Lift10 is in less than 2 months time, and we are posting profiles of the workshop organizers. Don't forget to have a look at the program!

Christian Miccio will be hosting a workshop at Lift10. Christian studied computer science at the EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland. He built products in the IT/Mobile space for several years. Just before getting an MBA at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, he was instrumental in the creation of the Shazam mobile phone music recognition service, based in London, and now live in 20+ countries. Following his MBA, Christian joined Google and can now come up with even fancier stuff!

After his presentation about innovation at our Lift @ home in January, Christian decided to host a workshop entitled: Let's create a product (yes, in the workshop :)

The workshop audience will explore and experience product development in a practical way by being split into 2 teams: a product development team and a user base. The activity will be a set of iterations where the product team will design a first version of an imaginary product and test it on the group of volunteered users to integrate the feedback into a new version.

Interested? Sign up here.

Lift10 is in 2 months time, and we are posting profiles of the workshop organizers. Don't forget to have a look at the program!

Alexander Osterwalder will be hosting a workshop at Lift10. Alex is an author, speaker & adviser on business model innovation. You can download a 70-page preview of his bestselling book: Business Model Generation.

Before (re-)focusing on business models Alex was partner at strategy consultancy Arvetica, helped build-up and manage a globally-active NGO based in Thailand working on HIV/AIDS & Malaria, did a PhD on business models, consulted as a freelancer, wrote as a journalist at BILANZ and launched a start-up in the field of finance.

Given his background and experience, Alex is hosting a workshop entitled: Business Model Innovation for Start-ups, Corporations and Social Entrepreneurs.

Workshop participants will interactively learn about a business model development methodology that is applied by leading global organizations such as 3M, Ericsson, Telenor, Deloitte, Capgemini, Public Works and Government Services Canada, and start-ups alike.

Participants will start “practicing” the design of a business model during the workshop and the group will work on a challenging case study.

Sign up for the workshop here.

We have some really nice workshops scheduled for Lift10. I believe the quality of a conference is not in the speakers, but in the whole audience (which of course includes the speakers), and our open program is a testimonial of how rich our community is. See current propositions, and don't forget that if you are registered for the conference you can also become a speaker and run a workshop!

Michael Shiloh did a tinkering workshop in which participants built a chain reaction contraption out of junk. See the video below!

Several pictures are also available on Flickr, browse Lift's photostream from here.

Update: here is another video with more explanations on the workshop:

It has been a tight two hours - but the participants of the blurredworld workshop actually achieved some nice results... check out blurredworld to see more of what they've done!

Michael Shiloh needs your help for the workshop he is running! Bring your foam board, craft sticks, wooden dowels, bottle caps and much more!

Judy and I (who are Teach me to make) are leading the Tinkering and Chain Reaction Construction Workshop on Thursday, in which we will build a chain-reaction project which will remain on display for the duration of the conference.

Whether you plan to attend our workshop or not, we need your help, because we are flying from California and can't bring all the supplies we need with us. We plan to bring or buy as much as we can, but if you can help with any of these basic supplies we will have room for more fun and advanced gadgets.

If you are like us, you might already have many of these items in your home or workshop. Assume that most supplies will be consumed, although motors and batteries can be retrieved, while tools will be carefully labeled and returned to you. We will replace any that are damaged.

To give you some idea, here are some pictures from a similar workshop we did at the Maker Faire on May 30 and 31.

Supplies:
(Used, broken, or otherwise salvaged is fine)
Foam Board
Craft sticks (standard and wide)
Wooden dowels (any diameter or length)
Bottle caps
Wine corks
Pencils and pens (non-functional is fine)
Drinking straws
Coffee stirrers
Cardboard (both thin like breakfast cereal boxes and thicker like corrugated)
Clean paper or plastic cups
Broken toys, board game pieces, charms and trinkets from trade shows or amusement parks
Assorted screws, nails, nuts, and bolts (sweep up the floor of your garage and bring to the workshop)
Interesting small miscellaneous odds and ends (yes, that's vague. You decide. If in doubt, bring it)
Scraps of metal, plastic, wood, and fabric
Wire, various electronic sizes although some larger and smaller is nice as well
Broken electronic and mechanical items to take apart and from which to salvage parts
Office supplies: push pins, paper clips, tape, glue
Anything with magnets
Anything with LEDs
Anything with motors
Battery holders (AA, 9V)
Batteries (AA, 9V)
Battery clips (those things that clip on to the top of 9V batteries)
Power supplies (cellphone chargers, laptop supplies, etc.)
Motors

Tools
Soldering irons
Solder
Hot melt glue guns
Hot melt glue
Scissors
Pliers
Hand drill
Drill bits
Utility knife to cut foam board and other material
Extra knife blades (we need them very sharp so we change them often)
Inexpensive multimeter

Please email us at teachers AT techmetomake DOT com with your offers, and we will update this blog to remove items promised.
Thank you in advance for any help you can give!
Michael and Judy

I usually don't run workshops during events but want to make an exception at Lift France. I want to ask you a question: what would your dream conference look like? During this 2 hours workshop I will gather 25 participants, explain the basics of conference organizing, give you the different elements that compose an event (talks, breaks, social events) and ask you to build your dream conference!

Join me for two intense hours of discussion and creativity, sharing the art of maximizing the experience of participants under tight budgetary and time constraints.

More info on the Lift France workshops page.

This is the scenario wrote by the good big brother team wenesday morning in the workshop: I remember voting for the first time at the age of 16 in 2025.

“I remember the first time I voted, I was 16 years old in Geneva. The main issue was this anonymity of voting in Geneva. The issue emerged when e-voting became a fact.

We needed assurances that our votes were being counted and not tampered with. Voting was to become a matter of public record, just like all other aspects of our privacy: our photos, our friends, our habits, and our taste in music. We all became like members of parliament, our voting records are public.

With e-voting, we now vote anytime we want, and not once a year or 4 years like my grand parents used to do. Voting is therefore less of a big deal than it was so 50 years old, and I guess people are a lot less judgemental about the way we are voting.

I remember that the day we all had to drive to the voting centers, write our votes down on a piece of paper behind a curtain. There was security guards everywere. It was the only time I voted like that, but I’ve been told that’s how the vote always was. I still find it weird that I don’t know how my friends voted that day. That vote was local to Geneva. It was a pilot study for the no-anonymous vote. I guess it was quite successful because there was people everywhere in Switzerland and some others parts of the world. Today everyone vote everywhere, after lunch, about whatever is the issue of the day.”

Raphaelle et Loïc

We are in 2049. In this new society we can vote everywhere at anytime and on any topic; for the construction of a new Mc Donald’s restaurant or for the next president of our nation. We have the tools to do it.

Do we still vote for political partis or for a people? Why don’t we vote for ideas?

One question we debated is to know if the vote should become public, non-anonymous. The public vote is more secure, it ensures you that your vote was validated, cheating isn’t possible anymore. In this case all citizens become members of the parlement. But would the society have to change much to make non-anonymous vote possible? And what about such a change in totalitarian countries?

Is voting important? Yes, of course, but it is the end of a process, the most important which is really what happens before: the debate. New technology could improve the political life. Why don’t we think about some kind of voting period. Our opinions change with time so do our votes.

All this options seem to be interesting and the only way to know if it could work is to experiment. But do we have the right to experiment? When such shifts happen, we can never go back.

Raphaelle et Loïc