Publications | Peter Troxler

Unconferencing as method … New Paper Published

In 2008 I had the chance to design and run a 24-hour creative marathon for ETH Zurich (for details and credits see here). The over 100 participants generated 17 project proposals how to reduce CO2 emissions and energy consumption at this university. Not only was this great fun to do; Patricia Wolf and Ralf Hansmann,…

Commons-based Peer Production of Physical Gods — Is There Room for a Hybrid Innovation Ecology?

I’ll be addressing how Fab Labs are positioned around ‘open sourcing’ hardware, a territory hardly ever explored in research, maybe apart from the open design people such as Ronen Kadushin and the people around Kerstin Balka. The paper will then report a number of case studies where ‘open source’ in hardware really has happened. From…

Designing a Business Model for the Next Digital Revolution: Personal Fabrication

First there was a digital revolution in computation (personal computer), then in communications (convergence and mobile phones). The next digital revolution, according to MIT’s Neil Gershenfeld (2005), is in the field of manufactured physical goods (personal fabrication). Gershenfeld and his colleagues have created so-called Fablabs around the world: fabrication laboratories, equipped with digital fabrication machines…

Starting a FabLab Reference List

I’ve been working with Fablabs for a couple of years now … getting to know the concept itself, then getting to like it, even love it … same with the people involved in Fablabs. The one thing that puzzles outsiders most about Fablabs is that there seems to be no one single reference, no ultimate…

Open Content in the Creative Industries: A Source for Service Innovation?

Traditional business models of the creative industries are built on the protection of content. With the advent of an Internet culture where content is ‘sold’ at a price of zero and sharing is a key paradigm, that model seems not to be fully adequate any longer, even more, there might be a time when content…

Zurich: Creative Commons Showcase

Tonight (20:30), I am presenting the Creative Commons Showcase at Gallery Walcheturm in Zurich Here is the programme with some links: Paul Gerhardt, ex Creative Archive (BBC) presentation (almost the one he’s going to give): http://www.slideshare.net/stoffeltjen/bomvl-workshop-paul-gerhardt dyslexia movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSRqrs-WhLk Markus Beckedahl, CC-DE: NDR (public broadcaster) uses CC licenses http://www3.ndr.de/sendungen/extra_3/englische102.html Paul Keller on the CC-NL pilot…

Learn, Exchange, Develop …

Communities of Practice have become almost a standard answer to the quest of organisations to foster learning, sharing and development of knowledge. However, they still pose the classic challenges of Knowledge Management of finding the middle ground between technology-driven and people-driven approaches, between systematic solutions and mere fads, and between forced and self-directed participation. This…

No More Muddling Trough

As of today, my latest book No More Muddling Trough is available. The blurb reads: Sustainable solutions require the integration of social and ecological aspects in every planning and decision-making process. This means:analyse the real world and model the problem-situation as a system understand the needs and objectives of the customers and clients carefully develop…

Knowledge Management – an Introduction

Tonight I held the last session of my Knowledge Management Introduction Course which started in October 2003. 26 participants from business and public administration followed the course in two groups, and we covered a hell of a lot of topics. Each evening started with an introduction — the corresponding handouts are here below — but…

MTO

Today the Roaring Nelkies released their first CD “MTO” to honour the 25th anniversary of the Institute of Work Psychology at ETH Zurich. MTO is short for ‘Man-Technology-Organisation’, the concept of organisation analysis and design developed at said institute. Some of the songs on the CD deal with work psychology, others with life in academia…