We have distilled 10 lessons learnt from our in-depth cross-case analysis of 10 maker initiatives in Europe.

Here comes lesson 1:

Although currently we hardly see a major shift in the production of products in general, i.e. from centralised to de-centralised production, we recognise that maker products have a unique selling proposition since products serve niche markets.

Lesson 2:

Maker products have the advantage to responsively take into account individual user needs. Thus personalised and customised products can be developed effectively and fast.

Lesson 3:

 

Maker initiatives but also makers themselves have a dense network of links to different stakeholder groups, especially to educational institutions. These networks seem to be key for achieving sustainability.

Continue reading “Lessons learnt from our in-depth cross-case analysis of 10 maker initiatives in Europe” »

I interviewed MAKE-IT Advisory Board members during different meetings we had. All the members are experts in their fields, so I asked them about their experience of the Maker movement and how the project could understand and improve the movement through CAPS.

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MAKE-IT Advisory Board: Prof. Daniel Charny, Creative Director at From Now On

MAKE-IT Advisory Board: Sherry Huss, Co-creator of Maker Faire

MAKE-IT Advisory Board: David Cuartielles, Co-founder of Arduino

MAKE-IT Advisory Board: Sherry Lassiter, President of Fab Foundation

MAKE-IT Advisory Board: Sabrina Merlo, Program Director of Maker Faire

MAKE-IT Advisory Board: Fiorenza Lipparini, Co-founder and Research Director of PlusValue

MAKE-IT Advisory Board: Dale Dougherty, Founder & CEO of Make (Make Magazine and Maker Faire)

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What is the common feature of food assemblies, libraries of things, and making? At first glance, all of these practices operate in their very individual cultural spheres: Food assemblies attract foodies with a heart for local farmers, makerspaces are full of techies building robots and printing futuristic objects. Libraries of things come in handy in a variety of circumstances ranging from borrowing a drilling machine for domestic construction work to renting a karaoke machine for a birthday party. Yet, all these grassroot movements might contribute to changing consumption practices and all of them so far represent rather niche activities. Transition Studies investigates how more sustainable technologies or practices succeed to overcome their niche status and become the common way of doing things. At the 8th International Sustainability Transitions Conference taking place in Gothenburg from 18th to 21st June, international researchers from a variety of disciplines came together to not only discuss theoretical and methodological advances, but also to share real-life examples.

The three aforementioned grassroot movements with a focus on changing consumption practices and in the case of making and food assemblies also production processes were all presented in a shared speed talk session. Here, I was given the chance to briefly present MAKE-IT’s three sustainability scenarios and discuss their potential to ease the environmental impact with the audience. In that sense, the sustainability scenarios show three possible ways in which the Maker movement could transition to a mainstream activity. Thereby, they emphasize different trends observed in current practices.

The first scenario assumes that the Maker movement is absorbed by public learning spaces. Schools, libraries, museums and other public spaces that reach out to a broad target group create makerspaces within their facilities. Hence, students or visitors can use digital fabrication tools and the pedagogical personnel has the skills to teach them how to do it. Thereby, making is heavily influenced by the attitudes, objectives and rules of the specific public space.

In the second scenario, the Maker movement is embedded in a widely mainstreamed open source ethics taken up by a variety of public and civil society organisation. The wider society is in favour of developing into a commons-based, decentralized P2P manufacturing economy. Here, making is part of a societal change of attitudes from individualistic to cooperative. This development of the Maker movement assumes that a large part of society is able to meet an increasing portion of their material needs without formal employment and is, thus, in favour of becoming part of this change.

In contrast, the third scenario sees the Maker movement as being absorbed by the established industry. Makerspaces become part of corporate research and development departments. Industry benefits from the spirit and grass-roots community elements of the Maker movement. The financial security of makers and makerspaces is significantly increased in this scenario and design approaches are influenced by the maker culture, but the open sharing of designs is largely undermined by global players.

While none of the scenarios explicitly refers to the Maker movement’s potential for ecological sustainability, all of the scenarios have the potential to also include this aspect. Given that the discussants work mainly with environmental sustainability, I used this forum to discuss the drivers and barriers for environmental sustainability in the Maker movement.

The first overarching topic that arose during the discussion was that today we lack the scientific basis for estimating the concrete environmental impact of making. For example, calculations like life cycle analysis or the environmental footprint or backpack, which estimate the total resource use of products and production processes, are difficult to perform given the diversity of filaments, on the one hand, and lack of experience in terms of longevity of the machinery, on the other hand. In addition, rebound effects might emerge when consumers produce certain goods cheaply in makerspaces and spend their saved money on environmental harmful practices elsewhere. On top of that, making is still an additional mode of production which comes on top of traditional production processes and, hence, presents so far an additional environmental burden. This led to the question of what would be produced in makerspaces, as producing in big bulks can in general be done in more energy efficient ways than producing personalized single items.

In a next step, the discussants agreed that the Maker movement can only foster a sustainability transition by changing consumption practices on a wider scale. The discussants regarded this as mainly feasible in scenario one and two, as the main actor in scenario three are businesses whose financial success depends upon a society with ever-growing consumption rates. In general, one participant voiced the concern that the Maker movement risks a similar development as social media 10-15 years ago. In the early days, hopes were high that they could enhance democratisation and civic engagement. However, today most of the popular platforms used by the majority of people worldwide are owned by big corporations with their own interests. This has the consequence that most of the decisions on how to deal with e.g. private data are not made democratically engaging all users, but are subject to corporate interest. Drawing back on this historic development, the discussant claimed that now is the time to take action to undermine this trajectory.

In contrast to scenario three, the first two scenarios diffuse making in civil society. They can contribute to a shift of values, as individuals value an object they made themselves much more than one bought in a shop. Consequently, one will put more effort in enhancing the lifespan of a product by e.g. repairing components. Here, one discussant remarked that a shift to a repairing society, as assumed in scenario two, faces some legal barriers today. For example, due to safety reasons it is not allowed to replace some parts of electronic devices. Even if 3D printers make it easier to print exact copies of the missing components, the safety regulations prevail. This example shows that some of the barriers are posed by the legal environments and cannot easily be solved by the Maker movement in isolation.

However, scenario one and two depend heavily on mediators who not only teach the skills necessary for digital fabrication but also spark the interest in doing so in the first place. One participant highlighted that this mediator function would then also assure that civil society uses the makerspace for its intended purpose. He further gave the example of makerspace, which was created in Barcelona as part of the town’s fab city concept, but transformed into a food market by citizens who did not see a personal gain in making.

The discussion of MAKE-IT’s sustainability scenarios in regard to the drivers and barriers of a sustainability transition with focus on environmental sustainability showed that scenario one and two offer more points of leverage for changing consumption practices on a large scale. This is in so far of relevance as clear cut evaluations of the environmental impact do not exist and are difficult to calculate. Hence, the Maker movement’s potential to enhance environmental sustainability lies mainly in changing the attitude towards and behaviour of consumption. At best people consume and produce only what they actually need and value these things more, which at the same time leads to a shift from “buying new” to “repairing”.

Deliverable 3.2 represents the in-depth cross-case analysis, highlighting the communalities and diverging approaches of different maker cases and aims at answering the research questions that were defined in previous work (Check out the previous deliverable D3.1 on its page). This deliverable thus builds on the collected data of ten case studies of maker initiatives in eight different European countries, spanning from maker spaces and fablabs to companies operating at the interface between makers and industry: Fablab Barcelona (Spain), Arduino (Italy), Smart Bending Factory (the Netherlands), Mini Maker Faire (Estonia), Happylab Vienna (Austria), DTI lab (Denmark), Dezentrale (Germany), HRW lab (Germany), Create It Real (Denmark), and FabLab Zagreb (Croatia).

In total, 39 interviews with managers of these initiatives as well as makers were transcribed and complemented by self-reporting sheets filled in by managers. The collected material was subsequently analysed with qualitative analysis methods in an explorative and structuring way combining deductive and inductive coding approaches. While all deductive codes were based on the three research pillars with its various research themes and potential research questions as identified in D2.1, in the inductive approach additional new codes directly evolved from the material. All the material was coded in two rounds by different researchers to safeguard maximal reliability and validity of the process. The analysis resulted in around 1,700 deductive codings, which built the basis for the work on the pre-defined research themes. With the aim to base the work on pre-existing knowledge and to complement and support the findings of our qualitative analysis, the literature cited in D2.1 was revisited and additional literature was integrated. This resulted in a rich data set that reveals quite some research gaps that have not been or only partially been addressed in research so far. Thus, the study represents one of few attempts to collect (qualitative) data on maker initiatives concerning manifold dimensions and critical issues and thus is able to reveal interesting findings adding value to the state-of-the-art in the field.

We just released the results in Deliverable D3.2 here below or also on its page, where you can also comment it.

Continue reading “D3.2: Final case study report focusing on cross-case analysis” »

Summary of an expert discussion about the future of the Maker movement. Specifically one scenario: The Maker movement is absorbed into established industry.

Participants:

Three Fablab managers, two Maker Faire organizers, social innovation researchers, technology developers, business strategy experts, and others.

There is a significant difference between two ‘civilizations’ that relate to making and using things in our daily lives. One ‘civilization’ is the Maker movement with a focus on broad participation in digital fabrication. And on sharing, playfulness and improving society or the environmental. The other is the capitalist ‘civilization’ that focuses on market competition, and innovation as a means to maximize profit or shareholder value.

In this expert discussion, carried out in three rounds at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain, around 15 experts discussed the possible scenario that the Maker movement is absorbed into existing industry:

• The Maker movement functions as research and development departments of industry parties

• Industry benefits from the spirit and grass-roots community elements of the Maker movement

• Management and design approaches follow maker culture, whereby some elements of the Maker movement become part of business life, like the slogan ‘just make it’

• Although some hardcore makers may resist the corporate dominance, in this scenario most maker activity is carried out in makerspaces controlled by for-profit enterprises

What are the experts’ thoughts on this scenario? Can they suggest refinements to it, or suggest likely ways this could develop?

How likely is this scenario? Does it align with other social or economic developments?

If this scenario does come about, what do they think the impact will be? Can they develop recommendations for stakeholders?

Here is a selection of some highlights of the discussion.

Changing production landscape

Well, there are various ways that firms might organize their maker initiatives. Either bringing makerspaces in house, using external makerspaces as their crowdsourcing platforms, or investing in maker start-ups, harvesting the best ideas that emerge. Actually, there are already many initiatives that are making steps in this direction, including the Industry4makers project in Vienna, and, already in 2011, Google’s involvement in the “Silicon Roundabout” area in London. Indeed, this scenario can easily be supported by governmental policy measures.

It is important to realize that makers are not only helped by financial support, but just as much by access to a network of useful contacts, to knowledge, and to new technologies and machines. So, the way that firms engage with makers in this scenario could be based on a variety of incentive mechanisms. Drawing parallels with the open source software movement, and the strong bonds that that now has with the largest software firms, the experts indicated that a complete internalization of the Maker movement by firms is unlikely. Nevertheless, the experts indicated that the potential for large scale disruption across many industries is possible, with a real possibility of completely new industries emerging and the production landscape changing for good.

One discussion centred on the combination of makers with small and medium sized businesses (SMEs), as opposed to large corporate firms. The SMEs could offer a highly beneficial way of working to makers. They may be able to develop a more personal relationship with makers and give the makers more the feeling that they can be self-determining and in charge of their own creative process – at least to some degree. Added to this, SMEs, more than larger firms, may have trouble developing an appropriate strategic reaction to digital fabrication innovations. They may therefore be more open to advice that makers give, and this could lead to a new role for makerspaces and maker communities as they can function as matchmakers linking SMEs to relevant makers.

Another discussion looked at a societal shift becoming apparent in some areas, away from the traditional left-wing versus right-wing divide, and moving more towards a ‘we prefer local’ versus ‘we prefer global’ economy.

Impact for makers and for firms

More focus in maker projects is likely to result, with less makers simply playing around. So, the maker ‘spirit’ will most likely die out. One of the key drivers of maker initiatives is the community-building aspects of makers, both makers together and by building a close-knit community of various interested parties. But communities, built on mutual trust and understanding, are notoriously fragile. A serious danger for makers in the scenario being discussed is that this community element will be damaged. Thus removing an important motive for makers to participate, and a major source of their knowledge development. Probably the most well-known example of this was the move of MakerBot, that began as a community project before being acquired by Stratasys in June 2013. At that point, many of the community members retracted their support.

There can be a positive effect on the creativity of the makers, as they gain from the drive and focus stimulated by the firms. Added to this, it will be much easier for firms to put together different multi-disciplinary teams to address new problems and challenges. An optimal level of variety in the team has been shown to be very important in leading to creativity and high performance.

Without the resources provided by firms, makers are currently often reliant on public funding and subsidy. In this business-first scenario, the future makers may benefit from the financial sustainability that this offers them.

Dominant economic model

Probably the main consensus that emerged in the discussions between the experts was that there are two main futures of this scenario in terms of which economic model will become dominant. Many expect that the profit and shareholder value focus of existing firms will remain the dominant force even when makers become involved. Thus the financially-driven ‘civilization’ would take onboard professional makers, and force a hardcore Maker movement underground, leaving them underfunded and marginalized. The other future is when the maker ‘civilization’ actually has a major influence on the culture and working of commercial firms. In this future, more firms will adopt social and environmental goals, besides their financial goals, and they will compete for expertise by promoting their sharing culture and the importance of their corporate social responsibility aims.

What will determine which of these civilizations wins out? The experts found this difficult to say as they thought that it would depend on a range of factors, including regulation, such as that promoting smart city initiatives, as well as market forces. A Pew Research study and Harvard University survey in the US show a possible market shift, according to one expert. That study shows that a large number of young people no longer believe in the capitalist model, so in ten years’ time there may be a fertile ground for corporations that develop a relationship with these consumers on their terms. But, similar to so-called “greenwashing” practices by some unscrupulous firms, future caring corporations that say they embody the Maker movement’s principles may simply be wolves in sheep’s clothing.