Fab Lab Business Modelling

• The Business Model Canvas (Alex Osterwalder et al.)
• A “buy” wordle
• Kevin Kelly’s “Better than Free”
• Persona
• Customer Journey

Open Design Now, ISBN 978-90-6369-259-9

Now also available online at opendesignnow.org

(c) 2008, Peter Troxler, cc-by

Not only was this great fun to do; Patricia Wolf and Ralf Hansmann, both ETH Zurich, studied why the event was such a success. Together, we wrote an article revealing the mechanisms behind unconferencing. This article just appeared in the Journal of Organizational Change Management and is available at this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09534811111102319

Suggested citation: Patricia Wolf, Ralf Hansmann, Peter Troxler, (2011) “Unconferencing as method to initiate organisational change: A case study on reducing CO2 emissions of a university”, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 24 Iss: 1, pp.112 – 142

While we had to transfer our copyrights on the article to Emerald Publishing, we can legally provide a private reprint –here.

(c) 2010, Jean-Baptiste Labrune (cc-by-sa)

To be successful, e.g. in business, it’s often needed to go beyond what’s typically believed to be the normal way of doing things, to be creative when applying rules. This is not different for making Fab Labs a success. In a recent paper, I explore two sets of rules: intellectual property protection and common fab lab operating practices. Applied traditionally, both sets of rules limit the potential of a Fab Lab. By creatively bending those rules, a Fab Lab can position itself.
Bending the Rules: The Fab Lab Innovation Ecology, paper presented at the 11th International CINet Conference, 5-7 September, Zurich, Switzerland [pdf, 1.4 MB]

(c) 2009 Flavio Ensiki

There is a new digital revolution going on, the revolution of personal digital fabrication. Happening in Fab Labs all over the world it has exciting consequences for art, business, industry, culture and education. These implications might, some speculate, equal the implications of the industrial revolution of the late 18th and early 19th century.

Easy access to low- cost, high-precision fabrication tools and powerful Internet-based communication capabilities are changing the ways we think about and approach innovation, invention, intellectual property, creative processes, computation, manufacturing and distribution, business models, and social and cultural networks. This Industrial [r]Evolution is at the core of the sixth international Fab Lab forum and symposium that takes place 15-20 August 2010 in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Den Haag, Groningen and Amersfoort.

Square One Dr Peter Troxler has been supporting FAB6 to develop and realize the workshop programme.

* FAB6 is the 6th International Fab Lab Forum and Symposium on Digital Fabrication.

(c) 2010, Gustav Holmström, cc-by-2.0

Traditional business models of the creative industries are built on the protection of content. With the advent of an Internet culture where content is ‘sold’ at a price of zero and sharing is a key paradigm, that model seems not to be fully adequate any longer, even more, there might be a time when content alone won’t pay anymore. Service innovation on top of and around open content can be the answer to that challenge.

(c) 2009, akorbety, cc-by-2.0

Fab Labs are one of the smaller crazes these days, it seems. Every month, one or two new initiatives spring up in Europe alone. This is maker culture claiming its presence on this planet.

So where does this development lead us? And how to make a Fab Lab sustainable … socially, ecological, and business wise? That’s where Square One comes in.

• How to start a Fab Lab — in 5 steps
• Make your Fab Lab economically sustainable (white paper)
• Get in touch for custom services

(c) 2007, David Sim, cc-by-2.0

Content can be reproduced at a price of nearly zero. Bits are just so easy to copy over the Internet. The book Open Content Business is focusing on this challenge. And while under constant development, it builds on an article I wrote in 2009 which can be downloaded in full (pdf, 479k) from SSRN.