For a relatively small membership fee, you can be a part of a local maker community with access to advanced tools and a large pool of knowledge. TechShop is “like a health club with tools and equipment instead of exercise equipment…or a Kinko’s for geeks. Started in Silicon Valley in 2006, TechShop is now expanding to Seattle, Portland, Sacramento, LA, San Diego, Austin, Orlando, and Durham, some locations opening in the summer of 2008, some later.
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A long time ago bottom up development was the only type. People who were using the objects were the ones that were making the improvements on them. This type of development not only prevents alterations of an idea for selfish reasons, but also creates a community around the object itself. The Danish windmill is one of the last, large scale examples of this. Somehow, development of ideas, tools, and products were taken from the open hands of the people and forced into an enclosed room, where the ‘experts’ improve them, then throw them over the wall to the people who pay whatever they are told is the proper price.
Today, I read an article about crowdsourcing. Online collaborative efforts have existed for quite some time and the entire web 2.0 concept exists because of user generated content, but the marriage of the two can have some really interesting repercussions. For example, WEbook is a project that invites online collaborators to come post written material on their site with the hopes of getting published. Users of the site can then vote on the writings and the highest ranked writings will be published in a book. Local Motors uses crowdsourcing to develop cars.