All of this has been a lot of work, especially in my very conservative locale. Every time I hit some sort of social or functional wall, I think, someone should write a maker community how-to book.
And when a common political rant emerged on the hackerspaces.org general discussion list on that very subject, it all came together for me: *I* should write that book.
Only I don’t think the book in question should be constructed as a maker community Top Ten list. Rather, as I explain in this LinkedIn article, taking a story approach would fit the subject matter better, and make it more accessible to that general public I mentioned. In fact, based on my own experiences, I’ve identified business, civic and educational leaders as the primary target audience.
So along with a few core contributors and several other participants, I’ve gotten the ball rolling. We have a domain, MakerXP.org, and a corresponding twitter account. All the public-facing stuff is rather basic right now; the focus is on refining the book’s scope and structure for publisher submission, so most of the current work is behind the scenes. Some of that will change soon, and you’ll be able to be a party to some of the development.
By the way, there is already some publisher interest, and I’ll reveal more about that in time. But we may wind up self-publishing (are we not makers?) and if so, well be counting on your help to boot the process. We may even need a few more story providers.
Stay tuned, but be aware that most of the blogging about The Maker Community Experience book will be at its own site. Here, I plan to shift more to random personal observations and use channels like LinkedIn for specific writing purposes. I’ll update this site soon to point everyone in the necessary directions. Make sure to also follow the new twitter account!
Thanks for your interest!