Help me research the UK Maker community
24 Oct Update: Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far. I’ve had a great response, and had the privilege to talk to a whole bunch of inspiring, creative people. I’m not recruiting for any more phone interviews now, but if you’d like to share your thoughts, I’ll leave the online survey open for another couple of weeks.
5 Nov Update: Survey is closed now.
I’ll be in touch with everyone who’s taken part in mid-November.
I’m doing a research project for O’Reilly UK. O’Reilly are the publishers of Make magazine and the Makezine.com website; they’re the people behind Maker Faire and Maker Shed; and they publish great books on Arduino, circuit-bending, amateur robotics, creative hacking and related topics.
They want to understand how they can better support the UK maker community, and I’m helping them find out.
If you’re reading this, the chances are you’re a maker of some sort, or you’re involved in innovation or manufacturing, technology or the creative industries. You might be a supplier of maker products or services, or involved in education or training in maker skills. Either way, I’d really like to get your views and ideas.
How you can help</p>
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1. Do a 20 minute phone interview
I’m going to be doing some phone interviews through October, and if you’re interested in chatting to me about makers in the UK, I’d love to speak to you. You can reach me on twitter or email (hello at andrewsleigh dot com) to find out more, or arrange a time to speak. Or you can leave your details in the survey form below and I’ll get in touch.
2. Answer 7 survey questions
Not feeling chatty? If you’d still like to contribute, I’d really value your input, so I prepared a simple survey to capture your thoughts more quickly. If you can fill any of this out in however much detail you’d like, that would be really useful. Go to the survey >
What’s in it for you
As a token of my appreciation, I’ll pick the best respondent (based on how interesting and useful your responses are) and buy you something cool from either Folksy (UK craft marketplace and lovely people) or Oomlout (Leeds’ — and indeed the world’s — friendliest Arduino/electronics store). You choose. Anything you like up to £25, including shipping to you.