Makers innovate
Artisan design in tech
Elegant project
Artisan design in tech
Elegant project
Showing posts with label makers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label makers. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 04, 2014
Italian Innovation Day Comes To Silicon Valley
I attended Mind The Bridge's Italian Innovation Day yesterday at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley. I have never associated innovation with Italians before with the exception of Leonardo da Vinci. The event highlighted the connection between Italy's design tradition and the modern maker movement. I didn't let the blue and white balloons they inflated distract me in my search for hot Italian women.
I had to check out the claim one speaker made that Italian universities produce engineers at a lower cost than US universities. That may depend on the type of engineering degree. CollegeCalc has scored the annual costs of mechanical engineering degrees in the US. They also have the costs for chemical engineering degrees. The chemical engineering degree is slightly more expensive than the mechanical engineering degree. I can't find any statistics on the costs of Italian degrees. I did find this page from FEANI describing the European professional engineer designation. The FEANI page specifically notes that the EUR ING designation is not applicable in Italy because that country maintains its own accreditation standard for engineers. Such a duplicative body probably increases the cost of training an Italian engineer. Viva la . . . something or other.
Innovative workforces command premium compensation and multiply the creation of other jobs, according to Enrico Moretti's The New Geography Of Jobs. Italy's translation of design into innovation is still hampered by lack of a national English-language media that can help translate its innovations into the language of international business.
Let's run down Italy's ranking on some of my favorite international indexes. Italy is . . .
. . . 69th out of 175 on Transparency International's corruption index . . .
. . . 86th out of 178 on the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom . . .
. . . 29th out of 142 on the Global Innovation Index.
Note for the record that the US beats Italy in all of those rankings. The most important claim to innovation is of course the Global Innovation Index rank, which puts Italy in the top quartile. Italian innovators should be concerned about whether they can profit from their innovations given Italy's disappointing scores on the first two rankings. Italy is a G-8 member because of its economy's size. These rankings show that GDP size has little to do with transparency, freedom, or innovation. The message to innovators should be painted in big red letters on a sign lit with spotlights saying "Escape to more hospitable economic climes," in Italian of course.
One panelist at this event mentioned that it is harder to start high-tech companies in the south of Italy than in the north. The persistent cultural divide in that country is a legacy of Italy's inconsistent reforms and economic policies since unification in the 19th century. The European Regional Development Fund has attempted to stimulate development under the EU regional policy's convergence objectives. Italy's regional divide is still significant despite this EU policy. Italian innovators need another clear message: "Move north if you want a tech startup."
There are undoubtedly strong ethnic connections between some Americans and their distant Italian relatives. Business leaders overestimate the importance of those connections. Ethnicity matters in business if trade missions and business associations transform kinship into real economic ties. The BAIA is one such network. My own ancestors left Italy for a better life in the US but I felt no kinship with the Italians running this event. They started it fifteen minutes late. I get irritated whenever people are late or keep me waiting. They excused it as "typical of Italy" but I call it typical of bad business.
Europe gets a lot of business strategies correct in spite of the unique situations of its constituent nations. The European Investment Fund builds the European Investment Bank's SME strategy. The Startup Europe Partnership is the EU's first try at building an ecosystem to match the one in Silicon Valley. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The Italians promoting this project at the event I attended made it clear that they want sponsorship from large European corporations willing to commit their deep pockets to deal flow. It would help if the guiding structure for this platform wasn't scattered among different web portals. Here's where the confusion starts. This strategy for the EU Digital Agenda recognizes Startup America as inspiration. It does not link to this more detailed action plan for Startup Europe. Confusion will reign when strategic guidance contradicts itself. Launching the Startup Europe Partnership at Davos this year must have made for great conversation over cocktails. It's good that elites are on board with startup culture. Now they should step aside and let Europe's entrepreneurs go to work. Policy elites can work on their own innovations with the Lisbon Council.
Italian Innovation Day tipped its hat to the maker movement. Rome hosts a Maker Faire. MakeinItaly is the country's brand new foundation to push a local maker movement. I am hooked on the Maker Fair Bay Area ever since I attended last year. The crucial insight from makers addressing this Italian crowd was that multidisciplinary education develops intuition on how systems operate. I get engineer envy whenever I think of how teams of designers from different technical backgrounds put a project together on a tight deadline.
I did not find any hot Italian women at this event. They might have been there but I looked around quite thoroughly. Attractive women usually seek me out so I hardly think they could have escaped my notice if they attended. I can't subscribe to the notion that some parts of Europe have a higher proportion of attractive women. Women who were searching for the legendary Italian male models at this function would have been just as disappointed. One dude wore his waist-length hair in a knotted mass. It was easy for me to be the most handsome man there with such lame competition. Italians may be gradually exchanging their hot-blooded appeal for cool techno trappings. That's fine if it leads to national prosperity and an escape from the PIIGS categorization. Make it happen, Italian makers.
I had to check out the claim one speaker made that Italian universities produce engineers at a lower cost than US universities. That may depend on the type of engineering degree. CollegeCalc has scored the annual costs of mechanical engineering degrees in the US. They also have the costs for chemical engineering degrees. The chemical engineering degree is slightly more expensive than the mechanical engineering degree. I can't find any statistics on the costs of Italian degrees. I did find this page from FEANI describing the European professional engineer designation. The FEANI page specifically notes that the EUR ING designation is not applicable in Italy because that country maintains its own accreditation standard for engineers. Such a duplicative body probably increases the cost of training an Italian engineer. Viva la . . . something or other.
Innovative workforces command premium compensation and multiply the creation of other jobs, according to Enrico Moretti's The New Geography Of Jobs. Italy's translation of design into innovation is still hampered by lack of a national English-language media that can help translate its innovations into the language of international business.
Let's run down Italy's ranking on some of my favorite international indexes. Italy is . . .
. . . 69th out of 175 on Transparency International's corruption index . . .
. . . 86th out of 178 on the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom . . .
. . . 29th out of 142 on the Global Innovation Index.
Note for the record that the US beats Italy in all of those rankings. The most important claim to innovation is of course the Global Innovation Index rank, which puts Italy in the top quartile. Italian innovators should be concerned about whether they can profit from their innovations given Italy's disappointing scores on the first two rankings. Italy is a G-8 member because of its economy's size. These rankings show that GDP size has little to do with transparency, freedom, or innovation. The message to innovators should be painted in big red letters on a sign lit with spotlights saying "Escape to more hospitable economic climes," in Italian of course.
One panelist at this event mentioned that it is harder to start high-tech companies in the south of Italy than in the north. The persistent cultural divide in that country is a legacy of Italy's inconsistent reforms and economic policies since unification in the 19th century. The European Regional Development Fund has attempted to stimulate development under the EU regional policy's convergence objectives. Italy's regional divide is still significant despite this EU policy. Italian innovators need another clear message: "Move north if you want a tech startup."
There are undoubtedly strong ethnic connections between some Americans and their distant Italian relatives. Business leaders overestimate the importance of those connections. Ethnicity matters in business if trade missions and business associations transform kinship into real economic ties. The BAIA is one such network. My own ancestors left Italy for a better life in the US but I felt no kinship with the Italians running this event. They started it fifteen minutes late. I get irritated whenever people are late or keep me waiting. They excused it as "typical of Italy" but I call it typical of bad business.
Europe gets a lot of business strategies correct in spite of the unique situations of its constituent nations. The European Investment Fund builds the European Investment Bank's SME strategy. The Startup Europe Partnership is the EU's first try at building an ecosystem to match the one in Silicon Valley. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The Italians promoting this project at the event I attended made it clear that they want sponsorship from large European corporations willing to commit their deep pockets to deal flow. It would help if the guiding structure for this platform wasn't scattered among different web portals. Here's where the confusion starts. This strategy for the EU Digital Agenda recognizes Startup America as inspiration. It does not link to this more detailed action plan for Startup Europe. Confusion will reign when strategic guidance contradicts itself. Launching the Startup Europe Partnership at Davos this year must have made for great conversation over cocktails. It's good that elites are on board with startup culture. Now they should step aside and let Europe's entrepreneurs go to work. Policy elites can work on their own innovations with the Lisbon Council.
Italian Innovation Day tipped its hat to the maker movement. Rome hosts a Maker Faire. MakeinItaly is the country's brand new foundation to push a local maker movement. I am hooked on the Maker Fair Bay Area ever since I attended last year. The crucial insight from makers addressing this Italian crowd was that multidisciplinary education develops intuition on how systems operate. I get engineer envy whenever I think of how teams of designers from different technical backgrounds put a project together on a tight deadline.
I did not find any hot Italian women at this event. They might have been there but I looked around quite thoroughly. Attractive women usually seek me out so I hardly think they could have escaped my notice if they attended. I can't subscribe to the notion that some parts of Europe have a higher proportion of attractive women. Women who were searching for the legendary Italian male models at this function would have been just as disappointed. One dude wore his waist-length hair in a knotted mass. It was easy for me to be the most handsome man there with such lame competition. Italians may be gradually exchanging their hot-blooded appeal for cool techno trappings. That's fine if it leads to national prosperity and an escape from the PIIGS categorization. Make it happen, Italian makers.
Saturday, June 01, 2013
The Haiku of Finance for 06/01/13
Crowdfund your project
Co-op, land trust, or maker
Wealth from the ground up
Co-op, land trust, or maker
Wealth from the ground up
Friday, May 31, 2013
Crowdfunding for Decentralized Wealth
I attended a Commonwealth Club lecture today by Gar Alperovitz, author of What Then Must We Do? I won't spoil the book for you, but he contends that the concentration of the control of wealth among a small elite and a handful of corporations make America's systemic problems unsolvable. Labor unions are no longer powerful enough to serve as a countervailing power to corporate control of wealth and state socialism is an unsatisfactory alternative to free markets. His solution lies in democratic, decentralized ownership of wealth. I think he'd really like the concept of resilient communities but he touched on older concepts that already work. He mentioned some models; I'll mention others.
The Democracy Collaborative's Community Wealth project is a clearinghouse for models that share access to capital. The National Cooperative Business Association is a home for co-ops that have been around forever. The Bank of North Dakota is the only state-owned bank in America and it's been successful for almost a century in providing capital to private enterprise. Many of us have seen NCUA's credit unions in our communities. Entrepreneurs who sell their companies to their workers' own ESOPs can reap very attractive tax benefits. Real estate investors can use land trusts to limit liability and expand their options. The Mondragon Corporation is an example of how a cooperative ownership structure can adapt to a complex enterprise. The University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives studies, well, what else but co-ops. The Hub is a global network-cum-movement for microenterprises with a Bay Area presence. B-corporations are not-for-profit corporations that are chartered to serve a public interest. CiviCRM is an open-source platform for fundraising and contact management; I regret that I missed CiviCon 2013. I also regret that I'm missing the Public Banking Institute's Public Banking 2013 conference this weekend, but I've already got plenty to do.
Some of these models may seem a bit touchy-feely and environmentally green for die-hard free market fans but I hope they get over that knee-jerk reaction. I'd like to see an ecosystem of these types of grass-roots financing and organizing tools grow up as alternatives to the unstable model of TBTF megabanks that are wrecking the economy. There's enough room for profit in these enterprise structures for conservatives to like. The New America Foundation's Asset Building Program sure looks a lot like George W. Bush's call for an "ownership society."
The hodge-podge list of tools above begs a return to the author's question about what we must do now. I got a chance to ask a question of my own when I asked Mr. Alperovitz how the crowdfunding phenomenon can contribute to the growth of these concepts. He was optimistic about the potential of crowdfunding but didn't have specific data on hand. There's my window of entrepreneurial opportunity. I'll get specific right now.
B-corps are already using crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo to raise donations. Once FINRA finally completes its SEC-mandated certification of crowdfunding portals for JOBS Act compliance, they can raise equity capital. I think public banks operating in each of the fifty states could operate their own crowdfunding portals. Anyone who wants to start a co-op or credit union could step on up and launch fundraising from the public bank's portal. Companies that sponsor ESOPs could borrow directly from the public banks so the ESOP can buy the company's shares. REITs that organize as land trusts could use the public bank for 1031 exchanges and trust services. Makers, here's your chance to grow new organizations making brand new things.
The ecosystem I just described above will probably require legal changes that will enable public banks and crowdfunding portals to work together in the ways I've imagined. State governments can perform their traditional role as public policy laboratories by experimenting with different forms of governance for this co-op ecosystem. Resilient communities will need a myriad of management structures and funding mechanisms. Entrepreneurs should educate policymakers on how to make this happen. That is what we must do, answering the question above.
The Democracy Collaborative's Community Wealth project is a clearinghouse for models that share access to capital. The National Cooperative Business Association is a home for co-ops that have been around forever. The Bank of North Dakota is the only state-owned bank in America and it's been successful for almost a century in providing capital to private enterprise. Many of us have seen NCUA's credit unions in our communities. Entrepreneurs who sell their companies to their workers' own ESOPs can reap very attractive tax benefits. Real estate investors can use land trusts to limit liability and expand their options. The Mondragon Corporation is an example of how a cooperative ownership structure can adapt to a complex enterprise. The University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives studies, well, what else but co-ops. The Hub is a global network-cum-movement for microenterprises with a Bay Area presence. B-corporations are not-for-profit corporations that are chartered to serve a public interest. CiviCRM is an open-source platform for fundraising and contact management; I regret that I missed CiviCon 2013. I also regret that I'm missing the Public Banking Institute's Public Banking 2013 conference this weekend, but I've already got plenty to do.
Some of these models may seem a bit touchy-feely and environmentally green for die-hard free market fans but I hope they get over that knee-jerk reaction. I'd like to see an ecosystem of these types of grass-roots financing and organizing tools grow up as alternatives to the unstable model of TBTF megabanks that are wrecking the economy. There's enough room for profit in these enterprise structures for conservatives to like. The New America Foundation's Asset Building Program sure looks a lot like George W. Bush's call for an "ownership society."
The hodge-podge list of tools above begs a return to the author's question about what we must do now. I got a chance to ask a question of my own when I asked Mr. Alperovitz how the crowdfunding phenomenon can contribute to the growth of these concepts. He was optimistic about the potential of crowdfunding but didn't have specific data on hand. There's my window of entrepreneurial opportunity. I'll get specific right now.
B-corps are already using crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo to raise donations. Once FINRA finally completes its SEC-mandated certification of crowdfunding portals for JOBS Act compliance, they can raise equity capital. I think public banks operating in each of the fifty states could operate their own crowdfunding portals. Anyone who wants to start a co-op or credit union could step on up and launch fundraising from the public bank's portal. Companies that sponsor ESOPs could borrow directly from the public banks so the ESOP can buy the company's shares. REITs that organize as land trusts could use the public bank for 1031 exchanges and trust services. Makers, here's your chance to grow new organizations making brand new things.
The ecosystem I just described above will probably require legal changes that will enable public banks and crowdfunding portals to work together in the ways I've imagined. State governments can perform their traditional role as public policy laboratories by experimenting with different forms of governance for this co-op ecosystem. Resilient communities will need a myriad of management structures and funding mechanisms. Entrepreneurs should educate policymakers on how to make this happen. That is what we must do, answering the question above.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Hanging Out at Maker Faire Bay Area 2013
I made my inaugural visit to the Maker Faire this year. This is a well-attended festival for innovators, hobbyists, tinkerers, inventors, and anyone else who is into DIY creativity. There was too much going on here for me to do the faire justice with a single review. I learned so much that I'll be seeding many future blog posts with maker concepts that I think will apply to business. I normally take notes at conferences but here I'll concentrate on the exhibits that stood out as relevant to my own priorities.
I attended several of the talks given at the Center Stage and elsewhere. The Center Stage talks were all recorded to appear on FORA.tv, so I don't need to repeat them here. I will display some illustrated summaries that a visual artist rendered during each talk. She was cute and I wish I had her contact info. If she sees this blog article, I hope she contacts me because I really admire her work. My impressions follow each artistic rendering.
This talk on the use of drones to perform aerial crop surveys illustrates a tremendous opportunity for agribusiness. Farmers can program a drone to follow GPS waypoints for surveys of crop damage and irrigation distribution. Farmers can optimize pesticide and herbicide application with details on crop damage. I've read a lot recently about thieves who scavenge farms in Central California for metal they can sell as scrap. I believe drones and remote sensors can also play a role in wide-area security for agribusiness. I asked a drone operator over at the faire's Drone Games pavilion about programming drone movements; he said drones can be set to track moving objects on the ground automatically. If I were a farmer, I'd program remote cameras and sensors (magnetic, acoustic, and seismic) to monitor my farm's perimeter and have a drone on standby to launch at any intrusion point. The drone would track a fleeing suspect long enough to get a video recording of their facial features, gait, and vehicle license plate for use by law enforcement. Imagine how the widespread use of privately-owned drones as security tools would support law and order in rural areas.
Going from zero to maker is easy. You don't have to know everything. You do have to try and try again because making mistakes and improving prototypes is a normal part of discovery. Crowdfunding a cool project can really help its visibility.
I only caught part of the NASA astronaut's talk. The best thing I learned from him was that NASA's interest in developing a fusion-powered spacecraft will eventually accelerate the development of fusion energy for commercial use on Earth.
This is one talk I'm glad I did NOT attend. PBS and NPR have lots of good programming but sometimes they showcase some naive people doing ineffective things. One case in point is the Violins for Veterans idea noted on the card above. I heard about that giveaway from my friends in the San Francisco veterans' community. It was a disaster. First of all, the veterans never asked for the violins in the first place. Hardly any of them have ever even learned music, let alone this instrument. When some destitute veterans found out they could pawn their donated violins for cash, that's exactly what they did. Well-meaning people need to do some market research before they launch a giveaway program. Veterans need stable employment before they can afford the luxury of learning a musical instrument.
This is a talk I wish I had attended. Chickens popping out plants sounds like something out of science fiction but serious scientists and philanthropists are working on it. Would you like some arugula in your omelette? No problem, just crack open an egg that comes pre-loaded.
This was probably the most unique talk of the entire faire. The founder of the Maker Faire, Dale Dougherty, interviewed Charles Hull, founder of 3D Systems. 3D printing has been around for three decades and evolved from stereolithography. There are only two big manufacturers of heavy-duty 3D printing devices. If I were running one of those two big players, I'd have my corporate development team scouring the expo floor for new product ideas. Real business gets done at the Maker Faire, in many ways.
I had the distinct privilege of hearing Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, describe the reasons he hired Steve Jobs before the world knew about Steve Jobs. You can watch the video on FORA. He said there were probably another twenty Steve Jobs in the room with him. He had no idea that I'm one of them. His criteria for hiring and team building were truly radical and that's why most Fortune 500 HR departments will never adopt them. Large employers are more worried about liability from failure than success from creativity, so let's leave radical hiring to entrepreneurs. His point about hiring people who've been bullied is intriguing. Mr. Bushnell argues that bullied people tend to be creative. Maybe the harsh reality of human behavior prompts them to escape into fantasy realms where they can find comfort and success. Think about the stereotypical people who attend comic book shows, sci-fi conventions, Burning Man, and even Maker Faire. They're the oddballs who don't fit in. More power to them.
I wish I had attended this talk. Arduino is an open-source electronics standard that was all over the Maker Faire expo floor. One theme among several other platform speakers scattered around the expo floor's stages is that there's tremendous room for innovation in small-scale hardware and software, probably more so in software. Makezine has tons of Arduino tutorials for amateur users who want to make their own control systems.
I missed this talk but it sure looks like a revolution from where I'm sitting. No one knows where any of this is going and that's great. Where it all goes is up to you, reader.
The expo floor was geek heaven with something for everyone. I saw some practical uses for concepts I've only heard about in talks. Mechatronics designers were showcasing their applications. A lot of mechatronics borrowed heavily from traditional robotics but the field cries out for more than a hobbyist perspective. I think combining autonomous mechatronics robots with Arduino-based SCADA devices will enable an armada of reprogrammable arrays. I can think of some military applications, but I won't discuss them here.
Fleets of devices and control nodes are giving rise to ubiquitous computing (UBICOMP) and the Internet of things (IOT). Those autonomous devices will be linked via UBICOMP/IOT to clouds full of Big Data audit trails that can be mined for patterns and behavioral preferences. The Brave New World of all-encompassing monitoring kind of snuck up on civilization without any notice or popular debate. There's no going back.
I noticed flyers for SupplyBetter, a comparison shopping portal that brings 3D printing into a customer's logistics chain. I've been involved in logistics for two decades and the movement toward outsourcing of third-party logistics services was settled years ago. The customization of logistics is the next step.
The maker movement isn't just about mechanical devices and computer software. Biohacking is another vector in the movement and a small number of practitioners are working on biological innovation under the radar. I won't mention the connections and ideas I discovered here because I need to use them to launch something proprietary in stealth mode. I'll just have to say that splicing genes isn't just for big labs anymore.
The expo floor wasn't the only place where I acquired wisdom applicable to biology. The homegrown movement had a whole barn to themselves, with talks for aspiring micro-farmers. The UC Master Gardener Program was there and they're looking for volunteer participants. I think they could benefit from experts in aquaponics and permaculture.
There were tons of hot women at Maker Faire. The steampunk chicks were not always my type but some were cute. I was particularly pleased to see lots of attractive women manning the exhibit booths in the main expo hall. STEM chicks are hot and I'm really fond of nerdy women. I was disappointed that they weren't all over me but I can understand that they needed to stay focused on their faire duties. I find women who combine intelligence and creativity to be irresistable, especially on a hot summer day in the Bay Area when they're wearing tank tops and cutoff shorts.
Maker Faire was totally awesome. I've been looking for something like this all of my life. I will definitely return next year.
Full disclosure: No positions in any companies mentioned.
Addendum: The company that performed the graphic recording at the Center Stage is ImageThink in New York City. They do great work at many events. All of their graphic art from Maker Faire Bay Area 2013 is displayed on their Facebook page.
I attended several of the talks given at the Center Stage and elsewhere. The Center Stage talks were all recorded to appear on FORA.tv, so I don't need to repeat them here. I will display some illustrated summaries that a visual artist rendered during each talk. She was cute and I wish I had her contact info. If she sees this blog article, I hope she contacts me because I really admire her work. My impressions follow each artistic rendering.
This talk on the use of drones to perform aerial crop surveys illustrates a tremendous opportunity for agribusiness. Farmers can program a drone to follow GPS waypoints for surveys of crop damage and irrigation distribution. Farmers can optimize pesticide and herbicide application with details on crop damage. I've read a lot recently about thieves who scavenge farms in Central California for metal they can sell as scrap. I believe drones and remote sensors can also play a role in wide-area security for agribusiness. I asked a drone operator over at the faire's Drone Games pavilion about programming drone movements; he said drones can be set to track moving objects on the ground automatically. If I were a farmer, I'd program remote cameras and sensors (magnetic, acoustic, and seismic) to monitor my farm's perimeter and have a drone on standby to launch at any intrusion point. The drone would track a fleeing suspect long enough to get a video recording of their facial features, gait, and vehicle license plate for use by law enforcement. Imagine how the widespread use of privately-owned drones as security tools would support law and order in rural areas.
Going from zero to maker is easy. You don't have to know everything. You do have to try and try again because making mistakes and improving prototypes is a normal part of discovery. Crowdfunding a cool project can really help its visibility.
I only caught part of the NASA astronaut's talk. The best thing I learned from him was that NASA's interest in developing a fusion-powered spacecraft will eventually accelerate the development of fusion energy for commercial use on Earth.
This is one talk I'm glad I did NOT attend. PBS and NPR have lots of good programming but sometimes they showcase some naive people doing ineffective things. One case in point is the Violins for Veterans idea noted on the card above. I heard about that giveaway from my friends in the San Francisco veterans' community. It was a disaster. First of all, the veterans never asked for the violins in the first place. Hardly any of them have ever even learned music, let alone this instrument. When some destitute veterans found out they could pawn their donated violins for cash, that's exactly what they did. Well-meaning people need to do some market research before they launch a giveaway program. Veterans need stable employment before they can afford the luxury of learning a musical instrument.
This is a talk I wish I had attended. Chickens popping out plants sounds like something out of science fiction but serious scientists and philanthropists are working on it. Would you like some arugula in your omelette? No problem, just crack open an egg that comes pre-loaded.
This was probably the most unique talk of the entire faire. The founder of the Maker Faire, Dale Dougherty, interviewed Charles Hull, founder of 3D Systems. 3D printing has been around for three decades and evolved from stereolithography. There are only two big manufacturers of heavy-duty 3D printing devices. If I were running one of those two big players, I'd have my corporate development team scouring the expo floor for new product ideas. Real business gets done at the Maker Faire, in many ways.
I had the distinct privilege of hearing Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, describe the reasons he hired Steve Jobs before the world knew about Steve Jobs. You can watch the video on FORA. He said there were probably another twenty Steve Jobs in the room with him. He had no idea that I'm one of them. His criteria for hiring and team building were truly radical and that's why most Fortune 500 HR departments will never adopt them. Large employers are more worried about liability from failure than success from creativity, so let's leave radical hiring to entrepreneurs. His point about hiring people who've been bullied is intriguing. Mr. Bushnell argues that bullied people tend to be creative. Maybe the harsh reality of human behavior prompts them to escape into fantasy realms where they can find comfort and success. Think about the stereotypical people who attend comic book shows, sci-fi conventions, Burning Man, and even Maker Faire. They're the oddballs who don't fit in. More power to them.
I wish I had attended this talk. Arduino is an open-source electronics standard that was all over the Maker Faire expo floor. One theme among several other platform speakers scattered around the expo floor's stages is that there's tremendous room for innovation in small-scale hardware and software, probably more so in software. Makezine has tons of Arduino tutorials for amateur users who want to make their own control systems.
I missed this talk but it sure looks like a revolution from where I'm sitting. No one knows where any of this is going and that's great. Where it all goes is up to you, reader.
The expo floor was geek heaven with something for everyone. I saw some practical uses for concepts I've only heard about in talks. Mechatronics designers were showcasing their applications. A lot of mechatronics borrowed heavily from traditional robotics but the field cries out for more than a hobbyist perspective. I think combining autonomous mechatronics robots with Arduino-based SCADA devices will enable an armada of reprogrammable arrays. I can think of some military applications, but I won't discuss them here.
Fleets of devices and control nodes are giving rise to ubiquitous computing (UBICOMP) and the Internet of things (IOT). Those autonomous devices will be linked via UBICOMP/IOT to clouds full of Big Data audit trails that can be mined for patterns and behavioral preferences. The Brave New World of all-encompassing monitoring kind of snuck up on civilization without any notice or popular debate. There's no going back.
I noticed flyers for SupplyBetter, a comparison shopping portal that brings 3D printing into a customer's logistics chain. I've been involved in logistics for two decades and the movement toward outsourcing of third-party logistics services was settled years ago. The customization of logistics is the next step.
The maker movement isn't just about mechanical devices and computer software. Biohacking is another vector in the movement and a small number of practitioners are working on biological innovation under the radar. I won't mention the connections and ideas I discovered here because I need to use them to launch something proprietary in stealth mode. I'll just have to say that splicing genes isn't just for big labs anymore.
The expo floor wasn't the only place where I acquired wisdom applicable to biology. The homegrown movement had a whole barn to themselves, with talks for aspiring micro-farmers. The UC Master Gardener Program was there and they're looking for volunteer participants. I think they could benefit from experts in aquaponics and permaculture.
There were tons of hot women at Maker Faire. The steampunk chicks were not always my type but some were cute. I was particularly pleased to see lots of attractive women manning the exhibit booths in the main expo hall. STEM chicks are hot and I'm really fond of nerdy women. I was disappointed that they weren't all over me but I can understand that they needed to stay focused on their faire duties. I find women who combine intelligence and creativity to be irresistable, especially on a hot summer day in the Bay Area when they're wearing tank tops and cutoff shorts.
Maker Faire was totally awesome. I've been looking for something like this all of my life. I will definitely return next year.
Full disclosure: No positions in any companies mentioned.
Addendum: The company that performed the graphic recording at the Center Stage is ImageThink in New York City. They do great work at many events. All of their graphic art from Maker Faire Bay Area 2013 is displayed on their Facebook page.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
The Haiku of Finance for 05/18/13
Small scale tech progress
DIY tools and concepts
Make it happen now
DIY tools and concepts
Make it happen now
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