Maker Spaces getting attention Inside INdiana Business!

I was interviewed by Gerry Dick on his television program: Inside INdiana Business.  We talked about how our 1st Maker Space business aims to put shop class back in schools!  Lots of fun as you can tell.

My calendar

Having too many meetings and appointments is a byproduct of curiosity, connections and commercial intent.  I like the buzz and the beer.  But my days are packed and they don't give me much time to reflect or think.  I understand it's a trade-off.

Sometimes I share the analogy with friends that my calendar is like a well played, but losing game of Tetris.  'Well played' because there is very little unfilled space.  'Losing' because the column is filled to the top and the game is over.

Here are the images that reflect both.

Get the picture?

Could Women Be Trusted With Their Own Pregnancy Tests?

I loved this story which appeared in the NYT today about the woman who invented the home pregnancy test.  Unrecognized, uncompensated and disrespected for decades...she finally got the credit she was due.

Margaret Crane, 1965.

Why did society make laws to prevent women from performing such tests?  What was the logic - other than exercising some power over an entire gender?  Much the same as slavery but 'gentler.'

Rotary Invocation

May 2, 2016

Shared Hope

Kim Brand

I can’t believe I’m giving the invocation on Primary Day 2016 during what will be remembered as one of the most notorious campaign seasons of the 21^st Century!  At least, I hope it stands out – because I never want it to happen again!

Here’s what I think is worth talking about in an invocation on a day like today: shared hope – or what politicians would call the ‘hope gap.’

We may have entered a time in our nation’s history when nothing is shared less than hope.  You hear about income inequality.  You hear about immigration.  You hear about terrorism.  You hear about resurgent racism, international tensions, exploding debt, and economic uncertainty.  We witness unprecedented dysfunction in Washington.  What is the link between these maladies?

I believe we are suffering from the lack of shared hope and too many of us have lost confidence in the belief that for them tomorrow will be better.

Have we forgotten that to be hopeful is uniquely human?  Do we not all hope for peace? For the success of our children? To be treated with respect? For health and prosperity? Can’t we at least share those hopes?

More than losing our status in the world, more than ‘losing,’ more than the other party winning the Whitehouse, we should fear the loss of shared hope.  Shared hope is the binding that once tied our country together, forged a powerful nation and was the source of our prosperity.

Being an American endows us with a special kind of hopefulness.  The ability to work together, to overcome problems, to look beyond differences and to see a brighter future.  The measure of America’s greatness will not be in a budget or trade surplus, or military power – it will be in the ability of all Americans to hope again.

How do we do that?  Turn off the TV.  Surround yourself with optimists and push back on negative talk when you hear it.  Be prepared with positive facts - look for positive news and you’ll find it.  Allow inspiration into your life – from wherever you can find it; whether it’s a purposeful walk in the woods or a raucous service on Sunday morning.  

Be an actor not an audience member.  Practice Service above self – Rotary is a great way to share hopefulness.  Hope is a source of strength that is multiplied when shared.  Share your hope with someone when you have it – share theirs when you don’t.

The hope gap may be a tool politicians use to sell fear and mistrust.  Don’t buy it.  Find someone to share your hopes and dreams with today.

Anyone can have a life changing idea

This video should be presented at every art, business, engineering and medical school.  It should be posted to every entrepreneur blog. For anyone who thinks that they are not 'good' or 'smart' enough to have the next great/transformative idea.  This brief talk pushes back and says: YOU CAN.  DO IT NOW!

News Porn

It seems to me that much of the growing antipathy in the nation is borne from irrational fear of anyone who disagrees with someone else's beliefs.  This applies to the fear of 'black thugs' by 'white people,' apostates by believers, conservatives by liberals, etc.  The fear ranges across all dimensions of needs and desires: life, health, wealth, liberty, security, family, lifestyle, power, heritage, etc.

I think if people were thinking rationally we wouldn't have this frenzied maelstrom.  But once triggered, an irrational response is immune from rational engagement.  I fear we now have hundreds of millions of people around the world caught in this irrational 'avalanche' racing towards some apocalypse.  Isn't that what caused the world wars, genocides, atrocities?

How do you reason with the unreasonable? Ideologues, bigots, idiots, ultra-partisans?  There are only a few of them and their numbers could be offset by the mostly sane.  But what if the media has the power to convert the sane into the insane?  Reasonable into unreasonable?  Exaggerating threats, impacts, causes, effects for profit or power; exploiting human tendencies to overreact, disproportionate response or simply intellectually lazy evaluation?

Is the media the difference?  Four TV channels and one newspaper attenuated the news to what could fit, sell advertising motivated by simple commerce and meet broadcast standards.  But now echo chambers have replaced journalism.

Are we teaching kids how to consume media?  We have restrictions on porn - is this 'news porn?'

Thinking about the JA Spark Career Fair

A note I sent to the CEO of EmployIndy regarding the JA Spark Career Fair planned for September, 2016.

I can’t help thinking that career clusters are (or will be) obsolete.

Who would have predicted IT for me when I graduated Purdue with an engineering degree?  But I took a test in high school that did predict I would be good at programming.  Maybe I was analytical.  Liked problem solving.  I also liked risk.  I could have joined the risk taking entrepreneur tech startup cluster if one existed J

Does EmployIndy do any kind of testing like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_Interest_Inventory.  The modern version is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland_Codes

I really liked this explanation of how people pick careers – and just how old the problem of finding a place for yourself in the world is.

In "The Holland Codes," a letter or code stands for a particular "type." Psychologist John L. Holland originally labeled his six types as: "motoric, intellectual, esthetic, supportive, persuasive, and conforming."^[2] He later developed and changed them to: Realistic (Doers), Investigative (Thinkers), Artistic (Creators), Social (Helpers), Enterprising (Persuaders), and Conventional (Organizers)."^[6] Professor John Johnson of Penn State suggested that an alternative way of categorizing the six types would be through ancient social roles: "hunters (Realistic), shamans (Investigative), artisans (Artistic), healers (Social), leaders (Enterprising), and lorekeepers (Conventional)."^[7]

I think the whole cluster idea is wrong – those are assemblies of jobs.  The jobs are what someone is interested in doing.  Maybe there should be leadership, inventing, making things, working outdoors, problem solving, stress averse, helping people, art.  You can be in construction but be in HR – more like a helper than a builder.  I also think it is naive to reduce the range of human interests into eight or so government/economic job clusters.  There are lots more type of jobs, there will be many that go away (say radiologists,) some you can’t predict will emerge (like app developer in 1975) and one-offs.

Randomness, Leverage & Networking

In a recent conversation with a young entrepreneur I was asked about the word(s) I would recommend that he study.  I came up with three in a minute or so.

Randomness: Accepting the brutal reality of knowing your influence on events may be outdone by forces beyond your control.  This knowledge requires stoic resolution to accept that despite your best efforts the goal will not be achieved.  But: progress may just as likely be favored by these same random forces.  Roll with it.

Leverage: To make progress quickly with little or no power you need to create an amplifier.  Look for them - they are a gift of nature the way a natural amphitheater allows a voice to be heard 100 yards away.  Usually you need to trade risk for reward the way mechanics converts velocity for power. Entrepreneurship is the craft of leveraging ideas into movements.

Networking: All success flows from the impact of ideas on people.  People tend to share ideas within their tribes - social networks. The goal of an entrepreneur is to spread an idea among tribes using the natural tendency of the members of that tribe to communicate.  The influence of an entrepreneur is thus leveraged by the interconnections within these networks.

Another Rotary Invocation - December 2015

Rotary invocation 12/1/2015

The world seems to be coming apart at the seams.  Every day brings stories about violence, corruption, disharmony and polarization.

The news media gets paid to bring stories like these into our living rooms and to the front page of our newspapers.  Mobile consumers have this unhappiness delivered continuously to their devices a dozen or more times a day.  Bad news today travels even faster than it did when my mom warned me fifty years ago that bad news travels fast.

With this tsunami of tragedy, even the most hopeful soul could feel down by the end of the day.

Today is December 1st.  The beginning of the Holiday Season celebrated around the world by three great religions and over half the Earth’s population.  A time of joy and hope we need throughout the year but especially now.

If you are person of faith, you have these happy holidays to celebrate.

• Christians celebrate Christmas – the birthday of Jesus
• Jews celebrate Hanukkah – the Festival of Lights and Feast of Dedication
• Muslims celebrate Mawlid an-Nabi – the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad

I propose that rather than wait for January 1st to make a new year’s resolution, you make one right now to seek out and find good news every.  It will make you more optimistic, creative and energetic; even less stressful.  Doctors say it will improve your immune system!  Think of the impact on your love life!

And when you hear about polarization between peoples or politicians, I want you to think about this kind of polarization - North Polar-ization!  We can all agree that this time of year is enjoyed most by children who dream happy thoughts of gifts and giving.  We should pay more attention to them than the news.

Statistics inscrutable to Americans

This article (Politics and the New Machine) which appeared in the 11/16/15 New Yorker magazine, presented very troubling evidence that the polls with which Americans seem so fascinated are at best untrustworthy and at worst a fraud perpetrated on us by pollsters who know they don't represent electoral views.  Even worse, they may actually be corrupting the very purpose of the electoral process.

Americans are obsessed with simple measures which purport to represent complex phenomena.  To wit:

• IQ
• Credit Score
• GPA
• BMI
• SAT/ACT Scores
• Age
• Zip Code
• AGI (Adjusted Gross Income)

We don't have time for details.  We aren't interested in stories, just summaries and aggregates.

The convenience of a number trumps the work required to understand what it really represents and its potential irrelevance to an individual case.  The statistic belies the assumptions, trade-offs, biases and prejudices.

Big data gives us the ability to collect more information, but humans can't process it anyway.  Get ready for more approximations.

Selfishness or misunderstanding? The state of education today

I read Doug Stowe's Wisdom of the Hands blog often and am always inspired by his thoughtfulness.

Doug is an educator and woodworker in Arkansas and amateur education policy historian.  This week he wrote a blog post which explains a turning point in vocational education policy evolution...well worth the read!

Here is my response to his post...

I presented our vision for an Indiana Advanced Manufacturing Certification (IAM-Cert) credential to about 25 students at Atterbury Job Corps on Thursday.

Young men and women enrolled there are learning trades at this residential facility in central Indiana constructed as an internment camp during World War II and repurposed to offer vocational training to students for whom 'regular school' didn't work.

Construction & building trades at Atterbury are promoted as a pathway to secure employment, good wages and a higher quality of life.

It is ironic that very few students today are encouraged to pursue a career in Manual and Industrial Arts when the pride and satisfaction of making things so obviously leads to a 'virtuous cycle' of learning and improving one's skill and value.

I found Doug's post today recounting a key turning point in the evolution of our current education system very interesting; particularly with respect to the political compromises between the two powerful forces of industry and labor.

Today, the education industry, supported by a $73B federal DOE budget, and state budgets which in Indiana account for 63% of state spending, represent a third powerful constituency.  Nobody should be surprised that it has incredible influence over policy.

How then did Industry, Labor and Education allow the state of our schools to veer so far from what works? Was it complicity or incompetence? Selfishness or a simple misunderstanding?

More importantly, how can we change the status quo?  I'd like to help.

Fire starter or tender?

There are a continuum of jobs in this world.  Like snowflakes or fingerprints - no two are the same.

But there are categories and within them are starters and finishers.  I've always been a starter.  I love to think about the possibilities and like a bridegroom focus on the excitement of a new life together with my bride - a fresh idea.

But life is not an endless honeymoon.  The birth of a child leads to an existence which is mostly less effervescent in emotion than those first few days.  Somehow regulation and order move in to replace excitement, reality replaces possibility.

In business this notion is one of creation vs execution.  You need both, but it is widely regarded that owners and investors are better served by a good executioner than a creationer.

That's where I struggle.

At this age I'm reconciled to enjoy the start-up phase and do my best there.  Recognizing that's not for everyone means there are executioners that love the fulfilment of the dream more than the dreaming.  Good for them!

With my latest venture: 1stmakerspace.com, I hope to assemble a team with all the talents optimised for each stage and need of the business.  People do best what they love - shouldn't a start-up be filled with lovers of what they do?

An idea to share wealth

I'm an entrepreneur and believe ambition, investment, creativity, risk taking and hard work are elements of a personal success strategy.  There is no magic formula - and my friends know I believe LUCK and TIMING are the most important contributors to business success - but over time those five attributes will help start and grow a business.

So how do we share this success formula with more people?

I believe growing your network and learning from other entrepreneurs are critical too.  Home grown businesses may not be as flashy, but small businesses employ more people and can elevate more employees to employers.  As a society, how do we create more employment, self reliance and prosperity?  My answer: help more people start and run successful businesses.

Government programs can be useful, but my idea is for neighborhood businesses to help neighbors who want to start a business by contributing the capital and knowledge it takes to get a business off the ground.  With a tax break targeting those investments, businesses who are motivated to help a local entrepreneur can make a contribution to their success both financially and with nurturing advice, networking connections and tough love when needed.

Not every business will succeed.  But with a competent adviser who has skin in the game and the entrepreneur's interests at heart the odds will be much better.  The neighborhood wins.  If the new business fails - hopefully it will result in lessons learned and without the crippling debt and impact on credit scores that can happen when personal credit lines are stretched and then break.

If the business succeeds, the profits will be shared with investors and perhaps can be sheltered from income tax for a while to sweeten the deal.  Hopefully, a virtuous cycle will begin and generations of prosperous business owners will transform a neighborhood, a city or our country - just like they always have.

Notable 1st Maker Space media

We've been so busy developing the 1st Maker Space business that I haven't had a chance to post here.  The VR vs R post just written was the exception.

We've had some great press in the local media I wanted to share.  Maybe Blogger counts for something in the SEO world.

Pioneer in 3D printing has high hopes for education startup

My grandson being interviewed by Jared Council, a reporter with the IBJ.  Ethan, 9 years old, is explaining how 3D printers work.

Parts we made at the Tech HS 1st Maker Space

Students use 3-D Technology to turn ideas into reality

Rocket sled students made at the Eastern Hancock County 3D Design and Printing Summer Camp

Someday, every school with have a maker space!

The problem with virtual reality

As a member of the 'maker' community I'd like to reflect on why reality is better than virtual reality.

True, programming for apps is all the rage.  Code.org, among other organizations, like Eleven Fifty here in Indianapolis, make the case that every child should learn computer science.  I did.  Coding is cool.  It allows you to control a little machine, which, can be connected to a large machine, the Internet or even a human being.  These little machines are cheap and the software is free.  Learning to code requires study, concentration and cleverness.  What's not to love?

The problem I see is that these little virtual worlds don't have to interact with the real world.  The real world - reality - is a far more complicated place than manufactured worlds.  How do I know this?  Just try to make something.

Drilling holes, assembling components, building anything forces you to interact in a reality zone where inconvenient facts intersect with your ideal design.  Ninety degrees becomes 89.5 degrees.  Parallel isn't.  Attachments and joints wiggle.  Inertial effects impose themselves when gravity and motion affect structures.  Algebra turns into calculus.

Problems may be dismissed or their effects postponed in a virtual world.  You can ignore tolerances and stacking errors in these ideal places.  Not so in your garage.  Sawing pieces of wood intended to form the sides of a box, (a simple rectangle morphs into a parallelogram,) is humbling.  A craftsman's skill is not earned in a semester at a coding academy.

Coding encapsulates its own reality.  In the virtual world of a micro-controller the 'state-machine' executes instructions with predictable efficiency.  The machines were designed by humans with economy and utility in mind. The goal is to simplify problems and optimize predictability.

Reality, on the other hand, is anything but predictable.  'Making things' as it turns out exposes the designer to a plethora of unexpected problems: material properties, dimensional inconsistencies, variable loads, unanticipated defects, supply issues, finishing, light, shadows, static electricity.  There is no order to these problems because in the real world there is no order to the problems.  That's why it's called the REAL WORLD!

With all due respect to my friends in the software business, you deserve the billions of dollars you make moving bits around to the endless entertainment of consumers hungry for vicarious stimulation.  But as for me, I'd rather be making something.

Photo at Conner Prairie

A spontaneous photo from Conner Prairie, the local, interactive, outdoor museum that partners with our 1st Maker Space program for schools.

I was walking down the hall from our exhibit and saw these young Amish women peering over the mezzanine wall down to the first floor.  It seemed like a paradox of old and new frozen for a moment in time.  Had to share.

Quality control or political power grab?

As a member of the manufacturing community I've learned that Quality Control is a Science.  Lots of math, lots of documentation, lots of training and lots of measurement.  But we don't measure EVERY part.  It's called statistical quality control because we use statistical sampling to asses the quality of our process.

High stakes testing of students hasn't seemed to figure this out.  This intrusive, expensive, impractical and meaningless methodology has created a financial windfall for test vendors, income for a test-prep ecosystem surrounding it, untold stress and anxiety for students and their parents and a political football for incompetent legislators.  What could possibly go wrong!!??

I found this show on CSPAN describing the rising tide of dissent against this insanity.  I thought you'd want to watch it.  Fascinating!

1st Maker Space Making Progress!

IPS and Ivy Tech have committed to hosting 1st Maker Space summer programs. Those 1st Maker Space partners represent the largest school district in the state and the largest commmunity college in the USA.

The Arsenal Technical High School 1st Maker Space is under construction. We've already had a stream of 'maker space tourists' come through and leave very impressed.

Pre-registration for our summer camp programs, now hosted at over 20 locations, have accelerated. 

We will be exhibiting at the Indiana Afterschool Network 2015 Summit 4/13-15. We are constructing a maker space in the center of the exhibit atrium at the J W Marriott. Typical attendance exceeds 700 educators and includes school decision makers throughout the state.

The keynote speaker is Don Wettrick, Innovation Specialist at Noblesville Schools and author of Pure Genius: Building a Culture of Innovation and Taking 20% Time to the Next Level. He was instrumental in arranging for 1st Maker Space being selected by Noblesville Schools to build a maker space at their high school. We will be hosting camps there this summer.

And this week we'll be cheer leading for Cardinal Ritter HS at the NCAA Final Four. They were one of four Indiana schools picked by the NCAA to receive an award at their Team Works Celebration. Ritter invited us to be a part of the ceremony in appreciation for the support we provided them in the construction of the artificial hand they provided to the little girl in Toronto as part of the Enabling the Future program.

Rotary Invocation - December 9 2014

A Christmas Wish

Why do we need the Holidays to be in the holiday spirit?  Why do we need the Season to wish each other season’s greetings?

Shouldn’t we be well-wishing and good-spirited all year?

The good work of Gleaners and the Salvation Army are especially important at Christmastime.  But aren’t people hungry every day?  Don’t people need a place to stay, freedom from fear and protection from abuse during the other eleven months a year?  Don’t children want to believe in Santa every day?

Our attention is claimed by so many priorities, so often, by so many urgent causes – some near and dear, some merely annoying interruptions.  The great malady of our day is attention deficit disorder.   We have so much to pay attention to that we can’t pay attention to anything.

But paying attention is exactly what we need to do.  Whether you are rich or poor, a captain of industry or looking for a job, you have exactly the same attention to pay as the person sitting next to you and the same as everyone else on the planet.

And Christmas is the time when, for a little while, for a part of the world at least, our tradition is to pay a little more attention to each other – to loved ones, family and friends, but also to those who, for the rest of the year, we may not pay any attention to at all.

Practice paying attention this holiday – but don’t stop.   You’ll get better at it if you try!  Use the rest of Winter to practice.  By Spring you ought to be pretty good!  Keep at it through the Summer and Fall and before long you may find that you’ve been paying attention to other people for a whole year!

And when the thought of how to account for all that attention you’ve been paying occurs to you, I hope you find that you have even more to pay.  Like a checking account that grows larger the more you use it.

We all need to pay more attention to other people in this world.  I believe it is the source of goodness and charity and change for the better.  And it doesn’t need to just happen during the holidays.  The people you pay attention to will value it any day, in any season.

That is the true spirit of Christmas and my Holiday wish for us all.

Rotary Invocation - October 2014

Rotary Invocation October 7, 2014

Kim Brand & Beth Ann Brand

Last week, the Earth passed through an imaginary point in space that marks the beginning of a new season: Autumn.  Opposite of Spring – the days get shorter quickly now.  The weather becomes less agreeable.  Even the sun wants to wake up later and rises ever lower in the sky at mid-day.  The more intelligent animals leave if they can.  Winter is surely not far away.

If we didn’t have faith that this was just another in Earth’s eon’s old cycles around the sun it would be worrisome.  But in fact, it is a reminder of life’s great cycle and our place in it.

Poets and writers wax sentimental about the coming cold and the change of seasons.  The change brings vibrant colors and radiant skies and crispness in the air.  The cooler temps signal the start of harvest season.  Soon we’ll have Halloween and Thanksgiving.

But for me Autumn is part of a great rebalancing – perhaps the most thoughtful change of season.  Spring heralds new life.  Summer fills us with confidence that life goes on.  Winter convinces us it won’t.  Autumn is a reminder that balance is what the seasons, and our own lives are all about.  Autumn is like humility to Summer’s pride and Spring’s enthusiasm.

Take a moment today to appreciate the blessings of the harvest time and think about your place in the great cycle of seasons – and life.  There will be more time to be close to the ones we love as we huddle nearer against the cold winds of the approaching winter.   With shorter days and longer nights the glow of home fires and the company of family can sustain our souls in place of the sun.