1. CYCLE: the importance of knowing
how things are made
Peter Holmes à Court
TED@Amsterdam
June 20, 2012

2. This is a story about a visit
to a remote bicycle
factory, the lost connection
with the people who make
things, and a failing of
economics to help us
understand value.

3. I took my son to a small French factory where I was going to watch a bicycle
being built. He was going to watch from a safe distance.

4. I was photographing a craftsmen with nearly 40 years experience. Bernard
Berthelot started by selecting the tubes, the steel rods that he would join to
make the frame.

5. As the cutting started in the clash
of machine and metal

6. I began to see the beauty in a
process…

7. …in which some parts were done
precisely to the hundredth of a millimetre

8. Other parts were done by eye.

9. Then something
unexpected
happened.

10. As I watched my
son, I noticed he
began to stand
closer
and closer.

11. And soon he was transfixed,
standing side by side with Bernard for nearly 3 hours.

12. I began to wonder “how
many things has he seen
being built before?”
Most of the objects in his
world have arrived
finished, pre-packaged.
“Doesn’t that make it
harder for him to
understand what things
are worth?”

13. I know that in economic
terms, something can be
valued at $10 one
moment, 10 cents the
next.
But that’s not how
people think of value.
”What's it really worth”
we ask, by which we
mean “what’s it worth to
me”?

14. What transforms something from a mere commodity into something
that we cherish is how it makes us feel. When we know how something
is made, we understand what people did to make it and this gives us
an opportunity to form a unique personal connection.

15. When we have this connection something amazing happens: we get an
extra value that we apply to the product that comes back to us and the
bonus is it can keep coming and can even grow over time.

16. Clearly my bike was
being built by master
craftsmen and
women, but its just as
true for cookies baked by
your child. Because of
your feelings towards the
child you actually enjoy
the cookies more. The
cookies are enhanced by
the emotions you add to
the mix.

17. In general, our plus subjective
enjoyment of a values that we
product is the attach to the
combination of product, and this
its objective is where a
qualities— connection with
price, fit for the maker
purpose, expe comes in.
cted
lifespan—

18. We live in a society where many of these links have been lost. We
don’t buy our bread from a baker, nor milk from a farmer. I am not
saying that to find happiness we have to become agrarian traders.

19. What I am suggesting is
that when we find the
connection between our
things and the people
who made them, we get
a number of benefits.

20. 1: We enjoy our things more. For the same purchase price we get more from them.

21. 1: We enjoy our things more. For the same purchase price we get more from them.
2: They last longer, because we tend to take better care of the things we appreciate.

22. 1: We enjoy our things more. For the same purchase price we get more from them.
2: They last longer, because we tend to take better care of the things we appreciate.
3: We buy less other stuff because we are more fulfilled by being surrounded by
things we appreciate.

23. For my son, this was a short visit to
one factory. But hopefully it starts
something.

24. Wouldn’t it be great, if he could see that the things in his life carry
the finger prints of the people who made them.

25. thank you.

26. Peter is a writer, photographer, businessman and father. His previous roles include
founder of Back Row Productions, a live entertainment producer, CEO of the Australian
Agricultural Company, Executive Chairman of the South Sydney Rabbitohs Rugby
League Club, Founding Chairman of Brand Sydney and the Greater Sydney Partnership.
Peter is writing a book on the changing nature of work since the Industrial Revolution and
publishing a book of his photographs on work in rural France.
www.facebook.com/peterhac
Thanks to Robert Holmes à Court, Bernard Berthelot
and the team at CYFAC bicycles, La Fuye, France.
© all images by Peter Holmes à Court