An early stage process model for open prototyping – Version 1.0. FutureEverything has developed a model we call open prototyping. Our labs create concepts and prototypes that spark imagination and ask questions about the implications of new technology. Ideas can then be demonstrated at the scale of a city through our festival. Open prototyping is to develop and test a concept or process through input of external contributors. Our projects are open to many contributors and also are often made with a public audience in mind. They benefit from the co-creation of many external contributors and the interface to a real public. Read blog post http://futureeverything.org/news/open-prototyping-alpha FutureEverything and University of Dundee

1. Open
Prototyping
An early stage process model for open prototyping. Drew Hemment, 27 July 2015

2. Open prototyping is to develop and
test a concept or process through
input of external contributors.
Opening the process up can create
points of contact to various
contributors and users at different
stages in the development process,
it can entail multiple points of
openness and synthesis.
Our projects are open to many
contributors and also are often made
with a public audience in mind. They
benefit from the co-creation of many
external contributors and the
interface to a real public.
FutureEverything has developed a
model we call open prototyping.
Our labs create concepts and
prototypes that spark imagination and
ask questions about the implications
of new technology. Ideas can then be
demonstrated at the scale of a city
within our festival.
Prototypes make future ideas
tangible, and enable us to test and
trial an early sample or model. This
can be for a new product or service,
or it can be a more speculative idea
about the future. Art projects can do
something similar, untied from a
product or instrumental goal.
Introducing..
Open Prototyping

3. The process involves six stages
Fig. 1 Open Prototyping Process Model (Version 1.0a)
Make
Mobilise
Scope
Try
Share
Discover

4. Fig. 1 Open Prototyping Process Model (Version 1.0b)
Make
Mobilise
Scope
Try
Share
Discover
Build
Community
Active
Scoping
and Advocacy
Create
Connections
Curate
Conversations
Learn
by Making
Make
Future Ideas
Tangible
Capture
Community
Intelligence
New Knowledge,
Practices &
Services
Rapidly
Mobilise
Crowds
Demonstrate
at City Scale
There are actions associated with each stage

5. Prototypes
People
Issues
Experiences
Impact
Ideas
Fig. 1 Open Prototyping Process Model (Version 1.0c)
Each stage corresponds to different things

6. Open Prototyping
A closer look

7. Our programmes are shaped by
year round engagement with a
creative community. We are always
on the look out for emerging themes
and issues. We take positions, and
contribute to debates. This is more
than participatory design, it is a
collaborative culture.
Active scoping
and advocacy

8. We place a focus on active and
engaged communities. We take
early stage ideas out to our
community, and build a network of
contributors around an issue. In our
labs shaping themes and teams
goes hand in hand.
Build
community
Our festival as lab gives a capacity
to rapidly mobilise crowds. This
creates an interface to a wide
audience, and a delivery platform
for ideas and experiences. It
becomes possible to generate
dialogue at the scale of the city
between many different
stakeholders, users and audiences.
Rapidly
mobilise crowds

9. We carefully shape programme
themes around emerging issues,
develop a proposition and call to
action. Ideas events offer an open
platform and a crucible for new
thinking. New insight and
knowledge is generated on the
evolving landscape around
technology and society.
Curate
conversations
We work to create surprising
connections and bridge between
disciplines, sectors, perspectives,
locations and scales. We seek out
contributors who bring unique and
relevant expertise or access to a
problem space. Our events connect
people at different levels, and create
a space where conflicting positions
can be expressed.
Create
connections

10. Prototypes enable new ideas about the
future to be made tangible. We take a
social or technological system, identify
the assumptions, and give them
tangible, external form, so that they
may be experienced and questioned.
Creative methods from interaction
design, media art and design fiction
can create new and alternate realities.
Make future
ideas tangible
Understanding and skillsets can be
shared and extended by making and
doing together. Making things,
reflecting on those, and debating the
outcomes with others creates learning
and knowledge exchange. Scenarios,
concepts, objects and mockups
enable us to test and trial an early
sample or model. These are developed
using a set of design methods that we
use to solve commonly occurring
problems in our work.
Learn by
making

11. Large scale experiences and
demonstrations enable participants to
experience and experiment with
possible futures. We commission
artists to illustrate new ideas through
creative prototypes, interaction design
and participative experiences.
Moments of disruption are created
when objects and systems that are out
of their own time are experienced by
people in the city.
Demonstrate
at city scale
It is possible to interact with the
audience, and to generate insights
that cannot be obtained in other ways.
We deploy devices, interfaces and
experiences in real world scenarios to
see how they might be used, and how
people might respond. The public and
creative communities can be engaged
in shaping questions, collecting data
and adding new interpretation.
Capture community
intelligence

12. The impact is the change in the
world. Outcomes can be services
for cities, communities or science.
Or the knowledge and practices that
are generated and feed back into
the scoping of issues and ideas.
This contributes to collaborative
culture, the impact is shared.
New knowledge,
practices, services

13. Open Prototyping
The background and landscape

14. In the case of FutureEverything, open
prototyping also means open code,
designs and knowledge. This
extension is central to us, its not a
rigid rule, but it is the norm.
The same year Bullinger published
‘The Next Step – Open Prototyping’,
Eyebeam in New York staged an
event called Open Prototyping
(2011). In their exhibition space they
opened up the research and
productions of the resident artists
and designers for public engagement
through workshops, demos and daily
interactions (http://eyebeam.org/
events/open-prototyping).
Along similar lines, Ars Electronica's
FutureLab uses artistic provocation in
an innovation process, and Waag
Society has for 20 years pioneered
digital creativity for social innovation.
They, like us, have their own distinct
approach yet still we can see the
outlines of a shared landscape.
References
Bullinger, A, Hoffmann, H, Leimeister, J M (2011) ‘The Next Step –
Open Prototyping’. Proceedings of the European Conference of
Information Systems 2011, Helsinki.
Chesbrough, H W (2003) Open Innovation: The New Imperative for
Creating and Profiting from Technology. Boston, MA: Harvard
Business School Press.
Some of what I have described is
particular to FutureEverything, and
how we do things. It springs from the
way we span art and innovation.
Much also is common among fellow
travelers in our community, and
points towards an emerging trend.
These include the likes of Eyebeam,
Ars Electronica and Waag Society, all
of whom have championed open
culture and digital creativity, and use
art and design methods for research
and innovation.
The term _open prototyping_ has
been used before. It was coined by
Bullinger et al (2011) to do for
prototyping what Henry Chesbrough
(2003) has done for innovation.
Chesbrough made the case for
opening the innovation process to
contributors outside your company.
Bullinger does the same for industrial
design prototyping, focusing on
software applications for cars, to look
at how companies "can and should
use external input as well as internal
input" when developing prototypes.
This then is not 'open' as in open
source, or open data.