SXSW Day 5: Tangible creativity, we’re all makers
By Rob Meldrum, innovation director, Naked Communications, UK
Have you ever wanted to make anything? Of course you have. Maybe you made a Bluetac ‘sculpture’ in a meeting today, or perhaps you remember building colourful towers with Lego as a kid. Chances are, at some point in your life, you’ve been a maker.
So you’ll understand the joy of making. Building physical stuff: tangible creativity. This morning Zack Kaplan introduced me (and a couple of hundred other engaged sxsw-ers) to his company Inventables. They’re in the business of digital manufacturing.
They make digitally controlled 3D milling machines, and they’ve just released software to make it simple for anyone to manufacture products. Why is this important? Well it means that for under $650 you can buy one of their desktop milling kits (https://www.inventables.com/technologies/desktop-cnc-mill-kit-shapeoko-2) and start making stuff. Really high quality stuff. And then you can sell it.
This kind of product (along with 3D printers of the type we are used to) means the manufacturing industry has a new competitor. And the equipment is only going to get cheaper and better. And that’s good for all of us. Kaplan suggested that digital manufacturing is at the same point that computers were in 1980. Which is an exciting time.
What their tech has done has removed the gatekeepers to building stuff and it’s leveled the playing field. He said, “Distribution used to be about pitching to a guy at Walmart. Now you can ship via Amazon, and they don’t care if you sell one product or a thousand.”
The highlight of the talk, as always, was the live demo. Kaplan brought to the stage the Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, to mill his name onto a beautifully crafted bottle opener. It turns out the Mayor is a big supporter of Inventables. In fact, he’s filled his city library full of 3D printers and tech to encourage children to play, learn and be inspired.
What Kaplan wants us all to do is think big and make stuff. And his message is consistent with everyone else’s across the whole festival. It’s simple and we all need to do it: be creative. Now.