How Online Communities Co-Create Complex Real World Products

Jay Rogers, LM's CEO has proposed an exciting and instructive panel for SXSW this March 2011 titled "How Online Communities Co-Create Complex Real World Products".

Since you're reading this post it is likely you already know that Local Motors cars are designed through an open co-creative process. Everyone can participate. It is also likely that you know Local Motors is open source. Everyone can download the chassis or body data; this allows development participation and it encourages fabbers, modders and aftermarket pros to design and build parts for LM cars. But you may not know how we go from awesome concepts to incorporating design iterations to actually prototyping and producing vehicles.

This panel will help you understand.

And it's not only Jay who will help you take your community developed ideas from concept to reality, there is a whole panel of experts to answer questions and share real world experiences.

The panel includes:

Chris Anderson (Editor, Wired Magazine & Founder, DIY Drones)
David Ten Have/Derek Elley (Co-Founders, ponoko)
Jay Rogers (Co-Founder, Local Motors)
Phil Borchard (VP Sales, Catia)

Moderator: Dale Dougherty (Editor, Make Magazine)

And a little bird told me Ben Kaufman from Quirky may join in as well.

Panels are chosen partially depending on your vote - so click through, and make your mark.

Leave a comment if you have specific questions or would like additional topics to be addressed.

Retrospective Motors: The Winners are In!

Local Motors is proud to announce the top three winners from the Retrospective Motors design competition. You voted, and the results are in.

First place went to Adam Gompertz, also known as Papagomp in the community, with his Brooklands Coupe.(see it here) His design was highly regarded from the first checkups, and the community loved his design through and through till the end of the competition. This was Papagomps thrids competition entry -- he started with Alaska Motors, and then competed in Pacific Motors as well. He joined Local Motors a little less than a year ago and as been a very active in the community. He has great drawing and rendering skills and gives very good, helpful feedback to other member, including doing really nice sketchovers. I hope that he will have a lot of fun with his new Wacom Cintiq 12WX. Standby for an interview with him.

Second place went to Chavito, or Xavier, who comes from Spain. Xavier's "Albatros"(See it here) entry was another community favorite that first appeared in checkup, and garnered a lot of feedback. Xavier used the feedback to improve his design, and improve he did! This competition was Xavier's fourth, but if you go back and look at his first entry, which was for Boston Motors, you will see a huge amount of progress. The Albatros represents a huge step in progress, and Xavier earned second place. What was also amazing about Xavier is that he commented on almost every entry from this competition, and that is not an easy feat-- especially when you see how constructive his feedback was. So congrats on 2nd place to our friend "Chavito"! I hope he will enjoy his Large Intuos 4!

And now we come to third place-- Condormeister's "LM Phantom Roadster",(See it here) which isn't so phantom anymore. Xavier left a comment on Condormeister's a.k.a. Apollinar's wall yesterday stating that he though that if Apollinar had included some of his later renderings of the Phantom Roadster in his design board, he speculated that the Phantom may have taken second place. We will never know, but we do know that the Phantom Roadster WAS another community favorite from day one! THe fact that Apollinar followed up with several beautiful renderings after the submission period gave this car so much life, and his initial renderings were extremely lively to begin with! So congrats "Condormeister"! You can finally give your old tablet a break and pick up the stylus to a new Intuos!

Retrospective motors was a huge success! The quality of entries that were submitted were among the best we have seen at Local Motors, and the number of entries that took advantage of the checkup feature was also impressive. All three winning entries utilized the checkup feature to the max-- and Scott Neal (NemoDesigns), who came to Local Motors with the idea of doing a "back in the days" competition, told me yesterday that he knew that all three of the winning entries would place in the top ten before they were even submitted to the competition! This goes to show the power of sharing your work early, and getting feedback. Xavier's "Albatros" significantly changed during the checkups, but it only became better, and his entry was a true crowd pleaser.

So to everyone who participated in the Retrospective Motors competition, whether you voted, submitted, or both, congratulations! We look forward to many more great, fun-filled competitions in the future!

Make sure your vote counts!!

Have you Voted Yet?


The Retrospective Motors competition is wrapping up and there are only a few hours left to cast your vote. This competition has been a lot of fun and has started a lot of conversations about classic car design. Over 80 quality entries were submitted and only 3 will take the podium. It is up to you to decide! Have fun, and help choose "what could have been!"