Inventing that Helps Tiny Businesses
This web site is a gathering place for people that have a passion for innovation or invention of new “stuff”, that is very novel and efficient at small scales of operation – such as operating inside ones garage.
As a community we try to:
a) Create new technologies that have potential for people to add their labor along a supply chain, then sell their resulting product or service. In this way people can get new work opportunities.
b). Create a lot of novelty. Within the market place any particular resulting invention or solution is perceived as something very new and different.
c). Reduce the upfront capital costs that burden an individual, so more people can afford the new solution or technology
d) Insure that people wanting access to new small scale technologies actually get tangible “stuff” into their hands, including relevant training.
This web site is also a novel experiment in group formation. You are warmly invited to participate. By forming a larger group of like minded people that actively participate, the hope is that we can execute projects that would otherwise not happen.
By “participation” we mean that anybody can contribute – that means you! For example right now, by clicking on the “edit button” on this page, you can change or add to this text, that you are currently reading.
You might wonder, “but then anybody can write whatever they want!” – that’s the point. Give it a try and watch as this process unfolds, we think you will be pleasantly surprised. And don’t worry about making a mistake – they are easily fixed. Also don’t worry about changing somebody else’s content, it is never really lost. In effect “the group” works collaboratively on the content that is produced.
An important objective of this group formation experiment is to demonstrate that we can do more than just “talk” – but rather execute important projects that cost money and resources.
As people provide their thoughts, ideas, and input this will hopefully gravitate to points where we can use a new automated censuses tool, and via this new tool gain consensus on various issues faster, to facilitate faster project progress.
Below is the link to one entity, the "Fab Lab" community, that is already working on small scale innovation. We warmly invite all of those in the Fab Lab community to use this space to share your thoughts and collaborate "on-line":
- Is this going to be the portal page for Small Scale Innovation? Or is there some other name for that main jumping off page?
Brandon CS Sanders
I changed the name to the above because I think it is more descriptive of the underlying intent. Brandon, I note and thank you for your great process suggestions below, and I will try to do this as my time allows. Also trying to schedule a meeting with the founder of “Cambrian House”, the “IBESI like” link you recently sent, to see where it might lead MartinPfahler
Next
Metric: Amount and Quality of Small Scale Innovation Content
- Create AboutUs pages for all of the key participants (organizations and individuals), ensure that they are richly interlinked
- Choose three participants that are of medium importance to practice on
- Begin collecting information about them on publishing it on their AboutUs pages
- Interview them to find out what they are working on and publish a synthesis on the appropriate AboutUs page
- Invite them to edit the synthesis you created ... pair with them on the phone while they do it
- Ask them whether there are issues that they need agreement on in order to proceed with their work
Metric: Number of Small Scale Innovation Participants at each level of engagement
- Know about their page on aboutus
- Have an account and have edited their page on aboutus
- Regularly edit pages on aboutus including pages that are not their own
- Have participated in a collaborative decision making process
- Have initiated and facilitated a collaborative decision making process to successful completion
Process issue
Perhaps there is an inherent process problem? Aboutus process modes of content creation would seem to work very well if lots of people are already doing “something” of relevance. For example at the Lasik Portal one deals with this topic, and there is already lots of ongoing Lasik activity, so lots of potential content to post.
In stark contrast there are very few if any (that I can find) that are specifically currently doing “Inventing that Helps Tiny Businesses” (meaning inventing for other than their own business), and I suspect the reason for this, is that it is currently so tough to gain funding for such R&D projects. So perhaps this subject matter makes for a weak Portal, simply due to inherent lack of rich content?
In any case I’ll keep plugging away at adding content when I get the chance. MartinPfahler
