Great to be back to this side of the world
I'm gonna explain a little bit of myself
where I came from
I was born in Hong Kong, and grew up in Macau
and then my family decided I need to get some western education
then we went to the States
and I got undergraduate degrees, I studied biology
I thought I was gonna be a doctor
like a lot of Asians, you knows, kids
Umm, that didn't happen, I failed miserably
and my parents, my mom just really disappointed, so
then I shift, I decided I'm gonna study design
and architecture, and while I was there, I did my thesis
part of my thesis was, I was looking at industrial revolution and aftermath of industrila revolution
and I've noticed that we've all know by now what happened before and afterwards
you know, producing, mass production, machine lines
we were producing things over and over and over again
cookie cutter effect, and that affected our office and environment and our way of working
and also affected our schools, and the way we teach our children
we were repeating the same things over and over and over again
so I started asking myself
well, the change is imminent, we have to do something about it
but how? where do we start?
so after I graduated, I started to looking into ways of incorporating these changes to the way we work
the way we study, the way you live
and then I came up with these four shifts, four changes
and the first one was, in the pre-industrial revolution age
mass production, what do we shift? and think about mass customization
give them the tools, the methods
and each one of you will produce something different
instead of having this cookie cutting method of producing the same thing over and over again
why don't we start changing our mentality instead of so focus into the result
into the end product; why don't we think about the process
how we think about the journey making things
what do we shift? let's just stop thinking about this top-down approach
this top-down hierarchy
where we have a boss, where we have workers, and we have the lower rank, why if we all are equal?
professors, students, employees, boss
why if we are all equal?
that would be ideal
and why don't we shift from being so formal all the time
and just having a really informal environment
where we could all work together, we can all study together, where we can have a surprise discovery
where serendipity can occur
and so I really want to apply this philosophy somewhere
in 2010 I had the opportunity to start up MOB-Maker Of Barcelona
I'll explain to you the making of it
so this is my definition of what MOB is
and MOB is a thousand square meter of pure goodness plus a commmunity of creative geeks
the innovative hipsters
and the business savvy
so I'm trying to mix things up, you know, all three groups together in the same space
so when I'm talking about the creative geeks, I'm talking about designers, artists, innovative hipsters, hackers, inventors, business savys, entrepreneurs
so what is a maker? for me a maker is self-sufficient, someone that is passionately driven
fully capable and highly motivated
so I'm not just talking about people making things, making products, no, anyone here is a maker
shift of mentality, everyone is capable
so for us, maker is someone who can make things happen for themselves
so that is basically everybody, right?
so this is my prototype of a maker, that's teeth, it's fiesty
we have a facility, we have a thousand square meters
and then inside we have co-working, class rooms and we have invent spaces
so this is some of the pictures of our makers hard at work
these are our students, sometimes they are not so hard at work, but they are in the same space with the professionals
this is our caged meeting room, very informal
here is the lounge and he's working very hard
we also want to provide tools, and these tools could be literal tools, places where people can make stuffs
we're actually in the middle of makers' space where we have digital fabrications
sewing machines, vinyl cutters, where people can actually produce
we want to provide contents so we have a lot of workshops
exhibitions, hackerthons, performances, theatres, so this is our event walls
we list all our activities we do during the month
some of the examples of exhibition we have done, we do start up launch party,
hackerthons where people get together and hack things
our supermarkets where we sell Barcelona desin products showcasing our maker design
concerts, and this is a project that is in the making where we are collaborating with another organiation
what we are trying to do is we are trying to match up improbable occurences
so we are trying to match up hackers and designers and see what can be produced within these two marriages
we'll see how that goes
we also collaborate a lot with external organizations, Firefox, with Etsy, to run their events
and finally the most important part is the creative community
we are very proud to have over 120 members within this first year of operation
we have about 50 percent local people and 50 percent of international
we push very hard to create an environment where professional and students are in the same space
so this is our crowds and top of this 120 sort of in house members we also have over 3000 virtual ones
so we are trying to build up this community where people can come to work together
a meet up space, they can do project together
and they can collaborate
so, how do we grow a creative community
I'm gonna give you some instruction, some of the experiences I've learned so far in this year and an half
the person who runs this creative community is the one
you're gonna be the heart and soul of this community, the aura, it's gonna be felt
you gonna be heard everywhere, so you better be passionate about what you do
you have to actively recruit all those members, those movers and shakers in this community
all those people that are interested to participate include them in this part of community
you're going to reach out, there are tons and tons of people doing amazing things in this city I'm sure
not just in Taipei, I'm sure across the ocean, across the other countries
find these people, bring them in
connect, connect corporation, you would think that they would never listen to individual, small communities
but grow your community and they would want to hear your voice
give incentive, to your members to start their own initiatives
it's very important, because they will provide the contents
for your community
grow your community through external and internal events
what we talk about earlier
so whether it's concert for your internal members or big events like hackerthons where you invite corporations
these are your contents, sort of like your food for your community and it's very important
family matters, your members are gonna be your families
and they will be your voices, and if you treat them right, they are goonna be loving you
they are gonna be telling everyone about it and your community will grow
you gotta work it, this isn't a free ride
you are gonna work it, your workers are your families, remember?
and you are gonna promote it, talk it up, tell other people about your members
oh, have you heard so and so, he's amazing
and do you know so and so, he's just so fantastic
and finally, I think there's another point
you need to communicate, if you are doing great things and you are not talkinng about it
then it's kind of a loss case
tell other people, do a Facebook campagin
do a wonderful website, tell the entire world the content of your members and community
and you gotta be the pimp, I don't know if this is translating right
you have to connect people, put people together within the community and outside the community
this is 99.9 percent of my job at MOB
becuase without this kind of interaction, you community isn't gonna grow
collaboration is the key
so, how do we apply this in a larger scale?
like I said earlier, there're tons of creative, talented people, all over the city
but they are all kind of fragment over the place and they don't really talk to each other
what if we start appling this community, what if we just start growing this community all over the place
start making connections between them
and if you apply this in the city level, neighborhood level, in the global level
you can actually connect to the whole world
and that's pretty amazing,
and if you guys build one, and we start communicating with you guys
you gonna have a linke between Barcelona and Taipei
and that's pretty cool
so, if we go back to the shift philosophy we talked about earlier
that was just our sort of way of working
are we really want to apply this methology not only at MOB
not only at the facility
what if we can apply this in another project
so we got very lucky this year, we were working with the city government of Barcelona
and it's a very initial, we just started about couple weeks ago
but we wanted to regenerate the city, the neighborhood at MOB
and we said, well, how do we approach this, we are not urban designers; I study architecture 146 00:11:59,627 --> 00:12:01,492 I don't know anything about urban planning
so, we said, why don't we tab into the resource
why don't we talk to our MOB members, we have 120 of them
to so what we can do
so we got everyone together, and we sort of have a brainstorming session
and we came up with this idea;
we brought mathematicists, we brought our physicists in, we have hackers, designers
we all started talking about how to approach this project
and we decided that we wanted an algorithm; we wanted to provide a tool, not the final product, but sort of a formula...
on how to approach the design of the city
we said we were goonna design the city through an organic, a fluid, a human-centered way
when you see this very short video, we are trying to incorporate the parameter, the open data that we get from the city
so everytime, say, for example, someone opens a shop, that map will alter instantly
and that's a live organism that's being changed depending on what information is being applied on
and so we want to use this tool, not just for Barcelona, not just for a particular place and time
we want to be able to see the changes in a very dynamic way so the urban planners, designers, archetectects and anyone else
who want to use this tools to rethink about what the future of this city is like can use it
it's very excited for us to start this project within the city
and it's very interesting for us to see the city has intrest and initiatives like this
so, to go back to the question
we know about changes are about to happen
the question is "what's next?"
my answer to that is all of you to become a maker
to start your initiative
and to grow your own community, thank you.