FabLab Community Building
As part of a guest lecture on supporting knowledge work in complex environments and creating circumstances for community building, I worked with a group of students ‘concept and product design’ in the last month. We used FabLab as a case.
I asked the students to come up with both on- and off-line elements to help strengthen the global network of FabLab, and stimulate community forming.
Dutch FabLabs as Accelerator
The Netherlands has a large density of FabLab initiatives (3 operational labs, about 5 in various stages of development, all within 2.5 hrs driving distance). This gives us unique opportunities. Globally the FabLab network is highly fragmented. As FabLabs are started, especially if its a completely local initiative, they are focussed on bootstrapping themselves into existence, not on connecting to the outside world. The high density of labs in the Netherlands allows us however to connect people and FabLabs much more easily. First having a number of FabLabs within close vicinity allows experiments in community building basically ‘locally’, without the need to do everything at a global scale immediately. Second the high density creates an ‘acceleration room’, it is the ‘city’ in the FabLab landscape, allowing quick iterations of those different experiments in community building. Successful community building efforts can then be offered to other FabLabs worldwide, or attract attention by themselves from the wider FabLab network.
Existing Building Blocks
Of course there are already all kinds of things going on. To name a few:
The Dutch FabLabs are building a sharing platform, allowing different FabLabs to interact and share both content and user accounts easily;
FabLab Academy is being set-up, which is a collective educational programme coordinated by MIT;
There is a (almost) yearly FabLab conference, the next one coming August in Pune, India;
A number of FabLabs use a collective video-conferencing system.
Challenges
There are also challenges that will play a role when scaling up efforts to the global FabLab network:
Because FabLabs work locally, they are all firmly rooted in their own context, character and language. While this is a rich source of diversity, making global sharing of knowledge and designs more valuable, it also means there is little in terms of shared language, shared branding and iconography;
Access to enough bandwith or even internet itself is not guaranteed for each FabLab. This may imply having local copies of e.g. information, with periodical synchronization, or at the least more asynchronous communication;
FabLab challenges conventional notions of production. It brings industrial machinery in the hands of individuals. The ‘otherness’ of the concept is a source of attraction but may mean it’s actually harder to explain to others, before you have ‘proof’ of what it can mean.
Students trying out FabLab
Suggested Ideas
Most of the students handled the assignment well. What turned out to be very important is that a group of them visited the FabLab in Utrecht, Protospace, to experience first hand what a FabLab is, as well as see the machines and video conferencing equipment working. Those that visited Protospace did a whole lot better than those that didn’t.
Some of the ideas that were generated:
– Global single sign-on for FabLab users;
– FabTube, video tutorials;
– FabCases, instructables;
– A credit system (valid in every FabLab, you get credit for sharing things e.g.);
– Cases, workshops etc. with local companies;
– FabTalks, TED-like talks streamed on video;
– Fab Awards, yearly awards for great FabLab projects;
– Consistent use of recognizable visual elements throughout;
– Text only version of information, or stand-alone wiki’s on a stick;
– FabLab staff presented in person on websites;
– Connecting FabLab staff worldwide on shared expertise;
– Have a person in each FabLab focussing on/stimulating sharing with the FabLab network;
– Connecting those sharing-focussed people;
– Build contacts with local companies, higher-ed institutions, schools for workshop etc;
– Fab Elections: people nominate projects. Yearly award session in different FabLab each time;
– FabBook, a yearbook with sections by each FabLab. Some page maybe a design e.g. Book can be on reading tables, and on USB-sticks;
Students generating ideas
It’s a nice mix of both on- and offline elements. For the most part they can be implemented among the Dutch FabLabs first, without making later wider roll-out difficult. Especially the book and the credit system are interesting, but when put together in the mix of other things suggested. We’ll definitely start working on these ideas after the summer.
I really like the idea of a credit system. That is to say that I especially believe in a FabLab
@Frank I totally agree, diversity is a huge asset. It is a prerequisite to be able to change and innovate on ideas and designs.
As to the global single sign-in, I need to clarify the idea a bit. It’s not about authentication (OpenID would be good for that I agree), but meant as a way to have your project stuff available when you go to a different FabLab. Say, I created a project workspace at FabLab Amsterdam, but then for the next step of it I use the FabLab in Barcelona or Utrecht. It would be great if you could have access to the same material regardless of location. My choice of words in the posting is cause for confusion.
As to the credit system, I already started calling them ‘FabCreds’ in my mind (creds meaning credibility/reputation first, credits second). LETS came to my mind too. I know a few things about designing system params for currency in a way it builds community rather than monetizes interaction. Having something that isn’t based on scarcity, and has the same ‘buying power’ throughout the whole FabLab network can indeed strengthen relationships, as it puts everybody in the network at the same level of ‘economic power’. Will send you some of the notes I quickly jotted down. Hard to implement? Perhaps not. If we start it small (with the working labs here in NL), we can scale it up afterwards. The tricky bit is having one or more functioning clearing houses, if we need them.
@Ton, I
Thanks Frank, for jumping into the discussion.
re: single sign-on
Please bear in mind I am not using single sign on as a technical term here, so your point about web based access to your material coincides with what I envision. I think I am after several other effects as well. One is ‘feeling at home’ when you visit another FabLab, meaning being able to access your own stuff within the context of the FabLab you are in. A context that can interact with your stuff.
Two is ‘feeling of belonging’, knowing you have an account that will work in every other FabLab makes you aware of being part of the whole. Even if you never go to another lab, it is an important signal that for each individual the scope is the entire FabLab network. It is a way FabLabs as organisations can signal core values like openness, sharing etc. It is ‘walking the talk’. So that individual users of labs make up the global FabLab network, not just the labs as it is mostly now.
Three is ‘sharing knowledge’. I would like it to be really easy to go into another FabLab, working on stuff I started elsewhere, and have my work in that other FabLab be turned into example projects, tutorials, help files etc at their place as well. Fitting my work seamlessly into theirs.
re: Fab Cred as status indicator
I think it is very important to have explicit acknowledgment and recognition within the network of reputation and achievement. Because of the high fragmentation of the network as it is now, and because a lot of the material that we would normally use for e.g. my/your personal assessment of your/my reputation might very well be in a language we cannot read. But also because of how important it is in human interaction in groups to have your contributions acknowledged explicitly at group level. It’s not enough to just know you love someone, you have to tell that person every now and then that you do, and be willing to tell others you do. It is an aspect of human society since forever, and doing it in a constructive way (to include people, not to exclude others, building elites) is a fundamental aspect of community building as well to my mind. Fab Cred may be one of the ways of making recognition explicit.
re: FabLabs as ‘banks’ in FabCred
Several things come into play here. Actively inviting people in, is a key aspect of community building. One of the ways you can actively invite people to engage more is by starting them out with a small number of credits. We are used to live in fiat currency systems where going below zero is ‘bad’. So telling people you can spend before you have has little effect (I’ve seen it time and again in a LETS system I was involved in). When you ‘give’ people credit they instinctively know immediately what it means (we are taking a risk first by giving something to you) and what it is an invitation for (to engage more actively). You can tell them just start spending is the same thing, which on the surface it is, but on a deeper level it is completely different.
Second, in a LETS system I was active in, I saw that the group was reluctant to ‘create’ ‘currency’ for collective things (like the board of the association ‘paying’ people for doing group focussed tasks such as making and distributing the monthly newsletter, as opposed to the usual one-on-one transactions). They started worrying (without cause) that the ‘club’ was running into ‘debt’, and in the end created budgets and LETS-contributions to cover those ‘expenses’. I see the total of what the ‘club’ brings into circulation by asking/rewarding people to work on things that benefit the group (and not just one-on-one transactions) as a measure of community effort. (Cathedral building in a number of ways is the same thing) So I am not proposing to make a FabLab the ‘bank’ but do propose it can enter into transactions for the benefit of the group/network without ever having to worry about their ‘account’. To counteract our intuitive ‘resistance’ to this, there can be some ways in which people can ‘pay’ for things towards a FabLab.
re: clearing house
A clearing house is needed insofar we need a way to establish across the entire network what number of creds are held by whom, as well as the reputation aspect of it. Every LETS system that doesn’t rely on ‘printed tokens’ of some sort (which in our setting would be impractical I think anyway) in the end needs a clearing house, not to agree transactions, but to keep track of them and people’s ‘accounts’ in a way that all those involved trust to be accurate. Another way could be having seperate LETS systems in different places that accept each others creds. But that may be more complex than the complexity it tries to solve.
I am approaching all these ideas as ways to strengthen and create community first. Based on my experience in facilitating change in complex environments I favor many small experiments above trying one big one. The former is a much more agile (and fun!) way of getting where we want to be, the latter is mostly a guarantee for failure. So let’s start a bunch of these things small within the Dutch FabLabs, see what works and what needs improvement, or what doesn’t work, and let that inform the next step and set of experiments.
Also none of these ideas are meant as ’the one thing we do to achieve x or y’. All of them are meant as ‘one of the multiple things we do to increase the likelihood of x or y happening’. Community building is not a lineair cause and effect environment, so our actions cannot be designed that way either.
A quick and _dirty_ reaction because of a lack of time, although these matters are almost too important to give feedback without enough thought.
re: re: *single sign-on*
I understand the points you
re: re: re: single sign-on
I think it can contribute to feeling part of a bigger whole (i.e. the community), being aware this global community exists, even if you don’t travel (so saying you can go everywhere is every bit as important as actually making it technically possible). I think it can help make you feel not like a guest or a visitor when you do travel, but simply as someone using our collective infrastructure in a different place with new faces around you. The ‘return’ for the fablab visited is the sharing bit is made easy as well.
re:re:re: Fab Cred as status indicator
Yes, now I see what you mean. That is something not covered in my notes yet, we need to think that through. I had the idea of having credibility count as credit somehow. In LETS creds are created in/by transactions. Status is created by activity that could be or not be transactions. So we need to a way to combine them if we want to follow my original idea (because I think being able to translate reputation into tangible ‘benefits’ as well can be a powerful thing in a meritocratic environment). It could be that the FabLabs step in as the counterpart to make certain activities/actions into de facto transactions with the community as a whole.
re:re: re: FabLabs as
Addendum:
Adding people to fringe of a group by inviting them in, is of benefit to the group as a whole (bringing in new perspectives, more diversity, more knowledge, more volume). Which makes it a clear task for FabLabs if we give them the role of ’trading partner for the good of the group’ in a LETS-like system. Benefit is then not ‘calculated’ on a per transaction/person basis. (“New member X never turned up again after 3 weeks, what a waste ouf our 50 creds”) but over the whole. (“This year we had 35 active new members in our community, what a good result for ‘spending’ 2000 creds”)