MakerBot have announced that their Botcave™ Retail Store in Brooklyn will open on November 26th. This is a physical retail space that will retail MakerBotsand Arduinos as well as kits from Adafruit, Evil Mad Science, Jimmie Rodgers, Sparkfun and Liquidware.

This reflects increasingly obvious emergence of retail and commercially focused models growing around open source, crowd-sourcing, social product design and citizen led approaches. [Perhaps better understood as citizen/retail/production models.] Examples include Ponoko, Shapeways, Nervous Systems and perhaps most obviously DOIY and Quirky.com.

Here innovation is observed in the research, design, supply chain, production and distribution mechanisms employed. Quirky, for example, employs crowd sourced (social) product design, research and development. This is complemented by a pull production system, requiring a predetermined level of sales before products are actually produced. This low risk (agile, pull) approach is an interesting development for production and retail of consumer goods.

My research has been looking at models such as these for some time and in doing so I have found many failures and obviously sub-standard models. While it is early for such models it is obvious that Quirky (for one) is something to watch out for.

For the models that didn’t survive or are destined for the retail administration/bankruptcy graveyard I suggest that their primary failings or short comings are related to the client/citizen side interaction, how the citizen/consumer interacts with the model, the effort required, barriers to participation, incentive to participate and a simple lack of consumer awareness.

My forth-coming paper* with Dr. Leon Cruickshank begins to address the client/citizen side of such models through consideration of the role of design as applied to such models. We suggest that through appropriate service design, design of (citizen) processes, provision of toolkits, design or supply of proto-designs** these citizen/retail/production model will be substantially enhanced. (Throw IoT into this mix and we have a perfect storm.)

Retail kids WAKE UP!

>>More to come<<

*SVID 2010
**Related to the known concepts of unfinished, modular and under-design.

Hello!
I’ve been observing the beginnings of a project by TinkerLondon involving DIY smart homes which will run over autumn of this year, and I wondered if you might be interested (or know other folks who would be)?

The project involves giving 6 homes across Europe a research kit of the latest open hardware tech, and training in how to use them. They then have up to 3 months in the autumn to play with the tech, make interesting things, and share their experiences through blogs and videos. Each household will also be partnered with some local technology experts who will help them throughout the autumn and provide support where-ever’s needed.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t know anything about technology – all of the kit and the training is designed so that folks with any amount (or not) of tech know-how. We’re actually really interested to see what kind of things non-techy people would make and how they make it. There’s no constraints on what toys people can build: people could track their cats, their plants, measure how often the fridge door opens, and anything else they fancy.

There’s more information here - www.homesenseproject.com – and do give me a yell if you need to know more. We’re on a pretty tight deadline to find our final round of households so do let us know soon if you fancy it, and please please do pass this on to anyone else who might be interested!

Cheers,
Natasha

Details available here:
http://www.homesenseproject.com/about/

Sign up here:

_Households
http://www.homesenseproject.com/make-me-a-smart-home/
_Experts
http://www.homesenseproject.com/become-an-expert/

HighWire attended FutureEverything this week. FutureEverything ‘… is an art, technology and social innovation organisation that runs year-round innovation labs and an annual festival of art, music and ideas – bringing the future into the present.’

With music and presentations from a wide variety of musicians, researchers, professionals and artists choosing between FutureEverything events to attend was extremely difficult. Situated in the Contact Gallery, Oxford Road, Manchester, the first event we attended was the Open Data: Moving the Immovable panel discussion. Introduced by Sarah Hartley of The Guardian William Perrin opened with his views on how to ‘get data out of large public bureaucracies. With four methods entitled The Bulldozer , The Ferret, The Avalance and The Extraterrestrial method delegates were presented with a number of examples where previously immovable data was either extracted, scraped or freed from large bureaucracies and used in socially important ways.

Following was James Darling of RewiredState who despite technology challenges imparted two useful notes ‘government is bad at computers, let us show you how it is done’ and ‘ask forgiveness not permission’.

Jordan Hatcher a lawyer, academic, and entrepreneur working on Intellectual Property and Internet law issues in the UK and worldwide presented next on ownership in relation to databases. Suggesting three approaches, ‘Ask for Licence’ ‘Copyright as absolute’ and ‘Infringe’, and suggested that databases be presented under ‘Public Domain Licences, Attribution Database Licence or Open Database Licence’. In choosing a licence he suggests that those responsible for the database should consider the reasons behind why they are opening the data.

Finally Eimear Coleman of Barnet Council posed the question of ‘Why are organisations so resistant?’ and suggested a move from the current system of ‘new public management’ to ‘communicative governance’ and to achieve such a movement a ‘fundamental culture change is necessary’. In otherwords there is a need to shift from ‘data ownership mindsets to data custodians’. Highlighting the concern of risk adverse organisations Eimear suggests that strategies must bear in mind the concerns of those involved and at risk of spin. The ‘speedy zealots vs de publik sektor’.

Product Designer Lee Murray has created an application for CCTV surveillance with his concept, The Observer; a public access viewing station allowing any member of the public to watch others via CCTV cameras. The object explores the potential social implications if all CCTV cameras were monitored by the public.
Using web camera & internet technology to bring the concept to life, Lee hopes that ultimately the entire system would be connected to the nations extensive network of CCTV cameras. Constructed from sheet steel & aluminium, this concept makes interesting nods to ‘people watching’ and crowd sourced surveillance. While  the Observer’s design has been inspired from classic science-fiction books & films such as “Brave New World”, “1984″ & “Brazil”.

Whilst writing a paper for Fiscar 2010 I have been exploring the issues surrounding development of a file sharing culture in the design profession (more specifically the product or industrial design profession). I suggest that as personal fabrication becomes more commonplace, a trend we are observing, that the value (for the average citizen) of product design files will increase and consequently a file sharing culture might emerge.

I spoke previously of “The Product Bay‘ established by the founder of the ‘Pirate Bay’, an action which demonstrates that a file shared product design future is not only feasible but also considered commercially viable. While open source development of Makerbot and Fab@Home, among other open source development of personal fabricators is bringing personal fabrication closer to reality. Consequently, I am considering the implications for the design profession, implications that are wide ranging and to date unconsidered by the profession itself.

To be presented at Fiscar 2010 in Helsinki from May 23-25th 2010

‘Objets Therapeutics’ Mathieu Lehanneur in ‘Safe: Design takes on risk’

Reconsidering the emotional implications of therapy and treatment.

Mathieu Lehanneur suggests that by taking into consideration the relationship with disease namely; Conflict, Coexistence, Refusal, and Imaginary as well as the psychology of the patient ‘restoration of the rituals associated with medication will retrieve the promise of healing.’

A beautiful approach to therapy.

Hector Serrano: Reduced carbonfoot print souvenir

Send souvenirs by e-mail print at home. A possible use of 3D printing.

A HighWire forum with Monika Buscher, Daria Loi, Alexandra Deschamps-Sonisino & Lucy Suchman took place this week. Opening with an introduction by Monika we proceeded to discuss innovation.

Alexandra CEO of Tinker.it spoke of the Arduino chip and the growing community of tinkerers who engage in projects using this chip.

‘Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.’ Arduino

This platform is interesting to consider in terms of democratising innovation, the community which grows around it provides a source of support and information for individuals working on projects using the chip, and the open source chip facilitates innovative use. Within this elements of participatory design, collaborative design and prototying emerge.