Future Gazing Notes
*Notes from our workshop Below are notes from the last stage of the workshop where people explained what they had written on the map.
They are not in any priority and not comprehensive by any means, in the order in which people discussed their ideas at the table and as fast as my poor touch typing allowed
Please contribute and amend as you see fit!
Patrick suggested using a term Roberto Unger who did recent NESTA research idea of the adjacent possible
Patrick thought DoES could be a space to bring together businesses to work up projects that require a £500K minimum investment. DoES 'already' pull together pre-commercial projects that fit into the 'advanced manufacturing' category of the industrial framework set by the LEP. This does not quite fit the no-funding and no-programming (ie DoES doesnt do anything) principles but certainly DoES could be a space for members of the community to be funded in this way. Again the issue with this kind of investment is the nature of the expected return, which although in this case does not have to necessarily be in commercial terms, can be unrealistic and unsustainable..
Bob shared details of the DoES community developing Educational Robot kits with a focus on say code/programming or Design-Tech. This might be offered to local schools Sending kits out for £25 or less and include simple rewards to win robot competitions. DoES could be a space for some schools to visit for making or training...
Mike talked about 'big machines' training: CNC, big saws material storage, Forums and franchises...brought up the question: Just what is the DoES methodology? Connecting to other makerspaces : Makefest brunch showed the potential socials with the wider hackerspace community ... if we thought of a DoES franchise what would that be?
Just looking for a link to Hackspace Foundation I found a gov.uk page on Makerspaces under the heading of Libraries and makerspaces. Worth noting how DoES influenced that
Chris T More user content on the website beyond week-notes which work ok, but alot of the stories of community projects seem missing. For new people not sure what a makerspace is, getting the texture of the scale of the projects the community develop is important...People have to write it up... Can we push our blogs out to people like hackaday...
Helen talked about case study content... template questions... who is it for?... create a template in wiki? how does activity is leveraged for marketing strategy...latent coverage?
Maybe we need to be thinking about the person who has never been... stock photos on instragram... made in DoESLiverpool logos a bit like Zarino's Born in Liverpool stamp...
maybe we need to split our stories along different paths, i.e. blog posts and community profiles... Matt suggested using github to inject the text from github issues into blog posts or a github-pages blog... Adrian suggested maybe just use the existing wordpress setup might be better as it's already there and in use, just not enough maybe... Ross thought turning some github issue comments into dense technical blogs might be nice for aiming at some makers... more strategies to catch the DoES 'story' and tools that help...
We need to capture the co-workers story (we only do that for the makers really) and more diversity... why they choose to use DoES... more messaging... its quite a blokey space and I find resistors all over the place.. We need to work on first impression messaging and welcoming...this might need a person who focusses on just that maybe briefly interviewing/documenting people who are there... De-bloking the space...
Alot of it is just 'tweaking' the environment... lack of diversity and inclusivity... the message is not really spreading... features of people in... first impressions count... it is really not diverse... Julian alot of young people get hoovered up by the universities... example of the more diverse aws meetup... we are a sensor city competitor...why choose DoES over other co-working places?
Can we reach out to universities...outreach to kids and school ages...but that's a programming type thing who is going to run it and how does it really widen our community: is an event like Makefest aimed at kids who are too young? ... limiting factor is finding the time to be welcoming... how many spaces we have free... generosity to agency... Do we need to be mass market..?
Tension between size and mass...when jelly is here it's really nice... there is the demand but what is the story we want to tell... the agency of does and what it is which is de-blokey...
People need to start breaking things out into groups doing anything... like wiping up...discussion has gone very domestic.. sticky crumbs on countertops and tools not put away have an important impact on finances even if you cant see it...
Could we be material supplier? Who would do that? A person who is friendly and also looks after social media interviews...and the shop and shopping...
Rich from the Hat Factory: DoES as a conduit for 3rd party prototyping?
Who are we? How do we advertise it...should we advertise it...? We don't actually want 'everyone' just more diversity? (aiming for a mass market wont necessarily make things diversem just reproduce existing patterns of diversity)
Employee of the month?... It's amazing to see the projects in the becoming, theres enough projects to feel that 'feeling' DoES made advertising projects...
Everything running off social pressure...
Refugees from corporate life... Climate change Not business as usual... WE could steal from other co-working makerspaces
The outcast thing is important: Needed even more now, the alternative model of work & life...
more enjoyable work...participating in a better society how we make those ambitions clear...
A working group for making some of these things happen...like the childcare idea...
theory of change; in 5-10 years what is the thing we wanted to do...?
Articulating DoES principles to a theory of change type exercise could be useful
Jackie ...being careful with Materials... A DoES principle is about care? recycled Materials... Actually being taught formally
Interviews...
Making not just for makers... Reading groups...
Making stuff for particular people...
Every good idea needs the social pressure to make it work...
The organic stories that do emerge is the way we make the stories and they do represent what we do...
the diversity is a problem but it cant be addressed by more marketing... just better diverse stories...
Brain charity in Norton Street
What is the consumer?
An etsy shop or mini market stall one day a month locally or in the tapestry/fabric area....
Develop the events space...and talk about it's stories, not just say its free...
In a way we don't need a mass marketing campaign but change how we tell stories; brief text interviews of space users, a community profile, employee/co-worker/maker/corporate-refugee of the month. Quick what are you working-on-selfies to flatten out any co-working/making binary.
It's ok to not want everyone, while still making us more diverse. We need to de-bloke/de-colonise the space!
We talk about a DoES Methodology & Principles but I think we need to write it down somewhere that fits on an A4 you could put up in the toilets.