Future of Making Unconference — De-Camp and Decompression

The Future of Making Unconference (https://www.futureofmaking.com/) in Toronto, Canada ran on February 1 and 2, 2020 attracted over 200 attendees from Toronto and southern Ontario, with one participant coming all the way from Montreal to share the love! Hosted by the gracious and welcoming Ontario Science Center and organized by the good folks at Maker Festival Toronto (http://makerfestival.ca/) , the two days generated discussion, reflection, and anticipation for all things Making-related in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) and surrounding cities.

I attended as the representative of New Toronto Makeshore, Toronto’s smallest makerspace. Although New Toronto Makeshore does work with friends and neighbours in the community, it’s mostly just me working away in a very small shop. I was interested in attending to learn more about starting a makerspace as a business: what kinds of models are there, what works, and what doesn’t. It’s a small outfit because I can’t risk over-extending and taking on more debt or commitment than I can pay off. But I still want to run a community makerspace. In the early 20^th century New Toronto was claimed to have the highest value of manufacturing per square mile in North America (source), so there’s a bit of community pride for me representing our gritty and industrious little corner of a 5-million-person metropolis.

The Future of Making Unconference was by invitation only – participants were asked to complete a registration summary from which the organizers selected a group that could be accommodated in the available space and who expressed an interest in line with the Unconference themes. The Unconference format gave participants a chance to drive the conversation and make the conference one we all wanted to be at. With almost 40 sessions in the event schedule to choose from there was a wide range of topics, and “the rule of 2 feet” made it easy for anyone to pop in or out of any session at any time. Discussion groups ranged from 2 or 3 participants up to 20 or more.

The conference organizers did a very good job encouraging everyone to take notes and despite the somewhat chaotic Unconference format, many did. Poster paper and markers were always within arms’ reach and a Google Docs framework organized day-of made it easy to take electronic notes. These became especially valuable days later when reviewing the sessions I missed and putting my thoughts together for this article.

Poster from Unconference showing Makerspace re-useable concepts — Future of Making Unconference session notes on re-usable components of a Makerspace

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Key takeaways from the Future of Making Unconference were: there is a creative, engaged maker community in the GTHA; libraries and schools are facing high demand and trying to juggle the promise of STEAM education with the pressure of delivery; the not-for-profit model is most common, but not uniform – there are some successful maker-y business models that are showing promise; and, there is an interest in the community to engage outside festivals, and to support each other and the growth of the community.

World Cafe at Unconference — Future of Making Unconference running a World Cafe

Here, in no particular order, are the themes and topics that stood out for me from the two days:

Land Acknowledgements

We didn’t open the unconference with a land acknowledgement – as has become the custom for many events in Toronto – but we did close with a recognition of inhabitation and the obligation to be good stewards. There was a recognition that there is a history of 1000s of years of makers on this land. I reflected on how, as Treaty 13 people, can we work to recognize and make space for First Nations, Metis, and Inuit in the Toronto Maker community? There were some comments on First Nations making in the Ryerson environment. I would love to see more representation from and open hands to these communities.

Business: Making Products, Making Businesses

The main reason for me attending the Unconference was to have discussions about creating a viable business. What does a makerspace need to do, how does it need to be structured, what are some of the core requirements of running a makerspace? I wanted to hear and learn from others who have already been in this space for a while. In one of the sessions we used the Business Model Canvas to explore value proposition and the organization of a business. One observation that stood out for me was to know your customer first and determine (your organization’s) value proposition later.

I expected that understanding what the value proposition was would be at the top of the list, but some of the participants who had gone through this before suggested that it is more important to understand who would be interested in paying for a makerspace—or makerspace experience—and only then shifting to understanding what and how they would pay for it.

The discussion also highlighted that there are only about four kinds of business models:

For Profit
Not for Profit
Co-Op
Charity

Knowing this helps target planning and will be very important when talking to, for example, insurance companies and accountants when preparing for tax time. Some of the participants reflected on how difficult it is to get insurance to cover for-profit makerspaces; others highlighted that it is still possible to draw a salary in a not-for-profit model, you just can’t have year-over-year profit (i.e., it must be disbursed).

Business Model Canvas - Makerspaces — A draft idea of a Business Model Canvas for a Makerspace

There were also a few sessions that discussed a maker or makerspace curriculum: what core elements to running a makerspace or maker programming can be re-used? What common activities are repeatable and customizable? How can makers learn from each other and avoid re-inventing the wheel each time a new space is created, or new programming is designed? One area that deserves more investigation is how teachers and librarians can take advantage of makerspaces to augment STEM / STEAM programming that already exists in schools and libraries. STE(A)M is already part of the curriculum, but teachers and librarians are still in need of places to test out making activities before running the sessions: how much glue, and what kind; how do different types of tape affect projects; how much preparation is required for each activity?

Money

Some of the failures and lessons learned included, of course, money and cash-flow. There were a few examples of what can cause a makerspace to run out of money, including wildcard issues like policy or external factors beyond the control of the makerspace, over-reach when designing the service or service offerings, and non-sustainable business models. (One person shared an anecdote of a makerspace that had been using non-licensed software that was eventually discovered, which resulted in a punishing licensing fee.) Although we didn’t talk much about entropy – like when things just lose steam and slowly fall apart – we did talk a bit about the need to avoid volunteer fatigue, and what to do when you need to refresh (or move on) volunteers in your makerspace.

Community

There was a good deal of discussion throughout the Unconference about building and sustaining community. This was a very strong theme and it is clearly a core element of any makerspace; without a community to participate and sustain the makerspace or its activities it is very difficult to keep going under a makerspace model. Transitioning to different business models is possible, but the conversations and notes clearly identified building and sustaining community as a very important aspect of creating a makerspace.

Value

Some of the contributors pointed out that makerspaces can create a product that is more than just a physical space (h/t to Marc-O from FabCity Montreal) – that a makerspace can build a community that extends past the walls of the building. Taking gender, ability, and affluence into account are also important aspects of creating and building community value. Including many different ages, skills, interests, and abilities can also unlock a wide range of markets that can participate and sustain the makerspace including different physical abilities, ethnicities, and financial means. And understanding how different people exist in and move through space can also really help—or harm—your makerspace. For example, some women may feel more comfortable with open sight lines in a makerspace.

Many of the participants were also interested in extending the community connections past the Unconference and refreshing an intra-maker community for the GTHA and southern Ontario.

Educators, Librarians, and Museums (like the Ontario Science Centre!) were, predictably, recurring themes for the Unconference. The OSC noted that it is looking to be a museum that attracts more makers, and that it is interested in building relationships with making organizations. One really cool idea was to have makers come and play in the museum space and to turn the museum into a living installation that interacts with participants and visitors.

Additional sessions included discussions on:

Cutting Edge Technology and the Future of 3D printing
Makers and making music
Making as/for Social justice
- Diversity and Inclusion and ~~Women~~ Feminist Manifest-No
Philosophy of Making
Principles of Design
Maker Curriculum

Privacy and Making

One area that we didn’t get into much but that stood out for me as a privacy wonk and sometimes-practitioner was the issue of Privacy & Making. Privacy and making could be its own topic all together, and perhaps a future post on this space will go into greater detail. In the meantime, the most recent issue of Make: Magazine (Lock It Down, Volume 72, Spring 2020) looks at Private-by-Design DIY projects to hack on-the-market consumer products present risks to privacy.

People standing listening to a speaker in an Unconference — Closing Remarks for the Future of Making Unconference in Toronto

Etc.

Finally, there was a follow-up about pop-ups from Culture House (http://culturehouse.cc/) and the free, open-source how-to manual (http://culturehouse.cc/manual.html) for turning vacant store fronts in to pop-up community hubs.

Thanks to all the Future of Making Unconference organizers and participants for a rich and rewarding two-days to warm up the middle of winter!