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Maker City Playbook | Kauffman Foundation & Gray Area

Challenge:

Local and national economies ( and their ability to stay current and competitive ) depend on the commodities produced, how they’re made, who makes them (and where), and how the skills to make them are acquired. That dynamic is rapidly changing with advanced manufacturing technologies, decentralized means of producing, changing industries, and changing demands of education systems.  

The Maker City Playbook was created to share the insights, knowledge, and practices of how people and organizations inside American cities are leveraging the Maker movement to build community, create economic opportunity, revitalize manufacturing and supply chains, reshape education and workforce development, and redefine civic engagement.

A project by the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts and The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, partners included The Office of Science and Technology Policy of The Executive Office of the President of the United States, Institute for the Future, Tech Shop, Urban Manufacturing Alliance, Maker Media, City Innovate Foundation.

 

Approach:

The playbook employed three primary research techniques: a survey (for breadth), interviews (for depth), and market research (for context). As the Research Lead and Contributor, I developed and led the research framework for the in-depth interviews and market research.

The research methodology was designed to uncover recent trends at the national and local level, what people were engaged and how, lessons learned, and how this existing collective body of experience could inform others as they sought to implement projects in their networks and communities.  This required identifying who to involve in our research to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the players and forces at work, then engaging people who could represent those regional, socio-economic, and institutional perspectives.

We conducted in-depth interviews with dozens of thought leaders, officials, community members and practitioners who work at the forefront of the Maker movement. We also interviewed students and teachers, developers and entreprenuers, nonprofit directors and heads of corporations. Cities included Brooklyn (NY), Chattanooga (TN), Cleveland (OH), San Diego (CA), Pittsburgh (PA), Portland (OR) and many more.

Analysis was primarily done through grounded methods and open coding, using affinity diagrams, actors mapping, and system mapping to contextualize and group the emergent themes and understand how the players connect with one another.

 

Result:

A compendium of diverse, telling insights about education, funding policy and more that relates to local economies, making, engagement and inclusion.
To read the book, go to makercitybook.com