How to Change the World

Ten Questions with Chris Brogan

Chris Brogan is a social media expert specializing in building communities using digital tools. He is co-founder of PodCamp, a free unconference exploring the use of social media like podcasting and videoblogging to build relationships. He produces the Video on the Net conference for Pulvermedia and blogs at Chrisbrogan.com

1. Question: What problem does Twitter solve?

   Answer: Twitter connects me to my friends, and introduces me to people I don’t know. It lets me reach an audience all at the same time which means that I can tell them what’s got my attention. THAT’s how I answer the question on Twitter because I think “What are you doing?” is too focused on me. I’d rather tell you about something I think is interesting, and show you how to get there. Sometimes it’s about me; sometimes it’s about someone I think deserves more attention.

2. Question: Why is knowing that your friend’s cat rolled important?

   Answer: It’s not that I really want to know about my friend’s cat, but I sure want to know about their lives. Why? Because it helps everyone feel connected across the distance. With the Internet comes the ability to have global friends, and a friend’s life isn’t just what they blog or podcast about. There’s lots of stuff that goes on in between. It’s like the commercial: “For everything else, there’s Twitter.”

3. Question: When I go to the Twitter home page there’s nothing but tweets about people’s cats, people waking up, people going to sleep, and tweets in other languages—what do I care about this crap?

   Answer: The Twitter public feed is only interesting in the sense of thinking, “Wow, even with a big group of connections on Twitter, there’s these other several thousand people I have no idea about doing their own thing.” This almost immediately gets boring. Don’t care about it. Twitter is about you and your connections. It’s a tool that requires you to refine a bit.

4. Question: Then who are the “must folllows” on Twitter?

   Answer: My Twitter “starter pack” includes:

   1. NewMediaJim—he’s a mainstream TV news cameraman. His travels make news real to me.

   2. ScottSimpson—truly one of the funniest guys around bar none. BadBanana—same reason.

   3. DaveWiner—Dave’s pushing lots of great thoughts into Twitter, as well as working with the medium itself.

   4. BassGhost—a high school friend, but generally fun for any old soul to follow.

   5. Mochant—Marc Orchant, interesting and often with neat pointers.

   6. Scobleizer—If you don’t have him, you’re missing a pulse point.

   7. AnnOhio—she rocks out the “human” face of Twitter.

   8. iJustine—makes me laugh out loud. A truly underrated comedian.

5. Question: If Twitter didn’t exist, what would you use to solve this problem?

   Answer: Facebook does something similar, but it’s still so closed in and not as multi-modal feeling.

6. Question: Why does the New York Times, CNN, and International Herald Tribune bother when they only have a few thousand followers?

   Answer: In one way, all the major media sources are using Twitter as a test. In another, it’s allowing those few thousand to propagate news fairly fast. Remember, it’s a network effect. 2,000 followers all have tangential overlaps that span the majority of Twitter. When news happens, we get it fast on Twitter.

7. Question: Why Twitter versus Pownce or Jaiku?

   Answer: Twitter works best for me because it has a US-based SMS short code and because it offers multiple modes of SIMPLE interaction. Jaiku is a little too feature rich for me to spend time there—this is odd to say, but the extra features make it feel more like redundant blogging. Pownce just never struck me the way Twitter did. Maybe too much of an “also ran” feeling, though I think it’s a good app.

8. Question: What do you consider the ideal mix for the subject matter of someone’s tweets? That is, news, cool sites they found, personal updates (“Getting on a plane to Boston), opinions (“Cheney sucks”), trivia (“My cat rolled over”).

   Answer: It’s nice to address your friends and followers using the @person convention and holding little mini conversations on Twitter can be fun. People have a low threshold for someone who just lobs links over the wall unless those links are almost always really interesting. However, the true magic is in answering the right question: “What has your attention right now?” Because the answer to this can span a wide range of topics.

9. Question: I’ve been accused of not following enough people. Why do people care how many people I follow?

   Answer: People view the number of people you follow as a measure of how engaged you are with this community. If you’re just following five or six people, you’re probably a link-lobber. If you’re following tons of folks, nearly equal to who follows you, you’re probably interested in them. It’s a matter or trading attention. Mind you, the more people you follow, the less directly readable it becomes. I have to use Twittersearch and Terraminds to get the most out of Twitter.

10. Question: But if I follow many people, then the feed is busy and therefore useless. What should I do?

    Answer: You could always have two accounts: one to follow the people you really really really need to stay on top of, and the other to hold larger conversations. Or, do what I do and use tools to mine for conversation.

11. Question: If you were the owner of Truemors, how would you use Twitter?

    Answer: If I owned Truemors, I’d build a Twitter-to-Truemors bridge that lets me start a twitter with “tr” and then a space, and then everything after would go in as a “Twitter-Truemor” or whatever you want to call it. This would make for lightning fast news-transfer. I’d make this a stand-alone topic because it wouldn’t look as nicely formatted as other truemors.

    The news here would be a little more “unprepared” because how much can you say in 140 characters? But I’ve got a sense that Twitter is faster at finding information, just because it often becomes the dumping ground of what has our attention, and we send links so others can watch too.

    I’d probably also do just what you’re doing and find me some of the best/funniest/most engaging articles on Truemors and tweet them in between other things you’re twittering about.

---

To follow Chris on Twitter, click here. And there’s me.

---

Halo 3 Silicon Valley Launch Party Photos

Halo 3 shipped on Monday at midnight, and there were launch parties at Microsoft campuses around the country. These are pictures from the Mountain View, California location.

This is the registration line. Yes, that’s Robert Scoble standing in line like any schmo.

Scobleizer with his five cameras.

He thinks his Canon 5D is better than my Nikon D40x.

Unloading inventory for the Microsoft employee store.

Jas Sandhu, the Microsoft evangelist that invited me and Team Truemors.

Microsoft’s living room of the future.

Guitar Hero players.

The food spread.

Including exotic hamburgers.

Special edition Mountain Dew.

Blake Commagere, the author of the Facebook app called Zombies. Two guys in a garage with 4.5 million downloads.

Eric Wu of Emotioneric. Another great app that I can’t figure out.

I don’t know who she is, but she wins style points.

Action in the main gaming room. There were tables set up with three flat-screen monitors, three xBox 360s, and twelve controllers.

There was a single-elimination tournament. D2 = Team Truemors.

Our team in action.

The other team in action. Notice the frantic motion compared to the collective cool of Team Truemors.

A little adjudication about the final round. That’s Jason Mauer, league commissioner.

The second-place team. A fine bunch of fellows but second-place finishers nonetheless.

Yeah, baby, the winning team. Limited edition Halo 3 was the prize.

Winner #1 of an xBox 360.

Winner #2 of an xBox 360.

Winner #3 of an xBox 360.

And the big loser of the night: Anthony Nemitz of eBay. He could have won an xBox 360 when his name was called, but he was downstairs drinking beer.

The Top Ten (Sixteen) Lies of Lawyers

Like CEOs, marketers, engineers, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists, lawyers tell their own specialized tales. Most of my experience is with lawyers who do work for tech entrepreneurs, so this is my focus.

1. “I’m really excited about what you are doing and will give your company my personal attention.” Once someone gets to the partner level, making it “rain” is as important as doing “work.” This is part of a standard sales pitch, so don’t let it go to your head.

2. “Our firm is really excited about what you’re doing, so we’d like to invest in your company too.” Also part of the standard sales pitch. Most firms invest in most of their startup clients—it’s simply the law of big numbers: Invest in enough dumb ideas, and one will turn out to be a Google.

3. “We can work on the billing so that you pay us when you get financed.” The final flattery in a good sales pitch. As with the others, don’t think you’re special. This is a common offer.

4. “I’ll have that to you by the end of the day.” The important question for you to ask when you hear this is, “End of exactly which day?” Because every day has an end. And you should find out how your lawyer defines the end of the day: 6:00 pm or 11:59 pm (thanks, zakstar).

5. “Don’t worry about the date on that option grant; it’s not a big deal.” Unless you enjoy getting indicted, you should run from a lawyer who utters such stupidity.

6. “The bill would be lower if it weren’t for the lawyers on the other side.” You do realize that the lawyers on the other side are saying this about your lawyers too, right?

7. “I thought you were more interested in getting it right rather than saving a few dollars.” In other words, the legal bill for your series A funding may exceed the amount of capital raised.

8. “Your case is much stronger than theirs; I’m sure we can convince them.” If your position is so strong, you don’t need lawyers. It’s when your position is weak that you need them. Also, your opponent is hearing the same thing about their case.

9. “We have relationships at the highest level in Shanghai/Munich/Mumbai/New York/LA.” In other words, someone from the firm once flew in first class to Shanghai/Munich/Mumbai/New York/LA with the vice premier’s uncle’s sister’s nephew.

10. “We’d much rather be on the company side than on the investor side.” Let me get this straight: Your lawyer would rather be on the side of two guys/gals in garage who are raising $500,000 than a venture capital fund managing $500 million whose partners play golf at the same country club?

11. “We usually don’t bill the full retainer; it only happens if there are unforeseen issues that come up.” One of two things is happening: either you’ve been sandbagged with an artificially high estimate or your lawyer just passed the bar.

12. “Sure we’re busy, but I’ll make sure you don’t get handed off to a green associate.” Translation: Your main contact passed the bar a year ago.

13. “I’ve done work with Google/Microsoft/Apple, so I know how to structure deals with them.” Translation: “My favorite search engine is Google which I use on my Windows laptop while I’m listening to my iPod.”

14. “We think you will have a very strong patent.” If you hear this, ask this question: “So if Microsoft infringes on it, we’d win?”

15. “We know the opposing attorneys, so we’ll be able to work out something quickly and cheaply.” This is like asking the hotel concierge what restaurant he recommends. There is usually no such thing as quickly and cheaply. There’s only “good and expensive,” “quick and lousy,” and “cheap and lousy.” Pick one.

16. “I can call several venture capitalists to help you secure funding.” Actually, you should select your lawyer as much for his/her connections to the venture capital community as much as legal expertise. However, take this very literally: He/she “can” call—this is different from “will” call.

My buddy Mathew Johnson suggested this topic, so if you’re a lawyer, and this posting upsets you, blame him.

The Art of Evangelism Web Conference

Please join me for a free online WebEx seminar called “The Art of Evangelism.” During this seminar I'll explain the strategies and tactics of evangelism for products and services. I hope you can join me.

Tuesday, September 25th
11:00 am Pacific
Register here

Presentation of "You Know You're Old When"

I loved this PowerPoint adaptation of "You Know You're Old When" (be sure to read the comments). Here's also an audio version that I did. Just in case you missed it the first time around.

Reality Check: Popurls

Popurls is a site that aggregates feeds from the likes of Digg, del.icio.us, Reddit, Flickr, Stumbleupon, Slashdot, Google News, ifilm, BoingBoing, Fark, etc (see very partial list in picture). This enables you to see, on one page, what much of the Internet is buzzing about—think of it as an Internet “dashboard.”

There is a fair degree of customization: color scheme, story previews, type of feeds (media or text), quantity of articles from each feed, and the order of the feeds. Feed readers provide similar functionality, but in a less compact manner.

---

Social Entrepreneurship: Ten Questions with David Bornstein

David Bornstein is the author of How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas. He recently updated this book, and it’s now available for the first time in paperback. No less than Nelson Mandela said the book is “wonderfully hopeful and enlightening.” David is also the author of The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank, which chronicles the worldwide growth of the anti-poverty strategy “micro-credit.” The Price of a Dream, which drew on ten months of research in villages in Bangladesh, won second prize in the Harry Chapin Media Awards, was a finalist for the Helen Bernstein New York Public Library Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, and was selected by the San Francisco Chronicle as one of the best business books of 1996.

Bornstein’s articles have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, New York Newsday, Il Mundo (Italy), Defis Sud (Belgium) and other publications. He co-wrote the two-hour PBS documentary series “To Our Credit,” which focuses on “micro-credit” programs in five countries. Bornstein received a Bachelor of Commerce degree from McGill University in Montreal and a Masters of Arts from New York University.

1. Question: Are there fundamental differences between a social and for-profit founders?

   Answer: Depends what you mean by fundamental. In terms of temperament, skills, drive, the way they ask questions and think about problems—social and business founders are very much the same creatures. Increasingly we see more and more social founders who are using a business format to achieve their objectives. So a social founder doesn’t have to run a nonprofit, and in the future you will see a lot more for-profit social entrepreneurship as well as a lot of blending of legal formats.

   The difference is really in terms of what the founder seeks to maximize. What is the primary motivation behind building your organization—whatever form it takes? Are you trying to develop drugs for diseases that afflict large numbers of poor people in the developing world as Victoria Hale is doing with One World Health or are you trying to dominate the world market for sneakers or fashionable jockey shorts? For-profit entrepreneurs build all kinds of things. Social entrepreneurs are primarily motivated by an ethical imperative. They seek to respond to urgent needs. The question of why is paramount.

2. Question: Are there fundamental differences in the people who go to work for a social versus not-for-profit startup?

   Answer: The big difference is that the folks who go work for a start up focusing on creating a social change are less motivated to make a lot of money since that usually isn’t the “upside.” If you are phenomenally successful, you don’t get rich—you change the world. That difference must somehow relate to the hierarchy of values that govern that person’s decisions—and what they feel they “need” to accomplish to be happy and feel good about themselves or, alternatively, whose esteem and admiration they are seeking.

3. Question: In the for-profit world, you keep score with sales revenue—how do you keep score in the not-for-profit world?

   Answer: It is very tough since it is all apples and oranges and plums. In business you can compare the financial performance of companies whether they sell coffee or cars. How do you compare the success of an organization that helps disabled people to live more independent and dignified lives with an organization that provides after school enrichment to low-income children? There is no single yardstick that is comparable to revenues or profits in business, but within “sub-industries”—say college access or health care access or environmental advocacy—there are clearly some organizations that achieve more impact per dollar spent than other organizations.

   It isn’t as simple as putting the data on a spreadsheet and doing a calculation. But by combining some well-thought-through metrics or proxies, which relate to impact with other forms of non-numeric evidence or analysis, it is possible to make reasoned, reliable judgments about which organizations are doing the best work and which ones should, accordingly, have greater access at a lower cost to growth capital.

   In the end, it’s really not that different from what many investors and rating agencies do intuitively in business. Investors look at many intangibles—the team, the enthusiasm, the quality of the problem solving, the drive, the goodwill, the potential for growth—when they make decisions. You can do the same with social entrepreneurs.

4. Question: How can social entrepreneurs attract talent when there aren’t high salaries and options?

   Answer: By offering people employment opportunities that align with their talents, interests, and values. By inspiring them with a vision of changing the world, of being part of something bigger than themselves. We have to think about an assumption behind this question—namely the notion that people seek to maximize how much money they make. Certainly, we all care about making money. But choices that people make every day—becoming teachers, having children, giving money to charity—indicate that we are complex creatures motivated by many different things.

   We are also at an interesting point in America’s history. With all our wealth and freedom of choice, we seem to be obsessed with finding happiness. Everyday it seems another book is published focusing on how we can make ourselves happy. Most Americans today are phenomenally wealthy compared to their grandparents, yet many studies show we are no happier, and we actually may be less so. At the very top of the list of things that make people feel happy and fulfilled are doing work that you find challenging and deeply meaningful with colleagues whom you respect and care for. Social entrepreneurship offers this.

5. Question: Is this why many prominent business people move into social entrepreneurship?

   Answer: Business people are moving into social entrepreneurship for the same reasons that so many other people across society are moving into this field: They see new opportunities to solve problems in creative ways; as individuals, they have far more power to understand and address problems at scale than in the past; they see enormous needs to solve problems that aren’t being addressed by traditional institutions, whether businesses, governments or nonprofits; they have lived through what may be described as the “failure of success”—the extraordinary accumulation of wealth and possessions over the past fifty years that has left people feeling dissatisfied and often empty.

   When Bill Gates announced that he would be stepping down from Microsoft to run his foundation, he made it clear that he was not retiring, but rather “reordering” his priorities. Why? It was through his research trips in the developing world that he came face to face with people suffering and dying—and he couldn’t shake it. He saw that he could be more valuable to the world helping to develop AIDS or malaria vaccines, or expanding access to health care systems, than helping to create more software tools, as valuable as those tools may be. Lots of people are coming to similar conclusions. It is like a global awakening.

6. Question: People celebrate when a corporate mogul ditches the big bucks and goes to work for a not-for-profit, but has the opposite occurred too?

   Answer: What we’re seeing today is much more interflow between business and social entrepreneurship. It’s increasingly common to find people who have been working on social or enviromental issues for many years who discover a business opportunity that will augment their impact.

   The surge of entrepreneurship in CleanTech is a perfect example. It’s driven by many people who cut their teeth working in the environmental field who see business as a powerful engine to achieve their environmental goals. In the health arena, we are beginning to see more health professionals or people from public health careers starting businesses that are aimed at solving problems well suited to a business model. More and more people are growing sector agnostic; they are seeking impact and looking for the best tools to do the job. This trend looks likely to continue.

7. Question: What makes some people take action and others to just cogitate?

   Answer: It’s hard to say. Why do people who are procrastinating for months suddenly kick in gear and get their taxes done on April 14? At a certain point the pain of not acting—getting hit with a penalty—overtakes the pain of actually doing your taxes. The same may apply to other aspects of life. There is emotional pain associated with inaction, especially if we care about something. So to the degree that we help people gain more and more exposures to problems in ways that make it more difficult to emotionally accept those problems, we will see more action.

   On the other hand, there is the upside of action—the anticipated pleasure and satisfaction. So, to take the tax example again, if you know you’re in for a big refund, you may be motivated to get your taxes done in January—so you can collect as soon as possible. The upside of taking action—the pleasure of collaboration, the feeling of satisfaction and thrill of making a change happen, the joy in giving—are all potentially great motivators. But often we forget to talk about these aspect of change.

   The bottom line is that we focus on the “doing good” aspects, on the sacrifice, and ethical components, but we often forget to mention how wonderful it feels to take meaningful action in line with your core beliefs. Finally people often delay because they just don’t know where to go, what to do, or how to take the first step. So there is a big need for tools that help people find their place in the field of social entrepreneurship and social innovation. That is actually the subject of the current book I am working on.

8. Question: What are the things that keep potential social entrepreneurs from succeeding to fulfilling their potential?

   Answer: The major blockages are lack of rationally allocated growth funding that would allow people to build world class institutions. Most of our major businesses are able to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in capital markets—through debt or by issuing stock. But social entrepreneurs, who typically run nonprofit organizations, usually have to raise considerable grant funding from foundations, which usually comes in small, short term installments. Because the funding is so fragmented, social entrepreneurs end up spending 80% of their time fundraising, rather than spending 80% of their time focusing on running their organizations.

   This is a huge bottleneck. Social entrepreneurs who run “social enterprises” have a similar problem—which is the difficulty in finding patient growth capital targeted at businesses that seek to maximize social, environmental and economic returns at once. A corollary of this problem is the difficulty in recruiting and retaining highly talented people. Another blockage are the lack of two-way bridges between social entrepreneurs and both business entrepreneurs and governments.

9. Question: Then what could government or society do to encourage more social entrepreneurship?

   Answer: There are many levels at which social entrepreneurship can and should be encouraged. At its essence, the goal is to help build a society in which many, many people have the confidence, skill and desire to solve problems they see around them. The most important qualities in social entrepreneurship are empathy, the ability to collaborate well with others and the stubborn belief that it’s possible to make a difference—which motivates and stimulates people to act.

   There are many ways to improve the education system so that young people have experiences that build these qualities, and give them a sense of agency, a sense of their own power connected to an ethical framework. I would argue that this should be one of the fundamental goals of education. Once a child has had this experience, that child will never go back to being a passive actor in society. She will always be asking the question—Why don’t we fix this problem?—and causing waves of creative destruction wherever she goes.

   We could build into the curriculum of every school and college such experiences. We could use our powerful media to make the field of social entrepreneurship more visible. At more advanced levels, social entrepreneurs need a variety of financial and structural supports—new laws, less fragmented and more rational capital markets and stronger bridges with governments, business and academia. Lots of work for anyone who has some creativity and likes to be a positive deviant.

10. Question: Who is the “Steve Jobs” of social entrepreneurship?

    Answer: The most famous social entrepreneur would be Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank. Like Jobs, Yunus took a product—“credit”—that was once an exclusive item (like the early PCs) and brought it to a mass audience. In so doing, his bank helped to democratize access to capital in a way that is similar to the way that Apple Computer democratized access to information. The effect is similar: more choice and self-determination in the hands of more people globally.

11. Question: Is the entrepreneur in the middle of Africa who gets a micro-loan and supports his or her family much different from Bill Gates or Steve Jobs?

    Answer: Yes and no. In terms of vision and aspiration, the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of the world are pretty rare. Forget about Africa, there are many people born into the heart of privilege, with the best education, broad exposures, lots of confidence, and they don’t become entrepreneurs. It’s just not what draws them. Entrepreneurs are most excited by making their visions real. Other people derive their greatest satisfaction from different things—interpersonal relations, perhaps, or teaching or healing or making beautiful music.

    There is not much difference between leading business entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, and leading social entrepreneurs like Jim Grant, Muhammad Yunus, Fazle Abed, or Bill Drayton. But clearly not everyone has the temperament and desire to be a for-profit entrepreneur—thank goodness!

    There are also entrepreneurs at many different levels. Some people build small organizations, some build medium ones, some build large ones. The difference is what’s most important to them in life, how big they allow themselves to dream and where they come to rest along the way. Without a doubt, millions of micro-entrepreneurs in Africa and Bangladesh and all around the developing world have massive pools of untapped and underutilized potential.

    Given the right structural supports and exposures, including capital, many of them would go on to build very successful companies or social organizations; a subset of them would go on to build world-class firms, just like in the United States. But, lest we overemphasize the role of entrepreneurs, it’s important to realize that they are only one ingredient in the change process.

    Entrepreneurs are successful only to the degree that they can bring together other people with different talents and abilities who can, as a team, build things they could never do apart. Entrepreneurs are hubs or magnets: organizing forces. It takes many hands working together to produce any significant change.

If you'd like to read more about people doing good, please check out Good.alltop.com.

Disrupt-Then-Reframe Selling: How to Close a VC?

Have you heard of the concept called “disrupt-then-reframe”? The theory is that you introduce a non-sequitur or unexpected element into your pitch and then immediately inject a call-to-action. The disruption theoretically neutralizes critical thinking and makes a person more susceptible to agree.

This concept is the result of a study by Barbara Davis and Prof. Eric Knowles in which they sold note cards door-to-door for a charity. When they told people that the cards were eight for $3.00, they had a 40% success rate. When they told people that the price was eight for three-hundred pennies and then said, “which is a bargain,” 80% of the people bought cards.

Give it a shot and let me know if the concept works for you. I suspect that venture capitalists will be very susceptible because they have attention deficits anyway. Here’s how it would work. Suppose that you’re negotiating an investment; just say: “Our pre-money valuation is 500,000,000 pennies which is a bargain for a Web 2.0 company.”

PS, did I tell you that you can read the Truemors web site for zero pennies which is a bargain? Just click here. :-)

TechShop: Geek Heaven

One of the challenges that geeks, inventors, hobbyists, hackers, burners, and artists who are trying to change the world face is finding a place to do their work. Ideally, it would have lots of equipment, supplies, and other geeks. Until the last year, they would have to set up their own workshop or beg for space at a machine shop. Now they can go and hang out at TechShop in Menlo Park, California.

Jim Newton founded TechShop in the summer of 2006 because he needed a world-class workshop so he could work on his projects and inventions. After having access to full machine shops at both the College of San Mateo when he taught a BattleBots class and at the studio set of the Discovery Channel’s MythBusters show when he was the science advisor, he found himself without a place to work on his projects after these positions. He was surprised to find that there were not any places like TechShop already, so he decided that he would open one himself.

TechShop provides its members with a huge variety of tools, machines, and equipment in a 15,000 square-foot workshop environment. The equipment at TechShop is not likely to appear in the hobbyist’s home workshop. The range of tools and equipment covers machining, sheet metal, welding, casting, laser cutters, rapid prototyping, CAD, CNC equipment, electronics, sewing, automotive, plastics, composites, and lots more.

Membership is modeled after a fitness center, and several levels of membership are available. There are currently approximately 350 monthly, yearly, corporate, and lifetime members. The facility can handle around fifty members at a time, so TechShop have set the membership cap at 500 members so the shop and workspace does not get over-crowded. There are only about 150 membership slots available until membership is full. The hours of operation for TechShop are currently 9 AM to midnight, 7 days a week. Jim tells me that they plan to open 24x7 when they reach the membership cap of 500 in the next month or two.

One of the guiding principles of TechShop is to make it affordable and accessible to everyone. Memberships are priced at $30 for a day pass, $100 for a month pass, or $1100 for an annual pass. Family and corporate memberships are also available. Lifetime memberships are not for sale, but are given only to TechShop’s angel lenders.

The community of people at TechShop is probably the best part of working on a project there. All sorts of interesting, smart people hang out at TechShop and work on projects ranging from electric vehicles from bikes to motorcycles to cars to commercial vans, self-balancing human transport devices, robots, inventions, prototypes, Burning Man projects, and everyday hobby projects. The hallway discussions at TechShop are unlike any you’d hear anywhere else, and usually involve pretty geeky topics. When you get stuck on part of your project, there are always lots of people around who can give you advice on how to get through it.

This is one of the banners in the front lobby at TechShop. This one was hand-made by Jim’s mom, Heather, and presented as a grand- opening gift to him when he started TechShop in October, 2006.

This is TechShop’s main workshop area. There are twelve 4’ x 8’ work tables, with enough room to seat seventy-two people working on their projects at once. This room is also used for occasional public events, such as the two Tesla Motors presentations in May and Dorkbot-SF meeting in August.

This is TechShop’s “Bin Wall” which is essentially the world’s largest shared junk drawer. Members bring in their surplus items and materials and sort it into the bin wall. One member’s trash is another member’s treasure! All members can use the items for their own projects at TechShop for free. The TechShop Bin Wall is modeled after MythBusters host Jamie Hyneman’s wall of bins that can be seen on the show…Jim worked on MythBusters as the Science Advisor for season 3, and was so inspired by the value of the bin wall that he built his own for TechShop members.

This is part of the Tool Room at TechShop. The Tool Room is self-serve, and members take the tools they need and return them when they are done. Lots of members donate tools to the Tool Room, so the collection of tools actually grows, and there has been no “shrinkage.”

TechShop has a state-of-the-art 3D printer, the Dimension BST. It can make a part out of sturdy ABS plastic from any 3D CAD file, layer by layer, and can make a part up to 8” x 8” x 12” tall. The resulting model is nearly as strong as the final injection-molded plastic part would be. TechShop members can use this 3D printer whenever they want and only pay for the plastic they use.

Here is an ABS plastic robot arm and a cowling for a mechanism that were made on the Dimension BST 3D printer at TechShop by TechShop members. The parts can be made in many colors, but most members make their parts in either white or black ABS plastic.

This is the powder coating system at TechShop’s Finishing Room. Members can powder coat their projects whenever they want to. Also in the finishing Room is an anodizing system for anodizing aluminum parts in lots of different colors, a spray table, and a filtered drying hood.

This is one of TechShop’s two Epilog laser cutter and engraver systems. This one is an older unit that has a 25-watt CO2 laser, and the other one is a very new Helix 45-watt CO2 laser unit. These machines take just about any computer artwork, and cut out or engrave the design in acrylic, wood, cardboard, paper, cloth, leather, and lots of other materials with incredible precision. Jim tells me that these laser cutters are by far the most popular machines at TechShop.

Here are a couple of sheet metal brakes that are used to bend and fold sheet metal. TechShop has an entire manual and power sheet metal fabrication area for members to use.

What do you do when you need to punch a few dozen half-inch holes in some sheet metal? You use TechShop’s Rotex sheet metal turret punch, of course. It allows any size die to be selected and used to punch clean holes very quickly in sheet metal, plastic, and other materials.

Jim shows me how the English Wheel can be used to form a piece of aluminum into a fender. TechShop also has an air-powered planishing hammer and a shrinker and stretcher for forming sheet metal into all sorts of shapes.

This is a power brake that is used for folding and forming sheet metal and thicker pieces of metal. Lots of machines, including this one, can be very dangerous, so they can only be used by members after they have received proper training from TechShop staff.

This is TechShop’s power sheet metal shear. It can instantly and accurately chop steel sheet metal up to 1/8”, and aluminum sheet up to 1/4” thick.

This power horizontal band saw makes it very easy to cut large pieces of thick steel or aluminum stock. The material is clamped into the vise, and the saw lowers itself down into the material as it cuts. It can even cut a large I-beam!

This is one of TechShop’s desktop CNC milling machines. It is automatically controlled from a computer, and can cut very detailed and complex 3D parts out of plastic and aluminum.

These are sand blasting cabinets used to clean paint and rust off of surfaces in preparation for finishing. TechShop’s Grinding Room also offers grinders and sanders for metal, an abrasive tumbler, and chop saws.

This is a small part of TechShop’s Wood Shop. The equipment in this room includes a table saw, band saws, scroll saws, and a radial arm saw, all of which can be used for wood and plastic.

TechShop has five Bridgeport vertical milling machines for members to use, and Jim tells me these are the second most popular machines at TechShop. They are all equipped with digital readouts that are accurate to 0.0005”, and power feeds on the tables

.

TechShop also has five manual metal lathes for members to use. These lathes are used to spin pieces of metal so they can be cut down into the desired diameter and shape. This is the largest of the five lathes.

Lots of geek projects involve canvas, cloth, or heavy leather, and the industrial sewing machines in TechShop’s Sewing Room can handle just about any task. There is even a computer-controlled embroidery sewing machine that can sew your company logo onto a polo shirt to help you push your brand a little further.

TechShop’s electronics Lab is stuffed full of all sorts of test equipment, power supplies, tool sand equipment for building and fixing electronic circuits.

This is the filtered clean room drying hood. Members at TechShop can paint their projects, and then place it in this chamber to allow it to dry without any hairs, dust or dirt falling on the wet surface.

I thought it might be fun to cut the Truemors logo out of solid metal plate. Here is the Truemors logo imported into the control software for the CNC plasma cutter in preparation for the cut.

My daughter gets ready for the big plasma cutting demo.

Tom Atkins, TechShop’s facilities director and instructor of the plasma cutter classes, supervises the plasma cutter as it cuts the Truemors logo out of stainless steel. The cutting head is automatically moved on the X and Y axes by the computer as it cuts the metal to reproduce the artwork. TechShop’s plasma cutter can effortlessly cut shapes out of up to a 4’ x 8’ sheet of 1/2” steel plate! Tom Conroy, TechShop archivist and member, can be seen in the background taking a picture of me taking a picture of the plasma cutter.

Success! The Truemors logo cut out of solid stainless steel with TechShop’s CNC plasma cutter by Dustin Still (left), TechShop’s director of advanced technologies, and Tom Atkins (right), TechShop’s facilities director. Dustin and Tom teach a variety of classes at TechShop, including carbon fiber fabrication, CNC and manual milling machines, lathe, powder coating, and anodizing.

Here are five of the fourteen members of the TechShop team that were on site in the morning when I stopped by TechShop (left to right): Liz DeSpain (TechShop’s office manager), Tim DeSpain (TechShop’s director of membership services), Robert Thomas (TechShop’s director of education services), Jim Newton (TechShop’s founder), and Pat Dear (TechShop’s videographer and assistant office manager).

Jeffrey Pfeffer Stanford Talk

I blew it. Two weeks ago I was supposed to offer discount tickets to Jeffrey Pfeffer’s Stanford talk called “What Were They Thinking?: Unconventional Wisdom About Management.” It’s on Wednesday, Sept. 12th. Here’s the link to the discount. Sorry that this is so last minute.