From the Tail of the Coat

There is nothing wrong with supporting people in their efforts. I have built an entire social life constructed of mutual support and respect. This is not riding coattails. I have never received nor accepted credit for the work of another person, but it may appear that way to some. When people thank me publicly for helping, I demure but accept it. This is why I do my own projects as well as help others with theirs; because having my own things lets people know that I don’t want to take theirs.

I want to see everyone succeed at what they love to do. If that means that I assist them to secure resources, help them with the parts of a project that aren’t immediately appreciated but necessary for the experience, kick them in the junk to make them stop dreaming, whatever. I will do it if I believe in you.

My hope — and what I have realized in my own projects — is that genuine support begets genuine support. I do everything I do for myself. I am self-centered. Absolutely. It makes me happy to help people; and that is about me. My support and commentary isn’t always welcomed, and that is okay. It is in the offering that I am satisfied and in that offering that bridges are built for future relationships.

Last night, I was able to prototype a modular furniture series with the help of Heatsync Labs, in Mesa, and get someone else to start thinking about ways to bring production home (I saw her talking up new possibilities this morning!). I also prototyped an idea I have been playing with for months. I designed a pillow a while back that says “Fuck” on one side and “Cuddle” on the other with a hidden pocket for condoms and goodies and have sold a few out of the shop and online; and recently the friend that helped me learn to sew used the idea in one of her products. My ideas aren’t always great, but working with others has helped refine things every time.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t help everyone. I can’t. I also have priorities. I only give of myself when it doesn’t harm my own initiatives or I believe strongly that the other person/people will also give of themselves sometime (and not necessarily to me, but to something worth supporting). I don’t expect reciprocation, but it is always appreciated.

I like watching people make their stuff and I will do whatever I have to to facilitate that. I don’t want a piece of anyone’s pie. I want to see a bunch more pies on the table.

Thinking About The Whole Experience

This is something I’ve been preaching about for a long time, and it isn’t an original thought by any means. The practice of pulling off outside projects is one that teaches you a lot about design. Good projects don’t just happen, you have to plan them. And when I refer to planning, I don’t mean just laying out a timeline for completion. I mean everything from beginning to the enduring experience.

This is a short list of the kinds of thinking that I like to have done on my projects. It is not exhaustive, but gives a pretty good idea of where I see gaps in some of the stuff I have experienced.

Before beginning, a project should at least have the following considerations:

• What is the goal? What does success look like? This will help you come up with ways to measure that are part of the experience, like surveys or audience participation. If you can’t come up with an at-hand measurable, there might not be a need for a project. Keep looking until you find one. Don’t start without it or you will end up working really hard and walking away feeling apathetic.
• Who is it for? Think of all of your audiences; including yourself. Think of how to engage them. You’re designing an experience for other people. They aren’t you and you need to recognize how they perceive the world and how they are best communicated with.
• Is it worth the effort? Will a substantive change be made? I don’t think everything needs to change the world, but when you are thinking about goals, is one of them to do something new; or are you just mimicking something else that could just be pointed to? You don’t want to get down the path and discover that someone else already did it better. Mimicking is fine if it hasn’t been done in your area or if you are trying to activate people who weren’t a part of the original.
• Who will want/need to help? How do you talk to them and get them on board. Do these people care about your subject? If they haven’t been vocal about it, you need to gather support and identify co-conspirators. How are THEY best communicated with? Are there organizations you can reach out to or speak at a meeting of?

Then, there are some of the operational considerations:

• What does the communication look like? Are we printing, making a website, developing a mobile app, using an online project tool? Building the infrastructure isn’t a secondary thought; it is the primary one once you know you’re doing something.
• What level of commitment are you asking of each party? This has to be clearly stated up front for each constituency.
• What materials are needed? Where will they come from? Do we have commitment for donation or funds to purchase?

What are the experiential components?

• How do people first interact with our project? will they see the promotional material? how does the entry way signal that they are here? Where do they go once they walk in or login? Maps, Environmental Graphics, Wayfinding, etc.
• How do people see, touch, feel, and respond to the thing we create? Prototypes or walk-throughs are good.
• Did we consider how people feel as they leave the experience? Even the one-off project should leave people wanting more. Build an exit for them that will last (think roller-coaster photos).

Again, these are all just pieces of the project, not the actual doing. Running through these and your own list will make the idea seem more real and produce better results. Make the experience good for you and for everyone that touches it.

What is a designer?

My understanding has always been that design is a verb; until I met the nebulous cloud of designers in Phoenix that have decided that it is a noun. Not only have I learned that design is a noun but I have also learned that it can be owned only by people who know how to arrange colors and shapes on a screen in one of a small set of software programs.

I have loudly called bullshit on this multiple times. In fact, I have gone so far as to say that — as there is no certification or standard for who calls themselves a designer — most of the designers I have encountered aren’t doing design at all (they are web decorators) and know barely anything about the core concepts; which have nothing to do with choosing fonts or owning glasses. This rankles and is an unfair generalization, but I get tired of the constant refrain of “Design(ers) will save the world” when most of them make pretty useless and ephemeral things on a computer screen. I make the value judgment because I know that none of the people to whom I refer can prove otherwise; they don’t know how to determine success or value past the point of client acceptance or delivery.

Interaction design is amazingly important, but few of these folks actually translate that past the screen; which is FINE and perfectly valuable. But don’t pretend you are an overlord of design.

This is a reaction to a recent set of circumstances. Yesterday, I asked to be granted membership to a Facebook group for Branding, Advertising, and Marketing in Phoenix. When this request was granted I also received a bonus invitation into the Phoenix Designers Group. Upon reading through the recent posts on the Phoenix Designers page, I noted a not unfamiliar tone of ego and condescension toward client and “peer” alike. I put peer in quotation marks because, again, there are NO STANDARDS for who gets to call themselves a designer; except that it is clearly evident that only those who produce websites and print (interactive and visual communications) are qualified in the eyes of the group to use the moniker. Well and good, I say. But you’re not suddenly Stefan Sagmeister, Paula Scher, Michael Bierut, Yves Behar or Jonathan Ive; all of whom have created game changing work, and not all visual, but all visually pleasing.

There are some REALLY good designers in this town. REALLY GOOD. There are also a lot of hangers on. My issue with that is only that there seems to be a lot of discussion on that board that has nothing to do with improving design effectiveness and more to do with telling people who should already know how to use programs what to do. There is a lot of free ‘work’ being done in the comments section. Sourcing tips, tutorials, free software, ways to do business, etc. For a profession that is so elitist in its attitude toward the common man, they sure don’t care if they give it away to hacks who ultimately devalue the work for everyone.

Webster’s Dictionary has a fairly universally accepted definition for design:

And yet another for designer:

I left the synonyms on this one first because they fit on the screen and second because they say a lot about the many permutations and do not infer a specificity to interaction or visual communication. It’s about analysis and planning. I would argue not too violently that, after design is done, production has to occur and that is often where we find out whether you’re a designer or just a visionary artist.

So, to summarize, I don’t really care that much about this subject until I see someone climb up on a horse to look down on the world; but I believe those people are a scourge on the concept of design. A designer is someone who sees a problem and devises a solution that works using available resources and often novel concepts.

Defined.

The Double Edged Sword of Exploring Creativity

I had a conversation with a creative friend of mine this evening that went in 87 directions, but one of the common threads was engaging co-conspirators for our various endeavors. My realization during the conversation was not actually a realization; rather more of a remembrance: It sucks to be an idea guy.

I often hear creative people lamenting that they have blocks and can’t seem to wrangle all of their projects in a sensible way to get them done. This is frustrating for them; I am sure. However, I think they’ve got it easy. They have the talent and skill to get their ideas done. The other kind of creative block is really painful too: when your access to creatives is blocked.

People like me are in a really tough position (poor poor, pitiful, me; I know). I have ideas all the time that I think are awesome, but I don’t have a lot of skill in the areas of production needed to make them happen. I am always looking for someone to help me realize my vision. That isn’t always easy; in fact, it never is. Even being blessed with a talent for communication, I find it a monumental task to sell my ideas and get people to want to help.

I don’t blame people for not jumping on board. I understand what it is like to volunteer to make another person’s vision a reality when you don’t have the same passion for the idea. That means that I have to not only sell my idea, but I have to also convince someone or many people that it is theirs too.

There are the lucky moments when you bring something to the table that other people have also been wanting to do and it all works out; but most of the time, it is a lot harder than that. I get a lot of “that sounds awesome…for you!” when I pitch ideas. At least then, I know the idea is interesting enough to pursue. I then end up even more excited and ultimately more frustrated because it’s a real thing now and now more than before I HAVE to find someone to help or I have given up on something amazing, right?

I am jealous of the creators even if they struggle with ideas, because they might spend hours, days, or months working on something but eventually it will come out of them. I’m generally stuck without a team.

Now, the creative among us will say that I should spend the years that they did honing the skills of creation and then I wouldn’t have the problem. That would be awesome if it weren’t for aptitude. I have the ability to go through the motions of most things, but I am just not skilled in certain areas.

So who’s better off, the idea guy with no skill or the skilled guy with no idea? Probably neither. We need each other. I just feel like I need you more than you need me. Hugs?

Flexible Teams

There’s an energy in Phoenix; of that, I have no doubt. There are wide open skies (and a spotty downtown) that signal endless possibilities. In the past few years, I have met lots of people who seem to have a desire to make positive changes and build this city from the underground up. We are slowly gathering momentum for a lot of movements to create unofficial responses to what we see as antiquated public services and old models for community action.

We aren’t joining the existing groups because we haven’t seen them make the kind of progress we envision and their memberships are often entrenched in the system with formality and bureaucracy. There is definitely a shortsightedness at play in the way we see the ‘failings’ of longstanding groups; because formality is often the best way to ensure a voice is heard. Organization ultimately begets formality. Someone has to be the figurehead in order for people to know who to look to and someone has to make decisions on direction based on the group’s suggestion. But how many people need to be in the circle, and how much visibility does a project really need? Most organizations spend inordinate amounts of time on politics and gathering support for missions and not for individual short-term goals.

I propose that the active generations have been inching toward a more informal model where individuals or small groups have a driving idea and engage volunteers or co-conspirators for limited time projects. Membership has its privileges; but also has its restrictions. I like the idea this time around, but I want to be free to hop from one project to another based on where I feel most useful and where I have the most passion.

Because people work in different ways today — with less unions and life-term careers — the structures that made sense 20 years ago now frustrate younger people who do not build up lasting relationships nor accept assumed power roles. There are examples of this in some of our organizations, but the more enduring — and endearing — ones have flat organizations. Everyone has a voice.

In response to this, I am exploring ways to engage people in community projects that requires short-term commitment and interest.

One of these is a redux of last summer’s project that I loosely touched on in a previous post (Projects that never die), Projector Phoenix. This online project board will be more task oriented than previously envisioned to allow for people to feel more useful and less trapped in the projects that they assist with. Users will be able to search through lots of active local projects and pull tasks for themselves based on current needs only and then move on. Additionally, they will be able to see the progress on all projects to see which ones they may not have been interested in at the beginning simply because they didn’t understand the potential or goal and still get into them, as needed.

Another strategy that I have applied over numerous projects is to engage different people on projects based on what I know their interests to be and not to build a permanent team that leads every project regardless of the aim. So today I may be working with one group to create a sustainable design competition for neighborhood beautification and tomorrow I may be working with a completely different group to create a model for urban farming and public health promotion. This accomplishes two things: there is no perception of a closed circle that makes others feel excluded; and the team is always composed of people dedicated to the goal 100%.

The idea in both strategies being that people don’t want to be tied into organizations nearly as much as they want to be able to participate at will in any project that is “up their alley.”

Now the question I have been struggling with is project jealousy. There is a sense that people don’t like to share about what they are doing for two reasons: fear of criticism and fear of idea theft. I have learned not to worry about either of those things but it took a lot of conditioning.

• First off, it has been said many times that criticism is a great way to figure out if what you’re doing is innovative (people ridicule things that break from the norm) and also a great way to refine ideas that may NEED valid criticism.
• Secondly, idea theft is one of the best things for a project; creating competition and the ability to get the right people on the right projects. People who steal ideas are generally saying “I can do this better”; and maybe they can. Let them.

I want to build a small group of idea generators. No, this isn’t a call for people to join. I’m going to do this with 5-7 people I trust that have shown the ability to follow through on big ideas. Go ahead and gather your own. The purpose of my group will be to create an environment of trust, accountability, and criticism that will push us all to follow through on good ideas and kill bad ones. We won’t necessarily work on each others’ ideas, but we will be free to discuss them without reservation and then take them back out to our respective community teams.

I challenge others to look at the way they have been attempting to achieve goals and see if there is a better way. Maybe it isn’t this one, but is yours really working? If it is, share it.

Changing Collars Changed My Style

Something I have been thinking about lately is the ways that my methods of engaging with others around my work have changed over time.

[the opinion below is based on positions that were hogtied by regulation; so it is heavily biased toward a view of corporate jobs as limiting creativity. Also, it is understood that the world is changing. This is about my personal experience.]

The feedback loop in creative pursuits is different than that in corporate environments. More often, I am receiving feedback from peers and outsiders instead of seeking the approval of superiors. This difference has changed my perspective on business very subtly over the past few years.

I understand the separation that some people point to as a generation gap has less to do with age, but the type of work that I do. Approval seeking happens in every pursuit, but it is the way that we look at how others seek approval that defines their legitimacy in our eyes. I used to believe that crazy kids were wasting their time hoping that people would like them and sabotaging themselves by playing to the lowest common denominator. So completely wrong, but what view is right?

If I look at it from my old perspective, I think “I want my boss to value me.”; if I look at it now, I think “I want my community to value me.”

This isn’t a fluffy clouds and puppy dogs statement. When I talk about my community, I am referring to the wider world around me. In creative pursuits, it is always about the effectiveness of the solution more than the completion of a task; even though, I now see that everything should be judged through the effectiveness lens. I always felt that nobody was really paying attention to how I did the work or whether it was making a difference, just that it got done. I like to feel that the work made a difference to the company and is moving us toward a better future.

In corporate jobs, I felt judged based on one – or a few – people’s valuation of whether I had completed assignments. Just completing something doesn’t fly in creativity. I can put work on the street or in front of people and have them reject it outright through apathy. Algorithmic completion of tasks suddenly becomes a case of being a one-note non-contributor. Nobody wants to see the same thing over and over in the creative world.

Because of this need for wider acceptance when I am doing a side project, I invite more input and criticism. It connects me – through my work – to my peers and associates. That connection is stronger than one with coworkers in my old office jobs. There is a greater understanding, empathy, and sometimes sympathy for one another that is gained by engaging in this type of discussion with people who are not working toward the same corporate standards.

I do believe that there is much to be gained in both environments, as far as learning goes. I don’t think I would be nearly as enamored of the creative feedback loops and external people being so heavily involved in my side work if I hadn’t also spent time seeking approval from very smart people in those limited settings for a time. The mentoring that occurs by being in a superior-subordinate role for a time is invaluable. During that time, I was able to hone a particular view of quality in a specialization.

So now taking that idea full circle, I say to myself that it is important to bring that holistic view of approval to the more restrictive environment. I now share my ideas and challenges from the corporate setting with my network built outside the workplace more often and — in seeking their approval or input — bring more back to the table.

…or something similar to that, but more well thought out. Maybe I should run this thought around with some other people.

Projects that Never Die

Some projects pop into your mind as an idea mostly formed and get done in what seems like moments. Some projects drag on, die, and are reborn over and over; never seeming to get completed.

In the past, my strategy was to concede and allow projects to be tossed into the “Maybe that was just a terrible idea” bucket. This is sometimes the right option. Some ideas are just bad. Killing these projects and taking them off of the to-do list should be done swiftly and with prejudice. But some ideas just got rolling before they were properly refined or need to be tweaked based on changes to the outside world. These ideas should be treated with care.

I recently decided to reincarnate a side project that has been languishing. Whether it was due to poor management, overriding priorities, or distaste for the idea, this project wasn’t going anywhere and had blown its deadline uncountable times. Knowing that all of the stakeholders were feeling a little anxious and guilty about the delays, I felt it was appropriate to say “let’s take a step away.” I phrased this as a cancellation more for myself than anyone on the team. The old, stagnant, project was dead. We needed to hear that there was no plan to be followed. We needed to hear that our solution wasn’t the right one. We needed to go back to the drawing board.

Immediately, the concept was reanimated. The freedom to say we weren’t doing it caused us to evaluate whether we should bother to save it. BAM! We looked at the reason we started in the first place and said “this is necessary because the problem still exists”. Then we started fresh with the following questions:

1. What was the problem?
2. Is everyone still on board or did the drudgery kill our spirit?
3. What have we experienced outside of this project over the duration that is also part of the problem and went unnoticed?
4. What have we experienced outside of this project over the duration that might now help find a better solution?
5. What technical and design elements that were created still fit into our new solution?

The universal goal of our initial idea is still there. That general statement that we want to make a thing that solves a definitive problem is a good one.

It is number 5 that is the most sensitive in these situations. If I kill a side project outright due to timelines being blown, I must recognize one human quality: People, regardless of actual hours spent on the project, feel like you are killing months and months of unpaid work (even more because of the delay); so that kind of call can’t be made capriciously.

If we are going to resurrect the project, it will feel like we are continuing; so we need to be sensitive to the pieces that were built and try to use as much of that old work as possible in our new framework. There is always something that can be carried through. The work wasn’t bad, the plan was.

We all still have other things to be concerned with and we all have new things that came up over the old timeline that we need to attend to. Bringing the project back means we need to be sure we want to do it on a personal level as well; and we need to get it done this time.

This project wants to live!

Waiting

While productivity has been high on the creative side over the last few months, my productivity in my vocational pursuits has been lacking. I had a great run of contract work over the years 2010 and 2011 until about August; and when an unexpected set of circumstances caused all of my contracts to end simultaneously, I had no pipeline. What was I thinking? I wasn’t. I wasn’t paying attention. I was depressed, overconfident, and coasting along. It happens.

When my work slowed, I was in the middle of multiple projects in my side hustle. I had things to do. I had money to sustain myself. I was going to be just fine. This was the lie I was telling myself. I wasn’t going to be fine. Today I am not yet fine again.

Why did I not immediately start digging into my network? Well, I kind of did. I half-assedly sent out messages to former clients and those that I had spoken previously with about potential engagements, doing the survey of my past work and reminding people of conversations. But I didn’t push. I didn’t explore any new sectors. I was waiting for my personal life to sort itself and for a plateau of boredom to push me.

That was silly. This is related to my new lifestyle. I always have something I can do. My family issues aren’t going to sort themselves. I will always be mentally occupied. But neglecting my business life was actually creating a more difficult situation.

So now I have gotten my act back together. I spent November and December weighing client and employment offers. I have commitments for more work than I could ever want. But the paper on these things takes time. I waited too long and now I am in fairly dire straits. I could blame this on the energy dedicated to the building of my side business or the illness and death of my father or on any number of other innocent things; but I won’t.

This was my fault. I bought my own line of bullshit that in this new creative life – filled with innovative ideas and social causes – things would always work themselves out. I guess I could say that they did since I will be better off financially than I have ever been…soon. But they didn’t work themselves out; I just got so damned real with myself that I worked them out.

Next time, I will be better. Right?

Meeting with the Mayor

One of the interesting things that has come out of a shift from work-a-day public service to work-anytime-on-whatever-you-want consulting, has been the networking opportunities that arise when people know you are passionate and dedicated to community. Today, I had the good fortune to be invited to meet with the newly inaugurated Mayor of Phoenix (hours before) as part of a group of local business owners and community leaders. Kimber Lanning, the head of Local First Arizona, an unofficial chamber of commerce for locally owned and operated businesses, organized the discussion at a community coffee shop. She made the very accurate point that it meant a lot that the new Mayor was interested in having this type of discussion on Day 1 of his term.

Prior to the discussion, the 20 invited participants were asked to submit a hit list of topics that they wanted to discuss so that we could narrow it down to the top 4/5 issues that were most prevalent. The list touched on:

1. land use and density

2. job creation and small business assistance

3. regulatory roadblocks

4. support of arts and culture

5. city purchasing

I cannot recount the full content of the conversation, but I will share what I was asked to put on the table:

Support of creative businesses.

When asked to speak as a representative of the concerned Creative Class, I decided to take a multi-pronged approach to let everyone, including the Mayor, know what I have noticed over the few years that I have been an entrepreneur and activist in Phoenix. I wanted to clarify that we often – and, in fact, did in the list above – separate support for business and support for Arts & Culture in our discussions on building an vibrant city. This is a myopic and damaging strategy. Promotion of existing arts and culture are important for sure, but it is the creative businesses that facilitate/produce the art and create the culture that are most important to highlight (in my opinion) if we are to build a city that is attractive to Creative Class and spur economic recovery.

In my few minutes I think I got most of this out, miraculously.

Creative businesses are one of the backbones of this city and cross many disciplines and boundaries. For instance, creative businesses are often:

• entrepreneurial – created by dreamers with innovative ideas that don’t fit in existing industries/businesses but nonetheless have voices to be heard and useful product advances to create.
• locally supportive – most small creative businesses prefer to source locally and produce locally; often not for economic reasons as much as the comfort and service received in dealing with your neighbor.
• collaborative – the community of creators tends to rely on one another for support and therefore develops a large network of specialists that admire, respect, and are more aware of what everyone around them is doing. This extends to the idea of resource management. Creative people know who is the best in town at each specialty and are great referrals for one another. Additionally, they are quicker to pull together a multidisciplinary team to solve big problems (even if those problems are sometimes as frivolous as figuring out how to make animatronic cacti that sing directions to tourists).
• job creators – while this often takes the form of encouraging and facilitating other entrepreneurs following their own dreams, there is a production aspect to most of these businesses that scales up as success is achieved and creates opportunities for others.
• educational – many of our current creative businesses both for- and non-profit are set up to build artisan and apprentice models of education. Call it vocational education or career training, but most creative businesses are run by people who are willing to share skill and offer opportunities to young people that are not inclined to white-collar or blue-collar careers. Creative careers foster different, more holistic, views of the world; as an awareness of social sciences and trends is a common necessity to producing quality work.
• additive – many of the services and products created by these businesses facilitate or enhance non-creative businesses (I hate to say that any business isn’t creative, but for our purposes, I think we can agree that an accounting firm isn’t as creative as a design studio or industrial design workshop).

What we need from our City is not promotion of the existence of the Arts & Culture or marketing of Phoenix as a place for the Creative Class – and subsequently larger industry – to come to, but promotion and municipal support of what lies beneath the surface and its benefit to the culture and economy. A lot of people here at home think of the Arts as a cute little thing that always needs to be propped up by grants and benevolence, but there is a lot of business under there.

Creating incentives, easements, rational regulations, and funding opportunities for creative businesses will allow the organic growth of Phoenix into a more attractive city. Seeking out services/bids from local creative businesses instead of putting RFPs on the street and awarding outside contracts when no local responses are received (our businesses are busy trying to do work, not looking to see if the City needs something done) will passively get local work national attention and CREATE JOBS!

And finally, if we want our best and brightest to stay in Phoenix instead of taking their world-class education and running to California and New York, we need to give them a culture, environment, and entrepreneurial climate that shows we value ‘their kind’. The most effective way to do that is to have a strong, visible, and innovative Creative Class. It is here. It is growing. Don’t kill it with old thinking and ignorance of the economic and cultural value of creative businesses.

All that said, the message was well received, and the Mayor announced that he is interested in the support and establishment of non-tech incubators, and that a Creativity Commission was part of his plan. What comes of that, I don’t know. What I do know is that I have his ear and will pull on it again and again. Meanwhile, I made a lot of new connections at this meeting and found projects to assist with and people to assist with mine; not ironic in the least.

The Idea Behind The Lab 137

In August 2011, I was looking for a new challenge after the dissolution of a failed nonprofit collaboration, Dojo Collective. My initial reasons for entering that partnership were based on a desire to start a community outreach program that would help young people to explore creative career opportunities and to provide an avenue for the design community to participate more fully in the life of the City of Phoenix through benevolent projects. My anger at the circumstances around that collapse did not put out that initial fire to create change in my community. If anything, I was more determined to take the lessons learned and a passion for Design Thinking that was sparked during my brief foray into the Phoenix Design Community and turn them into something grander. I’m not there yet and this new chapter is merely another step.

Upon departing Dojo, I approached a long-time friend and small businessman named Ruben Gonzales at a party and explained that I was still interested in providing opportunities to explore creative business to the young entrepreneurs of Phoenix. Ruben had recently partnered with another individual to create a fundraising pop-up shop under The Rise Project banner and was highly interested in opening a permanent studio and retail space in the Roosevelt Row district of Phoenix. The initial plan was for a team of four people to carry the overhead on an open collaborative workspace and retail shop that would host classes ranging from Art & Design to Dance & Music.

During the month of August we searched out spaces that might house our concept with little traction. As part of the discussion around the closing of the pop-up Rise Project shop at the end of the summer, the landlord offered our group a very favorable deal to retain the lease on the storefront and living space that we determined was probably sufficient for getting our program off the ground. The space we occupy is a 1650 square foot live/work condo with a 300 square foot retail space. Our initial vision has been curtailed by space availability, but we are doers who decided that perhaps the smaller start would be a great way to test our concept with less risk.

In September, we re-opened under the name The Lab 137 and began in earnest to develop a concept that would allow creative entrepreneurs to design, test, produce, and market their own goods. The Lab is dedicated to exploration of creativity and the act of making. We currently house a small design lab, a handicraft workshop, and a retail store that are open 6 days a week in the heart of the arts district. We hope to begin educational programming in January 2012 while continuing to provide an outlet for local, handmade, goods and services.

Our philosophy falls under the “each one, teach one” model and posits that a lack of expertise or resources should not be a roadblock to exploring your passions. The Lab is set up to facilitate skill sharing, a collaborative studio environment, and learning. Our partners are artists, photographers, designers, makers, and business people who work together using their own expertise and are always willing to show each other how to do things so that everyone gets the opportunity to own their own process and products.

We don’t just aim to teach, either. We also have a mission of spreading the word about the importance of creativity in daily life and business. To that end, we want to get more work on the streets; participate and initiate community projects and public installations; and show Phoenix to the rest of the country by creating a culture of competition and collaboration that produces world-class work. This is about experimentation and advancement; NOT just appreciation. We don’t want people to stand on what we have, but to launch off of it to greater heights.

So far the response has been positive and encouraging. I am interested in getting more people involved and finding out how we can improve. This isn’t a nonprofit, but it is a community investment business. A portion of each of our sales goes directly back into the tools, resources, and projects that The Lab 137 offers openly to makers in the neighborhood. Please come and participate in workshops, consign or wholesale your products, take advantage of our workspace, and spend some time connecting and creating with other entrepreneurs and neighbors.

Please feel free to send comments to the address below and share about goods you make; workshops you might like to lead or participate in; or tools you need that we might provide in our workshop. You can also just tell us how much you love us at info@thelab137.c0m.

I won’t stop trying and I hope you don’t either.