Live notes taken at Jeff Sturges’s Director’s Fellow workshop on January 22, 2015.
Jeff Sturges
ML Director’s fellow and Founder, Mount Elliott Makerspace @jeffsturges
Jeff has many years making and participating and makerspaces. He’s had both successes and failures he’d like to share with us. He sees makerspaces as a big category that includes things like fab labs, grant-funded community spaces, member-run hackerspaces, and commercial/hierarchical groups like TechShop.
When Jeff first started, he tried to do it alone to keep things cheap. He blames his gray hairs on this and suggests working with others. He admires the model used by Maker Works in Ann Arbor, MI. He wishes he’d gone to something like the makerspace bootcamp they offer before he had started.
In Jeff’s experience, the process of starting a makerspace is not linear or circular. He describes it as a spiral, starting with vision, mission, and experience. The most important thing he’s learned is to have an idea of where you want to be years down the line, defined by the “burning souls” who are going to make it happen. Diversity and complimentary personalities are really helpful on these teams. Bringing too many cooks into the kitchen before the vision is defined can alienate people. It’s important to identify contributes who are willing to follow through on their ideas.
Jeff wants to share some of his experiences. At NYC Resistor, a couple people decided to create a hackerspace, and gather 10 people to do it. They started by holding workshops to identify people who would be a good core group. Each of them invited another person.
Comment: When people recruit their friends, it’s easy to reproduce disparities, but curating early members can also be a great time to consciously reach out to a more diverse group at an early stage.
Question: Do you ever hit a point where some people have to “get off the bus”?
Jeff was one of the leaders of Omnicorp Detroit. He didn’t really know the details of how NYC Resistor started.
Question: Why Detroit?
He’d gone to school in Detroit, and appreciated the challenges there.
Jeff cautions against taking consulting roles for projects that only have funding because someone needs to be passionate and drive the project.
At first, OCD didn’t want a mission statement. But eventually, people began to disagree about whether the space was about “sharing and learning” or gathering “cool” people. They had to be more explicit about refining their mission statement, which did leave to some people becoming less involved.
Question: It’s easy to imagine a little planning could solve your problems ahead of time. Would planning a vision at the beginning have saved work?
Jeff says it would be the same amount of work, quotes Outkast: “You can plan a pretty picnic but you can’t predict the weather.”
Jeff advises against focusing on the tools in the beginning. WIthout people, tools gather dust. People feed into projects into space and tools. If you buy tools people will actually use, they can very quickly pay for themselves. He recommends figuring out governance and standard operating procedures as you choose and acquire tools.
Comment: SOPs are permission to use the tools. They tell you when and how you’re allowed.
Maker Works has SOPs for all of their tools. After your initial training, you’re expected to read the SOP as a first step.
Question: Do makerspaces ever behave as accelerators for companies?
Jeff: Yes. Calls makerspaces accidental business incubators. He describes the formation of a company as play to serious play to business formation. Some spaces focus on different parts of this process.
Question: Are there any differences in how to start spaces for people who are already makers and spaces that are educational and youth-focused?
Jeff: It should make a difference. He started without taking a co-design approach, but by asking people for feedback on his idea. He didn’t get enough constructive criticism, and suggests co-design helps drive things in the right direction.
Ed Baafi: Member-driven spaces can be funded by dues and classes, but educational spaces are more often run on grant money. It comes back to vision.
Will: If you work with kids and education, the people you reach out to will be different. Maybe teachers rather than makers.
Jeff: If you have paid positions to teach kids, that’s part of the vision. The LA makerspace is a good example of a space that is funded by adult members but also has a youth education role. If people come to make as a hobby, asking them to lead workshops as an educator is a big ask.
Question: Do you consider yourself an educator?
Jeff: Yes, but it can be difficult to balance teaching and learning with the administrative tasks associated with running a space.
Question: We can create a space without any technology, but tools can bring value. What kind of tools are missing?
Will: Wire strippers that are sized for kids.
Jeff: Jumper cables that kids can use.
Ed Baafi.: Software tools for CAD.
Jeff: Usually the need was for people rather than tools.