Friday morning proved to be quite interesting after having a day to think about what it all means. We were fortunate enough to have some fantastic speakers. Though their presentations varied wildly, in relation to DIY, the panel discussion afterwards brought it all together.
Dale Dougherty, of MAKE Magazine, gave a very inspiring talk that explained what DIY meant to him. The passion and pleasure that he derives from DIY was so apparent by his body language. Every sentence was spoken with a smile and an endearing tone. I, personally, was surprised by the effect it had on the audience. During part of the talk, he played a video clip of the children’s section of the Maker’s Faire in Detriot. There was no exciting music, thoughtful narration, or comments given during the video, but it was able to earn a very hearty applause from the audience. I think people really cherished how genuine his perspective was surrounding DIY culture. Throughout his talk, the emphasis was on education, sharing, communication, and openness.
Buzz Kross, of Autodesk, came to the stage with a slightly different approach. After a few slides that tried to position beautification in Industry (think bucket loaders) as DIY, Buzz delivered an unenthusiastic presentation from 2008. I’m fairly certain that I’ve seen most of this presentation given at IDSA 2008 in Phoenix and at IDSA Midwest in 2009. A majority of his presentation was spent preaching to the choir about design process and tools that are available currently. There was one preview of an iPad app, though. However, it was merely eye-candy being played off as fluid dynamics for the masses (I’m not sure about the usefulness of the tool).
Michael Czysz, of Motoczysz and Architropolis, gave received a polarizing presentation interview to round off the morning. I will warn you ahead of time that I feel quite critical of his content. After mentioning that he “didn’t want to do the podium thing”, we watched as he was interviewed by a rather eccentric individual. There was little coverage of the development and ideology behind his acclaimed electric bike. Instead, we witnessed an ego that was out of place for the venue. There was significant disconnect from the “traditional” interpretation of DIY. From Michael’s perspective, DIY was synonymous with entrepreneurship. Personally, I must differentiate between an individual with access to finances and high-tech resources from that person that is using found materials and limited access to manufacturing/assembly processes. It is difficult to be convinced that a project with a development budget in excess of one million dollars and access to rapid prototyping (CNC and 3D printing) can be considered DIY.
During the panel discussion, there was some obvious disagreement and open debate. It was clear by the body language, finger pointing (in a literal sense), and head shaking that the comments were being heavily filtered prior to exiting their respective mouths. One of the really interesting moments included a significant disagreement between Dale Dougherty and Michael Czysz regarding open and closed platforms. Unfortunately, time did not allow the panel to get into great detail, but it would have been a really interesting debate between the three. From a critical perspective, this was probably one of the most interesting sessions to attend, but not the most valuable or eye-opening (except for Dale Dougherty’s presentation).
Faraz, great points. I really couldn’t have agreed with you more about Friday’s talks. I left Portland just wishing that one of the keynotes had tried to step back and frame up just what DIY (or preferably, some other more inclusive and accurate term) was all about and just how everything the conference would showcase fit it. While I did some of it for myself, generally, it’s hard to put some 12-year old making popsicle-stick purses in the same ballpark as Intel’s health care design group (who says they use a “DIY ethos”). I was also disappointed to see what I thought were some obvious ommissions – like participatory design research or crowd-sourcing being done by big business (e.g., P&G, Starbucks). And, generally, too infrequently I left a session wondering what I was supposed to have taken away – that, I admit, is the presenter’s fault, not the conference’s.