1. What makes a Good Hub?
Brian McDonald

2. Development Hubs/Hackspaces/Co-
Located Workspace
Examples from Scotland

4. Semantic Feature Analysis of Hubs in Scotland
Abertay
Whitespace
Dundee
Makerspace
Hillington
Innovation
Centre
The Whisky
Bond Summerhall Techcube
Edinburgh
Hackspace
Work Space ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Flexible Workspace ✔ ✔ ✔
Meeting Space ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Events Space ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Hardware/Infrastructure ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Access to Experts ✔ ✔
Cross Disciplines ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Bussiness Development ✔
Hosts Events ✔ ✔ ✖ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Low Rents/Fees ✔ ✔ ✔
Serviced ✔ ✔ ✔

5. Lessons Learned
• Three classes of location
• Traditional Incubator
• Workspace Location
• Collective Workspace
• Would be useful to carry out a study on the
companies that have used these spaces
• What are the useful features for growing your
business?
• What features drive(or give space) for creativity?

6. Community
Fostering Links/Sharing Best Practices

7. Communities

8. Lessons Learned
• Hubs should engage with existing
communities
• Host events
• Encourage Members to talk at events
• Start or encourage members to create Dev
Organisation

9. Activities and Events
Fostering Collaboration

10. Activities and Events
• Game Jams/Hack events
• Global Game Jam
• Y Not Jam
• Abertay Games Lab – Jump Jam
• Jam Today
• Culture Hack Scotland
• Open Glasgow
• Competitions
• Dare to be Digital
• Tech & Training
• IGDA Scotland – Rift Share
• Glasgow School of Art - Mircosoft Porting Days

11. Lessons Learned
• Game Jams/Hack events
• Experimentation
• Working with Others
• Inhibits fear of failure
• Training
• Limits the impact of changes in tech(e.g. move to
Unity3D for Indies)
• Sharing of Hardware allows developers to ‘try
before buy’

12. Collaboration

13. Exemplars

14. Collaborations
• Traditional Collaborations
• Outsourcing
• Partnerships
• Feedback
• Release Tools & Workflows
• Collaborations with others
• Clash of Creative Cultures(e.g Theatre vs Game
Dev)
• Working with Traditional Arts

15. Conclusion
• What makes a Good Hub?
• Practices from existing hubs will inform
• Engagement with Current & Past clients of Hub
• Fostering Collaboration
• Foster a culture of sharing
• Communities
• Jams and other events key!
• Collaborations with other Creatives
• Collaborations with the wider Community