Week 13 (Probes flying out)

Reading
Hacking, Mashing, Gluing: Understanding opportunistic design, Bjorn Hartmann, Scott Doorley and Scott R. Klemmer. A series of interviews with different sets of designers, industrial, UX etc. Interesting, It highlights several of the motivations, In the main the are looking at how people approach this subject.
Media Communication, Consumption and Use: The Changing Role of the Designer, Cruickshank and Evans. This is mainly in the domain of Media and Content and how it has been driven. There are interesting points about Customatix a shoe custom shoe (2001-2004) company and how they failed unfortunately because the thinking was better than the technology.
Digital crafting and crafting the digital, Cathy Treadaway. Really interesting interviews and case studies that are all based in the inkjet world of textiles and how digital tools have evolved this domain.
Democratizing innovation, E Von Hippel. So far it is very logical, this is defiantly on the reading list for open design. There are different thoughts as to why people make things for themselves... cost? It is a reading in progress but it is definitely of interest and should be read by all that are looking at open design

Doing
More and more people are getting involved in the probes so they are flying out. I will post when they start to come back, now I have bee keepers, archaeologists, bushcraft woodsmen, gardeners and bird watchers. It is more the practical applications of their interests that hold my attention. Went to a conference held by Creative Barcode talking about open innovation, this is an interesting topic, I am not sure how many academics use it, I would suggest that it is engaging with collaborations.was good to go to 'Does additive Manufacturing provide increased design freedom'? at the RCA. I think that the people there were more interesting than the event, but still, it was a worthy trip. There have been some Probes that have come back but you will have to wait for next week.

Thinking
I am continuously asked my research question, this is something that is developing in many guises previously I was thinking 'how would open design affect disparate groups'?. More and more I see the limitations of open design, also who it is actually for which is more important. The questions that I am thinking deeper about are:
What are the limitations of open design?
Who would and wouldn't use open design?
What are the positive and negative affects of open design?... More will follow.

Talking
Had a really good chat with design swarm a very interesting company. Met with Dave Chatting a really interesting interaction designer.