Customer Crossroads

Everyone is a creator and the new tools keep getting better: 3D printers, DIY apps

3D Printers, which must have seemed like a sci-fi fantasy only a decade ago ("Earl Grey, Hot"), have gone the way of so much technology, and are now no more expensive than a laser printer.

This recent Businessweek story says there are now models available for as little as $1200.

I did a trendwatching report for a client a few years ago and told them this would happen. Not because I am brilliant (I so wish this were the case), but because all things flow down the food chain over time. Something only available in jet planes today will be available in your car in the future. Innovations cascade from the most exclusive markets to retail markets. GPS was a military creation, then it was a commercial thing, and now we all have it.

At a copy shop near you?

I have a prediction for you now -- just like copiers and printers before them, it wont be long before there will be a 3D print shop near you, perhaps in a corner of the Home Depot (that's where I'd put it, anyway) or perhaps in Staples, or in Kinkos. You'll be able to rent time on someone else's 3D printer instead of having to buy your own. You might be able to get help building your 3D digital model to feed to the printer. They might have 3D scanners where you can get a scan of your broken widget to reproduce (say, an broken part for an appliance that you want to repair.)

Make your own app

Improved coding tools are bringing the act of digital creation into the realm of ordinary folk as well. Take this development, for example: TheAppBuilder (written up by PSFK here)

 

The apps look to me a lot like a personal portal of sorts, where you can track sites, rss content, and similar things that have been built elsewhere. (I can't build a game this way. Not yet, anyway.)

For the creative human -- which is essentially all of us -- times could not be better.

What happens when you let people set their own prices

In the previous post I laid out the circumstances of our little experiment at the annual street sale.

Here's what happened:

Some of the early arrivals, who are usually dedicated bargain hunters, suggested very low prices were appropriate for everything.

For example, the woman who cleaned out a dozen full length movie DVDs told me a fair price for them was 50 cents each. After asking me several times if I had purchased them at a flea market (No, I bought them all new, I assured her), and if they were good quality (Yes, I bought them all new, like I said.) She also told me she didn't want me to think she was cheap.

Confusion reigns

As the day wore on, one pattern became clear. Most people had no idea what to do, and kept wanting us to name a value. Some people were so flummoxed that they left rather than guess. 

Some people, mainly those of greater means, by the look of things, wanted to donate MORE because it was a good cause. These folks were also worried about whether they were contributing enough. Typically they gave us $5 for a book. They were also concerned about appearances and social judgments, and did not want to "be cheap" or "ungenerous."  One lady actually contributed a book she had just finished reading, as well as paying $5 for a book. She told us she was doing a charity run the next day for the same hospital. Our actual neighbors also fell into this category -- these are people we know and would be seeing later that day at a social event.

What does it all mean

First, let's look at the absence of a price.

Determining value is not as easy as we think it is. Plus, for many people, they would be buying something they probably don't buy very often, such as hardcover fiction books, for example. Price is one of the things we use to JUDGE value, especially relative value. In the absence of a price, it's hard to form a benchmark. One price in isolation creates the same problem. However, if you have a couple of priced items, you can start making comparisons.This kind of comparison, in fact, is usually how pricing research is done.

Left to our own devices, we are not good at setting values on many things -- real estate and used cars are both good examples. Most people overprice these items unless working with a professional.

Why did some people want to pay more?

The second thing that interested me was the very wide divergence of "fair price" in the situation set up. I think a concept called social capital was mediating the event. Social capital is about the norms and exchanges that govern social relationships rather than commercial exchanges. And we had set this up as a social exchange (not keeping the money, not setting prices). Except for many people, they did not see us as part of their network, and were kind of uncomfortable with something that was NOT a commercial exchange.

For people actually in our social network (neighbors), or connected somehow (like the lady doing the charity run for the same hospital) the exchange was about something else altogether. Recipocity is one of the notions that comes into play. For these people, our yard sale had turned into a charity fundraiser, and they were more concerned about making a reciprocal exchange that honored social norms than getting a good deal.

If you are a behavioral scientist, you would set up a whole bunch of experiments like this and actually measure what makes a difference. For example, did our sign saying "Thank you" affect the average amount of money in the jar? What about the sign saying "Thank you for your generosity?"

One person accused us of trying to put a "guilt trip" on her. For her, we were violating the social norms of a yard sale, where there might be haggling, but you have an asking price.

I can tell you one thing with certainty: the guy that got the arm chair for $10 got a heckuva deal, no matter how skeptical his wife looked when she came by.

Experiments in psychology at the annual street sale

My neighborhood holds an annual street sale, during which many of the households hold a yard sale, then we all get together for a BBQ after. It's a great event, but we have found the haggling over prices to be a bit exhausting at times, and kinds of saps the fun out of things.

This year we tried something different.

We posted signs that said "Pay what you think is fair. All proceeds will be donated to Sunnybrook Hospital."  We put all the books and things on a couple of tables, along with a big glass jar seeded with some money. And there were a few starburst signs that said "Thank you" and "Thank you for your generosity."

Take a second and predict what you think the resulting behavior would be under these circumstances.  I'll wait while you do that.

Tomorrow's post will have the result.

Mobile money - it's that land grab, gold rush thing all over again

Sorry I've been away for so long -- these days, when you have good work to do and are busy, you can't take that lightly. So I have pent up ideas, pent up writing. In my head, I'm talking to you regularly. It's been fun, but somewhat one sided.

One of the things I've been watching is the development of mobile this and mobile that, as part of my trendwatching duties.

What I'm specifically interested in is the financial stuff -- that great marriage of digital money and digital platforms. Credit cards, then debit cards, ATMs, multi-branch banking, telephone IVR, then internet. Wow, internet, what a lot of possibilities THAT opened up, and still being explored. And now mobile. Not just mobile access to internet, but things you can only do on a mobile teleconnected computer aka a smart phone.

It feels to me like a gold rush, where everyone is trying to get a stake a claim as quickly as possible.

Announcements are being made practically daily. My favorite source is Finextra -- it reads like the racing form these days, or the sports pages (pick your metaphor) -- telling you who's up and who's down, who's breeding with who, who's out of the season.

We're not talking about simple financial apps here, or simply internet via mobile access to your bank account. We're talking about being able to buy a burger and pay for it with your phone, and have that transaction integrate into your financial management software immediately. That kind of integration -- although it scares people -- seems to be what we want.

Depending where you live in the world, this is either old news or bleeding edge stuff. And there's a good reason for this -- it relates to when your current legacy infrastructure was created, and who is most invested in it. If you happen to live in Sweden, or Japan, or many other places, some of this is old news.

Here in Canada, where I am, we were fairly advanced in things like ATMs and debit cards -- but the lines were drawn then, and these lines are getting in the way of development now. No one in the regulatory business some 30 years ago could have easily envisioned that a telecommunications company might want the ability to execute payments on your behalf. Without paying a bank every time. Which is exactly what they want to do now, and are trying to do. And so are a bunch of other people.

And PayPal, bless their hearts, is going exactly where I always thought they wanted to go. They are becoming a true digital bank, and they're doing it in classic disruptive fashion.

Another thing that is interesting, is that the technology folks, who kind of thought they were going to sweep in and show those dusty old banks how things are done, are finding that the settlement process is much much much more difficult than they thought. Gee whiz, there are all those different currencies. And different regulatory structures! People want interoperability. Who knew it could be so complicated!?

Throughout history, when new land was settled, the immigrants changed things. This time will be no different. The old players will have to adapt to new neighbors, and their different ideas. The new participants will also have to adapt, change their plans, and learn a new language.

The technology may not actually be the biggest thing, it may ultimately be the marketing of the technology that really changes things up, as new players get creative to be heard. 

For the rest of us, we can be fairly confident, (I think), that at the end of the day, there will be a lot more functionality for consumers and small businesses than we ever thought possible. We will truly have control over our money, in the same kinds of ways that global corporations have had for years. But instead of having to invest in a CFO and a treasury management department, we will have it all on our smart phone. And won't that be fun.

That's my take. What's yours? What developments do you think are most exciting, or most scary? Best analysis you've seen? Company to watch?