Mini Research Project
1.) What role does Eyebeam Art + Technology Center, as in entity, fit into the open-source community?
The Eyebeam Art + Technology center is a non-profit art and technology center that was founded in 1997. The main purpose of it is to expose large amounts of people new technology and media art. The Technology center also hosts an education program for young artists to enhance their skills. In addition to that it also offers areas where digital artists and researchers can use tools to create things. The Center is also a place where people can discuss topics and issues related to art and current technology. This Center fits perfectly into the open source community because exposure is what the open source community is ALL about. Broad casting your ideas and expanding your technological knowledge is one of the main things that the open source community supports. The fact that this center actually educates people on how to be more creative and offers people space to converse about their ideas is a plus. The fact that it encourages people to collaborate with others and offers free programs is also a good thing. The Eyebeam Art + Technology Center should have no problem fitting in to the community.
(Eyebeam Personas)
Nick Fox Gieg Linsey Howard
2.) Why is it important that events such the Open Hardware Summit and Maker Faire exist?
The main reason that the Open Hardware Summit is important is because it draws attention to the Open Source Hardware Movement. This event is also important because it offers a large amount of space and time to people who enjoy working with technology to come together and converse. It’s always good for ideas to circulate and be exchanged so that they can evolve and become better. The Open Hardware Summit is a conference where the leaders of some well known technology industries partake in public speeches. The speeches graze over a lot of different subjects but the main ones are electronics and mechanics. Examples of things that would be discussed when they are on these topics include digital fabrication, fashion technology, self qualification devices, DIY bio and a few others. People also get a chance to talk about education, manufacturing, business and design there as well. However these subjects aren’t the only things that people talk about there.
(Presenter) (Presenter)
Shannon Dosemagen Chris Anderson
The Maker Fair event is an event in which people come together to showcase their hand made technological creations. This event is important because like the Open Hardware Summit it gives people a chance to exchange their ideas. It also gives people a chance to show off their talents and possibly be recognized by other companies. This could be a plus because if your invention is seen as beneficial by another company you could be hired or have your invention sold.
(Inventors)
3.) What is the importance of shared intellectual property?
Intellectual Property is any creation or invention that is legal property of the inventor. Luckily there are rights that protect people who create their own inventions and these are known as Intellectual Property rights. They give the creator or creators the ability to publish their work, get a license for their work, market their inventions, sell their inventions and sue any people who try to steal their work. It is important that people share their inventions because they may help other people do things more efficiently. Sharing your work also inspires other people to create and share their own inventions. Not to mention sharing your inventions gives people the chance to tell you their ideas on how you could make your invention better. Some examples of intellectual property would include “Sham WOW”, “OXI Clean” “Snuggle Bug”, “Pillow Pets” and “Kaboom”.
4.) What are some platforms or venues independent designers can use to disseminate and/or re factor their developments?
Well, just about all independent designers start out small at first. For example Billy Mays started off selling his products to random people on the Atlantic City boardwalk. I guess one way that designers would be able to show people their inventions/ideas would be by trying to sell their inventions to regular people on the street to get their opinions. Billy started traveling around the world and selling his products in state fairs. That would probably be another step after you’ve gotten some positive reviews on your product; selling your product in a highly populated area where a lot of people have the opportunity to buy and or see it. After that Billy managed to find a T.V. business man who wanted to hire him to promote his cleaning products. Getting in touch with big business people is always a plus if you are trying to sell an invention you made, especially if it involves being on T.V. Being able to showcase an invention you made on T.V is a great way to become known. Other ways include making your own website or advertisements. Using the internet is also a great way to increase the popularity of your products. Creating your own advertisements whether they are digital or printed on paper is a plus as well. The newspaper is a great place to get your advertisements placed in, considering a lot of people read that.
4.) “Why do so many users develop or modify products for their own use?” ~Eric von Hippel Democratizing Innovation
Mainly because everybody is different so a lot of people use the same thing differently. People like things that fit their needs exactly rather than something that comes pretty close. For example many people have fitted hats but they wear them differently. Some people wear them in such a way that it blocks the sun from their eyes. Some people wear them in such a way that when it rains the water will slide off the front of it and not land in their face. Some people wear it in such a way that the sun light will hit them directly in the face. Some people wear it tilted to the side, just for fashion. There are many other reasons why people wear fitted hats certain ways. However the point is that even though it was the same hat, it was still used in many different ways because people like to change existing things so that they comply with their needs, rather than coming close. Another reason that someone might modify an existing product would be to make it better and easier to use or access. For example some people hack into their game systems/phones to change the colors of certain things and or reorganize files make them easier to get to when the system is turned on. It is less of a hassle to turn on your system or phone and be able to take short cuts to where you want to go. In terms of color, some people just like things in different colors. Even though the machine will still function the same way if the colors were normal.
5.) What is your role in this current landscape
My current role in this landscape is to become a game designer. I want to be able to make my own games from scratch and then sell them. This has been my goal ever since 2010 when I first started hacking games on my Wii. I learned how to animate, recolor and change models. After that my friends played the hacked versions of the games they enjoyed them and encouraged me to continue doing it. That’s when I realized that this is what I enjoyed. Making a game is like being God in sense. You can make anything happen at anytime and in any area you want. You can decide what EVERYTHING looks like and what EVERYTHING does. Although it is very tedious I find it to be very fun to be able to play what you made after it is finished.
(Sponsor) (Sponsor)
Alicia Gibb Andreas Olofsson
2 Closed innovation companies
1.) Nintendo is a closed innovation company because they do not accept ideas from the outside world. They say that they don’t take ideas from the outside because of the overwhelming amount of requests they get and because they wouldn’t have the resources to get them done. They make their own products using the ideas of the people within the company.
2.) Sony is also a closed innovation company, which means they do not accept ideas from the outside world either. However they do not accept ideas because they don’t want to end up being sued in the long run. They don’t want to end up accepting someone else’s idea and then have that person claim that they stole their idea or something like that. It’s better to be safe than sorry. They make their own products using the ideas of the people within the company.
Having a closed innovation based company is helpful to companies in many ways. A closed innovation company is a company that doesn’t accept ideas on how to improve or modify their products from the outside world. Which means the company only uses ideas that are thought of by the people within the company itself. It completely eliminates the chances of getting sued because someone else’s idea was stolen and used without giving them proper credit (from the outside world at least). It’s also one less person to pay. When you only use the ideas from people within your company you only have to pay the people who are IN YOUR COMPANY. Those are some of the main benefits that come with having a closed innovation company. However there are some bad things as well. One of the main things comes with having a closed innovation company is that you’re more likely to miss the key things that people want to be incorporated in your product. This can potentially cause a drop in customers because they aren’t being satisfied by your product anymore. This may or may not put more pressure on the manufacturers to thinks of really good ideas to keep their customers satisfied.
Democratized innovation companies have benefits of their own as well though. Since they get their ideas from people in the outside world they are more likely to please their customers. This also helps them get on a personal level with the people who buy their products because the consumers are telling the company exactly what they want to be modified about the product. However there are some negative things as well. The chances of being sued increases because once you accept someone’s idea from the outside you usually have to give them credit. Unless your like Apple and agree that you won’t get any credit when you submit your ideas. Another small problem may be that the ideas of others may conflict with each other. For example the company may publish a product that included an idea of one of the outside people; but some people don’t like it. Sometimes it may just be better for a company to use their own ideas instead of satisfying one g group of people who like a particular idea.
Your role: You may not think you have one yet, but it is being written. Where would you fit in?
Well as I said before my current role in this landscape is to become a game designer. I want to be able to make my own games from scratch and then sell them. I would probably fit in the video game making industry somewhere. At first I would probably be getting paid to make games for someone else. I would just be a helper who designed someone else’s ideas. However I want to eventually be the person who gives the orders to the people who make the games. Then I would be paying people to make my games.
Dissemination- Means to broadcast a message to the public without direct feedback to an audience.
This is what most new designers do when they want to publicize their invention or creation. One example of this would be hanging up flyers of your creation so a lot of people get a chance to see it. However you most likely won’t direct feedback from the people that saw it unless you leave your contact information on the flyers. The point of this is to get your creation/yourself well known and popular so feed back isn’t really important with this goal in mind.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_innovation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_innovation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_Faire
http://summit.oshwa.org/about-ohs/
