Before I go explaining why the Co-Creation Custom Revolution is actually greener than it may first appear, I want to introduce you to a very cool clothing-exchange company, ThredUP. They've called themselves the Netflix of Clothing, more interesting because the CEO of Netflix sits on their board. After I met Founder and Chief Knitwit, James Reinhart, I felt like I was wasting space, not being green, and not loving life. Haha. Not because James isn't an awesome guy (because he really is, he helped build one the nation's premier public schools in the Bay Area), but because ThredUP solves a real problem, that we don't wear 25% of our clothes in our closets, and there's a really inefficient $2bn used clothing industry out there that could be a lot better. 

This photo isn't of James. It's actually by brymo, maybe it's of him.

James and his team have built this really cool network where you can exchange stuff that's sitting in your closet, that you know you're probably not going to wear again. Now you're wasting closet space, you're probably going to waste more money, more material, more production 'stuff' on buying more clothes, when you can really and quite simply exchange it. And shouldn't we love the clothes that we wear? ThredUP helps us in keeping a wardrobe of clothing that we actually feel good about. I won't go on explaining more about it, you should just check it out.

Now besides the fact that it's always good to give shout-outs to friends, we also want to highlight why the two companies are uniquely related, more than the fact that we're both Boston-founded apparel-related online-based startups. Blank Label, and more importantly, the #CCCR, is about the importance of consumers having more choice in what they choose to buy and wear, and feeling better about it. It's addressing the dress shirt that is 80% decent, but is nothing special. Between buying it at the store and getting home, you've alread y seen 8 peo ple wearing the exact same one. So you wear it maybe to work. You get to the office, go into the lift, and there's someone wearing the same shirt. That's kind of awkward. 

The #CCCR is about creating self-expression you can wear. Similar to ThredUP, it's about you having the clothes you really want, not having to buy new clothes all the time because your newest shirt has fallen out of favor. There is a terrible problem of over-production of clothing, stuff either sitting in warehouses that'll never get worn, or clothes in closets never to be worn again. We keep buying, and buying, and manufacturers keep producing, and producing. No-one's the wiser, no-one's the happier, and definitely not Al Gore, or the planet. That's why we've updated our new green logo. It's only in small part related to the fact that green's my favorite color. ;)

Empathy isn't a new phenomenon. There was a time not so long ago when there was a broad and deep connection between producers and consumers that allowed everyone to prosper. Dev Patnaik

 this mildly hilarious pic of 'caring' is from scottamus

Here at Blank something we buy into nearly as much as the Custom Co-Creation Revolution (#CCCR) is design, and not fashion design, but user design. We take care of the user part and the user takes care of the fashion part. In this post, I'm going to be giving a big plug to Dev Patnaik's Wired to Care. It's almost required reading here, and we'd suggest it to anyone who is customer-centric. Dev (not that we're actually on first name basis with him, but it just sounds a lot more friendly than calling him by his last name), makes a series of great points supported by comprehensive and surprising examples. 

For all of the Industrial Revolution's wonderful impacts on the ability of the average person to go into business, it also created a giant rift between producers and consumers. Nearly overnight, we went from a world of face-to-face commercial transactions to a world that was simultaneously more connected and further apart.

 quite the epic image from fanboy30

But if you are truly caring, you are customer-centric, you are empathetic. That empathetic connection then enables a better transaction. Consumers become more loyal and more willing to try new products ... they gladly pay premium prices to get products and services that connect with them.

So what does Caring have to do with the #CCCR. Co-creation brings out the ultimate leveler between producer and consumer. Producer provides consumer the platform to create a product that's much more suited to the consumer's tastes and preferences than even the most empathetic product designer. The consumer as a result keeps coming back for more, for this unique product they helped create, that they can tweak but still have uniquely theirs. And as Dev says, most people are probably even worth paying a premium for it. 

This article was from Chief Shirt, Fan Bi - founder of the co-creation movement for men's custom dress shirts.

At Blank Label we’re all about self-expression and we specialize in giving all of you guys the tools you need to become inspired.  Whether it’s in using your creativity to design your own custom men's dress shirts, or to inspire passion for expression itself, we want to ignite your creative side.  And why do we think this expression is important?? Well think about it this way…social media is all about self-expression.  And since social media is the new wave in communication you should optimize the way you are presenting yourself on the web.

 courtesy of one cool diagram thing from ivan walsh

Here are 5 simple ways to be sure that you are expressing your own label:

1) First you have to figure out what you have to say.  This can take a lot of thinking because there are a million things that people want others to know about themselves.  There may be one thing you would want to express to your employer and another thing you want to express to your peers.  However, you need to decide what is most important to you.  Make two lists of roles you fill in life: Writer, Traveler, Explorer, or Musician….and a list of things you are passionate about: Cooking, Fashion, Design, or Modern Literature (the more specific the better).  Once you have explored and defined yourself then you can realize what you want to express to others.

2) Next you should optimize your appearance (hint- This doesn’t mean your face).  This means figure out where are represented online- your facebook, twitter, blog, flickr accounts.  Go to each of these sites and make sure they are expressing who you are.  On twitter you can follow authors if you enjoy writing, personalize your backgrounds to express your passions, or even tweet about things that are interesting you in some of the roles that you play.  In your blog you can focus on things you are passionate about.  The more specific you are the more others can realize who you are which can help you create valuable connections with people working on similar things in their life.

3) Explore your interests.  Now that you know who you are, you should be doing more to look into your passions.  You won’t believe some of the things you can find other people doing that you might be able to connect with.  View other photographer’s albums on flickr if you enjoy taking pictures.  Follow politicians on Twitter to see different projects they are working on.  Research blogs of young fashion designers it in order to see how they are succeeding or what connections they may have in the fashion industry.  All of this exploration will help you build your network and inspire you to make great things out of things you love to do or learn about.

4) Look for opportunities to reach out online and build your personal label.  When you find someone doing something cool that interests you contact them by email (whatever you are comfortable with).  Tell them who you are, why you think what they’re doing is great and maybe ask them a question that might help or inspire you.  Hey if they make it in life, you’ll have made a very valuable connection just by reaching out. And no matter what, you’ll still gain some valuable information either way.

5)  Cement your personal label.  Do something bold like creating a simple personal website, starting your own blog or even just synchronizing all of your social media sites.  From all of your exploration of your interests you should have a good idea of what others are doing out there in your fields of interest.  Don’t simply copy their websites or blogs, make it all your own and have fun with it.  Whichever path you take just make sure you constantly update any information you have online to make your personal label express what you’re all about.  This will give you the best optimization of your online expression.

This post was for our co-creation blog by Danielle Bentz.

In the next 5 years, we're looking to make co-created custom men's dress shirts as popular as custom t-shirts are today. We're certainly not sure if co-created dress shirts will ever be as big an industry as custom tees, but heck, we're going to try.

But if that doesn't work out, maybe we'll move onto pants, suits (again), or even men's underwear. If it does work out, we're still going to look at how we can continue to revolutionize men's fashion through co-creation.

The purpose of our existence (aside from making money, which certainly is not our main goal) is to change the way men consume. First, we're starting off with men's dress shirts online by using our dress shirt design app to put the power in YOUR hands to create and design something that you wanted, something individually made, tailored with the exact details you wanted.

At Blank Label, we're hoping to revolutionize the men's fashion and retail industry. Maybe we won't be the company that is the be-all and end-all of co-creation, but we still envision a world in which consumers have an actual say in what retailers are creating. I'm personally tired of shopping for things that I want, and never being able to find the product that fits my exact specifications. Isn't it also incredibly frustrating when that awesome dress shirt you bought, which you thought was totally unique and funky, was bought by 70 other guys in your town? I experience this a lot in my hometown of NYC, where 8 million people live and where many others travel to. I'm very likely to pass by strangers wearing clothes that I have in my wardrobe. Sometimes, I see guys wearing the same thing that I'm wearing that day!

That's part of the reason why I love Blank Label, because the clothes that I wear were created by me, designed to my exact specifications, and were made only for me. Therefore, out of the 6+ billion people in this world, I'm the only one with my individually made custom dress shirt.

Since mass-production and mainstream retail have failed consumers by providing product that is one-size-fits-all and one-style suits many, uniqueness and creativity are out of the question, so we're leading a revolt!

We're fighting against mass-production, lack of individuality, and being a slave to the all-mighty retailer. We're fighting for co-creation, personalization, and consumer empowerment.

Here are several ways for you to join the revolution:

1. Tweet this post and mention @blanklabel

2. Share this post with your friends on Facebook

3. Spread the word about co-creation and convince people to turn away from big retailers if there's some company out there that can provide product you're looking for that you can personalize and is affordable too (we're not in the best economic situation, I know)

4. Email a link to this post to your friends to get the word out

5. Link to us and this post on your blogs, tumblr posts, websites, etc.

6. Consider buying any co-created products, perhaps a co-created men's dress shirt (if you're female you can snag a shirt for a male friend or family member), to support companies looking to be a little disruptive to mainstream retail. For other co-creation companies, see my post on mass-customization, co-creation and fashion 2.0

We'd appreciate your support of this movement. We're not entirely looking for you to give us money so we can make you dress shirts (naturally we're not against the idea either). That's definitely not our biggest motivation. We're looking to really push the co-creation movement. Regardless of if we're the bigger co-creation company in the next 5 years or not, we just hope to convince traditional retail to adopt co-creation or to support co-creation companies in their initiative to crush the stubborn traditional retailers. But the only way that can happen is if YOU the consumer adopt and support co-creation too.

This post was written by Lead Evangelist Danny Wong, pushing the co-creation movement each and every day on the co-creation blog.

As the modern Connected Individual, you're no longer just individual in one way, you're maybe a little moody, possibly a little impatient, and probably have somewhat of a split personality. You're quite on one day, out-going the next, you're happy in the morning, sad in the afternoon.

At Blank Label, we're really about allowing your express your individuality and creativity through what you wear so we've created a Split Personality Dress Shirt. It's a half-and-half dress shirt. Basically, if you split a dress shirt down the middle, you get two sides. And each side is independent of the other, but to really make the concept work, you want the sides to complement each other (naturally). So you've got one color / pattern on one side and a completely different color / pattern on the other. We've mixed a few crazy colors and patterns and came up with some pretty cool combinations.

Unfortunate at this time, our custom men's dress shirt design application isn't able to help you visualize any Split Personality Dress Shirt you create. The only visual help we can offer at this time is pictures of Split Personality Dress Shirt we've created. We're hoping to roll out the functionality and if you want to sign up for an email update just email us with the subject line: UPDATE ME ON THE SPLIT PERSONALITY. 

As we've said along, you our biggest innovators and our best ideas come from you. This one definitely did. If you have any thoughts or concepts you think we should test out on a dress shirt, let us know and if we like it, we're probably going to give you a free Blank Label Custom Men's Dress Shirt. Let the creative juices flow ...

This post was written by Danny Wong, Blank Label's Lead Traffic Controller and guest blogger for our Co-creation Blog

If you've ever heard a company mentioned as visionary, you know that they're pretty much set. You think of great visionary technology companies as design focused as Apple and as product focused as Google. There are the visionary entertainment houses as well known as Walt Disney and little known as TED. When you think great products companies, you think of big ones like Nike or smaller players like Threadless. But as soon as you read them in the context of them being visionary, you know that they're set.

So the next logical thought is that being visionary is somewhat aspiration for a company. No doubt. And if it's not, it means that you're not dreaming big or hard enough. Now what does vision really mean to us? Blank Label aspires to fundamentally change the relationship between individual person and consumer product thought the process of connected individualism. Apologies if it sounds a little obnoxious but all visionary statements kind of have to, I think it's one of the rules. So what does this really mean for us now and in the future? It means now we focus really hard on delivering our first product, custom men's dress shirts online, in line with that vision. Our current custom men's dress shirt design app allows something individually designed by you, individually created by us. 

But I can assure you that the team here isn't just about kickass dress shirts online. We see something greater happening. Other companies are looking at evolutionary changes, we see a revolutionary change. There's a new generation that demands personalized things, we want something unique created for our specific needs. Imagine a restaurant where you could go in and it hadn't already been decided what you were going to eat, rather you knew that you wanted chicken with some kind of stalky greens in a mediterranean flavor, and it was up to the chef to make something that individually designed up you, individually created by them. We also have a dedication to not making you pay a premium for that, the reason why our custom dress shirts start from $45. 

It's about focus, it's about belief, it's about vision, and the interplay between the three factors that will determine our success.

[photo courtesy of trochim]

This post was written by Blank Label's visionary, Fan Bi, for our Co-Creation Blog.

What's the real lowdown in a startup, what do we do to procrastinate, what do we argue about, what causes us to give hi 5's?

Procrastination is a terrible beast, and yes it happens in a startup the same it does anywhere else in life. Procrastination is like masturbation. It's great whilst you're doing it, but in the end, you're just f*^#ing yourself. For us procrastination isn't so much about playing Halo (most often Rockband), but it's a lack of focus. We've got an ideas bucket that is growing faster than we can implement, and that's what causes the real distraction. What do we do today, and what can we put off till tomorrow. We love ideas, comments, feedback, and please feel free to continue dropping them at either sayhi@blank-label.com or in the 'provide feedback' button on our homepage. 

We've definitely had a couple of interesting debates internally this week. An interesting one was about our foxy ladies on our 'online men's dress shirt design store', my favorite one is the first one on the initial load. We've had female friends, users and customers comment, most often negatively about them. We were concerned, because although we're perfectly okay with offending people who we disagree with, we didn't want to be over-the-top chauvinistic a-holes. We finally decided to leave them, because although women have bought custom men's dress shirts for their boyfriends and husbands, we know ultimately we're serving guys, and not that all guys are sex crazed or somewhat turned on by sketches of lewd women, it just feels right to have provocative looks pulling at you.

So what gets us excited enough to generate mountain-shattering hi-5's? We're still early stage enough to get really excited about individual sales. I love speaking to customers. People say you never forget your first time. I'm sure I won't forget our first hundred. People who believe in startups are freaking crazy, and at the same time, their our heroes. It's scary to think that we're getting better at what we do everyday, so practically, we'll never be this bad if we always continue getting better, yet on a daily basis, people are still ordering from us. These people are our true innovators, they know what it's like to be different, to be individual, and for that, we love them for it.

Thanks for the support.

-Fan Bi | Blank Label | Co-Creation Blog

One of the most important, and yet surprisingly overlooked, things in a startup is morale. We’ve got a small team of four, so we're pretty clued-in on know how everyone’s doing work-wise, but also how everyone’s feeling emotionally and motivationally. All four of us are dedicating our lives to this, whilst still doing ‘the day job’ to feed the family, pay the bills, buy the food, etc. Living two lives is tough. Special kudos should be given to Zee, our Chief Interweb Builder, he’s just crazy, hundred hour work weeks are the lighter weeks. And he's got the fam too. As I said, crazy. But it's one of situations where I'm glad he's on our side to help us provide amazing men's dress shirts online. 

Getting the support from friends and family always makes this a little special. I want to take this opportunity for the kind words from our loved ones and those of us who've seen us toil behind the scenes and cheer us on from the proverbial sidelines. But let's be honest, we're decent people, and family and friends kind of have to give you a bit of encouragement every now and again. What's made this week really great is ... you.

It's kind of all worth it when people visit what you've built and buy what you believe in. We invest a lot of time trying to understand users (people who browse the site) and even more time speaking to customers (at least those who reply back to my emails thanking them with a caveat of looking for feedback). We're racking our brains trying to figure out how to enhance the experience for you, so I can say we totally, totally appreciate the people who do go to that extra effort of dropping a few words of commentary. I also want to say a special thanks for those who’ve taken the extra step of sharing us and our launch with their spheres of influence by blogging about us;

Johnathan Bell  from Guy Style Guide – Definitely one of our favorite male fashion bloggers threw us a plug in A FAQ for Finding the Perfect Dress Shirt

Michael  Tornato from the Trendy Dwarf – A true lover of fashion who has supported us for a while wrote this really in depth piece about us Blank Label … Do YOU like the Creative Types?

You can also find us in District Cut, DC’s Premier Men’s Fashion Blog who titled an article Exclusive Report | Blank Label

A post with an interesting twist comes from The Momentum of Failure on Creativity is a privilege, not a right. Blank Label isn’t here to judge. That’s my job

Brandon Crittle from Metro Style Men gave us a good plug on Express Your Individuality with Blank Label and he followed up suit by creating and purchasing a really cool shirt of his own

Serious kudos goes out to Dave Baldwin of men’s fashion and lifestyle megablog Thrillist, who reached out to us well before we were anything really and was in addition was one of the very first to post about us. Can’t wait to give you a hi 5 when we see you wearing your Blank Label custom dress shirt around Boston. 

Stay posted on more updates on Blank Label from Fan Bi and Danny Wong, on our Co-Creation Blog, as we journey beyond our first week and onto a crusade to change the way men shop through mass-customization and co-creation, starting with custom men's dress shirts.

Our inaugural Young Guy Doing Cool Shit comes from Connecticut raised, Boston and globally educated, San Francisco based, inspired, ambitious and learned social entrepreneur, Dave Adams. Below is a short dialogue on why we’ve chosen him as our first #YGDCS on Blank Label's Co-creation Blog, and you’ll notice that he definitely is a believer of CONNECTED INDIVIDUALISM.

What are you doing these days, and how is it different to what you were doing a year ago.

Well a year ago I was doing some consulting with a marketing firm.  The financial crisis had just hit and it seemed like everyone was running around with their heads cut off.  I guess for me it was just kind of fun.  Everyone knew that a whole new set of rules would emerge out of the chaos, which meant that there would be a whole new set of rules to break.

My partner and I quit consulting one day and started CauseShare the next.  It basically grew from this very prevalent idea that everyone has something to give to their communities, and good ideas usually come from the people who know their communities best, everyday people. I don’t mean communities in just a geographical sense though.  Basically for people who are representing a good cause, we are what it would be like if Facebook let you sell girl-scout cookies and raise a militia. Except our girl scout cookies are cool.   We're bringing in great companies from around the web to offer their products for this new kind of social fundraising. Its online activism, for causes of any shape and size.  You don’t need to be a non-profit, all though it helps, and you sure as hell don’t need to be Bono.

I assume you’re actively working on CauseShare. Can you give us a couple of highlights of your past seven days?

Last seven days… Last weekend I was in Zuni New Mexico hanging out at the Zuni Indian reservation.  Holler at Kiva, they just started micro-finance lending in the US this year with a lot of controversy.  That kind of dignified charity is needed way bad in some spots.  While I was there I got to climb a mesa.  Then I was back in the East Bay area talking to the brands who are offering products for sale in our social fundraisers. During the week, like most weeks, I get to work at the Hub in Berkeley which is a shared workspace for social entrepreneurs.  Bunch of cool people working there, all sorts of projects. I’m lucky to spend my days in that environment, real good coffee.

You’re pretty passionate about doing good as well as doing well. Who is your world changer?

That’s funny, I don't know anymore.  I think we’re living in an age of enlightenment.  I mean, the same cool people are doing the same cool stuff that they did yesterday, but it’s just more visible today.  We see all our friends and our friends’ friends doing cool shit, and it’s like there is absolutely no reason I can't do something like that.  We all have something to give. It’s inspiring.  You don’t need to be Annie Lebovitz to take a killer photo nowadays, you don’t need to be Malcolm Gladwell to write an intriguing article.  My brother makes beer better than most breweries right in his house.  The information and tools are available for anyone to be a change maker, and I like anyone who realizes that they can do something well, then do it hard, until they do it great.  I like them.

What do you think life will be like for you in a year?

Busy and hopefully still fun.  I was admitted into a program at the London School of Economics for development anthropology, and it would be interesting, but there’s a lot going on here and that kind of education would be kind of a luxury.  Would be fun though to seed the CauseShare idea with some people over there though, spread that kind of online activism. No matter where I am, I’m going to do a little homegrown service work, maybe do something in South America, always wanted to go to Argentina.  Also got some side projects coming up that will be taking some more time of mine that doesn't really exist.  I need to get a watch with a few more hours on it.

What does the future look like to Dave Adams?

I don’t know, when you’re a kid, reading George Orwell in school, you say man, this is scary, everyone waking around in gray jumpsuits, people telling you when you can eat dinner and have kids, speaker boxes and stuff.  I think we’re learning now that the future is much more diverse.  We take our cues from central sources less and less, and this allows us to go in so many directions, but we see all the offline fragmentation online so it’s easier to appreciate and understand each other.  It’s also much easier to self organize around these cool movements.  I think the future is a place that has a lot more choice, a lot more freedom and is a much more colorful place, but with many of the same simple troubles and joys that we have today.