OSE Incentive Challenge Discussion

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Thu Apr 4, 2019

Emily feedback

Hi Marcin & Steve,

I think what you have in mind is quite interesting. Let's see if I understand this - though I know you are at the beginning of developing the model.

  1. You announce an incentivized design contest for a 3D printed Cordless FREEDOM POWER DRILL. One or two drill designs are selected to be winners.
  2. They're rewarded with cash prize as contest winners and/or small % of distribution sales. (do they submit prototype manufactured drill too?)
  3. OSE QC's the winner(s.) If it passes muster and meets UL standards the design goes to 2 places:
    1. up to the OSE's Freedom to Build Cloud.
    2. the manufactured drill makes its way onto a distributor's shelf space in a limited geographic region with a Lowes type outfit where OSE distribution deal has been struck.
    3. There will be a split % of sales between OSE and each Manufacturer.

Questions:

  1. Does the local manufacture deliver directly. Or will you be involved in the local fulfillment?
  2. Will they have an OSE QC process to implement?
  3. Will you supply sustainable packaging, marketing and story?

Flashes:

  1. Blockchain is being used to track supply chain - this model would be an ideal candidate and make tracking and transparency really easy
  2. The Drill Name should have designers' name. Netzley's FREEDOM POWER DRILL - and of course there's a picture of Steve Netzley holding his drill.

Lot's of room for Branded Content Stories.

I'm attaching a One Sheet of OSE Brand Architecture that I dug up AND a work-in-progress character brief from long before that.

Take a look at both - you might find language or a combination of words that will work.

I'm a fan of simple. Relatable simple expressions of a vision, a promise and a value. Simple is the door that invites you to see clearly the goal.

What's not simple is the end of global sovereignties - disaggregation, demonetization, democratization of knowledge + net nations - this will continue to escalate. It is going to get even more messy, power will not let go easily, but in the end each of us will be our own planets spinning on our own axes connecting up with others if there is a shared value to do so. It sounds far fetched but Puerto Ricans probably understands this all to well. So I think Build Yourself speaks to the inevitable climate induced migration and/or rebuilding. Disasters push Caterpillar's stock up - but old infrastructure and distribution won't be able to keep up. Open Source on demand local manufacturing will become de rigueur.

Thanks for including me!

Marcin Response

The model that we are considering in a nutshell, with all details to be worked out and vetted - is:

  1. We open source a design that is faster, better, cheaper. Our unique value proposition is lifetime design. We know that planned obsolescence is an issue in general, and I just read on Hackaday that planned obselescence in drills works such that people buy new drills every 5 years (even though the drills are perfectly fine) because they change the battery pack geometry. We would address this by not designing in such obsolescence - AND the fact that you can buy, 3D print, or otherwise secure replacement parts and modifications for as long as you like.
  2. The incentive challenge will be large prize on the order of $100k or more, and the problem is so comprehensive that a single winner is not possible. So we are designing the contest at every step to be as collaborative as possible. Today I just came across the idea that we do not define the number and value of prizes, outside of saying that we will give out a total of $x to one or more people. The main reason is that we don't know how many people will participate or contribute, and we want to reward everybody who put in meaningful work. This is part of creating an incentive structure that values collaboration. Thus, people are forced to look at and download prior art. The challenge includes not only the design - but the distributed quality control and distributed production engineering - on top of developing a business infrastructure which would allow us to produce the drills as a distributed effort - using a fully open source tool chain. My vision of success is that thousands of successful entrepreneurs are created - and they effectively become OSE development contributors.
  3. Here is Steve's insight: to design the challenge such that the contestants are the actual people who will be running the enterprises - not mere designers. This way - the contestant is motivated less by the initial incentive reward - but the fact that they can then run a viable sideline or full time business as a result. This can provide much more aligned results. This was a breakthrough for me - I would have said that myself - but historically, our developers and users have been different people. If we focus on attracting the actual entrepreneur/builders - designer=entrepreneur is a much more sound incentive structure for a collaborative effort.
  4. OSE will provide training and certification for builders to work under the OSE brand. Plans and business plans are open source so anyone can do this without using the OSE brand.
  5. Part of the contest is to develop the quality control. OSE will certify producers, and they will follow uniform quality control procedures in a distributed way.
  6. Production is intended to be completely distributed, and OSE's role will probably only be the training, certification, marketing support, and R&D. I would lean away from OSE doing bulk sourcing in favor of developing added capacity for import substitution locally. So that we are true to fully distributed production - that can still produce at scale.
  7. Here's where it gets even more exciting: the production toolchain involves turning waste plastic to 3D printing filament - using open source plastic shredding and filament making machines. So our people are actually cleaning up the environment, and we offer full lifecycle stewardship as we can melt down the plastic and reuse all the parts. While we aim to meet or exceed industry standards of performance - we also do that via simple and robust supply chains of common parts, and local production capacity. I would like to have a product takeback scheme for end-of-life, as we can reuse/recycle all the parts by design.
  8. OSE should supply the Story and Marketing. Packaging - I envision a 3D printed carrying case for the drill + 2 battery packs -which could also be used for shipping. So all this is closed loop materials cycles and cleaning up the environment.
  9. Ideally, we would set up automation of the buying/production process as well. This would be online order -> automated start of print job -> automated part harvesting -> assembly or other automated production steps. There are simple techniques for this that lend themselves to opensourcing. Automated tool changers for 3D printers for doing functions such as circuit milling or other production steps - this is just coming out in the open source.
  10. The good part is that such a project lends itself to open source, because unless everything is simple and open and efficient - impossible in a proprietary framework. For example, the only way that everyone will have access to advanced, low cost machines is if they are open source; the only way everyone will have access to powerful software for design is if they use open source FreeCAD; proprietary software is simply not accessible nor flexible enough for our purposes. So a cordless drill example looks like a perfect case where the entire process lends itself to distribution.
  11. Contributors to the Challenge have a lot of responsibility. They collaborate, and the final product could be: (1) ship their final drill to us; (2) submit test data and video (such as drilling 200 holes in a 2x4 with one charge, (2) submit code, files, instructionals, printer settings files such that we can replicate their build fully 100% in house. Etc. So out of this challenge comes not only product, but documentation, production engineering design, QC design, files, business assets such as website storefront infrastructure, Manufacturing Execution System for automated home production - etc. So a crazy amount of assets, and thus we need to match the incentive to the outcome.
  12. Transparent enterprise documentation - it would be interesting to put this on the blockchain for assistance in tracking, and automation of the distributed process. Sounds like a perfect use case of blockchain. In which case we could consider adding a blockchain specification to the contest, so blockchain programmers get involved. I like this - as this would be one of the few (if any) blockchains that are built around physical objects rather than fictions.

I am posting design details as work in progress at:

https://wiki.opensourceecology.org/wiki/OSE_Incentive_Challenge

Does this answer your questions? Please summarize back to us what you are hearing?

Marcin

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