IOT and Maker Markets
By Mark Williamson
They are popping up everywhere, more and more interest in DIY and creating new markets for fresh ideas and revamped or revisited ideas from the past.
The next industrial revolution is here, and according to a large number of hackers, designers, artists and entrepreneurs it’s going to be bigger than the Internet.
Throughout the country, maker spaces are showing up to satisfy the demand for affordable access to industrial tools and shared work spaces. These sometimes massive fabrication facilities are a combination of business starters and a manufacturing plants, with educational significance and community support thrown in on top of it all.
With the proper incentive and time on your hands, you can now grow your own personal industrial revolution in about 90 days, and can launch a company or product within those 90 days if you have the proper funding.
How can this be? The secret charm of these places is not only the inexpensive access to great tools and studio spaces, but also the communal entrepreneurs, venders, local labor and those that just want to “Git-R-Done” who coexist under the same roof. Don't know how to how to do something? Take a class, learn the basics, build a product and market it all in the same building.
The talent level required to produce a serviceable prototype or a practical article has fallen quickly just in the last several years and the stories of success are proof enough. It’s not just building a better mouse trap today. It’s the creative spirit coupled with the many forms of media exploration and sharing plus the never ending and limitless bounds of our imagination that is the drive behind this movement.
The thing that makes the maker movement an actual revolution instead of a passing trend is this convergence of inexpensive manufacturing, cultural entrepreneurship and unpretentious economics. Jointly, these powers are democratizing innovation.
The IOT or Internet of Things are quickly changing our lives, the way we think, the way we work and how we play and adding to the overall mix are social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, and Pinterest to only name a few.
In my childhood we started off with things like Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, Erector Sets and Lego Blocks, graduating to chemistry sets and electronic sets. Hanging out in repair shops was a real treat and a true learning process. We still have things like this and much more today. The evolution is totally mind boggling and where it will stop, not one person can know.