An Evening at NottinHack

Wednesdays are open night at NottinHack, Nottingham Hackspace.

A month earlier, I suggested to my Ph.D colleague Cay Green who is doing her research on product attachment and personalisation at Loughborough University but also a member of Newcastle Hackspace if she wanted to come with me to visit Nottingham Hackspace.

A week earlier, speaking with some of the members of Leicester Hackspace, I found out that they were also organising a field trip to Nottingham Hackspace on the same day as us.

A day earlier, my colleague Francesco Mazzarella who is doing his research on craftmanship and social innovation was more than happy to jump on the train to Nottingham.

Off we go on Wednesday 3rd of December.

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It is a cold night this wednesday. We are all hushering around the front door of a 2 storey industrial building. The door is closed. Introduction are made between strangers and the door open. A set of stairs in front of us, we are going up. To another world...

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It will be easy for me to give an extensive description of what happened when we entered the Hackspace. 

I won't. You will have to go to experience it for yourself as it will be most probably different from my own experience. But I can share the main messages that were important for me.

• Hackspace is welcoming. 
• We were very quickly shown around how the place work for us to be comfortable with the space. How to integrate in a culture different than ours has to be taught and Hackspace members recognise it by ensuring that new comers were introduced to the space they were entering.
• Hackspace is inclusive. 
• Anyone can become a member as long as they follow the rule, pay each month an amount of money to use the space, do not sleep in the space, respect the space of other people, ask if you need help with something.
• Hackspace has a strong sense of equity. 
• Hackspace recognised that everyone is different, does not have the same abilities, financial capacity. It is within those recognition of differences that it is down to individuals to choose how they will contribute to the space. The rules are simple, all members contribute to the space each month the amount of money they deem reasonable in relation to their use of the space. They can use the space as much as they want, even stay all night but they cannot sleep in the space. They can contribute more by giving donations and even replacing material that they have used.
• Hackspace is free of private corporation cooptation. 
• Unlike Fablab, Hackspace do not have any private sponsors. The members through their own personal interest shape the direction of Hackspace. The evolution is incremental with small changes happening as a slow or fast pace (who knows?). The space is created by the members and for the members. To get new machine, they invite members to pledge until they can afford new equipment. It is a beautiful Commons.
• Hackspace is not set up to do outreach for getting more members. 
• It is down to the members to reach other individuals through activities they want to organise. Some members organised themselves for example to run Nottingham Fixers to show people how to repair small items. It does not exist anymore as to a certain extent, the public probably did not appreciate the educational benefits of the service demotivating in turn members. But it did and in the future we have to wish for more people appreciating the effort and time needed to learn and teach to repair items.
• Hackspace is not a traditional school 
• It does not organise training for people who do not have the skills. It is down to the members to ask others if they want to learn a new skills. It is down to the members to organise themselves to provide trainings

I ask myself whether the Hackspace transition is slow. Whether the quality of the members is high as they have made an informed choice in getting involved with the Hackspace and learning a new skill?

Could it be measured?

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