To-Be Tool #A: The Open Design Process The Open Design Process consists of five key elements; the platform, community, development, business and drive, which Arduino can clearly relate to, being an open design company already. For Arduino, the platform was created on their website www.arduino.cc. For this platform to work, and for participants to be able to use it, it has to be easy to access tutorials, forums, view discussions and comment. From the start Arduino has made sure that there is a team of administrators that organise the discussion rooms by topic and relevance. There is also a ranking system in place that gives participants recognition for their contribution by automatically giving them status symbols based on the number of inputs they have given. In addition, David mentioned that participants also require a strong support system, so that if there is a problem with their board or its functionality, their situation will be handled by the Arduino team in a fast and reliable manner (Arduino, 2012, Appendix II). Through the community, Arduino quickly realised how much interest there was from customer segments that valued simple and inexpensive electronics. The participants were not only people with specific knowledge within electronics but also hobbyists that were experimenting with the device without prior knowledge of how to work with electronics and program software code. In relation to human resources, the biggest cost goes into product development personnel. As the company began to expand more programmers were needed. The Arduino team decided to outsource programming projects so that the company would continue to consist of a core team of six people, leaving it agile and flexible. Platform maintenance cost is then insignificant to the cost of product development. The development of the product is characterised by co-creation, accessibility to knowledge and sharing of source. The Arduino team placed their first prototype on the platform and quickly were amazed by the input and comments they received from the community. With this in mind, management of the platform and product development becomes crucial. According to David, there are two types of requests when it comes to open design. One he calls “push” which is when a completely new product is made at the initiative of Arduino. This is a product that has to be designed and programmed from scratch and for this purpose they or hired programmers take care of the design and development of the prototype. Once that is completed, the product is ready to be
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demonstrated to the community, which then has something to build upon, a ‘reference point’. On the other hand, a product that is known by the community but needs some alteration or is to be adjusted to a new platform, is a good example of a product that can be designed by a community. This is called a “pull” request. An example of this could be a controller that has been used for years but now has to be integrated to a new platform. For this purpose Arduino can use the community to test the product and use countless iterations to improve it so that the best solution can be reached. The business element has to do with revenue streams, branding mechanisms and trademarks, and how this interacts with other key actors in the supply chain. Arduino decided early on to trademark their logo and license their product to manufacturers. This still remains their main source of revenue. The drive that makes the engine run is the perception that participants have of the company. The company has a very clean image (Arduino, 2012, Appendix II), they do not have any advertisements on their platform, they are not dependent on venture capital, they do not have a profit goal in mind – and the participants are aware that any profit generated goes back into the company so that its operations can be enhanced and improved, creating powerful solutions in the favour of all. The owners are not abstracting any significant profit of the participants’ input to their personal income, and that on its own motivates people to contribute.
“We are an open source project, we support our own website, and everybody understands that basically all the money we are making is reinvested in them [the users]”. (Arduino, 2012, Appendix II)