The Middleman Question This is a guest post by Lana Black. Lana is Product Manager at Vertical Response with more than 10 years of experience in the tech industry. Lana believes that ubiquitous technology will remove barriers of interaction and bring us closer than ever. What is a middleman? Professors Snehota and Gadde discuss the definition and history of middlemen as follows: A middleman is an actor between two other actors, helping customers access resources needed and the holders of resources to reach customers. Prior to the industrial revolution, the middleman maintained a role as trader, buying and selling many types of products, acting as an exporter, wholesaler, importer, retailer, ship-owner, banker and insurer. In this sense, the middleman was filling many needs for customers and suppliers alike. [[MORE]] The arrival and maturity of the industrial revolution from the end of the 19th century to present has changed demands on middlemen. The emergence and dominance of large industrial manufacturing businesses has caused middlemen to evolve into distributors. As a distributor, the middleman is now the source of origin for raw materials, the owner of transport, and thus able to exert control on the input and output of manufacturers. How is this working for us, the customers? Pick any well known brand that you like and are loyal to. Odds are they are a large enough brand to have several middlemen in their network. The company behind the brand designs a product, bids it out to a network of middlemen and waits for the results. The middleman is now a rented reputation (described in “Middlemen Margins and Globalization”). Over time, the brand and middleman develop a shared history. Each one knows how to work within the constraints of the other. Since the middleman is in control of their own reputation to the brand, they know exactly where and how to require the manufacturers to trim quality and bump the middleman margin upwards. The customer receives a lower quality product at the same price as a higher quality product and the middleman acquires more profit. What about the worth of the brand and what a customer can expect from that brand? Consider the ever diversified sets and subsets of customers and how a middleman as described is not focused on satisfying the true needs of this differentiation. The brand and the middleman aim to satisfy the most common criteria among a huge set of customers rather than focusing on the problem solving side of products. I argue that the required profit for the middleman to survive actually keeps the product out of reach for many customers. The extra cost from the middleman margin passed to the customer does not benefit the customer or the supplier. The more costly a product is, the thinner the air in the customer base. How many publications have at least a page dedicated to the same “look” for less? The natural forces of markets have caused the middleman to evolve into this role of distributor, impeding product makers from reaching their true customers. Rather than remaining stuck in this aging model, imagine searching for products by your personal needs, not those of the distributors. What if you were able to input a latitude and longitude and get results from makers producing in a comparable geo location to see who’s developing what products in your area? As a true customer you could find products and makers that respond to your needs. Your needs may be of price, functional design, materials or a combination. Rather than developing blind loyalty to a brand, you could develop a relationship with a maker whose products fulfill your needs perfectly. High-res

The Middleman Question

This is a guest post by Lana Black. Lana is Product Manager at Vertical Response with more than 10 years of experience in the tech industry. Lana believes that ubiquitous technology will remove barriers of interaction and bring us closer than ever.

What is a middleman?

Professors Snehota and Gadde discuss the definition and history of middlemen as follows: A middleman is an actor between two other actors, helping customers access resources needed and the holders of resources to reach customers.

Prior to the industrial revolution, the middleman maintained a role as trader, buying and selling many types of products, acting as an exporter, wholesaler, importer, retailer, ship-owner, banker and insurer. In this sense, the middleman was filling many needs for customers and suppliers alike.

Read more

What the Maker Revolution Will *Really* Look Like The technological soothsayers have spoken: “We are on the cusp of the 3rd Industrial Revolution,” they say, “Anyone with passion, talent, and a great idea will be able to design and manufacture their own products in the not too distant future.” Yes, real products, from haute couture handbags to bicycle parts. All of this is made possible, according to Chris Anderson in his book Makers, to innovations in 3D printing and open-source design, technologies that will enable inventors to become entrepreneurs. [[MORE]] This new breed of inventor-entrepreneurs will be able to use Computer Aided Design (CAD) to sketch out their ideas. They can then publish their designs with an open source license and share them with the world to be critiqued and refined. Advances in 3D printing will enable them to create a prototype of their design at home so that they can get a feel for how the product looks and functions in the “real world.” If everything meets their satisfaction, they can can order a small batch to be made in some manufacturing plant in Shenzhen for just a few month’s worth of savings. Once the batch is complete, they can take pictures of their product, list it on eBay or Etsy, and they’re in business. While this vision of the future has already come to fruition to some extent, we feel that this vision is incomplete. Innovations like 3D printing, open-source design and online marketplaces will indeed lead to a democratization of manufacturing capability. And yes, there will be individuals who will design a product, order X number of units to be produced, list their product online, and ship them out of their garage, but this will be the exception rather than the rule. Just like the information revolution has given rise to an overabundance of low quality content, the upcoming Maker revolution will do much the same for manufactured goods. Because of lower barriers to entry, the marketplace will be flooded by poorly designed, poorly conceived, and poorly made gadgets and gewgaws by pretty much anyone who fancies themselves a “Maker.” This doesn’t mean, however, that the best products will remain unnoticed in the flood of mediocrity. Much in the way that content creators on the Internet achieve recognition and a following by consistently producing great content and by having that content promoted through social media channels, so too will the best Makers earn a reputation by consistently making great products and having these product listings promoted in much the same way (Pinterest, anyone?). So who will be these great Makers of the Third Industrial revolution? While there probably will be a few lone Maker-entrepreneurs who will stand out from the rest, our experience working with small manufacturing companies around the world suggests that these Makers will be in the minority. The best products will not, for the most part, come from the lone Maker-entrepreneur. Rather, they will be the creations of small, workshop-factories specializing in a particular type of product. Just like the old workshop guilds of the Renaissance, the designers of the best products will be the manufacturers themselves. There is a certain type of tacit knowledge that the Maker receives from working with their hands, knowledge that isn’t easy to convey in writing or even a 3D computer design. This tacit knowledge is the reason why we don’t have a 3D model of a Stradivarius violin, or even a real-life exact replica of any kind, for that matter. The greatest artisans of the Renaissance learned their craft not through studying diagrams and models, but through years of trial and error as apprentices. By observing how their masters worked and then by mimicking their master’s techniques over and over again, they learned craftsmanship in a way that could never be conveyed through verbal transmission of techniques. This “hands-on,” tacit knowledge is the workshop Maker’s advantage. The workshop Maker’s intimate knowledge of the manufacturing process will inform product design, which, over time and over many iterations of design/production cycles, gives the workshop Makers a distinct advantage over the lone Maker-entrepreneur in terms of quality. The new tools like CAD, 3D printing, and open source design will help accelerate these cycles to the point where the progression in skill from apprentice to master level will take much less time than it had during the Renaissance. Paul Markillie, who wrote about the Third Industrial Revolution for the Economist, agreed with this idea of manufacturing informing design in a recent email exchange with us: “A number of companies I have spoken to, big and small, now extol the virtue of having manufacturing in some proximity to product design because the two can learn from each other. Indeed, product innovation and manufacturing innovation often go hand-in-hand” writes Paul. What role does the consumer play in this design/production loop? We’re thinking that the trend towards democratization of the manufacturing process will bring consumers closer to the workshop Makers themselves. They will send their product specifications to the workshop website (or perhaps a website that aggregates these specifications) to be “up-voted”, Reddit style, by like-minded consumers. For designs that receive enough up-votes, the workshop will create a preliminary computer designed sketch that consumers can “print” at home to see if it’s something that they’d like. Then, with enough approval, a group of consumers can band together and do a crowd batch order of the product on a site like Zanoby. With this new model, consumers will become active participants in the manufacturing process, so much so, that applying the passive label of “consumer” wouldn’t be appropriate anymore. The age of the consumer is dead. Long live the age of the commissioner. High-res

What the Maker Revolution Will *Really* Look Like

The technological soothsayers have spoken: “We are on the cusp of the 3rd Industrial Revolution,” they say, “Anyone with passion, talent, and a great idea will be able to design and manufacture their own products in the not too distant future.”

Yes, real products, from haute couture handbags to bicycle parts. All of this is made possible, according to Chris Anderson in his book Makers, to innovations in 3D printing and open-source design, technologies that will enable inventors to become entrepreneurs.

Read more

Confusione

Maurizio and Stefania, two jewelers born and raised in Florence, have been combining their complementing flairs and channeled them into their creations.

Through his love for technology and instinctive feel for design and her love for art and sophistication, they produce intriguing individual pieces of jewelry with elemental forms and materials, with just a twist of hi-tech.

Working together with their highly skilled team of craftspeople, shaping bronze, silver and resin, their bracelets, necklaces and rings evoke a primeval atmosphere of fire and smoke, but at the same time embody a twenty-first century irony and joie-de-vivre that is always present throughout their work.

Discover their products.

eCommerce is too impersonal, and this is how we’re going to change it For too long, the face of the maker has been missing from the marketplace. We buy a product and never think of the passion, the dedication, and the love that goes into it. To us the face of the maker is invisible, anonymous, and although the maker and the buyer are connected in a very real way, we have lost that sense of connection. That is why we’re looking to create something more than just an eCommerce site. We want to restore the connection between the product and its maker. We want to remind each buyer that they are not just buying a product, but supporting a new renaissance in manufacturing through collective buying power. These makers have struggled too long to keep their craftsmanship alive. We want to bring that struggle to an end. [[MORE]] Of course, old habits die hard. This is something entirely new, and based on the feedback we received after our launch we realized that our site still had some of the vestiges of a traditional eCommerce site: the products were still center stage, and although we had information about the makers, the connection was not as clear as it could have been. We took this feedback seriously and set about making changes. We have recently made some design updates to the website that better reflects the connection between maker and product. We believe the new design makes it clear that Zanoby is about supporting small local manufacturers, and is not just about selling products. Changes Include: More pictures of the makers themselves and putting them in more prominent places on the site. One example: a photo of the makers will now appear when your mouse moves over a product. Information about makers used to be hidden in a separate tab on a product page. We have worked to integrate that info into the main product page. Below each product page is a clear explanation on how crowd ordering works and how they help the makers. The “Zanoby Daily” email will now feature a photo of the maker as well as the product. It is now clearer that you are not just buying products off the shelf. It’s all about the power of crowd ordering. You can now track products orders you are currently backing before they are fully funded. We believe that these changes are the first step in creating something truly different from a generic eCommerce site, a site where the maker is just as important as the product he or she makes. Click here to check out the changes. We hope you like them, and if you have any feedback, please let us know at hello@zanoby.com High-res

eCommerce is too impersonal, and this is how we’re going to change it

For too long, the face of the maker has been missing from the marketplace. We buy a product and never think of the passion, the dedication, and the love that goes into it. To us the face of the maker is invisible, anonymous, and although the maker and the buyer are connected in a very real way, we have lost that sense of connection.

That is why we’re looking to create something more than just an eCommerce site. We want to restore the connection between the product and its maker. We want to remind each buyer that they are not just buying a product, but supporting a new renaissance in manufacturing through collective buying power. These makers have struggled too long to keep their craftsmanship alive. We want to bring that struggle to an end.

Read more

A century old signature The final touch. Andrea dips the brush and paints the name of his company on the frame of a Contropedale city bike in a proud golden letters. It’s more than just a brand. It’s a signature. Just as any artist would sign their name in the corner of a masterpiece upon its completion, the craftsman, the one who attached each spoke to the hub shell of each wheel would sign a name that represented over a hundred years of quality, tradition, and beauty. [[MORE]] It’s a work of art, not just his own art, but the art of the generations who preceded him. The golden signature represents the skill he himself has cultivated as a craftsman, and the knowledge that comes from a century old tradition of creating something that perfectly combines function and form. They’ve created a bike that’s not only pretty to look at, but can stand up to years and years of use, even abuse, and still get you where you need to go. This bicycle company makes their home in Vanzaghello, a town in northern Italy. Large smokestacks still dominate the skyline, a reminder of the city’s former life, a time when it was a major manufacturing powerhouse, the hub of a thriving textile industry in the second half of the 19th century. The buildings below the smokestacks are now the homes to large shopping centers and the industrial heyday has been all but forgotten. But in 1908, just when the smokestacks began to grow cold, a small group of craftsmen decided to utilize the skills that they brought with them when the factories closed their doors and make something of real quality, something they could put their collective signature to. The gold hand painted lettering on each frame was that signature. Today, the company is a small team of fifteen who have, despite all the difficulties put upon them by the economic climate, persevered to continue delivering the same quality that they have since the company’s beginnings. We believe that small makers like this are the heart and soul of the new industrial revolution, one driven by quality–not quantity. When you buy one of these bicycles, you are not only getting a great bike, but you’re helping revive a dedication to quality that was once in danger of fading away. High-res

A century old signature

The final touch.

Andrea dips the brush and paints the name of his company on the frame of a Contropedale city bike in a proud golden letters.

It’s more than just a brand. It’s a signature. Just as any artist would sign their name in the corner of a masterpiece upon its completion, the craftsman, the one who attached each spoke to the hub shell of each wheel would sign a name that represented over a hundred years of quality, tradition, and beauty.

Read more

Lava, coral and philosophy: a visionary Maker

A manufacturing plant that looks like a vessel, with a crew of 15 highly skilled makers headed by Roberto, a pirate, a performer, a philosopher and the inspiring force in the creative process behind his bespoke pieces of jewelry which are never, merely, jewels.

A trained architect with the roguish air of a sea captain, his pieces are visceral and elegant, like the lava fragments beautifully – and ‘meaningfully’- framed by worked metal. What his meaningful truly is and where it stems from, Roberto is all too happy to explain: the long version includes geology, history and metaphysics but, in short, the true alchemy is how each creation is imprinted with the true spark element of crafted soul.

Coppola hat: the “Meusa” collection, experimentation and tradition

Each and every model in our line of unique coppola hats bears a name inspired by the rich Sicilian history and folklore, in order to give added strength to our proudly local products.

The Meusa collection:

“A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure”. From Charlie Chaplin’s visionary mind we can trace the line of the inspiration for the Meusa hat: a coppola that takes its original spark from the joy and taste for life of the Sicilian soul, from the multifaceted and intense scents that populate the island, from the colourful food and brimming street markets, where the original meusa is sold, even nowadays. The meusa is a typical street food, of simple, poor ingredients but rich and full in flavours, with the characteristic Sicilian twist.

By wearing a hat belonging to the Meusa line, you bring into your daily life a piece of poetic lightheartedness and the buoyant sense of freedom of the street market dweller, with an added, and unmistakable, addition of style and elegance.

Les Zazous: a 1940 French revolution Za zou, za zou, zo zou, za zou ze Whistling of French Teddy boys in a Paris under siege, a melody that tasted like beer and grenadine, brilliantine, red lipstick and a fair dose of living on the edge, all to the unstoppable rhythm of Swing and Jazz. This was a time when English was an emotion before being a language and America was the best of all possible dreams…the open-air cinemas, the motorcycle rides, a ferris wheel or a swing where to taste the exhilarating quality of freedom. [[MORE]] “Je suis Swing.. Za zou, za zou, zo zou, za zou ze“, thus sang Johnny Hess. How to be a Zazou: Madame Zazou would choose roll-collar sweaters and pair them with short skirts and wooden platform shoes. She would wear large dark glasses, be heavily but elegantly made up, and would proudly show off her dyed hair, maybe accessorizing it to the top. Monsieur Zazou would go for drape suits with drain pipe trousers under sheep­skin-lined jackets. His hair would be tamed by generous doses of brilliantine, he would wear a coat down to his knees, a fancy leather belt, and not very suttle suede shoes. High-res

Les Zazous: a 1940 French revolution

Za zou, za zou, zo zou, za zou ze

Whistling of French Teddy boys in a Paris under siege, a melody that tasted like beer and grenadine, brilliantine, red lipstick and a fair dose of living on the edge, all to the unstoppable rhythm of Swing and Jazz.

This was a time when English was an emotion before being a language and America was the best of all possible dreams…the open-air cinemas, the motorcycle rides, a ferris wheel or a swing where to taste the exhilarating quality of freedom.

Read more

Zazou: a swing hat

The Zazou hat is a style icon, it draws back to the fascination of a distant era, to revolutionary and sophisticated undertones. Wear your Zazou, here in a slick dark blue pony skin version: it will be your perfect ticket to a speakeasy night out. You choose the melody, from tango to rockabilly, and Zazou will follow you with irony and lightness.

This hat is designed and manufactured with passion in the laboratory of one of the talented Zanoby manufacturer, where the hat-making tradition meets wooden hat shapes, photographs of Le Corbusier, sound of sewing machines and books of Jacques Prévert:

This is what we mean for Human Centered Manufacturing.

Welcome to Zanoby Thank you for visiting the Zanoby blog. We are extremely excited to share our vision with you. This blog will chronicle our mission, thoughts, and inspiration. It will also highlight the stories behind the Makers we partner with to offer you a view into their culture, their products, and their craft. Our story is a simple and meaningful one. We believe strongly in sustainable manufacturing practices and the production of quality over quantity. We support local Makers and manufacturers who have a proud history and achievement of beauty, and maintain their identity and craftsmanship throughout the production process. Through our travels to Makers around the world, however, we learned that many countries do not have the infrastructure to build or maintain local manufacturing. As large-scale manufacturing and fast production take over consumer markets, the local manufacturing industry struggles with limited direct access to markets and competition with larger industry players. [[MORE]] We created Zanoby to address this struggle and to revive the small, highly skilled manufacturing industry. Founded upon the concept of a New Renaissance, Zanoby connects local manufacturers to consumers to collaborate on the production of goods. This collaborative system allows manufacturers to develop unique, high quality products built around the needs and the production speed of the local manufacturing industry. Soon we will open our doors to showcase the traditions and culture of our Makers while creating a flexible and scalable system for local manufacturing to thrive worldwide. We invite you to explore and experience beautiful, quality goods made exclusively for us, and participate in supporting a new manufacturing system that focuses on transparency, quality, and design. Sincerely, Roberto Scaccia, CEO of Zanoby High-res

Welcome to Zanoby

Thank you for visiting the Zanoby blog. We are extremely excited to share our vision with you. This blog will chronicle our mission, thoughts, and inspiration. It will also highlight the stories behind the Makers we partner with to offer you a view into their culture, their products, and their craft.

Our story is a simple and meaningful one. We believe strongly in sustainable manufacturing practices and the production of quality over quantity. We support local Makers and manufacturers who have a proud history and achievement of beauty, and maintain their identity and craftsmanship throughout the production process. Through our travels to Makers around the world, however, we learned that many countries do not have the infrastructure to build or maintain local manufacturing. As large-scale manufacturing and fast production take over consumer markets, the local manufacturing industry struggles with limited direct access to markets and competition with larger industry players.

Read more

Bicycles by Taurus

Founded in 1908, Taurus is proud of its heritage but fully in touch with the evolving needs of the modern world.

This bicycle factory is located in the productive heart of Italy, where generations of skilled workers have refined their trade and have proven to stand the test of time. The bicycles produced here are unashamedly hand-made, from the frames to nuts and bolts, everything is produced locally and with a meticulous level of finish. Built with years of use in mind but requiring minimal maintenance, these bicycles are built for real people in the real world. Each product is the culmination of generations of skills and teamwork, and that is what you are buying into when you choose a Zanoby bicycle.

Urban Manufacturing The future of manufacturing in America is bright. In the wake of the Great Recession, there is great potential to return to prosperity as a country that makes things. Though there are challenges to bringing manufacturing back in America, sound public policy and pioneering businesses are leading the way. People are seeking a better way of life, and this often means walkable and livable neighborhoods where they have easy access to shopping, entertainment, recreation, and jobs. This type of environment can be found in cities, and urban manufacturers are a major way to provide jobs in such places. With a strong urban manufacturing economy, Americans can find homes in more livable neighborhoods and commute less. Urban manufacturers will reduce costs by locating near their suppliers, customers, and workers, the negative environmental impacts of industry will be lessened, and inner city neighborhoods will reap the benefits of economic development. Urban manufacturing is a path to healthier, happier neighborhoods and a strong and prosperous economy. Follow the path. High-res

Urban Manufacturing

The future of manufacturing in America is bright. In the wake of the Great Recession, there is great potential to return to prosperity as a country that makes things. Though there are challenges to bringing manufacturing back in America, sound public policy and pioneering businesses are leading the way.

People are seeking a better way of life, and this often means walkable and livable neighborhoods where they have easy access to shopping, entertainment, recreation, and jobs. This type of environment can be found in cities, and urban manufacturers are a major way to provide jobs in such places. With a strong urban manufacturing economy, Americans can find homes in more livable neighborhoods and commute less. Urban manufacturers will reduce costs by locating near their suppliers, customers, and workers, the negative environmental impacts of industry will be lessened, and inner city neighborhoods will reap the benefits of economic development. Urban manufacturing is a path to healthier, happier neighborhoods and a strong and prosperous economy.

Follow the path.