Week 19

Reading

Value Creation by Toolkits for User Innovation and Design: The Case of the Watch Market
Nikolaus Franke, Frank Piller. This is a good read, it highlights the areas of tool kits, their development, their use and the fact that there is added value from this. These magic tool kits also highlight design value and the area that helps define open design. Designers need to engage with these tool kits to create constraints for the user.

Key research issues in user interaction with user toolkits in a mass customisation system
Whilst Mass customisation is not something that I find directly interesting it has a tremendous value. It is able to look at the wider picture, but I am more interested in the tailoring that you can achieve with open design.

Peeling apples, prototyping design experiments as research Great for research methodology.

Magical Bits: designing through experiencing the future end product Great for the definition of 'end product'.
Unlocking the Design Potential of Rapid Manufacturing Some great design rules that RM (rapid manufacture) opens up for us as designers, the fundamentals. Also people have to remember that this is a great tool but one still needs to know when to use it, this is more important! good for getting some more open thoughts.

The future of making, Institute for the future A great publication as ever, these are the people that I try and keep an eye on, they are insightful, intelligent and very interesting at communicating information.

Doing/Talking
Quite a few meetings with the Artefact cafe project, thinking about an exhibition etc. I have also started playing with Gadgeteer... This seems to be a powerful tool that I am starting to learn... watch this space.

I have received a number of probes back that are getting more and more interesting by the day. on people definition of 'making'. These are getting more abstract by the day... great!