead:

"O economista-chefe do BNP Paribas diz que os robôs ou a imigração são a solução para a escassez de mão de obra."

Perspectivar o futuro como uma continuação linear do presente costuma dar maus resultados.

Nos últimos tempos tenho apanhado cada vez mais textos sobre tendências que podem vir a afectar a economia do futuro. Quando escrevo sobre Mongo:

• já escrevi sobre o DIY (faça você mesmo - e as cooperativas de bairro);
• há dias li sobre o fenómeno crescente da venda em 2ª mão - "Outro factor a alterar a paisagem competitiva"
• hei-de escrever sobre o DFY (done for you) (o que implica proximidade, customização - o retorno da modista e do alfaiate)
• no ano passado o Rui Moreira chamou-me a atenção para o crescente número de marcas de calçado que disponibilizam o serviço de reparação de calçado
• ontem li "The life-changing magic of making do" e julgo que é um sintoma de outra corrente a retornar, a da frugalidade. A do retorno do sapateiro, ou da modista.

Estas correntes e outras hão-de alterar os paradigmas de consumo e, dessa forma, os paradigmas de produção e comercialização, sem falar na impressão 3D.

Estas correntes tanto darão resposta às questões ambientais; como à falta de mão de obra, como à crescente tribalização do gosto em nichos à la Mongo.

Mateus 13:9

Recordo "Mongo a bater à porta. Tão bom!!!" e:

"O artigo é um exemplo da tendência que enquadramos no fenómeno a que chamamos de Mongo. Os gigantes, emaranhados com o seu umbigo, muito preocupados com a eficiência e os custos, tentando ser tudo para todos, abrem as oportunidades a novos actores."

Agora encontro "When Patients Become Innovators":

"Patients are increasingly able to conceive and develop sophisticated medical devices and services to meet their own needs — often without any help from companies that produce or sell medical products.
...
Unlike traditional producers, who start with market research and R&D, free innovation begins with consumers identifying something they need or want that is not available in the marketplace. To address this, they invest their own funds, expertise, and free time to create a solution. Rather than seeking to protect their designs from imitators, as commercial innovators do, we found that more than 90% of consumer innovators make their designs available to everyone for free.
...
The ability of patients to develop new medical products to serve their own needs is growing, and we expect the system to become stronger over time for several important reasons. First, the DIY design tools that patient innovators need are becoming cheaper and increasingly capable. People with fairly rudimentary engineering skills can acquire powerful design software that can run on an ordinary personal computer either for free or for very little money. Second, the materials and tools used to build products from DIY designs are also becoming both cheaper and increasingly capable."

Recordo também "Os humanos são todos diferentes":

“There is no perfect product, because there is no perfect patient” and “It’s a good product, but it’s not right for everyone.”

Recordo também esta leitura de 2007:

"In 1970, 5% of global patents were issued to small entrepeneurs, while today the number is around one-third and rising. When P&G realized this, it saw that its old model of purely internal innovation was suboptimal. Why not tap these entrepeneurs and scientists?"

E esta outra de 2011:

"The mass market — which made average products for average people was invented by organizations that needed to keep their factories and systems running efficiently.
.
Stop for a second and think about the backwards nature of that sentence.
.
The factory came first. It led to the mass market. Not the other way around."

 E deixo-vos com os industrialistas e a sua tendência para a suckiness.

Mongo é esta capacidade de aprendizagem colaborativa

Mongo é esta capacidade de aprendizagem colaborativa, é esta predisposição para o DIY referida em "The backyard mechanic who is taking on Tesla":

"It was the ultimate DIY project, with no guidance from Tesla.
...
He is preparing to open the first repair shop on the East Coast dedicated to electric vehicles, with the goal of servicing vehicles while teaching owners how to care for the cars themselves."

"Unscaling will leave few industries or activities untouched"

“Healthcare is on its way to becoming more preemptive instead of, as it is today, reactive. Newborns will routinely have their genome sequenced, and that data will help predict diseases. IoT devices will be able to monitor your vital signs and activity, spotting problems at a very early stage. You’ll be able to get an initial diagnosis from an AI software “doctor” app via your phone or some other device, and the AI will guide you to a specialist if needed. Healthcare will be flipped on its head, shifting from treating health problems after they arise to spotting and fixing them before they develop. That should cost a fraction of what healthcare costs today, solving one of America’s toughest financial squeezes.
.
As entrepreneurs remake the energy sector, more homes and buildings will generate their own power using cheap and superefficient solar panels on roofs and high-powered batteries in basements or garages. The batteries, like those now being manufactured by Tesla, will store power generated when the sun shines for use when it doesn’t. “Each of these buildings will be connected to a two-way power line that can allow anyone to sell excess energy or buy needed energy in an eBay-style marketplace. If you do own a car, it’s likely to be electric, and your home solar panels and batteries can charge it.
.
Trends suggest that you will get more of your food from small local farms or urban farms built inside old warehouses and shopping malls. The food industry spent the twentieth century scaling up agriculture, making farms bigger and more corporate, tended by enormous pieces of machinery with very few actual farmers. In the coming decades technology will help small, local farms operate at a profit, while breakthroughs in producing test-tube meat will vastly reduce the acreage needed to graze cows and raise chickens.
The technology of 3D printing is beginning to unscale and reimagine manufacturing. Within a decade, if you order a new pair of shoes or a chair, it might not come from a far-off mass-production factory; instead, many companies are going to custom produce items in small batches as they’re ordered, and the factories will operate akin to AWS—offering companies as much or as little manufacturing as they need.
Unscaling will leave few industries or activities untouched.”

Excerto de: Taneja, Hemant,Maney, Kevin. “Unscaled”.

Sintomas de um mundo em mudança

• Digitalização 3D simplifica a compra e a produção em massa de calçados personalizados
• How a Few Brands Are Making Made-to-Measure Fashion Accessible
• Shoemakers bring bespoke footwear to the high street

"O que passa-se?" (parte II)

Parte I.

O artigo continua com um exemplo já conhecido aqui do blogue, a Local Motors (postal de 2012, outro de 2016 e outro de 2017).

"A small U.S. startup called Local Motors offers an intriguing glimpse into the future of manufacturing. The company manages five so-called microfactories around the world, which primarily use 3D-printing equipment to produce such modern-day curios as Olli, a self-driving shuttle bus with IBM Watson artificial intelligence that can be hailed via a smartphone app and follows voice instructions; a cargo-carrying drone for Airbus dubbed the Zelator; and the world’s first 3D-printed car, the Strati — road-worthy if not a speedster — built live in 44 hours at the International Manufacturing Technology Show.
.
But the 3D-printing aspect of Local Motors’ business model is just a small part of what makes this company worth examining. The company is also crowdsourcing production designs from a network of global participants,
...
As the microfactory concept evolves, Local Motors will build new plants wherever its customers are located, and each manufactured item will effectively be one of a kind, built to suit the tastes and requirements of individual consumers. Scale is replaced by potential savings from engineering, design, parts, labor, and efficiency in a 3D microfactory. Local Motors describes this approach as making money from scope. In other words, it offers useful, attractive, bespoke products to customers who are within shouting distance of its factories, at a price that matches the distinctive value of the item.
Local Motors is still a nascent business — and may or may not ultimately succeed — but at its core it reflects a vital shift in production dogma that manufacturers of all sizes will have to reckon with in the coming years. After decades of chasing lower production costs and scale by extending factory footprints and supply chains deeper into emerging nations and distributing products around the world in huge quantities over complex logistics networks, manufacturers are finding that their globalized approach is losing its viability. In particular, their centralized management structure, lengthy supply chains, lack of product variety, and long shipping times are impeding regional agility — and, in some cases, placing them at a disadvantage to local competition.
Instead, the new strategic archetype for successful manufacturers will be based on a relatively simple idea: The most efficient manufacturing setup is the one that makes goods in appropriate volumes to meet demand at the point of demand, with plenty of room for local and individual customization. Much of this concept will be driven by advances in technology — 3D printing, factory innovations, e-commerce, data analytics, and the Internet of Things, to name a few
...
Moreover, the impact of the point-of-demand model will not be limited to the business-to- consumer environment. Suppliers in the business-to-business realm will also be under pressure to improve responsiveness as part of the campaign by their customers — that is, manufacturers — to shorten the value chain and more proactively serve the end consumer.
The implications are problematic for some companies: Manufacturers that are today highly invested in a global factory network of multiple large centralized plants, managed by traditional operating systems, organizations, and processes, may find their business models becoming obsolete faster than they ever expected. [Moi ici: Recordar esta reflexão de 2014] However, the nimblest manufacturers stand to reap significant gains from this new model. As their supply systems become more responsive and as customer demand becomes less of a guessing game, inventory inefficiencies and the carrying costs of warehousing products in bulk — only to ultimately jettison some of them as dead stock — will decline. In addition, savings will be generated by the reduction in expensive long-range production planning and supply chain management. And for companies able to outpace rivals in producing products that are best suited to customer needs — making these items available when customers want them — sales margins should rise markedly."

Conseguem imaginar como isto vai mudar o paradigma económico? Conseguem visualizar o fim do mundo criado pelo século XX?

"O que passa-se?"

Normalmente aqui no blogue, chamo a atenção para a cegueira das empresas de consultoria grandes, parece que escondem dos seus clientes grandes o impacte de Mongo na sua actividade.

Julgo que é a primeira vez que encontro um texto de uma consultora grande sobre Mongo e as suas implicações na economia, nos ecossistemas e na dimensão das empresas.

"In the next manufacturing revolution, spurred on by technologies that reinvent the way a factory can create products, such as 3D printing and robotics, companies will also need to rethink what they make and where they make it. Products will come off the assembly line in small, highly customized batches, like a high-tech version of old-fashioned craftsmanship. [Moi ici: Digam lá se isto não é uma entrada à matador com Mongo em toda a linha!!! Desde os pequenos lotes até aos artesãos tecnológicos longe das máquinas-monumento tão queridas dos que pensam que o Normalistão do século XX automatizado será o paradigma produtivo do século XXI]
.
The revolution is on its way, and within the next five to 10 years, manufacturers in all industries will find themselves in a race to efficiently produce products at the point of demand — that is, where their customers are — and to deliver these items when their customers want them, personalized to their customers’ individual tastes. They will have to make strategic choices to stay competitive, investing in technology that allows them to continually analyze data about their customers’ preferences and buying habits so they can adapt quickly to changes in market conditions. Factories will be smaller, [Moi ici: Imaginem os cromos da Junqueira ao ler estas blasfémias!] operating with minimal lead times and shorter value chains. Management will be decentralized, the supply chain will be simplified and shortened, and the distance separating the manufacturer from its customers will be sharply reduced.
.
Although technology will enable this new manufacturing model, customers will compel its adoption. In emerging markets as well as developed regions, customers increasingly expect products that match local cultural preference rather than homogeneous global brands and business-to-business services. The auto industry pioneered this localized model as long ago as the 1980s, when Japanese automakers entered the U.S. market with cars tailored to American tastes. But only recently have other industries taken up this approach — with refrigerators, toothpaste, furniture, clothing, and software that are designed for each region. The popularity of e-commerce has changed the customer experience, giving people more information about products and competitors’ products, pricing, and, through peer reviews, quality. For the first time, customers can reasonably demand from mass producers products that look and feel like they were made next door.
.
Nimble manufacturers will reap significant gains from the point-ofdemand model. As their supply systems become more responsive and as local customer demand becomes less of a guessing game, inventory inefficiencies and the carrying costs of having to warehouse products in bulk will decline. The expense of supply chain management and production planning will drop as well. And companies able to produce personalized products that are best suited to customer needs when customers want them will enjoy higher sales margins. By contrast, as point-of-demand manufacturing takes hold, companies that operate global factory networks with large centralized plants, managed by traditional operating systems, organizations, and processes, may find that their business models are outmoded."

Ao chegar aqui recordei, "Pedro Nuno Santos quer Estado como motor do desenvolvimento", porque estava a nascer em mim um outro pensamento, o oposto... o que esperar de um contrarian-militante! O que seria a orientação geral de um governo para facilitar a transição para este tipo de sociedade?

Empresas pequenas, DIY, empreendedorismo verdadeiro não treta para sacar Portugal 2020, fiscalidade normanda, legislação laboral, democratização da produção.

Esta transição vai acontecer, inevitavelmente, pedida, ordenada pelos clientes, pelas tribos de Mongo. E teremos governos cada vez mais incapazes de perceber o que se passa, questionando-se, "O que passa-se?", cada vez mais crentes nas virtudes do Normalistão, num mundo que se afasta cada vez mais desse paradigma.

Trechos retirados de "Manufacturing’s new world order: The rise of the point-of-demand model"

Mais um tijolo para o edifício de Mongo

Imaginem isto em Mongo, um mundo gigantes-unfriendly, um mundo de makers, um mundo de DIY, o mundo da democratização da produção.

"Are you more likely to buy a T-shirt or a box of cereal from a big company if you know it was designed by a fellow customer? You might be, according to new research. And marketers should take note. [Moi ici: Só os marketers? E os gigantes?]
...
Emerging research suggests that they’re right to do so — that crowdsourcing is a power to be harnessed. Martin Schreier, the head of the Institute for Marketing Management at Vienna University of Economics and Business, found that executives rated consumer-generated baby products as more novel and useful than those developed in-house. And consumers, Schreier found, regarded companies that rely on user designs as more innovative because they had a larger, more diverse pool of designers with fewer constraints.
.
Even better, crowing about a product’s crowdsourced origins could be a marketer’s best friend. It’s the entire business model for the T-shirt seller Threadless. Jake Nickell, the company’s founder and CEO, says, “I think it’s been an ongoing trend over the last decade for consumers to want to know more about the things they buy.”
...
Follow-up experiments revealed that people believe their peers understand their needs better and, therefore, come up with better solutions. In an online survey, subjects were asked to compare two identical products — one described as a user-generated idea, the other a company idea. Consumers generally preferred user-generated, they said, because they felt that it was higher in quality, adding, “I can trust the voice of the customer more.”

Trechos retirados de "I’ll have what you’re inventing"

Mongo em toda a sua extensão

Este texto, "DIY Powerwall Builders Are Using Recycled Laptop Batteries to Power Their Homes", é um festival acerca de Mongo, do poder, da flexibilidade, da criatividade, do engenho dos makers. Nem a Tesla escapa. 

Recordar este convite à reflexão.

Artesãos do futuro

Ao folhear muitos postais deste blogue é fácil relacionar entre si algumas palavras-chave:

• Mongo;
• tribos;
• diferenciação;
• paixão;
• artesãos;
• autenticidade.

Por exemplo, há dias escrevi:

"Em paralelo a esta evolução, que vai sugar os mais apaixonados para uma nova Idade de Ouro de artesãos do século XXI"

No caderno de Economia deste fim de semana encontrei um texto que relaciona estas mesmas palavras-chave, "À procura de artesãos no tempo dos ecrãs táteis":

"No entanto, quem aposta com visão em segmentos como o têxtil, a carpintaria, a latoaria, a joalharia, a encadernação, a cerâmica, os bordados, o restauro ou a cestaria pode ter um futuro promissor pela frente,
...
outra área de forte procura: o trabalho artesanal em madeira. “Todos os dias chegam pedidos de marceneiros, profissionais de serralharia artística.” São cada vez mais, também, os casos de sucesso de novos negócios, sempre de nicho, que começam no risco, chegam à autossustentabilidade e culminam na exportação.
...
Ao contrário do preconceito que possa persistir, de que o trabalho do artesão é pesado, sujo e moroso e de que a produção não se adaptou ao consumidor contemporâneo, “o artesanato não ficou estagnado”, sublinha Luís Rocha. O sector está a rejuvenescer e a qualificar-se.
...
a formação superior conjugada com a técnica adquirida nos cursos profissionais resulta na evolução criativa que tem dinamizado o sector. Ao mesmo tempo, “a procura [de produções artesanais] tem aumentado porque o mercado está cansado do produto massificado e quer, cada vez mais, objetos com forte cariz cultural, identitários e diferenciadores”. Cabe ao artesão “ganhar essa oportunidade”, analisa o diretor, que defende o investimento em marcas culturais com design de luxo.
...
Se nos domínios da carpintaria, marcenaria e costura, encontrar emprego por contra de outrem é relativamente comum, nos nichos da cerâmica artística, vidro ou bordados, muitos não esperam que o mercado chame por eles e criam diretamente oportunidades, uma situação que se terá acentuado nos últimos seis anos. “O desemprego fomentou o empreendedorismo e isso foi muito importante para dinamizar o sector”"

E na linha do que tenho reflectido aqui sobre o seru e a não-necessidade de máquinas-monumento , sobre o impacte de Mongo na dimensão das empresas, sobre o impacte da digitalização na redução da fricção de que falava Coase, na ascensão do DIY e dos makers, é interessante a referência aos ecrãs tácteis no título. Acredito que os artesãos do futuro trabalharão cada vez com mais tecnologia e mais valor acrescentado.



BTW, ontem fui a Rio Tinto com 4 moradas de lojas e fábricas de candeeiros. Ao chegar a uma delas, com todo o aspecto de oficina artesanal, deparei-me com caixas com marcas de renome e referências a feiras italianas. Fui recebido com atenção e simpatia mas comunicaram-me que tinham deixado de trabalhar para o público e começado a trabalhar para marcas portuguesas do segmento médio-alto e focadas na exportação.

Uma novela sobre Mongo (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

I understand and is noble
But is so XXth Century thinking https://t.co/89xwQhDJRx

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) December 9, 2016

Porque Mongo é tão estranho e mete medo a muita gente:

"the ability to create products that enable us to own the tools is where the economy is headed.
It’s what technology wants. It fragments down to the micro level and becomes personal. The job of the corporate hero of tomorrow is to provide a platform for customer independence.
.
The reason why it’s hard for companies to cope with this shift to micro businesses, is that it’s a multi-generational shift. Given that the dawn of the industrial revolution was in the late 1700s, and if we use 30 as an average age for a new parent (it used to be much lower), we’re living through a nine-times generational shift in lifestyle and economic understanding. This is a significant amount of indoctrination handed down from parents and employers of how things should be done and what works in this world. It’s pretty hard to unlearn all of this, especially when most of it has been proven empirically. [Moi ici: O modelo do emprego do século XX não é necessariamente a última Coca-Cola no meio do deserto, foi uma criação bem sucedida e ajustada a um certo tempo e desenvolvimento técnico-cultural. Muito provavelmente dará lugar a modelos mais assentes no empreendedorismo.]
...
The problem is that our business environment is changing quickly and the habits of large organisations are not [Moi ici: E não são só elas, é também o Estado habituado a esse modelo e todas as suas funções que dele dependem. Imaginem o impacte de algo deste tipo nas escolas, por exemplo, sem a protecção do Estado]. They prefer all replacement staff to have the same industry experience, the same education, the same previous job title, the same customer experience, and experience in the same channels of distribution, which is essentially a risk-reduction strategy for the hiring manager if things turn out badly rather than a growth strategy for the organisation. It’s not surprising, given that the primary role in large organisations is to protect against the financial downside rather than chase a revenue upside. This course of action works as long as the business and technology environments remain stable. The problem is that our business environment is changing quickly and the habits of large organisations are not."

Trechos retirados de "The Great Fragmentation : why the future of business is small" de Steve Sammartino.

Século XXI vs século XX

Um texto sobre Mongo e muito em linha com o que aqui defendemos, "How We Will Kill Uber & Hijack the Internet of Things":

"Our third industrial revolution will be our last, according to Rifkin. I never say never, but he is confident this will mark the end of mass employment.
...
But in Rifkin’s rosier view, “prosumers” will create and share physical products and services the same way we do WordPress posts today. “We’ll spend part of our day sharing, part of the day making money.”
...
The most ambitious part of Jeremy’s vision is people will use tools like 3D printing, apps, and GPS to create cooperatives powerful enough to kill off Uber. Yes, kill off Uber."

Tudo coisas que aqui defendemos:

• o fim do emprego em massa criado pela revolução industrial do século XX;
• os prosumers;
• a democratização da produção;
• o fim da Uber.

Acerca do trabalho em Mongo

Outra previsão feita há vários anos neste blogue:

"The time is ripe for entrepreneurs, but will employees survive the next evolution? Maybe, but they're going to have to change, now.
.
The work world is shifting in favor of those who want to do something, contribute, create, innovate, make meaning, and own their lives. Recent studies show the workplace is headed in a participatory direction that will not accommodate traditional employees stuck in Industrial Age management structures.[Moi ici: Conjuguem isto com DIY, com democratização da produção, explosão de tribos, tribos mais aguerridas, plataformas cooperativas e Mongo]
...
Trend #1: Crowdsourcing and Crowdsource services. People will work everywhere and some will never meet. Just-in-time labor will reduce the number of permanent employees.
...
Trend #2: Productivity measured in outputs, not hours.[Moi ici: Tantas discussões sobre a produtividade e os salários portugueses porque a maioria só mede as horas]
...
Trend #3: Values vs. rules. Values, which guide and encourage personal initiative, will be more prevalent than rules, which box people in, dull their thinking, and keep them from innovating.
...
Trend #4: Employee-led innovation. The best innovation will come from the "bottom up," not from management or R&D departments."

Trechos retirados de "Unmotivated Employees Won't Like Where The Work World Is Headed"

O consumidor de Mongo (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.
.
A parte I começa com:

"Connected technology and intelligent use of data have already enabled"

A tecnologia da produção em massa da revolução industrial com a electricidade e o comboio criaram o mercado de massas do século XX. Agora, novamente, as tecnologias do final do século XX e do inicio do século XXI permitiram o advento de Mongo, e esse advento permite que um novo tipo de consumidor apareça. E quanto mais esse consumidor aparece, mais ficamos todos weird, e mais Mongo se entranha. Olhando para as 5 categorias que caracterizam os consumidores de Mongo, avançadas nas partes I e II não fica difícil antever o bailado com a IoT, com as impressoras 3D, com o DIY, com as tribos, com os novos materiais, com os novos modelos de negócio, ...
.
Uma co-evolução em que um diz mata e o outro diz esfola!

Mongo em grande

Há anos que escrevo sobre Mongo e a democratização da produção. Há anos que desconfio das empresas grandes de consultoria que falam da impressão 3D e escondem dos seus clientes, as empresas grandes, o que pode acontecer em termos de produção pessoal e produção das empresas mais pequenas. Por isso, em 2013 escrevi "Ponto de vista".
.
Na última semana tenho lido uma série de informação sobre o tema:

• "The Rise of Personal Fabrication" (muito bom!)
• "FACTORY@HOME - THE EMERGING ECONOMY OF PERSONAL MANUFACTURING"
• "Could 3D Printing Change the World?"

Democratização da produção

"Just as the democratization of information through personal computers was a key advance of the 20th century, the democratization of production through improvements in fabrication technologies will be a pivotal development in the 21st century.
...
personal fabrication systems are beginning to allow individuals access to these same technologies.
...
early access and opportunities to practice are the keys to success in any field involving complex tasks.
...
We believe the advent of personal fabrication will affect society in unexpected ways, just as the advent of personal computing did. This will likely extend to the humanities as well as science and engineering.
...
Personal fabrication offers the opportunity to democratize innovation. Schools must provide early access to the tools needed to develop skills required to take advantage of this opportunity."

Duas notas:

• quando escrevi este "Para reflexão" (parte I e parte II) era sobre isto mesmo:

 "O caminho faz-se caminhando... em vez de esperar e entrar mais lá à frente, quanto mais cedo se entrar mais cedo se identificarão novas oportunidades de negócio, novos nichos, novas fontes de receita."

Quantas PME estão a "brincar" e a acumular experiências que darão origem a intuições sobre o futuro?

• quantas escolas estão a proporcionar este acesso a estas tecnologias? Quantos alunos têm oportunidade de simplesmente brincar com estas ferramentas?

Trechos retirados de "The Democratization of Production"

O impacte tecnológico a montante

Mais um texto sobre o mundo novo que já está por aí, ainda que mal distribuído:

"I strongly believe that we are on the edge of a new industrial revolution: “Industry 4.0”, the rise of intelligent automation in manufacturing, where digital manufacturing meets the Internet’s democratisation of design. Digital manufacturing is maturing and 3D printing is now widely used in aerospace, automotive and medical industries for rapid prototyping, the ability to manufacture “impossible” shapes and completely custom products.
...
A recent PwC survey found that 71.1% of US manufacturing companies now use 3D printing in some way, which demonstrate how more and more manufacturing processes changing toward 3d printing.
...
Digital Forming has created a suite of custom services which allow you to build mass customisation into your customer journey, whether you are selling traditional items in a more personal way, or building a full digital supply chain. By building mass customisability into your existing customer journey, you can build your future piece by piece.
...
Along with mass customisation, emotional branding is key to engaging the modern, millennial consumer. Emotional branding stems from the understanding that people are willing to pay for experiences as well as features."

Um artigo que li ontem perguntava se o progresso tecnológico ia acabar com os gestores intermédios nas empresas. Na minha mente formou-se outra frase, serão precisas empresas grandes em Mongo?
.
O impacte do progresso tecnológico vai actuar também a montante, na dimensão e tipo de empresas.

"The Power of Customisation Without The Pain – Digital Forming Blog"

Acerca do futuro dos gigantes

Leram "Para reflexão"?
.
Era sobre uma PME.
.
Ao ler "Corporate Longevity: Turbulence Ahead for Large Organizations" não pude deixar de fazer um paralelismo com a situação destes gigantes que fazem parte do S&P 500. Estes gigantes, apesar do seu poder e dos recursos que têm ao seu dispor terão de enfrentar uma erosão provocada pelo advento de Mongo, pela democratização da produção, pelo DIY, pelas tribos, pela diversidade, pelo fim do poder das economias de escala, pela ascensão da criatividade e do numerador, pela ascensão da interacção e co-criação de valor.

"* The 33-year average tenure of companies on the S&P 500 in 1965 narrowed to 20 years in 1990 and is forecast to shrink to 14 years by 2026.
* Record M&A activity and the growth of startups with multi-billion dollar  valuations are leading indicators that a period of relative stability is ending and that an increasing number of corporate leaders will lose control of their firm’s future.
* A storm warning to executives: at our forecasted churn rate, about half of the S&P 500 will be replaced over the next 10 years.
* In a related survey on strategic readiness, executives say that growth strategy is being undermined by day-to-day decisions inside companies and that too many companies lack a coherent vision of the future."

Os gigantes criados pelo modelo do século XX serão cada vez em menor número e mais pequenos, porque no século XXI a massa de clientes/consumidores centrais será cada vez menor. Recordar o plankton e o "we are all weird".

"We’re entering a period of heightened volatility for leading companies across a range of industries, with the next ten years shaping up to be the most potentially turbulent in modern history."

Não creio que os CEO tenham capacidade de inverter este futuro de longo prazo. Por exemplo, especulo que a tendência crescente das empresas cotadas na bolsa americana, não encontrarem melhor aplicação para o seu dinheiro do que a compra de acções próprias é já uma manifestação deste fenómeno.

O choradinho pelos empregos no Estranhistão

Uma mensagem já aqui emitida neste blogue várias vezes:

- Ficar preso a defender o passado impede-nos de abraçar a mudança e ganhar o futuro.

Isto a propósito de "Living in the Past Condemns the Future".
.
Ainda ontem ao almoço comentava com alguém que cada vez mais tenho menos paciência para filmes históricos, porque as personagens de um filme passado em 1111, por exemplo, emitem opiniões e têm pensamentos que só são possíveis a alguém que vive em 2016. Ou seja, olha-se para o passado e julga-se esse passado com o modelo mental do presente.
.
Em Setembro último referi outro perigo, a ignorância de que os sinais e os códigos usados num país podem ser desconhecidos ou até mesmo ter uma interpretação contrária noutro país com outra cultura. E recordei o incidente da equipa técnica de Mourinho no Riazor na Galiza, tão próxima e tão distante, em ""why 1984 won't be like 1984"".
.
Alguns de nós nasceram no Normalistão, todos de nós herdámos modelos mentais forjados no Normalistão. Agora, estamos a entranharmos-nos no Estranhistão e a maioria das pessoas ainda não percebeu o que isso representa. Assim, munidos do modelo mental que já não é do presente mas do passado olhamos para o futuro e julgamos-lo com as referências do passado. Ou seja, olha-se para o futuro e julga-se esse futuro com o modelo mental herdado do passado.
.
Por isso, temos estes títulos e relatórios:

• A "4ª revolução industrial" vai destruir 5 milhões de empregos
• "4ª revolução industrial" com perda de 5 milhões de empregos debatida em Davos

O que é que escrevemos aqui acerca do emprego no Estranhistão?

.

.

O emprego tal como o conhecemos é uma criação do Normalistão. No Estranhistão, com a proliferação de plataformas cooperativas, com o desenvolvimento do DIY, o auto-emprego vai crescer exponencialmente. 

.

Para os prisioneiros mentais do Normalistão aqueles títulos são um grito de alerta: os governos precisam de fazer algo!

.

Eu, que procuro adaptar-me e perceber com antecedência o que é o Estranhistão, posso prever que 5 milhões de empregos vão ser destruídos com a 4ª revolução industrial, mas também sou capaz de prever que o fim do reinado da religião da eficiência a todo o custo, que o Normalistão professava, vai criar milhões de oportunidades de criar mais valor, de gerar mais diversidade, de gerar mais tribos, de precisar de mais especialistas, de precisar de menos empregados, de menos licenciados e mais fazedores, de mais criadores, de mais empreendedores.