Help research the UK Maker community

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.

I’d like to speak to anyone who considers themselves part of that community. You could be a maker, hacker or crafter, or you may be 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.

How you can help

1. Do a 30 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 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.

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by Andrew Sleigh – a 100%Open Associate – Andrew is a maker (link), and a co-organiser of Brighton Mini Maker Faire (link)