Often in tech we talk about replacing stuff.
My very brilliant friend described enterprise software as ALL about:
“Replacing a job that groups don’t like doing”.
Awesome.
Groups = Enteprise
Job = Purposeful, valuable
Don’t like = Felt need
I like to think of a related idea: the arts and crafts or cottage industries.
Another brilliant friend described dentist’s tooth model making as the “last craft industry in America”. (They make your teeth models by hand.) He invented a digital/robotic way to do it — a valuable company that 3M bought.
A Mecca for arts and crafts is Maker Faire. The ways of making that are old school are steadily getting remade and both old and new are on display there.
3D printing itself was a hobbyists game recently. And now it is a platform for other hobbyists to build from.
A third brilliant friend observed that there are few ways to get the digital models you need to print cool stuff. Most objects are hand designed using CAD software. Crazy. He wants to build a robot that photographs objects in 3D so they objects can be used in various ways digitally.
So here is a fourth observation — the whole field of behavior modification through therapy, hypnosis, meditation, spirituality etc is dominated by big giant “arts and crafts” practitioners.
We control and shape the mind using only other human beings, more or less one on one. Maybe Oprah or TV preachers are bigger scale. But not automated, personalized, scaled, tuned and delivered through software, hardware, and process.