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The FSM Story
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Comet has released the first ever fully community-designed skateboard. People from all around the world collaborated in less than 3 months to completely design a new product that likely will influence skateboard design for years to come. While reading what is to follow, consider yourself, your friends and your collective ideas coming to life through collaborating with a skateboard company. Below is how it worked for our first go at it. We hope that you provide the seedling for the next skateboard that we release and help evolve skateboarding. Shoot an email to team@cometskateboards.com. Here's how it all started... Sometime in early January, skateboarder Nick Grasso presented the idea to Comet that we should offer a "funtime freeride" deck. We had just redesigned the Voodoo with the input of several skateboarders and felt like it was time to build on that momentum. Nick posted the idea on www.silverfishlongboarding.com to see if anyone would be interested in offering some ideas. Within two weeks, the original query generated hundreds of replies and a growing community decided on specs for a new model by consensus. In that same week 14 "test pilots" stepped up and laid down cash in exchange for the promise that Comet could turn the very unique specs that the community generated into a ridable skateboard within 2 weeks. We pulled it off! The code name early on for the board was FSM in reference to the "Flying Spaghetti Monster." After many weeks of dialogue and skating the prototypes the community voted on a name. It was a close vote between naming the new board the "FSM" or "COMET OGETHER". At this point we knew that people were stoked on the idea of collective / collaborative design, so we decided to call this board the FSM and make it first of a series called COMETOGETHER. Within weeks of inception we had prototypes in the field being tested, a name for a new series of products, and a name for a totally off the charts skateboard all generated by skateboarders! Then the prototype evaluations came in. All counted, there were 75 pages of feedback to go through. After reading every detail, we summarized the input, posted it on the forum for review, and went to work on the modifications to finalize the shape. At every turn the community was super easy to work with. Every design issue that came up was quickly answered and collectively decided upon with efficiency. And then the fun started... By mid March we had everything we needed to launch a new skateboard model except art. Skateboards are subjective enough but color and art is a totally different story. After weeks of discussion and a couple of testy moments, the community voted and by a solid majority elected Rod Gon's "Flying Spaghetti Monster." Some people who were with the process all along were into a different style so we got back together and voted on yet another graphic solution by Blair Caldwell that would satisfy the rest. And for those who just like to keep it simple we added a third solution: our logo branded on the bottom and a free magic marker. Staying true to the FSM letters we decided to call the 3 models: All that in just a few months... Pretty busy. Now we have and herd of monsters, markers and machines on the rack and ready to deliver. It is as easy as that. If you have the next big idea for a skateboard contact us and get a discussion going online or live and in the flesh with your friend. We are always experimenting with how to build on this process. Community design is the future as far as we see it. So many minds converging on a common goal will speed up the evolutionary process and open up the rapid progression of skateboarding. We are not looking back. All future Comet R&D will be part of our new COMETOGETHER series, which spins your input into your dream skateboards manufactured by Comet. It gives skateboarders a bigger say in the products they ride and wear. We'd like to invite all of you to visit our website and be a part of the change. Every FSM purchase is a vote for the community-design process. _________________________________ Comet would like to thank all of YOU who helped create the FSM. |
