Let’s start with the theme.  I had a chance to talk to a few random people at the conference about DIY, and they weren’t too sure about having such a narrow conference theme.  I suspect that a lot of designers couldn’t directly relate to the theme.  As a result, attendees were surprisingly appreciative of the presentations by non-designers.  It was a refreshing perspective that you don’t get from all of the designer eye-candy.

Speaking of eye-candy, I was a little taken that even though the theme was DIY, there was not a focus on process.  I suppose I can only speak for myself, but I think that several presentations (e.g. Michael Czysz) could have benefited from more emphasis on the development process.  The thought processes and development imagery could have helped the audience really relate to the speakers’ presentation.

The real biggie here, though, is the concept of DIY.  I don’t think there was ever a time that all of the speakers, or audience for that matter, had a consensus on the definition.  That might be a positive aspect, in that we were able to see what it meant to each of them, but it was hard to put all of the content on a level playing field.  I did, however, find myself able to identify with certain aspects of DIY that I might not have if DIY was given a finite dimension.

Next year, I hope to hear some engaging (and relevant) speakers that will really inspire us post-conference.  It wouldn’t hurt to have some better seating either.

Martijn van Tilburg gave a really wonderful talk about an iterative, DIY process.  Like many of the other speakers at the conference, DIY is a side endeavor.  In the presentation, Martijn gave us a great view of a project he was working on in his free time.  He had been developing a CNC manufactured gender neutral doll house.  He explained that instead of using other manufacturing processes, he chose CNC as a way to scale production in a translatable way.  With CNC, he is able to develop his product (tool paths, material choices, and bit type) and use it anywhere there is an appropriately sized CNC machine.  The emphasis of his presentation was on the iterative design process.  He was trying to take the design process that is used in software and implement it into a physical product.  Repeating the ideation, concepting, and testing phases was critical to this method.  The idea of doing alpha and beta versions of products was pretty interesting.  Starting on a small scale you could test the overall functionality of the object and move up to a larger scale to test something closer to production.  The end result was a really great product!

From the other end, Intel’s Digital Health Group gave a refreshing presentation about their design process within Intel’s corporate environment.  It was nice to see such an emphasis on ethnography, user research, validation and an overall focus on the true end user.  This presentation was a bit different from the others in that DIY was relative.  For the Digital Health Group, DIY was adapting product design techniques and thinking to a company that manufacturers products that never get sold directly to the end user.

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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).

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Thursday afternoon’s breakout sessions kicked off with a great talk by Thomas Lockwood from the Design Management Institute.  After hearing so much about the DIY culture from the perspective of the individual or artist, it was really refreshing to hear the business perspective.  There was a great slide deck with a lot of content (below).

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