ToolBook Business Models
Eric Hunting
concept. This is a rough outline to start the processing of hammering
out details or spotting obvious bugs.
What is it?: ToolBook is a combination media production/publishing and
Maker cooperative. It combines the facilities of Fab Labs and
industrial design workshops with facilities for the creation of print,
video, and digital media along with small-run economy media production
and/or digital distribution. These facilities would be concentrated in
some key locations as well as distributed across the globe relying on
Internet integration and would be used by a community of Maker and
media talent that are co-owners of the venture. Creation of key
concentrator facilities could form the basis of physical community
development. (ie. Vajra project)
Mission: To match Maker talent to media development talent and share a
collective and evolving pool of media and industrial resources for the
specific purpose of systematically developing Maker-oriented media
that focuses on a functional knowledge-base of tools, technology, and
technique rather than just discrete personal artifacts and novelties.
Things that empower people to make, not just give them something to
make. This is intended to advance the Maker movement beyond the level
of disorganized hobbyist activity to a vital open industrial movement
and provide a media bridge between the fractured dispersed hacker
knowledge of casual Maker activity and the non-applied abstract
academic-oriented knowledge of formal engineering. Typical media
pursued would consist of user guides for the common tools of the
personal industrial workshop and Fab Lab and available building
systems/methods such as various modular building systems like Grid
Beam, T-slot, modular space frames, and the like. Media design would
be based on the evolving visually-oriented aesthetic approaches and
media forms of contemporary Maker media as epitomized by the current
Maker blogs and magazines. Kit products are also likely. Development
efforts would also focus on a systematic duplication of all the common
tools of the Fab Lab in open source versions along with key
infrastructure systems and standard-of-living artifacts supporting
community development and developing world outreach such as
independent power systems, farming equipment, relief and durable
housing, independent manufacturing systems, open source laboratory
equipment, major domestic appliances, educational technology and
prefab facilities, and open source vehicle designs. Room would still
be made for the more typical Maker novelties as fun is still important
to life. But the emphasis of the organization would be on empowerment
over amusement.
Legal Business Model: Cooperatively owned multinational corporation,
possibly in the form of an LLC or S-Corp.
Operational Model: ToolBook would be a cooperative enterprise based on
a simple, but international, corporation that profits on media
publishing and where participation is keyed to private stock
ownership. One joins the cooperative by buying some minimum number of
shares, contributing equipment/facilities in exchange for shares,
providing work/services for shares, or by exchanging some of the
royalties earned on projects for shares. This establishes communal
ownership of all facilities and a basis for group decision making on
project choices and business strategy. Stock ownership entitles equal
participation in co-op decision-making, regardless of the amount of
individual holdings. Owning more stock in the co-op only entitles one
to more return on a per-share basis. Some facilities may be
residential communities (ie. Vajra) where diversion of royalties or
larger share stakes may be applied to 'rent' or 'ownership' of
residential space and continual access to local workshops. The
publishing corporation may have a specific HQ location for legal
purposes but for the most part would function as a structured P2P
community globally dispersed, with most participants working from home
wherever they are and relying on internet communication, particularly
through the use of email/web forum systems, web based project
management systems, and collaborative computing and conferencing
software. A great many of the participants in the enterprise may only
ever appear at physical facilities during social events. Conventional
subcontracting may occasionally be employed, particularly for the non-
creative duties of bookkeeping and accounting, specialty production
services (usually when media product demand exceeds small scale on-
demand production) and the like. This is more likely a later
development, though, when publishing activities are producing
considerable cash flows.
Aside from this, ToolBook would function very similarly to current
publishing cooperatives as common in the independent book and comic
book publishing industries. Members of the co-op work primarily as
freelancers specializing in areas of their talent and interests;
Makers, writers, graphic and photographic artists, programmers, etc.
Any of these individuals -and in certain circumstances non-members-
can propose projects which are intended to culminate in the production
of one or more media products (book/eBook, video, web site, DIY kit,
and occasionally small-run production whole artifacts) and which the
whole shareholder community ultimately votes on the investment in
through the access to co-op facilities and the investment in
publishing. (later on, the company may open up project submission to
non-shareholder freelancers as with conventional publishing, though
only shareholders would vote on project support) Such projects may be
as simple as the publishing of media someone has already made
independently or may be as elaborate as extended development for some
sophisticated artifacts or technologies that will result in several
complimentary forms of media; book, video, etc. Most projects may
require a collaboration of several members to create, usually across
the areas of design and fabrication, illustration, writing, media
formatting, etc. Such teams will carry more weight in project
proposals and potential scale of resource investment. All members of a
project share, through a joint contract, the royalties produced by
publication of the specific media for their project and can work out
individual percentage shares according to anticipated work. The
remainder of the profits are rolled back into the ToolBook enterprise
to recoup project investment, produce stock dividends, and invest in
additional co-op resources/facilities according to the collective P2P
strategy of the whole co-op community. Occasionally, projects may
culminate in not only media products but physical facilities and
resources generating persistent income. For instance, a project
intended to develop an automated greenhouse for use in developing
countries could have its model/demonstration greenhouse, built for the
purpose of being documented, operated continuously thereafter
producing some nominal profit perpetually while sill being a basis of
research and design refinement through experience. Such projects could
still employ the same compensation model in parallel with income from
published media for as long as the facility remains operational. Also,
in some cases more prolific members of the co-op may request group
investment in personal facilities which they can use/have at-hand
where they reside to facilitate their productivity. (this as one
alternative to residential communities built around shared workshop
facilities) Such investments would depend heavily on the individual's
history of productivity and value to the overall enterprise.
Start-Up: Based on establishing a P2P network of prospective founding
co-op member/shareholders, the cobbling-together of some approximation
of the below-listed Primary Facilities from among the personal
resources of the community of 'interested parties', choosing an
initial media project and developer team for it, and soliciting
possible 'special interest' investor/members. (casual venture
investors based on personal interest in the Maker movement, willing to
finance facilities in exchange for stock) Corporation would be
formerly established along with the initial project contract terms.
Public web sites established for web presence and venture history
blog, e-commerce for published media, and private web sites for member
forums, project submissions, community discourse, conferencing, and
voting, collaborative project management. These web based
communications would establish basic P2P operational structure through
their approach to information and communications management. Though
key officers may be needed for legal purposes, administrative
hierarchy should be as flat as possible and systems relatively passive
in their mode of management. Should be able to accommodate a certain
degree of asynchronous participation and communication in order to
deal with differing personal schedules and time zones. Think of it as
rather like voting systems at the UN.
Primary Facilities:
•HQ (could be as simple as a mail-stop in global location chosen for
multinational business convenience. May also be based on Conference
Center or an Incubator Community)
•Fab Labs and other Workshops (can work in both members-only and
public access modes)
•Stock Bank (as a community, the co-op would be able to buy certain
materials in bulk for savings)
•Tool Bank (a lending library of more expensive/exotic but
transportable tools relying on FedEx transport. Likely used mostly for
pro media equipment for members who may not find the Media Studio
accessible)
•Data/Network center (web services hosting, streaming servers, render
farm)
•Media Studio (media equivalent of a Fab Lab with facilities for
digital studio photography, video, and audio production)
•Media Production and Fulfillment Center (basically Lulu.com style
print-on-demand facilities including CD/DVD and flash drive media
capability with some mail-room capabilities)
•Conference Center
Secondary Facilities:
•Maker Incubator Communities (Vajra project/Factor E Farm - live-in
Fab Labs but could also be used as locations for the Primary Facilities)
•Testing Grounds: (pieces of property set aside for field
demonstration and testing of, usually, large systems and structures
such as prefab and deployable buildings, renewable energy systems,
greenhouses, vehicles, hazardous systems like rocket engines, and
anything that needs a large open space to test or demonstrate)
•Exhibit Halls. (public access exhibit, likely made as an extension of
a public Fab Lab, used as a walk-in showcase of fab technology and
Maker culture as well as a retail venue for ToolBook media. Could be a
portable facility based on ISO container complex. Could be used in
concert with Maker Faire events to showcase member community
activities and recruit new ToolBook members and investors. Burning Man
camp also a likely venue)
•Outreach Labs. (same as current Fab Lab projects, but with long-term
emphasis on take-away fab and production capability through OS tool
replication)
Key Media Projects: These represent the starting point for the
spectrum of media/publications ToolBook would pursue. Altogether, this
could be a couple hundred individual books or media items. Some may
seem similar to existing publications, but the style would be highly
visually oriented and some could be produced in computer based indexed
video-book form. Not noted are things that duplicate media already
done by Make Publishing and the like, so one would have to decide
weather to duplicate some of this for the sake of branding or stick
with this more focused non-competitive content strategy. Most ToolBook
members would probably still participate in the rest of Maker culture
activities. I suspect the smart approach is to not try to directly
impose some artificial standard of production value on the open and
participatory Maker media activity but rather let this more
professionally produced and knowledge/skill oriented media have a more
subtle influence.
•Maker's Sourcebook (Maker culture equivalent of the Whole Earth
Catalog, published annually in book form and as a blog)
•Maker Culture (casual or coffee-table book on the Maker culture and
activity around the globe. Similar to books on hacker culture, the MIT
Media Lab, the young designer community, etc. Would showcase Fab Labs,
Maker Faires, and key personalities, possibly including ToolBook
community members)
•Maker's Shop Guide (guide to layout, safety, and DIY building methods
for personal workshops and their furnishings)
•Maker's Engineering Handbook (simplified engineering and technology
principles for aspiring makers with buildable demonstrators. strong
potential as a high school and college textbook)
•Maker's Electronics Handbook (similar to the engineering handbook,
but focused on electrical and electronics engineering topics)
•Maker's Networking Handbook (similar to the above, but focused on
networking systems with example projects for DIY telecom and network
hardware)
•Maker's Codework Handbook (simplified guide/introduction to Linux,
processor platforms like Arduino, and common open source software
commonly used in Maker projects)
•Maker's Robotics Sourcebook (guide to applied robotics and automation
for Maker projects)
•Maker's Contraptions Sourcebook (a guide to common mechanical/
electromechanical mechanisms)
•Maker's FabTech series (series covering specific areas of fabrication
such as woodworking, forging/metalworking, glass, ceramics, textiles,
casting and molding, etc.)
•Maker's Energy Handbook (guide to principles of energy and renewable
energy technology)
•Maker Entrepreneur Handbook (guide to garage-shop manufacturing for
profit with basic business management skills and economics principles -
geared to the village or local area production scenario and to
starting industrial designers)
•ToolBook Project series (DIY project books, organized by fabrication
class, sometimes focused on more complex individual projects, other
collecting sets of the best artifact project designs from the ToolBook
member community. Similar to some project and craft books now coming
out of Make Publishing)
•Papercraft Engineering Handbook (kids-oriented guide to papercraft
model making using computers and desktop digital paper cutters. Would
ideally include CD ROM CAD software and model collection and/or web
site model catalog with emphasis on papercraft automata. Produced in
concert with manufacturers of these cutters, such as Xyron, would be
used as a way of introducing kids and grade school teachers to
principles of independent industry through a safe low-cost machine and
cheap paper and cloth materials)
•Fab Lab Handbook (visual guide to the contemporary Fab Lab, its
tools, and common techniques)
•Fab Tools Handbook series (a series of more dedicated guides to each
of the classes of tools common to the Fab Lab)
•OSfab series and kits (manuals and kits for open source versions of
each of the tools of the Fab Lab)
•OShop series (OS designs and fabrication instructions for common hand
and power tools)
•Osystem Sourcebook series (sourcebooks for each of the various common
building systems available today; Grid Beam, T-slot, space frames like
N55 and rod & clamp, rod and plate systems, basic modular wood
joinery, welded space frames, etc.)
•OSfarm Sourcebook series (could also be Factor E Farm branded. Guide
to OS farming tools like the LifeTrac, hydroponics, mariculture,
permaculture and other high efficient agriculture techniques)
•Global Relief Tech Sourcebook (catalog and instructions for relief
shelters and support systems)
•Container Mod Sourcebook (guide to the repurposing and reuse of ISO
shipping containers)
•UtiliHab Sourcebook (guide to the open source version of currently
emerging T-slot based plug-in architecture systems)
•Earthbuilder Sourcebook (focuses on techniques for CEB, rammed earth,
cast earth, SuperAdobe)
•Evolvable Architecture Sourcebook (focuses on various approaches to
evolvable and P2P architecture)
•OScar Sourcebook series (starts with a guide to the current OScar
movement. Branches into manuals for specific designs)
•OSpace Sourcebook (a sourcebook to the emerging culture of open
source aerospace development)
•ToolBook TV and Podcast (journalistic guide to the latest in Maker
culture, Fab Lab development, and desktop manufacturing technology)
So that's how I'm imagining this at the moment.
Eric Hunting
erich...@gmail.com
Bryan Bishop
> Let's have a look at a possible business model for the ToolBook
> concept. This is a rough outline to start the processing of hammering
> out details or spotting obvious bugs.
Eric, I appreciate you going into so much detail on the ideas that we
all share here. As I was reading (esp. the ending lists), I began to
get a feel for another theme, among your suggestions for different
prospective book series and media series. One of the points that I
have been trying to push for a while now is the need for an organized
"backend" behind all of this. I don't mean business management, but
rather technical infrastructure management. Howto, documentation,
instructions and other forms of information like that should be within
the domain of computer infrastructure management. Many new forms of
media, more fit for our computer age, need to be reconsidered in light
of distributed bug trackers, distributed revision control systems and
so on, which makes for a decentralized yet effective management of
engineering infrastructure. To make these tools for managing this
system of tools more accessible, I've mentioned before on this mailing
list about wizards and guide tools and package maintainers to help
package hardware and information about what the hardware requires,
this way mostly everyone can package what they want into a form that
can be added into the commons, in some reusable way, in some
not-so-"one-off"-way. Here in Austin, the work on SKDB (and to some
extent, unptnt) is centered around these ideas- especially what you
originally were calling "an evolving fabber media format" (or
something with that sentiment).
Interestingly enough, diybio.org has recently expressed interest in
the usefulness of those types of wizards for amateur experimentation
in the wetlab, for "protocol management"-- we can imagine protocols as
a type of 'fabber media'-- so there's some exciting progress on that
front:
http://groups.google.com/group/diybio/msg/587f1061e5d30e8f
And of course, the more historical examples of these wizards are all
over the industries. In print media, we see them in the
choose-your-own-adventure novels, or in the old Infocom interactive
fiction games. We also see them to help individuals install programs
on nearly every operating system. On Windows, this consists of a
click-through form that, now that I think about it, I am unsure of the
advantage of. And on linux platforms, there's all sorts of
configure-make-make-install tools (collectivelly called "autotools")
as well as systems like APT, YUM, etc., which automate the
installation of software packages and their requisite dependencies,
either for their making or their operation. On debian, I always like
to bring up the example of "dselect", which is this old ncurses
interface to scrolling through the package lists (I think it's been
superceded by 'aptitude' IIRC).
> What is it?: ToolBook is a combination media production/publishing and
> Maker cooperative. It combines the facilities of Fab Labs and
> industrial design workshops with facilities for the creation of print,
> video, and digital media along with small-run economy media production
> and/or digital distribution. These facilities would be concentrated in
> some key locations as well as distributed across the globe relying on
> Internet integration and would be used by a community of Maker and
> media talent that are co-owners of the venture. Creation of key
> concentrator facilities could form the basis of physical community
> development. (ie. Vajra project)
Overall that sounds fine. I wonder though if the focus on media is a
bit too extreme? The alternative that I can see is something akin to
working to increase the amount of industrial capacity and
manufacturing tools and machines that one can compress into the fablab
itself. This is a similar task and similar mission, but overall
directed back into internal self-improvement rather than feeding
media-hungry minds (which, of course, is important, and provides some
economic motivation, yes).
> Mission: To match Maker talent to media development talent and share a
> collective and evolving pool of media and industrial resources for the
> specific purpose of systematically developing Maker-oriented media
> that focuses on a functional knowledge-base of tools, technology, and
> technique rather than just discrete personal artifacts and novelties.
It is important to emphasize the meaning of what a "functional
knowledge-base" would be. SKDB, or the societal engineering knowledge
database project that originally set me on this path, was meant to
functionally encode- in the sense of computer programs and executional
software- to help with this. Rather than storing information in a
giant wiki, or some other semantically ambiguous apparatus, there is a
way to make it functional in the sense that one's computer tools
function, and through these tools modify the 'fabber media' or open
source hardware packages, both computationally and physically (if you
have the tools physically available), and consequently keep
improvements or bug reports in the stream / in the loop of things
overall.
> Things that empower people to make, not just give them something to
> make. This is intended to advance the Maker movement beyond the level
> of disorganized hobbyist activity to a vital open industrial movement
> and provide a media bridge between the fractured dispersed hacker
> knowledge of casual Maker activity and the non-applied abstract
> academic-oriented knowledge of formal engineering. Typical media
> pursued would consist of user guides for the common tools of the
> personal industrial workshop and Fab Lab and available building
> systems/methods such as various modular building systems like Grid
> Beam, T-slot, modular space frames, and the like. Media design would
> be based on the evolving visually-oriented aesthetic approaches and
> media forms of contemporary Maker media as epitomized by the current
> Maker blogs and magazines. Kit products are also likely. Development
> efforts would also focus on a systematic duplication of all the common
> tools of the Fab Lab in open source versions along with key
> infrastructure systems and standard-of-living artifacts supporting
> community development and developing world outreach such as
> independent power systems, farming equipment, relief and durable
> housing, independent manufacturing systems, open source laboratory
> equipment, major domestic appliances, educational technology and
> prefab facilities, and open source vehicle designs. Room would still
> be made for the more typical Maker novelties as fun is still important
> to life. But the emphasis of the organization would be on empowerment
> over amusement.
I agree with all of this. Although some of it feels like a "tack-on"
in the tree of reasons and ideas, instead of flowing from a central
organized point. Empowering people to make is important. Maybe a more
comprehensive approach, however, would be empowering people to make
and modify the overall process in which they are contributing and
learning. For instance, one of the issues in traditional organizations
is that you can engineer an amazing tool, but that tool simply isn't
going to be able to modify the system in which it was created because
of human motivational issues or something silly like that. Another
example is the link that I've been spreading around regarding Kevin
Kelly's civilization-in-a-box, or civilization as an organism, and
this "fabber media" at its core in order to allow Freitas-style
self-replication. So not only is it empowering people to make within
this paradigm, but allowing them to go off and make their own process
and tools and their own forms of empowerment- whether this is by kits
to draw some income to fund the fablab, replicating the fablab or
simply making all of the tools over again as an educational
demonstration by a couple of monks over a decade, so be it.
Re: [Open Manufacturing] Dave Gingery and some more bootstrapping stuff
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/e4c375acce772250
> Aside from this, ToolBook would function very similarly to current
> publishing cooperatives as common in the independent book and comic
> book publishing industries. Members of the co-op work primarily as
> freelancers specializing in areas of their talent and interests;
> Makers, writers, graphic and photographic artists, programmers, etc.
> Any of these individuals -and in certain circumstances non-members-
> can propose projects which are intended to culminate in the production
> of one or more media products (book/eBook, video, web site, DIY kit,
> and occasionally small-run production whole artifacts) and which the
> whole shareholder community ultimately votes on the investment in
> through the access to co-op facilities and the investment in
> publishing. (later on, the company may open up project submission to
I don't know what this voting stuff is about. I figure that's only a
matter of whether or not people actually spend time on the projects.
And if nobody does, it's not that hard to store project details on a
hard drive somewhere, waiting for somebody else to pick it up again.
"Voting" issues would probably be left up to however individual
facilities end up operating, is my guess.
> individual percentage shares according to anticipated work. The
> remainder of the profits are rolled back into the ToolBook enterprise
> to recoup project investment, produce stock dividends, and invest in
> additional co-op resources/facilities according to the collective P2P
> strategy of the whole co-op community. Occasionally, projects may
I think a model of "self-improvement" would be useful here, but from
my history of looking at some other academic areas and seeing no
reasonable signs of models of self-improvement, I'm not going to
recommend anyone immediately goes off looking for it. It would be most
interesting if resources can be fed back into the belly of the beast
for upcreation/bootstrapping purposes. A while ago I sent out a few
emails about "philanthropical bootstrapping" as a way to add coal and
roar up the fires in the belly of the beast, or even giving away free
biofuel from production centers implemented via these fablabs. Could
be dangerous.
> culminate in not only media products but physical facilities and
> resources generating persistent income. For instance, a project
Persistent income would be nice, but at some point
maintenance/operational costs are going to generally be met, and it
would be best if there is somehow an understanding that "what's next"
is the internal 'improvement' or enhancement of tool-based capacities,
via the construction and nurturing of that 'fabber media' and hardware
packaging as well as computer infrastructure etc.