The Inventprod Citizen Workshop concept is simple.

  • Workshops are needed so people can put back the physical
    into their increasingly digital lives.
  • The next steps in tech are going to be very physical,
    sensory, robotic, virtual and geo-related, so workshops are
    important nodes for all that.
  • Public input is increasingly important because innovation
    can't be done in limbo. Workshops connect to the public.
  • Workshops are cheap and easy to create, with good social
    and educational returns at all ages.
  • Workshops are great add-ons for existing municipal and
    corporate activities.
  • In-sourcing is the new hot.
  • We can travel all round Europe to promote the idea, town by
    town, on a bootstrap budget, crashing at local makers.
  • We can use viral and other low-cost media events to make
    the idea known.
  • Sponsors can help with the road-trips and events, add their
    own requirements, get the feedback metrics they want.
  • With low overhead costs, and a flat peer-to-peer self-
    managing structure.
  • Formed into a network, workshops are far more intelligent
    and visible. And they become a brand.
  • Network management is 100% distributed/nomadic. This is
    bull's-eye in the new-economy business model.

So let's aim for 10'000 workshops worldwide by 2015. It doesn't
need any new technology. We can just go out and do it right
now. So let's do it.

We've done the digital internet, which created a huge peer-to-
peer open-source brain. Now let's do the physical internet.  

In 10 years, workshop members will look back on us and call us
the 'social-punk' generation, like we call our ancestors
'cyberpunk' or 'steam-punk'. The words "online, offline,
computer, desk" will have become meaningless. But...
lifestyles will also have integrated many Zero Design
constraints. We'll need far less stuff. Much of it will be
'insourced' and made locally again, near where it's used. Much
of our regional transportation will be collaborative, multi-modal
and pervasive. Personal micro-transportation will be portable
and smart, just as phones became.

Seen from 10 years in the future, we look pretty dumb today.
Most of our tech is still tethered and sensorily non-
collaborative. Silos are everywhere. Huge capacities are
squandered. Huge resources are pointlessly destroyed.

Let's try to be smarter than that. Just one of the challenges of
citizen workshops.


The 1990s were about "MANAGING
THE DIGITAL".

The 2000s were about "MANAGING
THE CYBERIAL".

The 2010s are about "MANAGING THE
PHYSICAL".

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY "PHYSICAL" ??

1. DIGITAL physicality ?
The internet overcame the problem of digital distance. But
video, typing and travel are still slowing us all down at the
moment - users are captives of the other person's agenda and
can't react in real-time. Most of our sensory abilities are not
being used. Everything we do is sedentary. Interactive remote
swarming is non-existent.

2. VIRTUAL physicality ?
For example two workshops in two different cities working in
real-time in the "same room", virtually, thanks to 3-D sensory
environments.
We need a large common space in each workshop where we
can generate a real-time 3-D multi-sensory VR environment
that can be merged with the equivalent environment in
another workshop. This composite environment can then be
virtually "inhabited" by people from both (or more) workshops,
as if they are all in the same room. Today we're starting to see
swarms of swarm-bots and batbots and wearable widgets that
can capture and re-constitute such an environment, and
modify it in real-time. They just need equipping for...
  • Image
  • Sound
  • Taste
  • Smell
  • Touch
  • Balance and acceleration
  • Temperature
  • Positioning
    Many of these sensors will anyway become part of our on-body
    devices soon. Multi-sensory communication is a quantum leap
    faster than our today's old-fashioned typing and photo/video
    internet functionalities.

    The above is the 'easy' part and all the technology already
    exists, if as yet unfocused. The hard part is next - the physical
    part.

    3. PHYSICAL physicality ?
    Even with "virtual physicality" as above, and until tele-
    portation is developed, frequent physical body-travel will be
    required between our workshops by mentors and members.
    Our members will be developing improved methods for
    collaborative and individual body-travelling, within
    Inventprod's "Zero Design" constraint matrix to optimize zero-
    carbon, zero-cost, zero-waste, zero-footprint, zero-silo, zero-
    gatekeeper, maxi-flexibility, maxi-conviviality, and maxi-
    culturality. And if you know what all that means, please let us
    know.

    All-round virtual sensing, plus far more efficient body-travel, all
    networked, should create a very synergetic animal.



WHAT ELSE IS PHYSICAL ?

Europe has immense energy reserves. What ??

This is where the entrepreneurial opportunities of the next 10
years lie.

1. Zillions of empty spare seats in cars being driven around for
nothing.
2. Zillions of brain-hours being used to prevent those cars
from bumping into each other.
3. Zillions of houses/appartments with spare empty rooms
being built and heated. Zillions of suburban gardens m2 lying
unused except to be mowed.
4. Zillions of kilowatts being used to light spaces where a few
diodes are enough.
5. Zillions of cheapo throw-away clothes being imported and
trucked around because no one has re-thought clothing since
1700. People now buy clothes along with the vegetables.
6. Zillions of soul-less consumer "stuff" being bought when re-
designing most purchases with a self-made component could
lead to an emotionally fulfilling personal experience, with the
satisfaction of having solved a problem or made something
oneself or locally or ecologically.
    7. Zillions of monolithic silo industries trying desperately to
    save their existing vampiric business models, when just a
    touch of inter-modal design thinking could create solutions for
    one zillionth of the price.
    8. Zillions of national brain hours spent by serious creative
    people in each country on kafkaesque slash ubuesque
    bureaucratic procedures.

There's plenty more to add to the list.
Europe is probably functioning at 20% of it's potential capacity
and ability.
It's embarrassing.
And we're supposed to be smart ?

So we got work.


80'000 BC
Some hunters in Africa learned to make clicking
sounds and invented technical collaboration.

1466
Leonardo da Vinci got his first workshop job at age
14 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy and learned drafting,
chemistry, metallurgy, metal working, plaster casting,
leather working, mechanics and carpentry as well as
the artistic skills of drawing, painting, sculpting and
modelling. He then did a number of projects.

1492
Columbus had this project that needed a few boats.

1564
Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa, Tuscany, Italy. He
had a few projects, like inventing modern science.

1800-1900s
Some people invented electricity, radio, TV, penicillin
and stuff.

Then came Inventprod - this workshop below
was a prototype...

1996
InventProd workshop "Venture Zone" opened near
Geneva, Switzerland. It had the first private T-1
internet cable, Xerox professional graphics printing,
a coffee-bar and fridge for hanging out, hot-desks,
and was used by job-seekers, SOHOs looking for
love, startups looking for mentors, students and
apprentices needing career tips, foreigners learning
a language, retirees looking for a place to be useful
and teens needing to repair stuff. It provided tools
and huge tables and work-benches for inventors and
hobbyists who wanted to build all sorts of new
contraptions. Some great machines and robots were
prototyped here, maybe inspired by local sci-tech
vibes and funny clicking noises from the CERN
particle-accelerator underground and Tim
Berners-Lee creating the www down the road.

around 2000
New workshop initiatives started in USA and Europe -
"Instructables", "Make", "Dorkbot", "Crucible",
"Resistor", "Arduino", "Forge". "Metalab",
"StreetTech" and others. Today, citizen workshops
are becoming a strong social and technical trend.


2009
Inventprod started to develop a concept for a
network of "citizen workshops".
Which would be like an online social network,
but physically phy-si-cal.
With a sport+entertainment+events layer on
top to interest sponsors and media.
Oh, and zero carbon.


2010
Feel free to join us or start your own. 2010 is
going to be a year of getting the concept
packaged, delivered to cities all over Europe,
personally befriending makers, authorities,
mentors and sponsors, creating excitement
and action from potential users, and building
convivial social momentum for the network.


Why do it ?
Workshops are great for their members and
their city. They are just tremendous fun and
everyone wants to be there. People learn a lot,
especially those who are "resistant to formal
academic environments".

Most workshops are helped by local technical
or business schools and universities. Students
get real-life experience.

Add your name to the Facebook group and
email us.
Then we'll swing through your city and talk with
you about how to start a workshop.
See you soon...

(Oh and by the way, John Logie Baird built the
first working TV with "an old hatbox and a pair
of scissors, some darning needles, a few
bicycle light lenses, a used tea chest, and
sealing wax and glue". Like many technical
breakthroughs, his work was an accumulation
of work by many people. That's how citizen
workshops work too).
design
(Only read this if you're really bored)
The past
The future