Web Secret #241: Sugru

What was created by a woman, named one of the 50 best inventions of 2010 (along with the iPad,) costs under $10 and is marketed almost entirely by its users?

Give up? Welcome sugru.

As Time Magazine explained, "sugru Looks like Play-Doh, acts like Super Glue. Sugru, a brightly colored silicone rubber, is the brainchild of ... Jane ni Dhulchaointigh, who worked with scientists for five years to develop a material soft enough to mold yet durable enough to fix or "hack" things so they work better."

If you go to the Sugru landing page, you will see their tag line "The future needs fixing," followed by a brief definition, "sugru is the new self-setting rubber for fixing, modifying and improving your stuff. Over 155,000 people in 119 countries are using it make their stuff work better."

Still not sure what sugru is?

You're not alone, because it's almost impossible to explain sugru, you have to show sugru. But it's not sugru's employees who do that, it's sugru's users, who send videos from around the world, which are showcased all over the sugru website.

Here is just one example:



Sugru staff understand that their thousands of customs will do a better job of coming up with ideas and sharing them than they ever could. That's crowd sourcing at its best.

Imagine the money and staff they save by really making the customer king.