Month: February 2020

Week 455 – Puppies and Chips

24th February 2020
"Week 455 – Puppies and Chips"

Each week we’ll endeavour to publish some details of the interesting things that members of DoES Liverpool have been up to over the past seven days. You can find out a bit more about them in our introductory post.

And remember, if you’re involved with DoES Liverpool at all, let us know what you get up to so we can include it here!

Things of Note

Coming Up in the Next Week

Tuesday 25 February, 7:00pm-9:00pm Wearable Tech Group
Wednesday 26 February, 7:00pm-9:00pm IoT Liverpool
Thursday 27 February, 6:00pm-9:00pm AWS Liverpool Meetup
Thursday 27 February, 7:00pm-9:30pm Maker Night
Saturday 29 February, 10:30am-1:30pm An Introduction to Rubber Stamping (with Darran)
Sunday 01 March, 1:00pm-4:00pm Plastic Playgroup (DoES Workshop)

Somebody Should

The DoES Liverpool to-do list is stored in the issues of our Somebody Should repository on github. Head over there if there’s something you’d like to report, or if you want to help out fixing things.

See all the issues…

Issue counts: 314 open, 1079 closed

4 new issues:

Featured issue: Rear fire escape shutter is dysfunctional, does not close.. Can we move this on or close it?

6 issues closed:

Thanks amcewen, Sean-anotherone, DoESsean!

Week 454 – Repair, reuse, recycle (inc. 80s PET)

17th February 2020
"Week 454 – Repair, reuse, recycle (inc. 80s PET)"

Each week we’ll endeavour to publish some details of the interesting things that members of DoES Liverpool have been up to over the past seven days. You can find out a bit more about them in our introductory post.

And remember, if you’re involved with DoES Liverpool at all, let us know what you get up to so we can include it here!

Things of Note

Coming Up in the Next Week

Tuesday 18 February, 1:00pm-6:00pm Rail Innovation Event
Tuesday 18 February, 6:30pm-9:00pm Liverpool Sewing Club
Wednesday 19 February, 6:30pm-9:00pm XR Liverpool
Thursday 20 February, 7:00pm-9:30pm Maker Night
Thursday 20 February, 7:00pm-8:00pm Community Meeting

Somebody Should

The DoES Liverpool to-do list is stored in the issues of our Somebody Should repository on github. Head over there if there’s something you’d like to report, or if you want to help out fixing things.

See all the issues…

Issue counts: 316 open, 1073 closed

2 new issues:

Featured issue: Replace toner (and belt unit?) in the OKI colour printer. Can we move this on or close it?

1 issue closed:

Thanks jackie1050!

The DoES Liverpool Three-step Plan for Success

11th February 2020
"The DoES Liverpool Three-step Plan for Success"
Mug showing the three-step plan animating through

Step One: Do Epic Sh**

Do. Lots of people talk about amazing things, but then don’t make a start on them. We want to focus on and encourage the doing.

Doing is hard. We’re a community that helps and supports each other to do. We understand that sometimes it’s you pushing forward while someone else answers emails or empties the bins, because next week it’ll be the other way round.

Everyone wants to save the earth, but nobody wants to help with the dishes.

Photo: Copyright Dr. Laura James

DoES Liverpool isn’t providing a service to customers who pay us money, we’re a community that spreads its costs between its members.  Recognising, appreciating and acknowledging that all that behind-the-scenes, less sexy support work is what allowed the epic headline-grabbing sh** to happen.

What do we mean when we say “epic sh**”?

Julian experimenting with new control systems for CNC mills; Hex Ceramic developing new techniques for clay-work using laser-cutters; Patrick helping social enterprises to thrive; Ross scattering card reading stations along Hadrian’s Wall to build a distributed RFID card text adventure; Baylee coming along to 3D print herself a new prosthetic hand; Jax helping others level-up at coding through Ladies of Code Liverpool…

As you can see, “epic sh**” is many things to many people. It matters less what everyone else thinks about what you’re doing, and more that you’re pushing yourself into new ground.

Step Two: Tell People About it

If you’re putting the effort in to do the work, you owe it to yourself to tell people about it. This is often as hard, if not harder, than doing the work but it’s important.

At the very least, post something about it to any social media accounts where you hang out (if that’s Twitter then include “#weeknotes” so it will get picked up and shared in the next weekly blog post).  If it’s something you can take a picture of, or film a short video of it in action.  Show the thing.

Social media is great for short-term sharing, but things quickly disappear into the stream.  The next step is to have some sort of home on the Internet where you can collect things.  That could be a portfolio website or a blog, whichever is easier for you to set up.  Having your own domain is even better because it gives you some protection for when you need to change the underlying service.  If I want to recommend you to someone, or show them your projects, I should be able to send them a link; not suggest they sift through your social media profile looking for the important bits.

Make the time to write up a blog post about the project at the end. Get into the habit of taking photos and videos of things as they progress. Write things yourself and find your own voice, or make room in the budget to pay someone to film it or write about it for you. Or both.

It’s not about Marketing, at least not what anyone imagines when they think about marketing with a big M. It’s just about talking to people about what you do. Don’t worry about repeating yourself, just find different ways to talk about and show what you do rather than posting the same tweet again and again. We’re humans, not robots.

We’re also a community. One full of people doing amazing work.

We should support each other in sharing our work.  Remind and encourage each other to post photos or write things up.  Shout about others’ achievements: it’s always easier to talk about someone else’s work than your own, so we should do that for each other.  It’s not about mindless retweets, but sharing good work and interesting projects when you see them.

Step Three: Go to Step One.

Success isn’t about discovering “this one neat trick” to short-cut the work.  It is built on lots of small steps and achievements.  The next big thing is a lot of small things.

Week 453 – The Big Fix

10th February 2020
"Week 453 – The Big Fix"

Each week we’ll endeavour to publish some details of the interesting things that members of DoES Liverpool have been up to over the past seven days. You can find out a bit more about them in our introductory post.

And remember, if you’re involved with DoES Liverpool at all, let us know what you get up to so we can include it here!

Things of Note

Coming Up in the Next Week

Tuesday 11 February, 7:00pm-9:00pm Wearable Tech Group
Thursday 13 February, 9:00am-6:00pm Jelly Liverpool
Thursday 13 February, 7:00pm-9:30pm Maker Night
Saturday 15 February, 11:00am-3:00pm The Big Fix at DoES Liverpool
Sunday 16 February, 1:00pm-4:00pm Plastic Playgroup (DoES Workshop)

Somebody Should

The DoES Liverpool to-do list is stored in the issues of our Somebody Should repository on github. Head over there if there’s something you’d like to report, or if you want to help out fixing things.

See all the issues…

Issue counts: 315 open, 1072 closed

6 new issues:

Featured issue: Install a hearing loop inside event rooms. Can we move this on or close it?

2 issues closed:

Thanks jackie1050, johnmckerrell!

Week 452 – Making Connections

3rd February 2020
"Week 452 – Making Connections"

Each week we’ll endeavour to publish some details of the interesting things that members of DoES Liverpool have been up to over the past seven days. You can find out a bit more about them in our introductory post.

And remember, if you’re involved with DoES Liverpool at all, let us know what you get up to so we can include it here!

Things of Note

Coming Up in the Next Week

Monday 03 February, 6:30pm-9:00pm XR Liverpool
Tuesday 04 February, 6:30pm-9:30pm Hack the Space Evening
Tuesday 04 February, 7:00pm-9:00pm Liverpool Sewing Club
Wednesday 05 February, 7:00pm-9:00pm Liverpool Linux User Group
Thursday 06 February, 7:00pm-9:30pm Maker Night
Saturday 08 February, 10:00am-5:00pm Maker Day

Somebody Should

The DoES Liverpool to-do list is stored in the issues of our Somebody Should repository on github. Head over there if there’s something you’d like to report, or if you want to help out fixing things.

See all the issues…

Issue counts: 311 open, 1070 closed

5 new issues:

Featured issue: Install the hatch between the kitchen and event room. Can we move this on or close it?

1 issue closed:

Thanks amcewen!

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