The other day a random twitter conversation by biglesp, who for quite some time before I met him in meatspace believed was called Big Lesp, got me thinking about what is a maker.
Internal musings on the bus, "I used to be defined by my job title, now it is by the t-shirts that I wear" #sysadminGEEKCHIC
— biglesp (@biglesp) May 26, 2016
You see we came to the conclusion that the closest thing we have to a job title is Maker, but what is a maker?
It sounds like we make things, but in my own personal sense of the word its far more wide reaching than simply physical objects, there are lots of intangible things to.
We make;
Tangible things
Events happen
Groups form
Communities stronger
So not only does a maker make things, we enable other people to make things too.
Why does this matter?
Well these days I’m working more and more with local authorities, we are putting on hackdays around a wide array of themes from social isolation (a term up until a year ago I had never heard) to Environmental impact on faith buildings.
The problem is when doing this kind of work, you have to hope that people will want to repeat what you are doing, but if you want to find someone to put on a hack day or build a widget, who do you turn to? Well most likely you turn to Google, but what do you search for?
In my mind the person you want is a Maker, but I’m open to suggestions?