Makers: The New Industrial Revolution
By Chris Anderson Crown Business, $26 There is a way out of the paradox of climbing productivity and stagnating employment. In this insightful look at changes occurring in the way things are made and marketed, Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, focuses on how technology is opening a pathway to renewed prosperity. Anderson calls it the New Industrial Revolution, characterized by "a new kind of manufacturing economy, one shaped more like the web itself; bottom-up, broadly distributed, and highly entrepreneurial."Anderson cites scores of companies that are becoming digital, networked and open, enabling them to speak the same language and connect. "As a result, global manufacturing can now work on any scale, from ones to millions.Customization and small batches are no longer impossible; in fact, they're the future," he writes.The future he foresees underscores the importance of small businesses as America's greatest engine of job creation. The problem with too many small businesses, he says, is that they tend to be strictly local and not innovative. "The great opportunity of the new 'Maker Movement' is to be both small and global.Both artisanal and innovative. Both high-tech and low cost," he writes. The real movers of the evolving networked world economy, Christopher says, will not be behemoths like General Electric, General Mills and General Motors, but "a billion little entrepreneurial opportunities that can be discovered and exploited by smart, creative people."Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
