While Ikea is defining an entire generation of furniture buyers with their high style, low cost mass production, there’s still a niche for high style, low cost mass customization. Myfab is a huge step in that direction.

How does it work? Each week, Myfab customers vote on which furniture items they’d like manufactured - you can see the vote tallies in the image above. They then get to buy them direct at near-factory prices, up to 70% lower than retail), plus 10% off if you voted!

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People are changing their status quo preference of keeping up with the Joneses to wanting to be unique, largely because now we can - the emergence of the knowledge economy and mass customization are enabling a shift to individualized, one-of-a-kind products and services. Thus, as national brands are increasingly unable to tell a one-size-fits-all story to the masses, it is then up to the customer to tell those stories to sell that brand - think Mini Cooper.

Trendwatching.com calls these

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From an interview with Architect Magazine, I stated how the next generation of architects will work with the creative vision of progressive future tenants rather than the opinion of one developer, with a lot less ego to go around. At the Balcom Agency in Fort Worth, Texas, you can get a hint of things to come in interior design.

From a Design Sponge article, rather than spend the entire interior design budget on one firm, the company distributed $300 to each employee to design their own

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Yesterday we took a look at the rising need to capture a community’s collective brilliance, which happens too randomly and ubiquitously to be of any use in today’s rigid business processes. Enter Wikinomics, the wikipedia approach to business.

With collaborative tools like wikis, many progressive organizations will utilize much smaller, decentralized teams, whose primary role will be to monitor creative input rather than directly provide it. Their job will be to identify and solicit feedback

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Hundreds of people in your neighborhood have moments of brilliance on what would make it a better community economically, socially and environmentally (ie a coffeehouse having its very own socially-minded social network), but then those ideas are gone, usually for years if not forever, like that acclaimed research paper back in college. That will no longer be the case in the near future.

First a look at the problem, using this excerpt from the book Wikinomics by Don Tapscott.

“We still, for

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On one hand, there are thousands of architectural innovations that could be shared, but are used once and lost forever.  On the other hand, there are only so many ways to design a building and there’s a lot of reinventing of the wheel.  Both of these inefficiencies and missed opportunities have existed for decades.

As of March 8, 2007 those problems began to diminish, as architectural design has finally gone open source, and with a triple-bottom-line (3BL) to boot.

Armed with a $100,000

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Answer: You can co-design your own.

Regulars to this site are familiar with the beta community process that’s still primarily conceptual, but here’s how it’s currently being implemented by the folks at Kettle Foods:

As the story goes, in Spring 2004, Kettle execs were reminded of the vast opinions by its chips’ fans.  That Summer collected 16,000 official suggestions for what its next flavor should be, as long as it fit the criteria of being all-natural, tasted good, and was sellable. 10,000

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As you know, each succeeding generation of products and services is increasingly co-designed by you, and the internet is the primary tool. However, what are the tools to use when it comes to co-designing your next home, workplace, building, block, community…?

Enter Google Sketch-Up - and yes, the downloadable program is free. Check out the demonstration video here - it’s easy to use, and certainly for pro-amateurs (people who know how to teach themselves skills via the internet).

How could

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What does Web 2.0, the most intelligent communities of 2007, the beta community, and building cool towns for the creative class have in common? Ok, so it’s not really a secret.

As stated, Web 1.0 was about commerce, Web 2.0 is about people - you. As cities have found the hard way, innovation can’t just be tech-centric (ie build city-wide wifi and they will come), but people-centric - you-centric (build places the most creative truly want to be in, integrating wi-fi). Beta communities are the

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We recently answered the question How can a City establish a ‘beta community’ to attract the creative class? with an outlined process. We follow that with a living example, Vauban in Freiburg, Germany..

In the 1970s the City of Freiburg in Germany became known for its progressive mindset, much like Berkelely, CA. With that kind of creative foundation, when a 94-acre army base closed in 1991 it was a natural step for the surrounding residents to establish what was pretty much a beta community.

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