Local Motor : Designed by the Crowd, Built by the customer
Jay Rogers scurried through the hallway at Local Motors (LM) Wareham, Massachusetts corporate headquarters as he coordinated with employees about the day’s hectic schedule of events. Fortunately, the hallway was only about 15 feet long and included just three offices. LM’s 3,000 – square-foot office and garage space seemed a humble place from which major innovations impacting the automotive sector – one of the world’s largest industries – might emerge.
But sometimes, small can be beautiful. Especially when the giants are stumbling.
As Rogers returned to his office, he picked up a sheaf of printouts. The first sheets included articles about General Motors’ emergence from bankruptcy. On that very morning, GM’s CEO Fritz Henderson announced the finalized structure of the deal that would make the governments of the United States and Canada, along with automotive labor unions, the primary owners of what had until recently been the world’s largest corporation. The phrase ‘’leaner and meaner ‘’ seemed to be a rallying cry as GM executive and government officials alike expressed their goals for the still deeply troubled company. ‘’It is a new era, and everyone associated with company must realize this and be prepared to change, and fast, “ Henderson said (see Exhibit 1 for U.S. auto industry statistics)