c,mm,n and the Internet of Cars—by Jacco Lammers | Meta Products — a genuine blog by Booreiland about the Internet of Things

Jacco Lammers

Jacco is owner of Sunday Afternoon, a web focused service design company. Within the company he has worked on several new-to-the market services such as Go About, Green Parking Initiative and Dutch Creative. Back in 2006, Jacco graduated on the business concept, brand and vision of c,mm,n.

Find Jacco on LinkedIn

In the c,mm,n project we wonder what a car would look like if it was perceived as a service. I believe that cars, as they are now, cannot fulfill their promise of freedom and individuality anymore. Cars are affordable, offer good (perceived) quality and performance. Although technical developments will continue to improve the product ‘car’, their increasing adoption will continue to decrease the actual value of it. More cars leads to more traffic congestion, pollution, noise, parking problems and the like. The system around the car has reached its limits and will become less and less efficient. The icon car needs to change, but how? By perceiving the car as a meta-product, connected to its context, new freedom of mobility is within reach. This is another kind of freedom than you would expect and it enables you to make your mobility truly your own as never before.

The first c,mm,n car has numerous odd features. In the door, for example, there is a ‘community box’. This separate door gives access to a space inside the door. As a c,mm,n user you can give others access to this box. You could, for example, deliver a package. You could also sell bottled water from your car, or ask people to drop their second hand clothing there. The system around this box is open. You can think of ways to use this box and you have the freedom to give others access to it. This allows the car to provide services.

As services are easier to customize, the product needs to take a step back and become more of a blank slate.

These product characteristics are different from ‘old-skool’ car design. When designing products to deliver a service you need to consider the process in which the actual service is shaped. As services are easier to customize, the product needs to take a step back and become more of a ‘blank slate’. You might need to remove features to give people more possibilities! In the example above we just created a box that can be accessed through RFID (or any other method). That is nothing fancy at all. But you are free to offer or receive any service you want with it.

Maybe this is not the freedom you might expect from a car. In the c,mm,n concept we try to take this all the way. The car itself is open-source. This allows you to create your own service with it. You might offer this car as a prepaid mobility service in which you can also buy vacations (by train or plane). Off course not everyone is going to do this. A ‘customer’ probably just wants to have some options to choose from. On every level c,mm,n wants to empower people to have more control over their mobility. This allows an enormous diversity of solutions. You can just pick the one that suits you best and adapt it to your need. With this cycle of continuous change, freedom is only limited by your imagination. You can take c,mm,n and make it truly your own.

The c,mm,n project was featured at the Amsterdam Motorshow twice. For Jacco, the idea for an open-source car came from a life long affection with cars and working with open-source software. Already in 2005 the Bowser shown at the Detroit Motor Show featured some of these traits as one of the winners of the Michelin Challenge Design. Jacco still drives an old Honda Civic with ‘econo-light’.

Tags: mobility, open-source, service design

posted on Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010 at 15:56 and filed under Booreiland invites
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