The Refinement Club

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The Filter Bubble – Some ideas

A couple of weeks ago we did a small MassRefinement about The filter bubble and the problem of conformity. We got a couple of ideas, but feel we only scratched the surface. So we've decided to stick with the topic for a while, and meet up with more people to get new perspectives. We hope we can come up with solutions that can help people burst out of their filter bubble and expand their worldview.

Based on our initial talks we divided the problem into two challenges:

How can we create awareness about the filter bubble?

How can I as an Internet user burst or expand my own filter bubble?

We realize that not everybody are aware of the filter bubble and that they probably don’t know that they are surfing on a biased Internet. So first we need to create awareness about it, and then we should try to find ways to help people take things into their own hands.

Some quick ideas from last session:

The Random News Aggregator Most news services cater to your interests and habits. Also, most people tend to visit the same news service again and again. So what if you got the news from a different service every day, completely by chance? You would suddenly get informed on current events from a conservative perspective one day, and from a liberal perspective the other day and so forth.

Or what if there was a news service that just pulls totally random news from around the web and mashes it together into one pile of glorious randomness? Not like Google News, which pulls the most important stuff, but a mix of everything from cats to politics.

That could shake things up.

The Facebook Wall Swap Are you tired of the same boring Facebook wall that just confirms your worldview and never challenges your intellectual beliefs? We are! What about a Facebook wall swap? See Facebook through the eyes of another person. 

The Opposite Most services focus on connecting you to similar people. What if we instead focused on the opposite? People not like you also bought […] Or finding the Facebook friend that you have the least in common with and connect the two of you. So you can start sharing stuff and conversations to get a new perspective.

Short and sweet for a good start. We'll continue next week. Want to join us if you're in Oslo? Contact us on Facebook:

Public page

Group

- Gro & Johannes

[therefinementclub]

MassRefinement #13: The filter bubble and the problem of conformity

The topic of this session is inspired by how our FB Newsfeeds are growing less diverse and how FB are tracking our activity on other sites – which in turn will make our input even more uniform. We believe this is a dangerous development. Our physical lives are often made up of relationships with people that are similar to us and our digital lives could be a very valuable counterweight to potential groupthink.

Instead we see that the similarities are overstated and the differences of opinion are hidden. It happens with our FB Newsfeed and our Google search results. This is especially evident and problematic during serious and tragic events like the ongoing conflict in Gaza. If we’re never exposed to different opinions and everything confirms what we believe, it’s not very strange if we think that everyone feels the same way we do. Then how will we react when we do meet someone who disagrees with us? Will we be able to have an open discussion, or will we shy away from conversation and brand them as deviants not worth our time?

This is why we want to talk about «The filter bubble and the problem of conformity» and our goal for the session is to come up with potential solutions and methods on how to avoid being stuck in a filter bubble.

To get you thinking we've collected some articles and talks we think are worth checking out:

Eli Pariser: Beware online "filter bubbles" (TED-talk):

This TED-talk is over three years old, but sadly it's still relevant.

«[…] And this moves us very quickly toward a world in which the Internet is showing us what it thinks we want to see, but not necessarily what we need to see. As Eric Schmidt said, "It will be very hard for people to watch or consume something that has not in some sense been tailored for them." So I do think this is a problem. And I think, if you take all of these filters together, you take all these algorithms, you get what I call a filter bubble. And your filter bubble is your own personal, unique universe of information that you live in online. And what's in your filter bubble depends on who you are, and it depends on what you do. But the thing is that you don't decide what gets in. And more importantly, you don't actually see what gets edited out. […]

But we really need you to make sure that these algorithms have encoded in them a sense of the public life, a sense of civic responsibility. We need you to make sure that they're transparent enough that we can see what the rules are that determine what gets through our filters. And we need you to give us some control so that we can decide what gets through and what doesn't. Because I think we really need the Internet to be that thing that we all dreamed of it being. We need it to connect us all together. We need it to introduce us to new ideas and new people and different perspectives. And it's not going to do that if it leaves us all isolated in a Web of one.»

Israel, Gaza, War & Data: Social Networks and the Art of Personalizing Propaganda

If you don't have time to read the whole article, you should definitely try this experiment:

«Facebook's trending pages aggregate content that are heavily shared ("trending") across the platform. If you're already logged into Facebook, you'll see a personalized view of the trend, highlighting your friends and their views on the trend. Give it a try.

Now open a separate browser window in incognito mode (Chrome: File->New Incognito Window) and navigate to the same page [copy-paste this: https://www.facebook.com/topic/Gaza/107601032603195]. Since the browser has no idea who you are on Facebook, you'll get the raw, unpersonalized feed.

How are the two different?»

Sweeping Away a Search History

This article from The New York Times gives you some handy tips on how to erase your search history which will, if not pop your filter bubble, at least give you some more space.

«Even with your history turned off, though, you are still sending a lot of personal data when you surf or search from all three, especially if you are logged in to your Google, Microsoft or Yahoo account when you search.

Gabriel Weinberg, chief executive at the alternative search engine DuckDuckGo, says there is a different way, and it can still involve making money from search-related ads.

DuckDuckGo collects no personally identifying information (like your I.P. address) as you search and doesn’t save any search history that can be tied to you. But DuckDuckGo still makes money on ads.»

Check out DuckDuckGo's explanation of the filter bubble at dontbubble.us

Tim Berners-Lee: A Magna Carta for the web (TED-talk):

«What sort of web do you want? I want one which is not fragmented into lots of pieces, as some countries have been suggesting they should do in reaction to recent surveillance. I want a web which has got, for example, is a really good basis for democracy. I want a web where I can use healthcare with privacy and where there's a lot of health data, clinical data is available to scientists to do research. I want a web where the other 60 percent get on board as fast as possible. I want a web which is such a powerful basis for innovation that when something nasty happens, some disaster strikes, that we can respond by building stuff to respond to it very quickly.

So this is just some of the things that I want, from a big list, obviously it's longer. You have your list. I want us to use this 25th anniversary to think about what sort of a web we want. You can go to webat25.org and find some links. There are lots of sites where people have started to put together a Magna Carta, a bill of rights for the web. How about we do that? How about we decide, these are, in a way, becoming fundamental rights, the right to communicate with whom I want. What would be on your list for that Magna Carta? Let's crowdsource a Magna Carta for the web. Let's do that this year. Let's use the energy from the 25th anniversary to crowdsource a Magna Carta to the web. Thank you. And do me a favor, will you? Fight for it for me. Okay? Thanks.»

– Tim Berners-Lee

Inspired? Take action and join Tim Berners-Lee's campaign The Web We Want

We're looking forward to discussing this next week! See you on Wednesday, Aug. 27th at 18:30 – Sørfløyen, Wesselsgate 6b, 0165 Oslo.

[therefinementclub]

Save the date – MassRefinement #13

Hope you all had a great summer, we certainly did! And now it's back to work.

Before the vacation we talked a bit about doing a series of MassRefinements on life hacks, but we weren't quite feeling it. So we discussed a bit and came up with a topic we find very relevant. And it sort of involves life hacking. The topic for MassRefinement #13 is:

The filter bubble and the problem of conformity

In short, our goal for this session is that we come up with solutions and methods that can help us avoid getting stuck in a filter bubble on a personal level, as well as avoid conformity and group think in our society.

To get you inspired beforehand we will share our research and thoughts here and on facebook.

So add MassRefinement #13 to your calendars, we're looking forward to it!

Wednesday, Aug. 27th  at 18:30

New venue: Sørfløyen, Wesselsgate 6B, 0165 Oslo

[therefinementclub]

MassRefinement coming this autumn!

The Bachelor days are over and our focus can shift back from thesis to MassRefinements once again. We've started to plan for autumn and have some MassRefinements in mind, but we would love for you to share desired topics.

We’re also changing venue. Emma Lisa and Maren will host us at their space which is called Sørfløyen. It’s a very nice place, smaller and more informal, and with the perfect atmosphere for discussing and sharing ideas.

Sørfløyen is a open venue where you can host events, happenings, exhibitions, pop-up concepts etc for FREE. Just follow them on Facebook and shoot them a message if you're interested. 

We will keep you posted about the dates and topics for autumn's MassRefinement. Meanwhile you can follow us on Facebook to get some inspiration. 

Gro & Johannes

[therefinementclub]

Have you missed us?

As you may or may not have noticed, we've been quiet since MassRefinement #12 (The Internet of Things part 2). The reason for that is that we've both written our Bachelor theses while working full time, and there simply wasn't time for any refining! It's been a little over a month since we delivered and had our final exhibition, and now we're finally ready to talk about it. The Bachelor program we attended was a supplementary course offered to students who graduated from Westerdals School of Communication the last years before the school became a college. We both attended the Art Direction program from 2006-2009, and chose to write this thesis within marketing. We chose quite different approaches though. Johannes' work was about product innovation as marketing, while Gro wrote about collective intelligence and the internet (and how to save it).

The final delivery was a presentation of concept, idea, strategy etc. including visuals, an academic paper discussing the topic of the concept and an exhibition. Johannes explains his work: «Basically I did an awareness campaign with the aim of getting people to use the woods and the mountains more. People in Norway are pretty outdoorsy, but they tend to go on longer trips at their cabin or during the weekends. Norwegian also exercise a lot, but they do it indoors at gyms. Which is a shame considering the amazing nature surrounding us. That got me thinking: why don't we steal some business from the gyms and get people working out in the woods. The way we were meant to be active. So I made a mobile application that worked as a personal trainer and showed you the way into the woods. Again and again. It was designed around behavioral theories by Robert Cialdini, Charles Duhigg and Sheena Iyengar» Gro explains her work: My criteria for choosing a topic was that I wanted to do something important, since I was going to use so much time and money on getting this degree.

I've had this feeling for a long time that some very exciting things are going to happen with the internet and innovation in general when more and more of Africa comes online. Mobile banking is a great example. So at first I was very excited about making something that would help speed up the development and get more people online faster. You know, so we could get the great new things happening faster. But lately I've been worried about how the web is becoming less and less open, and how that will affect this potential innovation. I was worried that new users might just adopt the bad habits and preconceptions that the old users have, and that they wouldn't be able to contribute with a completely fresh perspective. My idea was that if we somehow could get people online and make brand new internet users without them simply adopting the old users' ways  – they could help fix it and make a new and better open web. So it would be a win-win situation: people who didn't have internet would get internet, and everyone would have the benefit of fresh, new thoughts on how to make it better. Yes, the goal of my so called campaign would be to fix the internet. Gotta think big! I'm a big fan of collaboration and open source/open design, so the idea for achieving this goal was to make a swarm modeled after how Rick Falkvinge formed The Pirate Party. Simply put, a swarm is a large group of people who work independently towards the same goal. It has the potential to become a so called smart group, which is when a group of people achieve collective intelligence and are able to produce better ideas etc than what one single, very intelligent person could.  My "campaign" was a strategy for how to build the swarm and recruit people that could contribute with ideas on how to get people online without involving big companies or states. The thought was that after the new users were capable, the ones who were interested could join the swarm and work on how to make a new and better open web. After I started digging into Pierre Lévy's theory of collective intelligence I realized that my goal was actually to facilitate his goal of the internet, or cyberspace as he called it, being the tool that will help all of humankind to achieve collective intelligence and improve as a species and society. Pretty heavy stuff (my brain felt like a used up wash cloth for days after I was finished). 

In one way I still want to do this, write more about it and engage people. But on the other side, I am still so sick and tired of the topic. But hopefully I will get the energy and drive back in not too long. We'll see!

This summary is very superficial and written from the top of my head, so keep that in mind, but if you find it interesting get in touch

[therefinementclub]

Ideas from MassRefinement #12: The Internet of Things part 2

On Nov. 13th we continued talking about The Internet of Things and it was a great session! Thank you to everyone who joined us, it was a lot of fun.

Our focus was to try to find solutions to problems/situations that annoyed us. A common denominator was queuing, and we talked a lot about how connected devices can help us not waste time.

Getting more things done with the internet of things When you can put a sensor on everything you can also measure anything. You can get notified of things that need to be done when they need to be done. Like when the dust levels of your apartment reaches an undesired level. Or when you should recycle. Or when the dishwasher needs to be emptied. Everything you need to do could be pushed to your phone and notify you through a smart to-do list. The to-do list will give you bite size chores that will make it easier for you to manage to do them, as well as present the consequences of doing it or not doing it. A gamification element can be added to give you the satisfaction of checking the chores off when done.

Your smart housekeeper also keeps track of who’s doing the daily chores. So you finally can settle the argument of who’s doing things around the house.

This could also be expanded to the work space or public areas, to make people get involved and pull together for the common good.

In addition, these sensors could help you avoid wasting time worrying about if you locked the door or turned the oven of!

Downtime Entertainment Standing in line is boring and it would be great if you could use the time waiting for something more productive than glaring into your smartphone. By simply letting people know how long a waiting time they are in for they could use that time for something they find fitting.

In a car queue smart sensors would know some estimated waiting time and your car could suggest some interesting stuff to do. Like listening to a audiobook, or a online class, or just talk to your to-do list to see what you can get done while waiting in the traffic. In Norway this would be excellent for when you have to wait for the ferry (and don't know if you'll get on the first one).

In line for a table at a restaurant you can receive a suggestion for where to get a drink, a cool shop or gallery to check out and kill time while waiting for dinner. And right before your table is ready you get notified that it’s time to head for dinner.

Shopping Smart changing rooms where the mirrors talks to different services online. It could for example warn you of buying something a friend already own and reduce the risk of a dress blunder.

The mirror could hook up to different blogs, and fashion databases to see if you're on trend and find matching accessories and clothes to buy.

The digital mirror may also harvest data about the fit of the clothes suits different people. Which can be very beneficial for online shops and especially online shoppers which can see how the clothes fits on similar looking people.

A smart mirror should also be connected to your friends (or strangers) who can let you know if you should Buy or Not? in real time while you're trying on different outfits.

By processing data generated by card transactions we can create a vibrant, always updated picture of the prices of all goods in the country. By leveraging databases listing all the country's card transactions we're able to offer a service that also holds the parts of the market where prices change alot. Where to find the cheapest petrol right now? Which nightclub got the cheapest beer? Where can I get the cheapest Christmas rib? 

A service like this could also provide you with the answers to questions like: "Where could I still buy ribs?" and "where is the shortest line?"

Conclusion These are just some of the ideas we discussed. Some were a bit too far fetched (like the "hairy" asphalt that you could let you control the friction under the soles of your shoes with a smart phone), and others have been done (like the smart parking sensor/app).

But what we concluded with, after having this topic for two sessions, is that what we want from connected devices is to save time.

But, the real question is What will we do with all that extra time? Watch more TV-series?

And, when we don't have to be good at all the boring stuff any more What are we going to be better at?

Some food for thought over the Christmas break for you ;) We'll let you know when the dates for MassRefinement 2014 are set. In the meantime, follow us on Facebook to be updated.

[therefinementclub]

MassRefinement #12: The Internet of Things part 2

Next week we will continue to talk about The Internet of Things (since there's so much to talk about …), but this time with the following in mind:

How can we make every day situations here in Oslo more effective, easier or fun with a bit of connectivity?

Join the Facebook event here.

We will be posting more inspiration on our Facebook page under #InspirationMassRefinement12, but here you have it all in one place (since Facebook only shows recent hashtags):

Connected devices and kids are hot it seems, here's a company who aims to help you all the way from conception to parenting. But the most awesome part is that it looks like they have an open design approach and will release meshes of the cases so you can 3D print your own.

What would you do with a programmable t-shirt? Make awesome flash mobs or does it have a more useful potential?

A warning system to alert bus drivers when cyclists are close to their vehicle is to be trialled in York. What other ways can you think of to use this technology? 

Smart way to observe vital signs of kids in hospital: "Teddy the Guardian is a plush bear with embedded certified medical sensors that measure child’s heart rate, oxygen saturation, and body temperature seamlessly during the play, capture and send the data using wireless technologies to pediatrician’s app." And here's a version for the worried parents. Would you want to track your child's vital signs or would it make you worry more?

Connected devices can be quite simple. Here's an example of how traffic lights can be used to make more positive interactions between strangers in a city. What other ways can objects in a city create positive experiences for people by being connected?

The Smart Citizen project wants to empower communities to collect data of what's actually happening in their environment. Their open source kit (successfully funded) let's you participate in the deployment of a crowdsourced, interactive, worldwide environmental database—the largest to date. Pretty exciting! What use would you put all this data to?

And here's the #InspirationMassRefinement11 list:

In August 2013 Cooking Hacks launched the new version of the first biometric shield for Arduino and Raspberry Pi: the e-Health Sensor Platform V2.0. The information it collects can be used to monitor in real time the state of a patient or to get sensitive data in order to be subsequently analysed for medical diagnosis. Biometric information gathered can be sent wirelessly.

"If you have more than one Protect, they’ll all speak and let you know which one has the problem. Smoke in the bedroom? You’ll be told in the living room. The units communicate over Wi-Fi, as well as a secondary low-power RF system in case your network goes down. You can check status and get notifications from the completely rebuilt Nest app for the thermostat and Protect on Android and iOS devices, and in emergencies the app will display a What To Do screen with recommended actions and an emergency phone button." … "If you have a Nest thermostat, it’ll use the activity and motion sensors in the Protect to more accurately program when it automatically turns your heat and AC on and off — a boon for people who work at home. And if the Protect senses a carbon monoxide problem, it’ll instruct the thermostat to shut off your furnace."

"The main goal of the Radiation Sensor Board for Arduino was to help people in Japan measure levels of radiation in their everyday life after the Fukushima disaster. Libelium wanted to give citizens the opportunity to monitor these levels by themselves instead of relying on local authorities. The design of the board was open hardware and the source code was released under general public license (GPL)."

"Lockitron. Even the name inspires a feeling of security. Security administered by giant Japanese robots, perhaps, but security nonetheless. Lockitron is a door lock that you can unlock with your cellphone."

"Automate daily routines, like turning on appliances at set times, or use the service's GPS proximity and sensor triggers to automatically activate your devices. Revolv knows when you're close to your home because it tracks your geo-radius to the house. But, for once, being tracked may actually help you: You can program relaxing music to play before you step through the door — or set the oven to pre-heat so you can get a jump-start on dinner."

"Your Nymi lets you use your unique cardiac rhythm to authenticate your identity, allowing you to wirelessly take control of your computer, your smartphone, your car and so much more. As you wake up know that wherever you go the Nymi will be interacting with your devices, creating a smart, password and key-free environment. The Nymi will also have customizable notifications. If you’re the kind of person who likes to be connected to their emails, texts and social updates, you’ll never be behind with the Nymi."

"...the amazing potential of an identity-powered, personalized ecosystem is what will push our connected devices to talk to each other."

See you on Wednesday, Nov. 13th!

[therefinementclub]

Ideas from MassRefinement #11 Internet of Things

On Oct. 16th we had a session on a topic we could talk about for ages, The Internet of Things. Unfortunately it clashed with the premiere of Jens Dyvik's documentary "Making Living Sharing – a FabLab world tour documentary" (see MassRefinement #10) so we made it a swift session and brought the whole gang down to Bitraf to watch it.

Since this topic is so extensive, we've decided to make it a theme for MassRefinement # 12 as well. But this time we will have a clearer challenge! We noticed it was pretty easy to get lost in science fiction …

Here are some of the ideas that didn't end in a dystopian fantasy:

Connected city lights City lights that talk to each other and can be used to draw attention to specific events or crimes in the city. You could choose to connect to the lights with an app or an attack alarm, or the lights could react to screaming etc., and when triggered the lights would set of a SOS signal and light sequence to scare away the attacker, bring attention from nearby citizens and notify the police.

Connected cars In a connected world your car should know:

What speed a crossing car is approaching an intersection.

How many drinks the driver in front of you had last night.

If there’s a bicycle coming up from behind,

and so on.

If all cars were connected each car would have a lot of data about the other vehicles which could be analyzed and used to ensure smooth traffic and make driving easier and safer. Of course, if all vehicles were self-driven some problems would be eliminated.

Connected clubs When going out for the night people have different interests. Some want to dance the night away, others look for a place where they can sit down with their friends and have a conversation. And of course you want to find that perfect place to do so without wasting too much time.

If bars and clubs were equipped with a range of different sensors, we could all tap into that information through an application to find out what place matches our plans best at that exact moment. For example, if we could add up the following data:

Sound sensors, what music is playing and how load is it?

Pressure sensors in the floors and motion sensors can detect how packed the venue is, and how wild the dancing.

Sensors in seats can add up to show if there are any available, if the place is packed but nobody is sitting etc.

Through the cash register, or the bar taps, we could get data about alcohol consumption

And of course, we want information about how long the line is and how fast it moves …

And then you would know what place to check out and what place to avoid, based on what you want from the night out.

Drone safari Just a quick thought: Octocopter + GoPro + Oculus rift = Drone safari.

Through a web service:

Find the area you would like to visit

Pick your drone

Fly it any direction you please and see through the GoPro with the Oculus Rift headset.

Visit anyplace in the world in real time.

Connected stores Store shelves that know you and your needs. The shelves know your diet, shopping list and what you're running out of at home. As you approach a shelf it tells you that it has a product you need by displaying a colour or simple sound on your shopping cart or smartphone.

Thoughts When coming up with ideas for connected things, there's always the issue of surveillance. Plenty of ideas for awesome products and concepts arise, but do we really want to have the complete overview? And do we want to make ourselves so vulnerable? Who do we trust with our data, the government or a private company? What about our humanity, are connected things the first step towards singularity? These are some questions that come to mind.

Next time For MassRefinement #12 we want to focus on clever solutions that can be done today. We want see how our own every day situations here in Oslo can become more effective, easier or fun with a bit of connectivity.

Let's meet and mate ideas @ 657 13. November 18:00.

Join the Facebook event to get relevant inspiration and updates.

[therefinementclub]

MassRefinement #11: The Internet of Things

In the near future things will talk to the internet and the internet will talk back. It has already begun. Just take a look at Kickstarter and you find a bunch of projects where smart objects does something smart, utilizing sensors and a web connection. Commercialized products like Nest Thermostat and Protect are just scratching the surface of a world where things talk with things and people talk with things.

We are slowly adapting, making more and more smart things, but with Helen Duce's word about the adoption of RFID technology in mind:

"We have a clear vision – to create a world where every object - from jumbo jets to sewing needles – is linked to the Internet. Compelling as this vision is, it is only achievable if this system is adopted by everyone everywhere. Success will be nothing less than global adoption."

We believe that the true power of internet of things is more likely unleashed if we develop a universal communication system. Today's gadgets are a worst case example, with their closed systems, iOS, Android, Windows and so on. The way HTML has been developed and become the standard of websites is on the other hand a good model.

Anyways, there are some great opportunities:

Using your phone as a hub/gateway - where you can control what things you connect with and not. What if each individual hosts their own things in their own cloud?

Quantified eating and drinking. What about glasses, bottles, plates, forks etc, that register what you eat and drink (as well as how much), saves it to an online account and gives you feedback on your diet. Connected to a biometric tracker the feedback could be based on what your body actually needs and what you should avoid to make you more healthy.

Sports- and activity trackers are hot. But they still don't nudge you to get up and walk … As we know, the hardest thing isn't to exercise, it's to get out the door.

Advertising where billboards, and other media channels, are tailored to the person watching it.

Smart homes that monitor heat, light, air quality, dust etc … and notifies you and adjusts your heater, lights, air cleaner and starts the vacuum cleaner and so on.

Find the coolest club based on noise, heat cameras, sensors in the dance floor or other relevant data.

What is your dream situation? If you could decide what the focus would be, what would be the coolest/most useful way to make use of this technology? Join us at the MassRefinement on The Internet of Things and share your ideas and thoughts. It's gonna be fun!

Where & when: Wednesday, October 16, 2013, 18:00 - 21:30 At 657, Fredensborgveien 24D, 0177 Oslo, Norway

Attend the Facebook event and get updates and inspiration.

[therefinementclub]

Ideas from MassRefinement #10 Fabrication & Collaboration

On Sept. 19th FabLab Oslo/Fellesverkstedet and a bunch of awesome peeps joined us for a MassRefinement on how to make a successful FabLab here in Oslo. It was a great session!

The situation:

FabLab/Fellesverkstedet have funding to set up shop, they have people who want to use it, but they don't have a steady revenue stream to run the shop. Since they want to let people use it for free.

Giving something away for free isn't easy. Our challenge was to come up with ideas that would solve this. But as one of the participants said, the simplest way would be to charge people in the beginning. When the organization makes enough profit, then they can start offering access for free.

For example, it could be something like this: There could be different prices, depending on what you need to do at Fellesverkstedet or the FabLab. Maybe you only need to 3D-print a small part. Okay, that would be 40 kroner. Or maybe you want to hang out the whole day and work on all kinds of stuff, that's 350 kroner. But what about a membership. Like a gym membership? You pay a monthly fee and can spend as much time as you want at Fellesverkstedet and the FabLab.

After a while when business is thriving you could experiment with different concepts where it's free to use the shop at certain occasions  Like Tuesday Night Hacking or Kids' Saturday where people can use the FabLab and Fellesverkstedet for free.

BUT

Since FabLabs philosophy is built on giving it away for free this is not an option. So we looked on different ways to make money without charging the regular users of the FabLab.

1) Pick and invite companies to a membership with a yearly fee:

The companies should have an interest in innovation and production. They could be private, like an architecture firm, or public, like a university. By paying a sum a year, they get a certain amount of time their employees can spend at the FabLab/Fellesverkstedet – to test things out, get inspired, as team building activities or learn from the people who use the lab on a daily basis.

2) Get paid by the government, not funded:

People who are unemployed, on long term sick leave, kids who quit school … they all have one thing in common – they often lack meaningful activity to fill their days. And the longer you're away from work/school, the more difficult it is to get back. So we think the FabLab/Fellesverkstedet could be the perfect place for people who want to do something, but aren't ready for a full time occupation. And we think a collaboration with NAV could be very fruitful. FabLab/Fellesverkstedet gets people who'd like to work, NAV pays for their salary and the people in question gets something to put on their CV and get to learn new skills. It's a win-win-win!

3) Courses

A third way for FabLab/Fellesverkstedet to make an income is to let people use the facilities to hold courses. For example, one of the users might like to teach a class in upholstery. This person organizes, teaches and gets paid, while FabLab/Fellesverkstedet receives a certain percentage/fixed fee as rent.

These three ideas have one thing in common, and that is that for it to work, FabLab/Fellesverkstedet has to be a kickass product that they can sell.

That means that they have to create a culture of sharing and learning, a social environment, an organized and professional lab/workshop, plenty of engaged users and so on. We know that they are on the right track to making this happen, so we'll just share some ideas that can increase FabLab/Fellesverkstedet's reputation and credibility:

Documentation & inspiration

All users of a FabLab are required to share their learnings with the rest of the community. The FabLab could organize documentation into books and wikis that companies etc could pay to get access to. The FabLab could also prepare lectures they can hold for organizations and companies who would like inspiration and input.

Showroom/gallery

FabLab/Fellesverkstedet could use part of their space to host a showroom for the products that their users make and maybe take a small fee for every sale. They could also rent the space out to a coffee shop to create a social environment in addition to get more income.

TV show

A workshop like this is the perfect setting for interesting television. A TV show could spread FabLab/Fellesverkstedet's philosophy and make them well known to the public who might not otherwise hear about them. In addition it's a possibility to make money, either from the channel or from advertising (for example from tool manufacturers).

Start up help

The FabLab/Fellesverkstedet could also offer start up help. Like a mini "Innovasjon Norge" without the bureaucracy and paper work. They could offer entrepreneurs free access to make prototypes etc in exchange for money/favors etc in the future (if the make it).

So this was just a selection of the ideas that surfaced during this evening. A big thanks to the participants for sharing your thoughts and energy!

If anyone has any input, do share them with us. And don't forget to subscribe to the FabLab/Fellesverkstedets newsletter if you'd like to be kept in the loop.

The next MassRefinement will be on Wednesday, Oct. 16th and the topic is "The Internet of Things". Save the date, more info to follow!

[therefinementclub]

MassRefinement #10: Fabrication and Collaboration

At the next MassRefinement we will explore ideas and thoughts around making a successful FabLab here in Oslo.

Fabrication laboratories, known as FabLabs, are popping up all around the globe. FabLabs are a place where people with ideas can come to build and manufacture their projects using workshops with many different tools – like laser cutters, 3D printers, CNC machines and so on. The knowledge needed to operate this equipment is also provided, and all of it is free to use.

There are three main topics that we think are essential to make a successfull and thriving FabLab in Oslo:

Creating a community driven environment. The FabLab should have a welcoming environment that people feel comfortable using and encourage sharing and collaboration.

Lowering the threshold for people that don't know much about turning zeros and ones into atoms. Most of us don't know much about designing and fabricating things. A FabLab should embrace the newbies, encourage them to explore and learn new things, as well as helping them out along the way. Gateway drugs projects of all types should be freely available at the FabLab and beyond.

Alternate ways of running and funding the shop. Obviously the FabLab won't run itself, it needs people and funds to keep moving. This FabLab in particular will join forces with Fellesverkstedet which will provide more traditional equipment and machines in addition. We think this collaboration will be a strength to both projects, and that there might be other collaborations which could be mutually beneficial.

So let's dig into it and find some ideas on how to make FabLab Oslo a desired place to hang out, explore and work on your projects.

Designer Jens Dyvik will hold an introduction about Fab Lab Oslo, and we will all discuss and share our ideas.

Let's meet and mate ideas!

[therefinementclub]

MassRefinements autumn 2013

We've set the dates for the next three MassRefinements! So you should save the following evenings:

Thursday Sept. 19th

Wednesday Oct. 16th

Wednesday Nov. 13th

The nice people of 657 have let us use their space this season as well, and we're very grateful for that!

The topic for this season's first MassRefinement (#10) is How to make the planned Fellesverkstedet/FabLab in Oslo a success?

Jens Dyvik will hold an introduction. Here's him talking about his FabLab world tour:

He has told us that starting a fab lab in Norway presents some unique challenges compared to other countries. The problem isn't raising money to start up, but the operating costs. Another issue is if there is a need for a free service like this, will well-off Oslo peeps use it enough to make it a proper community?

More input and questions for you to think about will follow in the time up to the session. We're looking forward to it!

[therefinementclub]

Ideas from The Future of Toys – MassRefinement #09

Tuesday, May 21st we got together with Thuy, Mikkel and Elvis to talk about the future of toys. It was a lot of fun and in our opinion the ideas we came up with meet the criteria we set beforehand.

Fun. 

Versatile. 

Spark the imagination. 

Contribute to development/be educational.

Take a look and tell us what you think! Do you have an idea for a future toy? You're welcome to share on our Facebook page.

Go outside! We'd like to encourage kids to explore the real world more, to be more curious of their surroundings. To do that we need to get them early, while they're still curious. Kids now a days have so many virtual/digital options that are much more exciting than the real world. And this situation is very comfortable for the parents as well, since the real world is much more unsafe than the interactive game world. There's no reason to believe that this development will stop, but we have an idea that can combine the fantasy and safety of the digital world, and at the same time encourage kids to get out and explore more in the real world.

Teddy 2.0

What sparked this idea was the thought of "SIRI inside". Inside a teddy bear. Sounds kind of sad, but think about how much affection and loyalty you had for your favorite stuffed animal as a kid? Didn't you imagine it with a personality and speech, and wasn't this toy your very best ally in the world? Wouldn't it have been awesome if your teddy could have been more active when you two went on adventures together?

The idea is as follows: Combine classic, loveable stuffed toys with digital wonders including powerful voice recognition, GPS and a database of stories and missions. The parents control the functions. They define the area, location and time of all missions. They can pick the storylines/missions that they think their kid will respond to the most, and also upload new missions. They can also pre-approve missions so that the child can initiate adventures on its own.

So, for example, if a kid is skeptical to the little forest close by, the parents could trigger the toy to suggest that they went on a little adventure in the forest to look for squirrels. And it could give different assignments that would give different badges. Like "find a pine nut that a squirrel has nibbled on" or "take a picture of a squirrel". The toy could have camera and a touch screen incorporated so the child could google things, look at maps, video chat with the parents … Basically be alone and adventurous  but at the same time safe and accessible.

Physical Smartgames Another way to encourage more outdoor activity is to make a new kind of playground, more suited to engage older kids as well. They could be more like outdoor arcades, kind of like what you find at technical museums. We think playground equipment that combines problemsolving and physics challenges is something that would inspire kids to go out and meet their friends, and continue to do so when they get older. Of course if it could spark an interest in science as well, that wouldn't be a disadvantage!

Be creative! Playing with Lego is something we look back upon with longing eyes. Therefore we talked a lot about how to do stuff with Lego to enhance the experience. 

Lego Rewards A community where you can share your creations and get rewarded based on difficulty, complexity and creativity. You share your creation with a smart phone application that scan the building and recognizes the Lego pieces used, based on that you get rewarded. People can also explore other peoples or friends creations to get inspired to build new stuff as well as praising the builder. Of course there should be some kind of level system, where you start out as a novice and progresses onto become a master builder. Lego Missions Lego Rewards could easily expand and become a real game, but with a twist; you have to build stuff with Lego to progress in the game. First you buy your regular Lego kit, build it and scan it with the smart phone app/Xbox Kinect or what not and the story begins. E.g. the car crashed and now certain pieces are missing. Your mission is to make something new out of the pieces you have left to continue to … (new storyline). When you finish you scan and upload again, and get a new score and a new mission.

It's social, fun storytelling, and it gets kids to use Lego the way it used to be used once again. More creative.

Lego XXL With Technic Lego and Mindstorm you can build almost anything. Wouldn't it be cool if you could build these in real size? Of course, everything that's small and becomes big are ten thousand times cooler. So let's just make Technic Lego in human size, then we can build stuff we can actually use. Like for example building a gocart or a crane or a human sized robot...

This commercial  gives us the right feeling …

Combine and compete Competing against friends makes everything more interesting. So we thought about some games that were based on dueling, but with the bonus of being educational as well as encouraging exploration and experimenting.

Spell War Everyone dreams of wielding their own wand, cast spells and do magic of all kinds. What if you could? With the SpellCaster mobile app you get your own wand that obey your orders and cast spells based on your skills.

Imagine you're attending Hogwarts, or some other wizard school, and have to learn lots of different spells. You have a spell book, but you have to learn it by heart. As you go through the book you progress into a powerful wizard. Along the way you test your skills and duel your friends. When you practice or duel you use your phone as a wand. Holding and pointing it infront of you. You have to move the phone in a certain way as well as yelling out your magic words to cast the spell. To cast more powerful spells you combine different spells to make an endless range of spells. 

The fun thing about this is that it leaves room for the imagination. You and your friends make up the story, the goal of the game and the rules beyond the spells.

Robot duels

Programming is fun and kind of like a game, at least if you make it into a game. What about easy programmable robots? Which you have to program to fight your friends robot. Turnbased, each round performes one action. So you have to program based on what your opponent does. When you start the duel you could also add some conditional statements. Eg:

if (hit) {    launchShield() )

A round of robot dueling would look something like this:

Player 1:

for (int i = 5; i > 0; i++) {

   raiseLeftArm();

   moveLeftArmForward(10);

   moveLeftArmBackward();

}

Player 2:

while (beingHit) {

   bringBothArmsUp();

   counterAttack();

}

A fun and engaging way to venture into the world of programming and see all the fun things you can use the skill for, as well as a perfect way to incorporate some math and see the formulas in action.

[therefinementclub]

The Future of Toys – MassRefinement #09

There's nothing cooler and more exciting than toys. Toymakers are quick at adopting new technologies and applying them in unexpected ways to make fun, engaging and addictive toys. So we thought it would be interesting to take a look at what the future of toys beholds.

There are some properties we think every fun and long lasting toy should have:

The toy should be versatile and work in many different ways and situations.

It should spark our imagination.

It should contribute to one's development, or be educational, in some way or the other.

But most of all the toy should be fun to play with, both with friends and alone.

If we manage to come up with some ideas for new toys that nail more than one of these three points in addition to being fun, we think we have something exciting!

Join us and share your ideas on the Future of Toys at 657 Tuesday – May 21st, 18:00.

Join the Facebook event to share and get ideas, updates and inspiration.

Some inspiration:

The 5 Best Toys of All Time

Alice Taylor: Inventing the Future of Toys

Tactile Digital Play, Part 1: Sifteo Cubes and Hasbro Zapped Toys

A Future Of Toys And iPads

The joy, wonder, and weirdness of Toy Fair 2013

Top 12 New Toys at Toy Fair That Make You Want to Be a Kid Again 

[therefinementclub]

Ideas from MassRefinement #08 on Urban Farming

Two weeks ago we held a MassRefinement about Urban Farming. We were a diverse group of people, some with extensive knowledge on the subject while some of us brought more enthusiasm than farming skills to the table … Which is a good thing! A mix of people generates the best ideas, we believe, and this bunch of people inspired some great conversations and ideas.

We set out with a challenge: "How can we convince more people that urban farming is a good idea and help them discover the resources that are out there?" Read on to get the essence of what we talked about.

If any of these ideas inspire you to take action, contact us at [email protected] and we'll put you in touch with the right people.

We organized all the ideas in different actions; Inform, Recruit and Meet, let's start by digging into the ideas on how to inform!

INFORM First of all we need to inform people about urban farming and show the possibilities. Let people see the joy and fruits of farming at home. 

Reality show A reality show we'd actually like to watch! The idea is that we can follow a family or several through a season. Every week they get new challenges to solve, like growing herbs inside, making a window farm, build a small green house on the balcony, make and maintain a vermicompost etc. In classic reality makeover style they get help from professionals to get started, and who evaluate their efforts. The point is that as they learn, we the viewers learn as well. People talk about the tv shows they watch, and hopefully a show like this would get people talking about urban farming. And it would make it seem easier to start growing your own food!

The reality show could of course be a big tv-show on national tv, but it could also work online where the families run their own blogs and share their experience through text, pictures and video. The viewers/readers could engage and help out with advice and tips, or ask for help themselves.

Show off Get more urban farms into the face of people. Into the streets. Let people smell the roses. Several people are working to do this, but we feel it needs to be accompanied by more information. How about adding small signs which says something about the plant in question and gives some tips on how you can grow it at home? 

RECRUIT Secondly we should recruit people. Make some gateway drugs that get people hooked on growing plants and craving more. 

Pass it on What if everybody who plants and practice urban farming became ambassadors and shared their love and passion for plants? A quite easy and fun way to do it would be to pass on a plant. Just give a plant to a friend who you think would appreciate to take care of it. This will hopefully work like a charm and get your friend hooked on growing plants. Just pass it on.

This could easily be marketed through growing communities like Majobo and so on.

Starterkits for sale Small and simple kits with a easy growing plant, like cucumber. The package should be accompanied by easy and simple guidance, both text and videos on YouTube that help you out with sowing and caring for your plants.

"Maternity groups" It's good to have someone to talk to about your plants, someone who's in the same situation as you. So we came up with the idea of giving seed buyers access to a sort of maternity group. You buy a bag of seeds and on the bag there's a unique number you register with on a web site. By doing that you automatically joined with a group of up to nine other people who have bought the same seeds. The web service is a mini social network for urban farmers, specified by type of seed, where they can share experiences, photos and get help and tips from each other.

MEET When we've gotten people hooked on growing plants it's time to leverage their passion and knowledge and to get them to help each other out.

We'd like a meeting point, both digital and physical place, where information on urban farming in Oslo is collected. A place where experts can give guidance and you can find related products, books and courses. A place where people who are interested can become part of a community, where they share knowledge and advice. A place for distribution, information and making connections.

It would be perfect if this also could be the place where Oslo Kooperativ set up their weekly deliveries.

Everyone in the group felt the need for this kind of meeting place, but Annikken went as far as to give it a name, and we love it; "Oslo Mikrodyrkeri" (it's one of those nontranslateable things, but it's a play on "microbrewery")!

Pop-up restaurant In connection to this meeting place there could be a pop-up restaurant where groups of people could bring their own produce and a professional cook would make them a meal with the ingredients they bring. In this way the cook could inspire people with new ways to use the results of their urban farming work.

Thank you to all of you who came, it was a great session! Do share your thoughts and new ideas on facebook.

Hope you can join us for MassRefinement #09: The Future of Toys on Tuesday May 21st.

[therefinementclub]

Post-MassRefinement Inspiration on Urban Farming

The MassRefinement we had on Urban Farming went great! It was an awesome group of engaged people, and we came up with some excellent ideas on how to get more people into urban farming. We're working on the summary, but in the meantime here are some resources that was recommended.

One of the participants was Ingvil who has vermicompost at home. She told us how amazing soil the worms make and shared this video of how to get started. Check it out!

Annikken is engaged in several urban farming projects, among other things she's involved with Geitmyra and Geitmyra Hønselag (urban chickens!). She recommends that you also follow Herligheten, GrowlabOslo, Geitmyra matkultursenter for barn and ByBi on Facebook to stay posted on all the urban green stuff happening in Oslo.

Tarek works with MAJOBO, the organization that inspired us before our workshop. He left very inspired and that made us very happy. Tarek made us aware of that MAJOBO often arranges hands-on workshops, like beginners course for balcony gardeners, so follow them on Facebook for updates and tips!

Tim mentioned a kickstarter project to Johannes who was initially sceptic, but then he went home and bought one. Apparently so did everyone else so we have to wait until this amazing "Smart Herb Garden" is out on the market. Pretty neat!

Thanks to all of you who came and contributed with your ideas and resources! As mentioned we're working on contextualizing all the ideas and we will post them next week organized by "Inform", "Recruit" and "Meet".

[therefinementclub]

Inspiration for MassRefinement 08 "Urban Farming"

We were really lucky with our timing on this MassRefinement, because MAJOBO (an organisation that works to promote organic cultivation in the community) had put together an inspiration night the week before our workshop!

We went there to be inspired and informed, and of course so that we could share what we learned with you. We hope this will get you all geared up to share ideas on how to bring more urban farming to Oslo.

Is food grown in Oslo safe to eat?

Erik Joner, a scientist from Bioforsk, has run tests on food grown several different places in the center of Oslo. He concluded with that it is perfectly safe to eat urban grown vegetables with normal use. Very little of pollutants from the earth are taken up by the plants, and you can remove most of the pollutants from the air by rinsing the vegetables. In addition, by not using pesticides you can decrease the amount of toxins you eat.

  Herligheten allotment gardens (The Glory)

Vibeke Hermanrud from Bjørvika Development talked about this years projects and activities in Herligheten allotment gardens in Bjørvika. There are plenty of exciting things happening in this construction area, and it's really cool that the area can be used in this way in the meantime.

Check out the timelapse of the making of Herligheten here.

In addition to the garden, they have established a field of heritage grain. This year the Flatbread Society will start up Bakehouse Bjørvika: 

"Bakehouse Bjørvika will be a public baking facility housed within an experimental architectural structure in Bjørvika. A multi-functional oven will facilitate various types of bread baking, smoking and cooking. The heat from the ovens will heat seating."

  BYBI (City bee)

We've heard about BYBI before, since one of our regular AfterWorkShop'ers Mikkel is part of this project. Entrepreneurs and beekeepers Anne Dubrau and Ragna Ribe Jørgenen informed us about bees, beekeeping and their project.

Did you know that Norway most probably has the most healthy bees in the world? This is because of the Norwegian Beekeeper organisation's breeding program. And that bees are bred to be nice and calm? Anne is actually allergic to bees and have several hives in her garden without problems.

BYBI is a great project, bees actually thrive in the city! Different pollen has different nutrients, and bees need the biological diversity of urban areas.

If you would like to join BYBI and keep bees they arrange beginner classes. If you just would like some honey without all the work, they also need gardens and roofs to place the hives. Domestic bees are one of the most important food producers we have, so let's pitch in!

Coworking space gets roof garden

The community organisation MESH is making a collective roof garden, and Mads Pålsrud, the founder of GrowLAB Oslo, is helping them. They've had two workshops so far and we're looking forward to the solutions they develop for a pitched roof garden!

This was some of what was talked about, and we highly recommend checking out MAJOBO and GrowLAB. They're great resources! The conclusion for the research we've done is that there's a lot of engaged and inspiring people in this city, working to get more urban farming to Oslo.

What we see is that the challenge we should focus on is how can we convince more people that urban farming is a good idea and help them discover the resources that are out there? 

Join us for MassRefinement 08 on Tuesday the 23rd, 18.00 at 657 to share your ideas. Here's the Facebook event.