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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Design your own office space

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

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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.

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Wikinomics by

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Architecture goes open source

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

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What do potato chips and cool towns have in common?

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

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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

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The secret weapon in developing cool towns… ‘You’

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

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Beta community designs a neighborhood their way in Germany

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

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‘Customer-led’ urban design center opens in St. Paul

In a time when five indie films take all five Oscar nominations, the question is, can we get that kind of quality if we provide support for the indie developer?  In a customer-led economy, the answer is a resounding yes.

One Minneapolis group that’s taken the lead is University UNITED, a group of 12 progressive community organizations + businesspeople that want a vibrant, urban, pedestrian-oriented, transit-oriented district along St.

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Customer-led economy - customers getting paid?! Part 2 of 2

Yesterday in Part 1, we looked at the different models of a what is fast becoming a standard feauture in anything we buy - customer-led services, products and yes, buildings and neighborhoods. However, just to show you how quickly this is all evolving, Trendwatching provides a summary of the next step - getting paid for it - and they even have their own term (albeit a bit trite):

“Generation C(ontent) is joining Generation

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You’re hearing more and more how customers are participating in the decision-making behind what they’re buying. Here’s a summary of terms used to describe this customer-led economy, with real-world examples and how it will help shape our communities for the better:

Customer-Led - The most generic description encompassing the entire field, also referred to as customer-driven or customer made. This website has an entire collection of entries on this topic here.

Mass Customization - The

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Putting the spirit into co-designing your own community

The beta community is well underway in Louisville, KY, allowing future tenants to co-design and co-develop a key downtown block.

However, sometimes it’s easier to explain this customer-led, co-design, crowdsourcing at a much smaller scale, which is what CrowdSpirit does for us.  The basic concept is straightforward, as defined in their image above (excluding the urban village elevation, developed by Urban+West+Strategies). The goal is

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Saving on housing costs (part 2) - no more 6% fees?

Continuing yesterday’s entry... The Last Stand of the 6-Percenters - that’s the NY Times story that’s got home buyers excited and realtors needing to rethink their business model.  The current system awards 3% to the seller’s agent, and 3% to the buyer’s agent.  Louisville is pioneering a better model with its beta community.

“Traditional agents spend very little time brokering a deal. Most of their time is consumed looking for new

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Social online worlds a preview of our physical worlds?

Automakers build fully-working computer models of the cars they’re about to build, and the same applies for thousands of the products we buy.  The social networking phenomenon is growing like crazy, with MySpace alone at 68 million members.  At the same time, we’re delving deeply into a customer-driven economy.  It’s only a matter of time before the three intersect, and we’re already seeing a preview among the 10-20 million people

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As mentioned yesterday, we are fully immersed in a customer-driven economy, and those investing in cities and neighborhoods must participate to prosper.

Trendwatching provides the most current “definition: “The phenomenon of corporations creating goods, services and experiences in close cooperation with experienced and creative consumers, tapping into their intellectual capital, and in exchange giving them a direct say in (and rewarding them for) what actually gets produced,

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There are two million people who know sign language (not necessarily deaf), and there is a visionary development group in South Dakota that believes 2500 of them will move to a new town designed specifically for them, by them.

While it’s not exactly a cooltown, it does follow the principles of new urbanism; walkable, mixed-use, a diversity of housing types, front porches and alleys, live/works and a town center.

What is entirely significant about this community is that it’s …

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We all have opinions on how we’d improve the places we live, work and play in, but rarely see that influence our surrounding built environment.  Well, if this customer-made trend continues to evolve, we won’t have to wait much longer.

Customer-made (as defined by Trendwatching.com): the phenomenon of corporations creating goods, services and experiences in close cooperation with consumers, tapping into their intellectual capital, and in exchange giving them a direct say in what actually

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More choices = more successful downtowns?

If there’s more variety and choice, will people purchase less or more?

One thing’s for sure, according to a University of Pennsylvania study, “If there is a perception of increased variety, people eat more,” says Barbara Kahn, vice dean and director of the university’s vaunted Wharton Business School Undergraduate Division and expert in consumer choice and brand loyalty.  They even conducted a study with jelly beans to further substantiate their

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Why is it that you have to choose neighborhoods that other people design?  Wouldn’t it be great if you could collaborate on designing the coolest neighborhood, then have it built?

Perhaps that dream isn’t far away, and Lego may have laid the foundation. Its newly introduced Lego Factory allows people to design their own buildings, neighborhood, even an entire town via the free software they provide.  That’s just the beginning, because you then submit that design to Lego to buy all the

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Is smaller becoming better?

First, the facts:

World Wildlife Federation (WWF) research shows people are consuming resources 20% faster than our ability to support renewal. The amount of natural resources used compared with what nature can support increased 2.5 times over the past 40 years, with the average North American using twice that of Europeans, and seven times that of Asians or Africans.

The mass production economy of the last century brought bigger houses, yards, closets, cars,

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The Design Economy

In the spirit of the newly refined CoolTown Studios website!… today’s focus is on design.

In a globalizing economy based on mass production and commoditization, the business of design is more than ever the path to productivity and profit, not to mention a sense of soul.  What elements does this design economy entail?  Fast Company magazine provides a look:

Be project-based: Aka the hollywood model, creativity thrives when there’s a finite beginning and end (like

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“Open DJ” night drawing crowds...

Ever feel so good about a song or two that you wished you could play it for a crowd?  Ever had a desire to be the DJ at a nightclub, even for just 15 minutes?

Well, since you can mass customize your new car, new home, and even your restaurant dinner or your shoes, you can do the same for your night out.  In this Washington Post article, iPod Nights Turn Amateurs Into Digital DJs at D.C. Club (expires Mar. 10), you can get your 15 minutes of fame by

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We are evolving into a customer-driven economy, where customers are so well-informed that they’re actually often the best suited to design and develop their own products and services.

Linux, the computer operating system that has all but ended Microsoft’s dominance in the server market, when founder Linus Torvalds sought an alternative to closed, proprietary operating systems and began writing a new one for free, inspiring others to join him via collective volunteering, or crowdsourcing,

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The “age of I”

What is the “age of I”?  Individualism with a sense of community.

The movement from mass production to mass customization is becoming standard practice.  How does this relate to us as individuals and our psyche?  As quoted by one Fortune 500 executive* in BusinessWeek:

“I think this “age of I” is our biggest opportunity and our biggest challenge. This idea that people want to be individuals and want to belong at the same time is a huge concept. It used to be if you

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