On the future of manufacturing

Tue, 24 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I was invited last week to talk about the future of manufacturing at an event run by the manufacturing practice of one of the big law firms. Here’s a whistle stop summary. It’s a mind-blowing vista.

Intro

On considering political, economic, social and technological factors, it’s unarguable that we’re contemplating major flux in manufacturing. As with any flux, today’s players will either win out or lose out, and clearly everyone in this room wishes to contribute to and participate in the winning side of things!

With that in mind, I’d like to explore some major themes:

Dehumanisation
Dematerialisation
Decentralisation
Deindustrialisation

That list sounds fairly destructive, yet I believe manufacturing is then transformed, manufacturing is vital, and manufacturing is more exciting than ever.

Click and type or touch and swipe

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Post written for the CIPR Conversation Friday Roundup:

Regular readers will know I’ve argued for some time that we’ve really past the point where we can talk about digital media as if it’s the exception. The majority media is now digital, or has a digital component via something like a QR code , image recognition and augmented reality. If anything, we should be calling out analogue media in its minority role by now.

And yet in 2011 it’s probably still pertinent to make the distinction between ‘being online’ versus ‘offline’. Sure, your smartphone is always on; and sure, it always knows where it is and reports that data back real-time to all those app vendors that demand this data (even if it’s just to allow you to chuck an angry bird around the screen). But you’ll find yourself hard pressed to find someone who considers themselves to be actively online 24/7.

However, this is changing. And fast. In just a few short years we’re well down the line in moving from so-called ‘click and type’ interfaces to ’touch and swipe’. Think about someone just like you living a century ago… the actions of clicking and typing would have been alien to them, yet touching and swiping are quite natural.

Technology-2 on Philip Sheldrake

On the future of manufacturing

Intro

Click and type or touch and swipe