local marketing center|Paul and Sarah Edwards |Working From Home |

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Picking the Life You Want to Live

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COVID-19 has produced changes in our lifestyles and for the first time since the industrial revolution produced a majority of Americans saying they prefer to work at home.

Survey after survey show:

Metova’s April 2020 survey analyzed the responses of over 1,000 consumers. finding that 57% of respondents would prefer to keep on working from home. Almost half (48%) said they are more productive working from home.

An article in the New York Times asked “What if You Don’t Want to Go Back to the Office?

IBM surveyed 25, 000 people to gauge changes in perspective about work and found 54% of adults want to work remotely most of the time after the pandemic.

Other studies have shown that those who work from home full-time report being happier in their job 22% more than their counterparts who spent no time working from home.

Forbes magazine reported on May 20 that three out of five surveyed who had been working at home said they would prefer to continue working from home.

The Gallup Poll which tracks worker attitudes found three in five U.S. workers who have been doing their jobs from home during the coronavirus pandemic would prefer to continue to work remotely as much as possible.

Here are the reasons people prefer to work at home:

One study found 79% of workers say the quality of their work has improved.  Many other studies come to similar conclusions.

  • Cutting back on commuting time. The average American who drives to work spends 54 hours per year stuck in traffic, according to an analysis by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute.
  • Less pollution. American cities are less polluted because of reduced traffic.
  • Better health as people are exposed less to communicable diseases and have more time to exercise and stay physically fit, have fewer respiratory problems that come with driving
  • Global Workplace Analytics estimates that people can save, on average, $2,000 to $6,500 every year by not spending on things like gasoline and daycare.
  • Tax-wise, people who work at home can come out ahead. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 eliminated the home office tax deduction for employees (anyone who receives a W-2). However, if produce self-employment income at home, you can still deduct home office expenses.

One of the rewards of working at home is spending more time with your pets. Here’s a link to an in-depth guide for working from home with a dog.

If you are seeking a way to spend more time working at home for an employer or wish to produce extra income, take a look at whether the opportunities of becoming a Digital Document Creator.

The Economy is a calamity for most Americans; Why most people live paycheck to paycheck

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Nearly a thousand Americans die of coronavirus deaths a day  – more than in any other nation.  While  Americans constitute 4% of the world’s population, we have suffered nearly 25% of the global number of COVID-D cases and almost 25% of the deaths.

It’s clear that many households were not prepared for the economic downturn The loss of income and the consequent economic crisis hit a middle class that does not have much of a cushion to weather a depression.

A Federal Reserve study found that 6 in 10 households do not have enough liquid assets to cover three months’ worth of expenses. Just five percent of middle-class assets are liquid while almost 60 percent of a family’s assets are tied up in primary residences, retirement accounts, and businesses. 1 in 6 Americans could go hungry amid the Covid-19 crisis.

Even if families could sell their assets, they would be risking their homes, security in old age, and, for some families, their primary source of income. The need for cash is causing people to sell and barter their possessions.

With 74% of U.S. families living paycheck-to-paycheck—including one in four households that earn at least $150,000 per year—the pandemic plunged millions into desperate situations overnight. The U.S. economy has been kept up by economic stimulus of funds, IRS reminds consumers that unemployment income is taxable, meaning the government will get back some of the money it has spent over the next year.

The Brookings Institution took a deep look at pay across the U.S. and found that almost half of workers — 44% — earn low wages. 12 percent of Americans say they can’t cover a $400 expense; the remaining 27 percent said they could cover the expense but would need to use some combination of a credit card, taking out a loan, or selling something.

Almost a third of low-wage workers were below 150% of the federal poverty level. The median pay among low-wage workers was around $10.22/hr. When wages stay the same, they’re not really staying the same.

Personal Savings

Before the pandemic, the overall personal saving rate was relatively low at just under eight percent. While the savings rate has increased since just before the 2008 recession, it is nowhere near historic highs of over 13 percent. The value of savings are they can be drawn upon in an emergency. Sixty-nine percent of Americans have less than $1,000 in their savings account. As the economy falters, many in the middle class will now need to draw on whatever assets they have.

“The real tsunami is coming,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, tells us “the labor market is set to start weakening again. That leaves us with very little job creation in the rest of the economy but with still high levels of layoffs.” “You’re starting to see unemployment spells last a long time. The longer you’re out of the labor force and disconnected from your prior employer, the harder it is to reconnect.”

Unemployment

Less than a week after President Trump touted a positive jobs report and claimed victory over the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the Department of Labor announced that more than 1.5 million filed new jobless claims in each week of June. Before the pandemic, the all-time weekly high was 695,000 in 1982.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the employment-population ratio, which is the percentage of adults in the U.S. population who are employed, fell to a record low of 52.8 percent. It was 61.2 percent at the start of the year. Doing the math tells us that nearly 48 percent of working-age adults didn’t have a job in May.

Economists say the employment-population ratio is a truer indicator of the health of the labor market because it counts the people who could be working but, for one reason or another, are not looking for a job. The monthly employment report only counts those who are looking for a job.

One in three Americans say a household member has been laid off or had their pay cut. What’s more alarming is that many jobs are disappearing. A recent report by Bloomberg Economics warned that up to a third of the job losses experienced between February and May may never return.

The real unemployment rate is 21%–and is heading higher. Government data available don’t account for many workers who are still on the job but are expected to be let go. For example, Boeing (BA) announced plans to cut 16,000 workers, with 12,300 of those job cuts already being identified through buyouts or involuntary permanent layoffs. But virtually all of those affected workers are still on the job as of today. United Airlines announced plans to lay off more than one-third of its 95,000 workers. Brooks Brothers, which first opened for business in 1818, filed for bankruptcy. Bed Bath and Beyond said it will close 200 stores.

Many retailers are in bankruptcy –such as Brooks Brothers. J.C. Penney, Stage Stores,  J. Crew, Nieman-Marcus,  Roots USA, Pier 1, Tuesday Morning, Barney’s, Charlotte Ruse, Destination Maternity, Diesel USA, Forever 21, FTD, Full Beauty Brands, Gymboree, Payless Shoes, Things Remembered, and Z Gallery, and Denim retailer Lucky Brands, Stein Mart. Many of these bankruptcies result in the closing all of their Stores.

Giant Macy’s announced it is cutting 3,900 corporate jobs — 3 percent of its total workforce — to reduce costs as it struggles with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The cuts represent about a fourth of Macy’s corporate workforce. It expects to save about $365 million through the layoffs.  The cuts represent about a fourth of Macy’s corporate workforce. The department store chain said it expects to save about $365 million through the layoffs.

Other businesses are in trouble, too, such as Chuck E. Cheese files, which filed for Chapter 11. Microsoft will permanently close its retail stores and put its resources into online channels after closing the outlets in late March due to COVID-19. Nordstrom, a major retail tenant finds itself at odds with its landlords. The upscale department store chain has reportedly notified the property owners of its namesake and off-price Rack stores that it will pay only half of its rent costs for the rest of 2020.

The demise of America’s malls can deal a blow to the towns that depend on them.

Malls and shopping centers across the country provide $400 billion in local tax revenue annually, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Millions of additional layoffs could come soon from cash-strapped state and local governments unless Congress provides additional relief and small businesses that have exhausted their borrowing under the Paycheck Protection Program. In a survey of its members, the National Federation of Independent Business said more than half of respondents had used up their loans and 22 percent planned to lay off workers as a result.

Temporary becomes permanent

People who are counting on businesses reopening their doors may be surprised to find that a temporary loss has become a permanent one, said Zandi. Millions of people remain unemployed and the number of jobs being permanently lost is going up each month. The rise in permanent job loss is the latest signal that the economic damage from the coronavirus is likely to be long-lasting. 6 million additional jobs lost may be a best-case scenario rather than the worst-case scenario

.An earlier University of Chicago study predicted that 42% of pandemic job losses would be permanent. These are not just job losses for millions of Americans but an even larger career existential crisis.

The “only way to have a viable economy and society is to control this epidemic.” “It was Trump’s defiance of science, his muddled messaging and his incessant vitriol that has plunged the country into a swamp of joblessness, receding labor participation and slumping business confidence unseen in other developed nations,”

“Here we are, a country so rich in expertise, in resources, in capacities, and yet we’re watching a complete failure of a political response — with a massive loss of life — in real-time,” Economist Jeffrey Sachs said. “It’s quite shocking because Trump not only does not know how to approach this issue but he blocks those who do.”

The nearly $3 trillion worth of pandemic relief measures approved earlier this year by Congress have clearly buoyed the economy, but the effect of those initial programs is ebbing. Many small businesses are running out of loans and grants that kept paychecks going out to at least some workers. State governments are financially distressed.  Unless more relief money comes from Washington, more people will experience no-pay paydays.

The first wave of the coronavirus pandemic caused the U.S. economy to shrink at its fastest rate on the record because of the virus. The U.S. economy shrunk at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 32.9 percent during the second quarter of 2020 as spurred an economic collapse of record-breaking speed and size, according to the Commerce Department. It is the largest one-quarter plunge in economic growth since the federal government began reporting quarterly GDP data. The staggering contraction beats the last record set in 1958 when GDP shrank at an annualized 10% rate.

During the worst of the Great Recession, GDP shrank at an annualized 8.4% pace in the final quarter of 2008. Before that, the single largest annualized quarterly decline recorded by the Commerce Department was 10% in early 1958. the economy saw its worst quarter in at least 145 years. Federal regulators quietly shredded the most significant banking reform enacted after the 2008 financial crisis last month. When they were done, they patted banks on the back for continuing to shovel cash to their shareholders.

This downturn or depression is likely last well into the year.  The average duration of a recession between 1945 and 2001 was 10 months. The middle class faces its greatest threat since the 1930s. Any way you slice it, it’s an ugly, historic economic contraction.

The industries that have seen the most job loss, including hospitality, leisure, and retail are industries where a much higher proportion of women work. The job market is rough for recent college graduates, with 68% fewer entry-level positions available this year than last year.

Making the Mortgage Payment or Rent

Half of U.S. homeowners struggling with mortgages due to COVID-19, researchers say many Americans are thinking about putting up the “For Sale” sign. A survey of 2,000 American homeowners found that 52 percent are constantly concerned about making their mortgage payment on time. Forty-seven percent of the poll say they are considering selling their home because they can’t afford their mortgage anymore.

Researchers say 35 percent of U.S. homeowners admit they’ve missed a mortgage payment during the pandemic. The same amount of respondents said they worry about losing their home.  The poll, commissioned by the National Association of Realtors, also found that eight in 10 homeowners say the COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unexpected financial problem in their lives.

More than half of the survey admit they have cut back on their basic expenses to afford paying off their home. Seventy-one percent of homeowners have significantly cut back on buying clothes. Other habits the tough financial times have cut into include buying take-out food (66%), paying for a streaming service (46%), and buying groceries (45%). Another 53 percent of homeowners are selling their own possessions to make extra income.

A separate survey by Apartment List, a search firm, found that fear of eviction has escalated. More than one-in-five renters say they are “very” or “extremely” concerned about being thrown out in the next six months, up from 18% in June.

Thirty-one percent have asked a family member for a loan during the pandemic. Another 22 percent have reached out to friends for help with their bills. Some homeowners have opted for the real longshot, as 19 percent of homeowners admit playing the lottery has helped ease their financial burden.

What Jobs Are Coming Back

Eating and drinking establishments accounted for the bulk of the 7.5 million jobs the economy recovered in the past two months.

Yet restaurants still employed about 3 million fewer people at the start of July than they did before the crisis — a whopping 50% reduction. And the recent outbreak of coronavirus cases means many of those jobs probably aren’t coming back soon.st politics news.

A society in which the rich get richer as the poor and middle-class collapse is not a society that can sustain itself. The Fed and the financial regulators who stripped the Volcker Rule of its meaning are enlisting the country in a two-tiered future: one for the financial elite and another for ordinary citizens of a democracy. They are encouraging banks to take bigger risks as the economy collapses, without taking meaningful precautions. That cannot end well.

The Economy is Cratering. Welcome to the Trump Depression

Economists call 12.5% as the official unemployment rate or “U3” — but in these times, a better measure is “U6,” the statistic which includes “discouraged workers” and people forced into part-time work, or the underemployed. That’s closer to 20%, which is nearer to what you might expect after five months of unemployment topping a million people per week. And even that’s an understatement because none of this really measures the impact on the self-employed very well. The self-employed have come to be larger components of the economy, whether Uber drivers or Instacart deliverers — even the pre-Coronavirus economy was fully half “low-wage service jobs.” Nearly half of economists from leading association predict US economy won’t return to pre-pandemic levels until 2022. The patient wasn’t healthy to begin with.

TURNING HEMP INTO AN INCOME NOW THAT HEMP FARMING HAS BEEN LEGALIZED BY THE 2018 FARM BILL

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Hemp is unique in that every part of the plant can be used and it’s extremely easy to grow in every state. In fact, the growing season is so short that farmers can plant hemp after harvesting their other crops. The plants deep roots help create ideal growing conditions for future crops, while its dense foliage chokes out weeds. These attributes make it a perfect cash crop for farmers throughout the United States and around the world.

In the past, hemp was world’s standard fiber with unmatched tensile strength. After removing the fiber-bearing cortex from the rest of the stalk, hemp can be used to make any fiber-based or cellulose-based product. The fiber was used to produce over 5,000 different textile products before prohibition. With recent advances in processing, these end uses could be rapidly expanded to applications like replacing many plastics.

Researchers have taken a growing interest in CBD due to its beneficial influence on the human endocannabinoid system, which is responsible for regulating a variety of physiological and cognitive processes. A growing body of research has found that CBD could help relieve pain, reduce inflammation, reduce anxiety, protect the brain, and even regulate blood sugar levels, making it a potentially valuable alternative to conventional pharmaceuticals.

Here are some of the products that can be sold locally or over the web: hemp paper products, hemp textiles,  course textiles like carpeting, 3D or 4D printing using molded plastics made from hemp, essential oils,  body care products, cosmetics, construction fiberboard, insect repellant, industrial oils,  livestock bedding, dog collars woven out of hemp, and green footwear.

The Answer for America’s Energy Future

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The United States can solve its own energy problem now that the productivity of American farmers and entrepreneurs has been unchained by legalizing the growing of hemp in the United States with the Farm Bill of 2018 for the first time since the 1930’s.

Hemp is essentially a weed but it is an exceptional plant because it is easy to grow in all states. Every part of the plants is usable. It can be grown in poor soil not suitable for growing food. It leaches toxins, like heavy metals, uranium, and arsenic from the soil and metabolizes them, revitalizing spoiled lands, as where coal has been mined and gas extracted. The Midwest has more than 11 million acres of poor land not being used for crops.

Hemp has a short growing season, which means it can be harvested 3 times a year. Or it can be planted after other crops, requiring no fertilizer, herbicides, or pesticides. It can be used as a rotational crop or planted after other plants are harvested. Because of its deep roots and dense leaves, it chokes out weeds.

Because the hemp plant has so little THC, not enough to get anyone high, the commercial growing of hemp should face fewer regulatory problems from the Food & Drug Administration.

The oil pressed from hemp seed can be converted into biodiesel and fermenting the stalks results in either ethanol or methanol or both. Of all the plant sources of energy that have been tried, hemp is superior to alternatives include algae, Carrizo cane, switchgrass, and food plants like corn, soybeans, olives, peanuts, and rapeseed.

Hemp produces nearly four times as much oil per acre as soybeans, which is currently the only crop grown on a large enough scale for biodiesel in the U.S. and ten times more wood pulp than trees per acre. While hemp has been used and can be used for canvas, rope, and clothing, it can also replace some plastics and its seeds, rich in omega-3 fatty acids vitamin E and minerals like potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron, and zinc, can be used as food, its unique properties lend themselves to producing energy.

Farmers need to be made aware of the benefits to them of growing hemp. 

A national association, such as the National Hemp Association or Vote Hemp, needs to launch a campaign “Providing America’s Energy Future” to create a favorable climate for farmers to be aware of hemp’s benefit with the assurance they will enjoy long-term markets.  The timing is good as the oil and gas industry’s stock prices are down. A recent article is entitled “Bloodbath in Oil & Gas Stocks Could Continue.”

Critical masses of growers can be organized by county, multi-county or state to help them market their hemp, establish standards and provide a knowledge base for obtaining optimum yields.

Hemp can’t be beat as a cash crop. It turns out to be the most cost-efficient and valuable of all the fuel crops we could grow on a scale that will enable America to become energy independent on a sustainable basis.

How do we define middle class as we enter the second decade of the 21st century?

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Fundamental changes in the structure of the U.S. economy, combined with increased health-care costs and lack of saving, have created a financial trap for millions of American workers heading into retirement.

Having healthcare insurance that covers most if not all the costs of healthcare – not the phantom policies with $5000 deductibles. In 2016, 37% reported having trouble affording health insurance premiums, up from 27% in 2015; 43% had trouble affording deductibles, up from 34% and 31% had trouble affording copays for doctor visits and prescription drugs, up from 24%.

In 2017, out-of-pocket medical costs, which includes health insurance premiums, copays, and prescription drug costs, pushed the incomes of 10.9 million people below the poverty threshold. That’s 400,000 more people who were impoverished by medical bills in 2017, compared to last year.

Significant equity (25%-50%) in a home or equivalent real estate.

The ability to be paying off all debt and expenses over for at least six months if one of the primary household wage-earners lose their job .

Income that enables the household to save at least 6% of its income.

Retirement funds: 401Ks, IRAs, pensions that will supplement Social Security.

Reliable vehicles for each wage-earner.

If a household needs government assistance in any form (housing, food stamps, Federal Energy), the household has likely slipped out of the middle class.

To be fully middle class, there are assets such as family heirlooms, precious metals and jewels, tools, etc. that can be transferred to the next generation and that will not vanish in an investment bubble or medical emergency.

The ability to provide for their children’s education, extracurricular activities, etc.

Sufficient leisure time to maintain their physical/mental, and spiritual fitness and to get training or otherwise learn new skills and find markets for one’ services in a technology changing economy.

To be middle class today is a continuing struggle for most Americans and yet the strength of America’s skills and the economic productivity of educated Americans is necessary for the nation’s survival.

Will Shoppers And Developers Adapt to Proximity Marketing In-Store?

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Today’s constantly connected consumers are using smartphones in-store more than ever.

A recent Google survey states that a staggering 80 percent of shoppers are using smartphones to make purchasing decisions. Retailers and start-ups have taken notice, and the concepts of mobile location analytics and proximity marketing are emerging out of that.

Publications like Techcrunch and Adweek have articles of retailers launching Bluetooth beacon pilot programs almost on a daily basis. Some recent examples include Target, Country Market and Urban Outfitters.

But when you clear away all the buzzwords, what exactly is this shift we’re seeing? It’s the world customizing itself to you. The world is reacting to your presence, specific to you as an individual.

Proximity marketing is an exciting concept, but a lot of people are worried they’ll be inundated with spam if they opt in.

Promimity shopping blog

That is an exciting concept. Talking about this out in the world will get you varying reactions, from concerns about privacy issues to the idea that your phone is going to spam you with Viagra ads non-stop, but if you boil down the idea, there are some really compelling concepts here.

Personalization is a Key Benefit

Let’s take a look at a form of personalization we all know about today. A husband and his wife have individual key FOBs for their car. When the husband gets in the car, the mirrors adjust, the seat slides back, and the radio station changes to his favorite morning radio station. When his wife uses the car that evening, the car returns to her preferences. That’s an example of very useful personalization. Now, imagine if a retail store could do that for you.

We’ve seen online personalization become more and more sophisticated over the past decade with platforms such as Google AdWords and the Facebook Audience Network, and the addition of proximity marketing technologies is making it possible to expand that personalization in-store, effectively bridging the gap between digital and physical environments. There are both exciting and scary possibilities to this.

So, why can’t retailers live without it? The retailer will now be able to understand shopper behavior beyond POS data. Retailers currently have the ability to analyze traffic patterns, deliver personalized offers, measure dwell times, build on customer loyalty profiles and even A/B test physical displays. And what does the shopper get? By integrating this technology into a retailer’s app, the shopper gets an ultra-personalized experience through customer-specific offers, location-specific coupons and contextual information such as maps and menus.

But the question that keeps coming up is: Will shoppers adapt to this kind of experience? If users don’t adopt the technology, hockey stick graphs will never happen for retailers. I think of a Sheryl Sandburg story I’ve heard during her presentations several times. When Caller ID first came out, users were scared by it. They thought the concept of knowing who’s calling before you picked up was creepy. Now, 20+ years later, we don’t pick up our phones without knowing who’s calling.The user’s perception of the technology completely flipped over a couple of decades.

It seems a general consensus among investors and marketers that someone will figure out and win the proximity marketing race.

Proximity Marketing Use Cases

Let’s take a look at some use cases that highlight potential values of proximity marketing:

Kitchen Remodel

You’ve finally made the decision to remodel your kitchen after 30 years, but you don’t know where to begin. You enter the kitchen department of a national hardware store and you are notified by an employee about an app that helps guide you through the complicated and expensive process of remodeling your kitchen. Upon app download, you’re given a series of easy directions that show you how to use your new app. You start by picking out your cabinets and you find a style that you like but they are not in the color you like. By tapping a swatch smart tag (tags that you swipe to receive contextual information), you are able to view additional colors available by special order. You save your style and color to your profile. As you’re walking over to pick out countertops you are notified in app not to forget to pick out your cabinet hardware. Once that’s picked out you head over to the countertops.

The app has measured that you have now spent 20 minutes in the kitchen department. It gives you an offer for 5 percent off, incentivizing you to make the purchase today. Out of the 10 displays of countertops the retailer has on hand, most app users only spend time at four of them. The retailer knows that it may be time to change out the other six with more trendy options. Since styles may trend by region the retailer can analyze stats broken down by segments.

After finding a countertop you like, you save it to your profile and swipe a delivery tag to see how long that countertop takes to be installed. You have a question about how rugged the countertop is and you tap a button that alerts a store employee that you need assistance. The app has successfully guided you through this process in a way that makes the shopper feel comfortable that their dream kitchen will come together perfectly.

Promimity shopping blog 2

Retail Environment

In the retail environment, smart zones and tags can be used in an endless ways. Here are a few examples.

A family walks into a store with an app in hand to check the latest offers the retailer has published. After adding the coupons in which they’re interested to the app, they walk around the store. Shoppers save money and time because the app tells them the quickest route to pick up everything on their list. If a coupon is missed, the app can alert the shoppers.

 

Retail giants have already recognized the potential of proximity marketing, along with scores of startups.

The family decides to get a new TV, and after dwelling in the electronics department for five minutes, they are asked if they need assistance. They respond yes, and an employee gets a television from the warehouse for them. Next, they swipe a tag that shows them accessories, store stock information, and related products from the same brand. They can easily see which mounts work for that TV, and find the appropriate cables in the next aisle.

The app services are integrated with e-commerce and m-commerce platforms, so users can use ‘Buy Now’ buttons that simply send the product to their door. The family chooses not to bother squeezing the TV into their car, and instead choose to have it delivered that afternoon.

On the way out, the app recognizes that the dwell times in the checkout areas are longer than managers would like for a good customer experience, so more cashiers are sent to the checkouts.

Outdoor Concert

A group of friends is going to an outdoor concert with several stages. The concert promoters built an app that helps concert attendees navigate the event. The app has many useful features like schedules, barcode access to VIP areas, and information on concession stands.

The event promoters also installed Bluetooth Low Energy beacons throughout the event so that the app could provide contextual information to attendees based on their locations. While standing in long beer lines, the group is notified that lines are half as long at the beer tents half a block away. When a band is about to begin playing, the friends are alerted that they better head over to that stage.

As they head over, they get pushed a coupon that gives them 20 percent off a T-shirt in the merchandise tent. Upon leaving, the app lets them know where the closest and fastest exit is, according to their location.

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Brand Opportunities

Various brands might use proximity marketing to build loyalty and boost user engagement. So, if a shopping mall with 100,000 items on the shelves from a thousand different brands uses the technology, each brand can opt in or out of the program.

A brand could market special offers without having to invest a small fortune in on-site marketing activities or on their own app. Imagine a soft drink company doing a virtual promotion for a certain product: They could have the campaign up and running with a few lines of copy and code.

It could be deployed nationwide, or worldwide, in seconds. Imagine a flash sale: 30 minutes in which people, worldwide, could get 30 percent off a specific product at the same time, just like an e-commerce platform. And like an e-commerce platform, the brands would have access to performance analytics about the campaign they just ran. They could immediately justify the spend, while the retailer could monetize its brick-and-mortar space through the program.

Moving Towards A More Frictionless Experience with Current Technology

The key to winning this space is building a more frictionless experience. Cautious clients always reference QR codes when considering new smart tags. QR codes were a good idea, but didn’t work because it took longer to snap the picture than it did to type in a URL. Users ended up rejecting it.

Latest technologies such as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and Near Field Communication (NFC) have less friction and are easier to use with integrated apps. NFC is not open on iOS yet, so it is not being widely used for smart tags, but may be in the future. If we look to the past, Touch ID wasn’t open to third-party devs, but Apple eventually opened it up in iOS 8. We’re on iOS 9 now, but if Apple chooses to do the same with NFC, web-like links in the real world will become more commonplace. NFC has been available on Android devices since about late 2011.

Proximity marketing relies on Bluetooth and beacon technologies, but the hardware is not perfect, limiting potential in-store applications.

So, that leads to BLE emerging as the best current cross-platform technology. Beacons are great because they are cheap, small, and don’t need to be plugged in, so installation is relatively easy. Apple introduced the iBeacon protocol in 2013, and various vendors have produced iBeacon-compatible hardware that is being used to power mobile commerce pilot programs. Several companies in this space are trying to figure it out, Qualcomm Gimball , Swirl and Shelfbucks to name a few. Most of them produce their own beacons but they all follow the BLE protocol.

Is the experience frictionless yet? Absolutely not. Users need to download an app that takes up precious real estate on their phone. The app needs to be running while they’re in the brick-and-mortar, and most integrations I’ve seen are less than seamless.

Beacons are not perfect technology; you cannot create shapes other than cones or circles, and they overlap. You cannot define a perfect space as a zone. If you picture a store map, most departments are laid out in rectangles and a beacon broadcasts its unique identifier to nearby smartphones in a circle radiating out from the beacon. So the best we can do currently is make the circles take up most of the department or endcap. This makes for imperfect mapping of the store. Some zones will overlap and some won’t work well, but in general, marketers are getting data they didn’t have before and users are getting a new and unique experience. Augmented reality (AR) can add another twist to beacon mapping a store through functionality that helps the user with wayfinding or even gamification of a brick-and-mortar store.

The way I look at it is that we’re at the Atari phase of proximity marketing, and it will eventually evolve to Playstation 4. There are a lot of things to be excited about, even at this early stage. I firmly believe that the concept of interacting in our environments with our smartphones will not go away. It’s not a fad. Take a look around the next time you’re walking through a shopping mall or a retail store. People are using their phones to digest, share, and understand the world around them, and if we give them the right tools I believe they will use them.

“At this stage I don’t think the problem of adoption lies in technology, but rather the experience we’re creating for the user.”

At this stage I don’t think the problem of adoption lies in technology, but rather the experience we’re creating for the user. Real estate on user’s phones is more competitive than ever. For a user to not only download a retailer’s app, but keep it and use it, the app needs to have some powerful information. It must do more than pop a coupon. It’s got to make their lives easier, educate them on things they don’t know, introduce them to things they’re interested in and engage them when they’re about to lose interest.

The jury is still out on whether Amazon’s Dash buttons will be a success, but I can tell you I use mine.

Amazon Dash buttons did not impress the tech press, but here is why I use them on a regular basis.

Why? Because it’s so easy. I don’t even have to take my phone out of my pocket these days when I run out of garbage bags. I use the last one and I simply push the button to the right and they’re at my door the next day. Buying garbage bags was easy before when I did it in the store. It was a little easier via Amazon Prime, but now it’s reached a new level of frictionless that I can’t turn away from. I hope they quit making dash buttons before I turn into a Wall-E dystopian human that they predict so hilariously.

I used to believe that the value needed to be balanced for both the user and the marketer, but I now believe that the value for the user needs to be higher than the value for the marketer. Users don’t care if it’s an uneven playing field, they want useful tools and experiences, and if they don’t find what they’re looking for the app is going to be deleted.

The Future Is Now! (Sort of)

That’s where we as UX/UI designers and developers come in. Clients are excited about this space, but they’re looking for guidance. They have many questions about what is possible and what is a responsible way of using it without annoying their customers. They need help molding their ideas into solutions that increase ROI but don’t jeopardize the customer experience they’ve worked so hard to refine.

What do clients want and expect?

  • Clients and IT departments are very protective of their apps; a solid security plan will always need to be in place.
  • Clients will not commit to this technology in all their stores until it’s proven through a pilot period. Most published sources start small, one to 10 stores, and then roll out a larger footprint.
  • In-app privacy policies will need to be updated to launch a program full scale. Launching a controlled pilot program (employees only, for example) would provide a case study that highlights consumer value before deciding to update the policy.
  • Clients usually gravitate towards popping offers that help get things moving, but to create an effective campaign, the experience has to be much better.
  • Clients expect the technology to be more accurate than it currently is. They should be informed of its quirks. Great demos are powerful, but scaling the technology to multiple locations can’t be overlooked.
  • All clients want increased loyalty that results in larger basket sizes and trip frequency. Location-based functionality would add to loyalty programs by incentivizing brick-and-mortar trips over online shopping.

What sort of questions can designers and developers expect?

  • Since this is a new way of interacting with shoppers, testing is vital.
  • Every retailer is different. Create a one-store playground and have fun. Figure out what customers find valuable. Then, scale.
  • Even though popping offers always comes up, we should try guiding our prospective clients in the right direction by always attempting to answer the question, “Why would the shopper need this app?” If a loyal customer doesn’t need the app, it’s not worth creating it.
  • The key to selling a concept is to find a way of giving the shopper an experience they couldn’t have had without the technology. Understand the customer.
  • Test, test, test. Stores are made of different materials, and different types of merchandise can be a mess for creating zones.

I believe that if we create great experiences that users will adopt, marketing ROI will follow, but we need to focus on the user first. If we achieve that, there are many exciting opportunities ahead as our environments react to us and become more personalized.

I’m very excited to see how proximity marketing unfolds over the next five to 10 years. In the end, if we’re focusing on the customer experience and building them great tools, I think it becomes something more than advertising, and the benefit for marketers will follow.

BY BRANDON R JOHNSON – FREELANCE DESIGNER @ TOPTAL

Health and Well-Being for the Self-Employed and Small Business

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Most people’s  health is on the line. Each day’s news brings headlines dimming hope for the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and Social Security.   People have begun asking themselves, “What will we do about Grandma?” How will I get my medications and will I be able to pay for them? A recent article was headlined, “160 million Americans can’t afford to treat a broken arm.”  When former Vice-President Biden’s son was dying of brain cancer, the Vice-President and his wife nearly had to sell their home to pay their son’s medical bills. Better than one out of every two Americans (55%) worry they will not get the health care they need.

Most people in the middle class find themselves running ever faster just to stay in the same place economically.  Not only are people fearful of what they may lose, millions now are without the ability to get medical care they need.

What has taken a half century to accomplish could be wiped out despite the fact that more than 1 out of 2  Americans – 58% -want the Affordable Care Act be replaced with Medicare for All. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of Americans say they have a positive reaction to the term “Medicare-for-all.”  People are realizing having health insurance is like requiring auto insurance to drive. Healthy people can work, have fewer problems that consume tax dollars, and public health is protected. Being On the other hand, recent polls indicate people are now no longer in favor of repealing ACA.  in the same polls indicate just over half favor repealing Obamacare.

Medicare is popular with 77% of Americans saying it is “Very important,” just below social security at 83%. 57 million Americans – 1 in every 6 people – depend on Medicare.

The total administrative structure for administering and delivering this is in place and billions of dollars would be saved, This is because Medicare’s overhead is 3%; HMO’s and private insurers’ overhead ranges from 15-30%. Families can expect to see the cost of health coverage decrease by one-half or more.

ACA reduced the number of people who were uninsured by an estimated 20 million people from 2010 to 2016. The funds will no longer available to help pay their premiums and deductibles. With many fewer people buying coverage, many insurers will stop offering policies, and the remaining customers are likely to be sicker than current Obamacare buyers, a reality that will drive up the cost of insurance for everyone who buys it, and force more people out of the markets. The Urban Institute estimates that the change would cause a total of 22.5 million people to lose their health insurance.

At stake are popular provisions of the Affordable Care Act like enabling young adults to stay on the family plan until age 26,  closing the drug cost loophole, assuring coverage for people with preexisting conditions, which alone represents 52 million Americans, and providing health coverage for children on Medicaid and CHIP,   Republicans are discounting the fact they will be alienating many of the people they look to for support.

Now is the time to advance “Medicare for All” as the best solution for developing popular support to arrest the Republican momentum seeking repeals and rollbacks in ACA and then go on to damaging Medicare and Social Security.  Even voters who supported Trump nearly 13 to 1, view Social Security as something they earned.

Your Pocketbook

Millions of voters have received benefits from ACA but discounted this when they voted and still discount what its loss will mean for them will be angry and arguably motivated to act in their self-interest. You are apt to find you can only buy sub-standard policies with little or no consumer protection and are paying more out of pocket.  The cost of individual policies purchased through the exchanges would rise 20-25% in the first year, and 18 million people would lose their health insurance. However, taxpayers whose average incomes were $318 million/year in 2014 would get their taxes cut $7 million a year. Two taxes support the popular provisions of ACA – taxes on persons with incomes above $200,000 year. Eliminating them would give the 400 richest Americans a tax cut worth around $7 million each.

The Economy

Reducing federal spending on health care takes so much money will be taken out of the consumer economy, nearly three millions of jobs will be lost. Nurses, health technicians, and other medical personnel will be out of work. Then there will be ripple effect – people with less money to spend on food, clothing, real estate, retrial trade, finance, insurance, travel, dentistry, and then less construction, and on and on. States will have less income to tax and less in sales taxes. This alone could trigger a recession, reducing the economy by 1.5 trillion dollars, according to the Center for Health Policy Research at the Milken Institute.

The U.S. national debt is sitting at 19.944 trillion dollars. During the past eight years, a staggering 9.3 trillion dollars was added to the national debt. It’s been estimated that the total savings by passing Medicare for All could slow the growth of national debt by 80%. This is important because “foreigners are dumping U.S. debt at a faster rate than we have ever seen before, and U.S. Treasury yields have been rising. This is potentially a massive problem, because our entire debt-fueled standard of living is dependent on foreigners lending us gigantic mountains of money at ultra-low interest rates. If the average rate of interest on U.S. government debt just got back to 5 percent, which would still be below the long-term average, we would be paying out about a trillion dollars a year just in interest on the national debt. If foreigners keep dumping our debt and if Treasury yields keep climbing, a major financial implosion of historic proportions is absolutely guaranteed within the next four years.” Source: Monetary Watch, January 23, 2017.

What you can do

First, stay informed about the changes that will be affecting you and your family. Second, let your Congressman and Senators know how you will be affected. The best way to do this is by phone, not letters, social media, or their websites. Phone messages get attention.  Third, mobilize with the people in your community being willing to demonstrate your views. Fourth, share this message and your own with friends around the nation.

Congressman Representative John Conyers Jr. introduced his Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, H.R. 676, into the current session of Congress. It is co-sponsored by 51 other congressmen, but more are needed, so asking your Congressman to co-sponsor will be most helpful.You can find contact information for your congressperson here or by calling the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. When calling, ask to speak with your representative’s Health Legislative Assistant. This link will give you more information.

A Pennsylvania business man, Richard Masters, has produced a movie that is worth watching and he is forming a national organization to put forward Medicare for All. This link will take you to the movie, which is worth watching and sharing with others.

How Protecting Freelancers Could Boost The U.S. Economy

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The era of industrialization set many of the workplace standards—and conflicts—that linger today. More than 100 years later, many of those practices are gradually evolving, but some believe that enabling new forms of work could ultimately solve some of the U.S.’s most pressing economic issues.

“A lot of the growth in jobs has been knowledge work, and this idea that people need to work from nine to five, in one specific place, for one employer, doesn’t make as much sense,” suggests Stephane Kasriel, CEO of Upwork, a global freelancing platform.

At the turn of the century, when manufacturing was the primary driver of the U.S. economy, it was necessary for large groups of people to arrive to work at the same location and work the same hours. As a result, towns and cities sprung up around these manufacturing hubs.

Cities and towns that were initially built around factories and plants have since gone in one of two directions: They declined when manufacturing jobs started to disappear, or they evolved into major cities, where the cost of living today is reaching unsustainable levels.

“If you look at the last 40 years or so, GDP has become more concentrated in a smaller number of cities,” says Kasriel. “There are about 100 cities in the world that do about 50% of the world’s GDP.” As a result, most cities in the U.S. today are either in decline or booming at an unsustainable rate.

One clear indicator of this is the price of housing. In Arkansas, for example, you can find a spacious six-bedroom, five-bathroom home for $300,000, whereas that same budget would hardly cover a 304-square-foot studio in Los Angeles.

One potential solution for both the rapidly declining and unsustainably growing U.S. cities, suggests Kasriel, is by enabling more remote and freelance work. “A lot of people who live [in cities like San Francisco and New York] live there because the job demands it,” he says. “If you, as an employer, could relax that constraint and say, ‘You can work from anywhere around the country, either as a freelancer or an employee,'” he explains, “you’d see a lot of people move out.”

According to the 2016 Freelancing in America study by Upwork and the Freelancers Union, 47% of American freelancers live in the suburbs, and 18% work in rural areas. If more people are able to take their big-city paycheck back to their local community, not only will their money go further, but it will help support their local economy while the rising cost of living could begin to slow in the big cities they leave behind.

According to the 2016 Freelancing in America study, 70% of freelancers believe that there needs to be more discussion by lawmakers on how to empower the independent workforce.

One state, however, has moved forward with improving conditions for freelancers. The State of New York recently passed a wage protection bill for independent workers, known as the Freelance Isn’t Free Act. While some see this as a sign that lawmakers are beginning to understand the importance of the freelance economy, others believe the passage of the bill in New York may have been a result of unique circumstances that don’t necessarily exist elsewhere.

“Freelancers are an important part of the economy nationwide,” says Shane Snow, cofounder of Contently, an online marketplace for freelance writers. “I think they get more attention in places like New York that is more creative and media-focused, where more businesses are actively relying on local freelance talent.”

Outside of New York, freelancers regularly struggle with nonpayment and late-payment issues. According to the Freelancing in America survey, seven out of 10 freelancers have encountered issues related to getting paid on time.

“Gizmodo still owes me $500,” jokes Snow. “That happens when you’re a freelancer.”

In lieu of government protection, freelancers are increasingly turning to platforms like Contently and Upwork, which pay their freelancers within a few days of work submission. Upwork accomplishes this by being registered in the State of California as an escrow agent, giving them the ability to guarantee on-time payments to freelancers, but also provide employers with a grace period to dispute any charges.

Contently, on the other hand, has been able to negotiate some of its larger clients into paying some or all of their annual estimated freelancer fees upfront, providing enough cash flow to allow the company to pay freelancers for their work upon submission.

But outside of these platforms, many freelancers are paid 60 or 90 days after submitting their work, and about half of freelancers surveyed in 2014 reported issues with getting paid, citing an average loss of $6,390 as a result of nonpayment. That’s money that isn’t being put back into their local economies.

Both Kasriel and Snow believe that protecting freelancers ultimately benefits everyone, not just the freelancers themselves, as it can help move incomes away from cities that are quickly becoming unaffordable and toward those that are in decline.

“You talk to the people in Congress that represent the big cities, and they struggle with the cost of living, then you talk to other people from Congress that represent the cities that struggle with unemployment—well, I have a solution for you,” says Kasriel, suggesting that more protection for freelancers would encourage more to enter the freelance economy, improve unemployment in some areas, and congestion and the rising cost of living in others. “We haven’t missed the boat,” he points out, “but I would say, Let’s not wait 10 years, because the boat is moving.”

To find freelancers, you can go to a  site like toptal.com

3D Printing: Should Designers And Developers Take Notice?

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BY NERMIN HAJDARBEGOVIC – TECHNICAL EDITOR @ TOPTAL

3D printing is not a new technology, but recent advances in several fields have made it more accessible to hobbyists and businesses. Compared to other tech sectors, it’s still a small industry, but most analysts agree it has a lot of potential. But where is the potential for freelance designers and software engineers?

A fellow Toptaler asked me this a couple of weeks ago, because I used to cover 3D printing for a couple of publications. I had no clear answer. I couldn’t just list business opportunities because this is a niche industry with a limited upside and mass market appeal. What’s more, 3D printing is still not a mature technology, which means there is not a lot in the way of standardisation and online resources for designers and developers willing to take the plunge.

However, this does not mean there are no business opportunities; they’re out there, but they are limited. In this post, I will try to explain what makes the 3D printing industry different, and what freelancers can expect moving forward.

3D Printing For Hobbyists And Businesses

First of all, I think we need to distinguish between two very different niches in the 3D printing, or additive manufacturing industry.

On one end of the spectrum, you have countless hardware enthusiasts, software developers and designers working on open-source projects. The RepRap project embodies this lean and open approach better than any similar initiative in the industry. RepRap stands for Replicating Rapid Prototyper and it’s basically an initiative to develop inexpensive printers based on fused filament fabrication (FFF) technology. Essentially, that is Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) technology, but RepRap can’t use that name because it was commercialised by Stratasys. When the company’s patent on FDM expired, FDM was embraced by the open-source community, albeit under a different name.

3D printing is not a new technology, but recent advances in several fields have made it more accessible to hobbyists and businesses.

RepRap turned ten this year, with the first printers showing up a few years after launch. By 2010, the RepRap project was on its third generation design, and the RepRap community saw a lot of growth over the next few years.

One noteworthy feature to come out of the RepRap initiative is self-replication; the ultimate goal of the project is to create a 3D printer that will eventually replicate itself. We are not there yet, but some RepRap designs allow users to print three quarters of the printer. You still can’t print extruders and electric servos, but it’s a start.

However, RepRap was never supposed to be a commercial success. It was created as a tech-first initiative, so it was never consumer-centric. It was all about pioneering various technologies and bringing them to the hobbyist market at low cost. RepRap was never supposed to be a cash cow.

So what about big business? A number of industry pioneers have already become 3D printing heavyweights. These include Stratasys, 3D Systems, Ultimaker and Printbot. RepRap printers still command a big market share, and they’re not being squeezed out by proprietary platforms. In fact, most vendors have no choice but to embrace some RepRap standards in order to guarantee compatibility.

However, simply listing 3D printing companies and their respective market share does not paint the full picture. For example, RepRap is limited to FFF technology, which is the most widespread 3D printing technology today. The problem is that FFF printers have a lot of limitations, which means they cannot be used in many industries.

Different Technologies For Different Applications

To get a better idea of what’s out there, we need to take a look at currently available 3D printing technologies. This might not seem interesting if you’re not a hardware geek, but it’s important to understand the difference between various printing technologies (and I will try to keep this section as brief as possible).

Although hobbyist FFF printers are relatively inexpensive, certain types of professional 3D printers can cost as much as your home.

  • FFF/FDM usually relies on thermoplastic “filament” heated by the printer extruder prior to being deposited on the print bed. Most FFF printers rely on ABS and PLA plastic filament, but the latest models also use polycarbonate (PC), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), high-impact polystyrene (HIPS) filament. Some even use metal wire instead of plastic, while others use sawdust to create quasi-wood objects. Some can even print food, chocolate, pasta and so on.
  • Granular printers are different beasts since their material is not filament but, usually, powdered metal. These printers tend to be based on laser technology (although they don’t have much in common with your office laser printer). They use a powerful laser to selectively fuse granular materials. There are several ways of doing this: Selective laser sintering (SLS) printers fuse small metal particles by the process of “sintering,” while selective laser melting (SLM) printers melt the powder. Electron beam melting (EBM) printers hits metal powder with an electron beam in a vacuum environment
  • Stereolithography (SLA) printers transform liquid raw material into solids using light. These printers have a number of advantages, in terms of accuracy and the ability to produce complex objects in a single pass, because SLA prints don’t require struts or supports, in most cases. The downside is that the choice of materials is very limited. They are usually exotic liquid polymers, and can’t be used to print metal or chocolate.

There are a few more 3D printing technologies out there, but I see no point in covering all of them for the purposes of this blog post.

The Challenge

So why aren’t we all playing around with 3D printers in our homes and offices? Why can’t we print objects the same way we print invoices, sheets and emails? 3D printing is not going mainstream anytime soon, and here are some challenges and issues that need to be addressed first.

  • Prohibitively expensive hardware
  • Limited user base (compared to traditional printers)
  • Immature technology
  • Speed
  • Price/performance, ROI
  • Running costs
  • Energy efficiency

With each new generation, entry-level 3D printers become a bit cheaper, but they are still too expensive for most potential users. It’s one thing to buy a $200 printer for your home or office, you’ll probably end up using it a lot, but the same isn’t necessarily true of 3D printers. How many people need to print documents, and how many need to print 3D objects?

Technology is improving, but serious limitations persist. 3D printers are still slow, are sensitive to all sorts of adverse conditions, their “printbeds” tend to be small (especially on inexpensive models), the choice of materials is limited and filament can be expensive.

The reason why businesses aren’t lining up to buy 3D printers is simple: ROI. 3D printers still can’t come close to traditional manufacturing methods in terms of speed, cost and energy efficiency. This does not mean industry isn’t going to shift to 3D printing in the future; we are already seeing some pioneering developments, but 3D printers won’t render traditional manufacturing techniques obsolete soon.

Still, there are some noteworthy exceptions. A couple of years ago, General Electric set out to design and build a new fuel injection nozzle for its next generation CFM LEAP turbofan engine, which is bound to end up in hundreds of airliners. GE eventually settled on 3D-printed titanium nozzles. The reason? The new 3D printed nozzle ended up 25 percent lighter than the previous design and consisted of a single part instead of 18 on the old nozzle. Durability is expected to be five times better. These nozzles will be used in engines manufactured in 2016 and beyond. GE hopes to produce more than 100,000 3D-printed parts by the end of the decade.

A team of GE engineers decided to create a working replica of one of the company’s engines, using a new granular printing technique dubbed “metal laser melting.”

Long story short, no, you won’t buy 3D-printed toys for $2 anytime soon, but you will fly on airliners powered by more efficient and reliable engines, made possible by 3D printing. There won’t be any 3D-printed chocolate in your local mall, at least not yet, but your dentist will tell you it’s probably not a good idea to eat chocolate anyway, right after you get your 3D-printed prosthetic.

There Is Another Way: 3D Printing Fulfilment Services

So, you have a great idea for a product, but first you need a small series of prototypes. Who do you call? Do you buy a bunch of 3D printers? Or do you simply send the design to a fulfilment service that will ship you the completed models in a matter of days?

Fulfilment services allow consumers and small businesses to take advantage of sophisticated 3D printing infrastructure without burning capital.

A 3D printing fulfilment service seems like a hassle-free choice, and that’s the direction the industry seems to be taking. Many 3D printing outfits have launched similar services and are collaborating with other industry leaders. One example of this symbiotic relationship is Stratasys Direct Express, which recently partnered with Adobe and enabled Photoshop CC integration, offering colour 3D printing for professional designers.

 

Google and Motorola didn’t invest billions in their own 3D printing facilities when they unveiled the Ara modular smartphone concept. They outsourced module manufacturing to 3D Systems. This example also underscores the potential flexibility of additive manufacturing: Ara is based around an alloy exoskeleton filled with various standardised modules that could be 3D printed. Since the modules have to connect to the exoskeleton, 3D Systems developed a new technique of depositing conductive materials within the printed components, which is a far cry from traditional 3D printer prototyping.

3D fulfilment services usually offer several different printing technologies, cutting-edge hardware and support. Why bother getting a $2,000 printer when you can simply send your designs to professionals and use any of a variety of professional printers, some of which cost more than your home? And let’s not forget about economy of scale; big services can and should offer a superior price/performance ratio compared to in-house printing.

In my opinion, this is the way to go. This straightforward business model has a lot going for it, and it’s hard to see how individuals and small businesses could compete on an even playing field. In terms of price, size and energy consumption, a professional 3D printer has more in common with a printing press than your LaserJet, and how many people need a printing press in their home or office?

(One of my pet peeves is the name itself. When you mention a “printer” in conversation, most people think of their home inkjet printer, or office printer. While it’s true that 3D printers are printers, they don’t have much in common with traditional printers, and this distinction is often lost on laymen. If we just kept calling them additive manufacturing machines, this wouldn’t be an issue.)

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3D Printing For Designers And Developers

What does all this mean for the average visual designer or software engineer? Will 3D printing change the way we do business? Will it enable rapid prototyping or even cheap small-scale manufacturing? When are we going to cook up some 3D-printed Barilla pasta for lunch?

I am afraid there is no simple answer because you can look at it from several perspectives. It all depends on your personal affinities and goals.

There are a few different ways designers and developers might become involved in 3D printing:

  • Participation in open-source initiatives (RepRap)
  • Use of professional design tools (Adobe CC)
  • Integration of printing functionality to applications (Autodesk’s Spark 3D printing platform)
  • Use of 3D printing fulfilment services
  • Integration of 3D printing fulfilment services

Most open-source initiatives are geared toward individual, hobbyist users. They are also valuable for education, and they can foster a lot of innovation. The downside is that there’s not a lot of money to be made in this niche. It’s mostly a labour of love. The good news is that the bar is set pretty low; you can get an entry-level printer and loads of plastic filament for under $500. You can get a cheap and relatively good 3D printer for the price of a good smartphone.

Integration of 3D design and printing capabilities could prove more lucrative in the long run. Designers don’t have to go out of their way to experiment with 3D printing because it’s already accessible through leading software packages. Sooner or later, a client will start asking questions about 3D printed prototypes or small-scale production, so depending on your niche, it could be a good idea to do a bit of research.

We’re left with the elephant in the room: 3D printing fulfilment services.

Outsourcing 3D Printing Via The Cloud

On the face of it, fulfilment services seem to be the answer to everything. They put professional services within the reach of individuals, startups, and small businesses who otherwise couldn’t afford certain printing techniques, like laser sintering or stereolithography. They’re practically the only viable way of integrating 3D printing into a range of different services, mainly through cloud-based mobile and web apps.

So what are the downsides? There aren’t many.

Industrial scale fulfilment services are a relatively new concept. However, availability is still limited. Sure, if you need to print a few dozen titanium prototypes in California that won’t be a problem, but what if you need to do the exact same thing in Botswana or Bahrain? It will be more expensive because the manufactured designs will have to be shipped around the globe. On-site manufacturing sounds good, but it could prove prohibitively expensive

Of course, on-site manufacturing has a lot going for it; if a business needs to quickly iterate and revise designs, then the speed and convenience of 3D printer rapid prototyping can’t be matched by printing services. This is a relatively tight niche, but it’s by no means small. Design studios, architects, engineers, various maintenance departments, logistics, education; they all need on-site printers. Besides, if you need a printed replacement part on the International Space Station, you can’t exactly call Amazon. On another note, 3D printing in space would have made the exploits of the Apollo 13 crew look less impressive. No wonder NASA is already experimenting with them in space.

It’s worth noting that 3D printers can be used to print more than replacement parts and passive components. They can also be used to print working electrical components, ranging from speakers to printed circuit boards (PCB). PCB prototyping is a nice niche because traditional methods are slow and expensive. A 3D printer with a spool of conductive filament can usually do the trick on-site, on time, and on budget.

Still, as far as mass market applications go, chances are this space will be dominated by big players like Amazon, Stratasys, 3D Systems, and possibly Hewlett-Packard. As the industry matures, worldwide availability should become a non-issue, prices will go down and new hardware will offer new opportunities and superior quality.

In my opinion, the biggest problem the industry currently faces is the lack of use-cases. Sure, it sounds convenient, but who is it for? How do we get 3D-printed products into the hands of mainstream consumers?

 

This question is not as straightforward as it seems because additive manufacturing has been hyped in recent years. Just try googling for 3D printing use-cases and you’ll see what I mean: 3D printing seems to be the answer to all our problems, but in reality most of it is hype, based on long-term projections.

So, I decided to include research from an unbiased source: UK’s Intellectual Property Office. The paper, titledThe Current Status and Impact of 3D Printing Within the Industrial Sector: An Analysis of Six Case Studies is extensive and examines the potential impact of additive manufacturing on several industries: automotive, domestic appliances, replacement parts, customised goods, reverse engineering, games and computer generated graphics.

 

Customised goods and CGI-derived designs stand out as the most realistic use cases for freelancers, so let’s take a closer look.

Personalised Manufacturing

One of the biggest advantages of additive manufacturing over traditional manufacturing methods is the ability to produce one-off designs or small series. How long would it take to create a plastic toy using traditional manufacturing? You’d need loads of equipment, cast dies and whatnot. With 3D printing, it’s just a matter of selecting a wireframe and clicking. This means it’s possible to produce unique designs, tailored to meet the needs of different customers.

Additive manufacturing can enable average consumers to design and customise various products prior to making a purchase. This can be done using professional desktop applications, or even web and mobile apps. Nobody expects the average consumer to design an item from the ground up, but even a child could customise a toy using a simplified mobile app.

The potential for personalised manufacturing is one of the key benefits provided by 3D printing.

Such a platform would have to include loads of different colour or decal options, along with the 3D wireframes themselves. What’s more, it should be possible to create modular designs, so if kids are customising a toy car or doll, they could choose between scores of different, but compatible, components that would be assembled to make the product.

Yes, instead of customising virtual environments in apps and games, kids born today will be able to personalise their real toys, or turn their video game characters into action figures. It kinda makes you wish you were born a couple of decades later, doesn’t it?

Here are a few personalised 3D printing use-cases with mass market appeal:

  • Toys
  • Custom jewelry
  • DIY and hobbyist products
  • Fashion and gadget accessories
  • Personalised appliances and household items

However, products don’t have to be personalised to match your taste; they could also be made to perfectly match your physique, like a tailored suit. These products might not have the mass market appeal of personalised toys, but that doesn’t make them less exciting. In fact, I find them a lot more interesting than a customised brooch or doll.

Here are just some examples:

Sure, these applications don’t have nearly the same emotional appeal as the ones I mentioned earlier, but in the big scheme of things they could be just as lucrative and important, especially when you consider medical applications.

The Implications And Future Of 3D Printing

So what’s the bottom line? Will 3D printing change the industrial landscape? Is it really the next industrial revolution?

3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is a very promising, but immature, technology. It clearly has a lot of potential, but we’re still nowhere close to realising it even though the industry is seeing a lot of growth.

In fact, the market for 3D printing services, hardware, and materials, has been growing at a healthy double-digit rate for years. Most analysts expect the market to double by the end of the decade, passing the $10 billion mark. That may sound like a lot of money, but let’s put it in perspective: The same analysts expect annual smartphone shipments for 2015 to end up in the 1.3 to 1.4 billion unit range.

Looking past the hype, 3D printing is a technology with limited appeal, at least at this early stage. However, we will continue to see growth and development for the foreseeable future, backed by new use-cases. Many of these use-cases and business models will be based around 3D printing fulfilment services. This is good news for small businesses and individuals, because they will be able to use third-party infrastructure with relative ease. They won’t have to buy dozens of printers, they will simply integrate a few APIs to their platform and that’s it.

In the short term, this is the future of 3D printing, at least from a mass market perspective.

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