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These days, when our slow recovery from
recession seems like a full-employment program for
pessimistic pundits, it’s great to have a new book from
Chris Anderson, an indefatigable cheerleader for the
unlimited potential of the digital economy. Anderson, the
departing editor in chief of Wired magazine, has already
written two important books exploring the impact of the
Web on commerce. In “The Long Tail,” he argued that
companies like Amazon that faced distribution
challenges arising from having large quantities of the
same kind of product would thrive by “selling less of
more.” Corporations didn’t have to chase blockbusters if
they had a mass of small sales. In “Free: The Future of a
Radical Price,” he argued that giving stuff away to attract
a multitude of users might be the best way eventually to
make money from loyal customers. Anderson has also
helped found a Web site, Geekdad, and an aerial robotics company. From his vantage point, in the future more and
more people can get involved in making things they
really enjoy and can connect with others who share their
passions and their products. These connections, he
claims, are creating a new Industrial Revolution.
In a 2010 Wired article entitled “In the Next
Industrial Revolution, Atoms Are the New Bits,”
Anderson described how the massive changes in our
relations with information have altered how we relate to
things. Now that the power of information-sharing has
been unleashed through technology and social networks,
makers are able to collaborate on design and production
in ways that facilitate the connection of producers to
markets. By sharing information “bits” in a creative
commons, entrepreneurs are making new things
(reshaping “atoms”) more cheaply and quickly. The new
manufacturing is a powerful economic force not because
any one business becomes gigantic, but because
technology makes it possible for tens of thousands of
businesses to find their customers, to form their
communities.
Anderson begins his new book, “Makers,” with
the story of his grandfather Fred Hauser, who invented a
sprinkler system. He licensed his invention to a company
that turned ideas into things that could be built and sold.
Although Hauser loved translating ideas into things, he
needed a company with resources to make enough of his
sprinklers to turn a profit. Inventing and making were
separate. With the advent of the personal computer and
of sophisticated but user-friendly design tools, that
separation has become increasingly irrelevant. As a child,
Anderson loved making things with his grandfather, and
he still loves creating new stuff and getting it into the
marketplace. “Makers” describes how today technology
has liberated the inventor from a dependence on the big
manufacturer. “The beauty of the Web is that it
democratized the tools both of invention and production,” Anderson writes. “We are all designers
now. It’s time to get good at it.”
(Fragment from “Makers: The New Industrial Revolution by
Chris Anderson”, by Michael S. Roth. Online since 24
November 2012.
URL:https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/makers-thenew-industrial-revolution)
Choose the only CORRECT alternative which
exposes an appropriated synonymous to replace
the word pundits, detached on the first
paragraph:
