It has been a long time since I built anything. I was trying to think through my last set of projects where I did the “making”.
- Influitive – I started Influitive with Mark Organ (@markorgan) in the fall of 2010. We built the first set of mockups, screen flows, wireframes and prototypes with a very small team. It was a ton of fun, it wasn’t easy, but it was fun.
- Spadina Optometry – I have the unfortunate task of being the cobbler. It’s nothing fancy, Wordrpress on Dreamhost but it’s HTML5, CSS and some PHP to keep me engaged.
- StartupNorth/DemoCamp/Founders & Funders – StartupNorth is a blog, written, primarily, 3 guys about Canadian startups and the issues that affect high tech, high potential growth software/SaaS/mobile/etc. companies in Canada. This was about building connections and helping to facilitate a community in Toronto (and across Canada). But StartupEmpire was in 2008, the last DemoCamp was back in 2011. But no one expects that StartupNorth is set to be a game changing media play, it’s a regional blog about high tech entrepreneurship and emerging business models and technology.
I look at my friends that are all very successful in different ways:
They are all making stuff. Whether it is communities, sensor networks, conferences, software companies, it seems to be about making. And they are not alone:
- Shift Hard to Maker Mode for the Summer by Brad Feld (@bfeld)
- Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule + Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham (@paulg)
What is making?
“MAKE unites, inspires, informs, and entertains a growing community of resourceful people who undertake amazing projects in their backyards, basements, and garages. MAKE celebrates your right to tweak, hack, and bend any technology to your will. The MAKE audience continues to be a growing culture and community that believes in bettering ourselves, our environment, our educational system—our entire world. This is much more than an audience, it’s a worldwide movement that Make is leading—we call it the Maker Movement.” From Make Magazine
When I look back on the projects, activities, and companies I had the most fun being a part of in the past 15 years since grad school, they all involved making. Undertaking projects in “backyards, basements and garages”. Some were successful, others were less successful but just as much, maybe more fun.
I’m starting to think rather than looking for a job, I need to start to look for what I’m going to make.
Time to undertake a new project.
Under-related Resources
- Owner’s Manifesto
- Do it with Others: Maker’s Community Manifesto
- In the Next Industrial Revolution, Atoms are the New Bits
- The Importance of View Source