This is a CTP of initiative: Shareable‐ ShareBloomington (USA)
This CTP (CTP5) consist of the collaboration of ShareBloomington with BloomingLabs in November 2015.
This is a critical Turning point because the connection with BloomingLabs helped ShareBloomington with a space for the tool library and the reparation of the tools.
Bloominglabs is Indiana's first hackerspace (also known as a makerspace). They are a group of community members that have commonly rented a place where projects can be build both collectively and individually. A makerspace is a physical location where people gather to share resources and knowledge, work on projects, network, and building. The makerspace emerged initially as a powerful learning force in the non-academic community.
Andrea describes the Bloominglabs as a bunch of geeks, a combination of really cool people, who have a lot of trade skills. Some of them are engineers, some of them build prototype products, and some of them work at the university as computer scientists.
For more information about Makerspace see: https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eli7095.pdf
After Andrea and Ryan decided to relocate the tools from the garage because of its condition, the centre for sustainable living offered them space for the tools. However, after a while the municipality decided to sell the building where the tools are now located. This was a really stressful period for ShareBloomington, because they did not know what to do with all the tools, until they got connected with BloomingLabs. Together with BloomingLabs they decided to look for a new place where they can co-exist: “I think the value that they add in terms of the coop, is that they have a very big space, we have very big tools”. (Andrea)
BloomingLabs owns a big space that they use to build prototype stuff, including, bikes, cars, machines etc. The BloomingLabs have their own tools and they also make use of tools from the ShareBloomington tool library. According to Andrea BloomingLabs is a concept that is similar to the tool library of Sharable, but it has a more corporate form, where people have to pay a monthly contribution to have access to the space.
Andrea And Ryan got familiar with the BloomingLabs during a workshop that BloomingLabs had organized. During the workshop Andrea told them about the tool library and they got really interested.
This CTP mainly consist of co-production by BloomingLabs itself.
According to Andrea, BloomingLabs had played a significant role in the growth of ShareBloomington. ShareBloomington is relatively new in town, and the community had not many connections when they started with the organization of the projects. The collaboration with BloomingLabs has been significant for many reasons;
Firstly, BloomingLabs helped ShareBloomington a lot when the tools had to be replaced from the garage, where they were originally located, to the Centre for Sustainable Living. As Andrea explains, Shareable did not have the suitable cars to relocate the tools. When BloomingLabs volunteered to help with the tools, they managed to relocate the tools much faster and easier; “BloomingLabs, came and helped us move all the tools, which took several days, because there are large pieces of industrial machinery. Like welders and air-compressors and presses of all kind, that was a big, big workshop. But that is how we finally were able to get the tools moved into their current location.”
Moreover, since they helped with the relocation of the tools, they have been involved in helping with the reparation and cleaning of the tools of ShareBloomington. When Ryan’s friend died, he left many tools behind (for more information, see the second CTP of ShareBloomington). Some of the tools were not functioning well enough. As BloomingLabs has experience with the creation of similar products, they helped a lot by creating new objects in order to clean the tools. For example: “They came over many times to the tool shed to help us clean tools. They build an electrolysis device for us; it is basically a van with water and you insert two cables and then you hook that up to a car-battery and so you have electricity running through water, where you can dump rusty tools in there and it cleans them. And so they helped us build that.” Moreover, as Andrea Explains, “We are strengthening each other's ideals of what we want our tool libraries to be”.
Next to their help with the library tools, they have also played a significant role with the search for a new place for the tool library. They are really interested to cooperate with ShareBloomington and they are willing to find a place where both organizations can co-exist.
Thus, the cooperation with BloomingLabs is a CTP because it helped ShareBloomington with the development and improvement of the organizations, and more specifically with the tool library. ShareBloomington is not sure yet if their cooperation with BloomingLabs is going to be formalized because of certain differences (see contestation). However, till so far, they had a huge impact on the facilitation of the organization of ShareBloomington.
One of the main reasons that the cooperation with BloomingLabs was started, is because of the fact that ShareBloomngton needs a space for the tool library.
As explained before in CTP 2, the tool library is now located at the Centre for Sustainable Living. The Centre for Sustainable living is located in a building that the city wants to redevelop because of pollution. Hence the municipality has ordered everyone in that building to leave. As a reaction, ShareBloomington and other organizations that have a space in that building are trying to keep the space. However, at this moment it is still unsecure if the state will continue with their plans: “It is complicated because the city is, I mean it is a very expensive project and a lot of people are fighting it. So, of course we are fighting also, because we want to stay there. Right now, it is mostly like asking the city what the conditions of the soil is? Is it really that polluted? Nobody knows. So, we will see what happens” (Andrea).
At this moment, the state does not disclose a lot of information about the project. What Shareable does know is that the building is set on a place that used to be a switchyard for the trains, and so it is a very big piece of land. The problem is that the area is much polluted because of the trains and there are all kind of heavy metals with PCBs and other very toxic substances that have been dumped into the soil. And so Bloomington in general has several of these places that are just completely contaminated. You are not allowed to even come close to them. And so the switchyard, where the Centre for Sustainable Living is located, is one of these places. And so the city wants to dig out several inches of the soil and then develop a park. The state is budgeting around 35 million dollars to do this project. According to Andrea, this made people of the neighbourhood very upset about it, because there are so many things that need to get done in this city, other than having a new park.
Except that coproduction with BloomingLabs is very valuable for ShareBloomington, this state intervention was the first reason that Andrea and Ryan started cooperating with BloomingLabs.
There is not much contestation around this CTP. However, there are some organization dissimilarities, which causes some small problems if they want to partner with BloomingLabs in the process of finding and sharing a space. As Andrea explains, “We thought about it a lot and we can see potential problems about partnering”
The reason that it could be problematic is that BloomingLabs is asking its members/visitors a monthly fee of around 50 dollars. These members are the only ones who can visit BloomingLabs. This is in contrast with the purposes of Shareable; ShareBloomington wants its tools and resources to be accessible to everyone. Andrea states it as follows: “The thing is that they do have a fee, to become a member of BloomingLabs, it is like a 50 dollar fee per month to join and to make use of the space. Whereas our concept of a tool library is, we want it to be accessible to anyone. So, we have no fees actually. We don't have a membershipfee. We do ask people to become members to the tool library, just so we have their information, but there is no fee. And so, I think we would have to figure out a way in which these two concepts can work together” (Andrea).
What they are thinking of doing is to sign an agreement to be able to share a certain space only, instead of establishing an official partnership. According to Andrea, BloomingLabs has a lot of tools and they are very interested in the concept of the tool library: “The thing is, they have a lot of tools also, and they are also interested in kind of lending their tools”.
As it appears from the interview, ShareBloomington and BloomingLabs have shared interests. The only conflicting point is that BloomingLabs is in some way earning money with the organization, while ShareBloomington is an organization whose population is mainly a marginalized group with a lower socio-economic status.
The collaboration with BloomingLabs was not anticipated. They got in contact with the organization when Ryan and Andrea had to relocate all the tools from the garage to the Centre for Sustainable Living. At that moment, BloomingLabs helped Ryan and Andrea with replacing the tools. As Andrea explains: “We really had no anticipations regarding our collaboration with Bloominglabs. I had been at their shop before they contacted us to let us know they were very interested in helping us with the tool library, and I know they were a group of cool people, but that was all”.
Andrea explains that they got very excited when they found out that BloomingLabs wants to help them with the tools, because the Bloominglabs group is according to Andrea, clearly a group that would know a lot about tools.
“During one of our first big attempts to get most of the tools out of Glenn's garage, we created a Facebook event and invited a couple of the people to help us. But we never expected 5 people from BloomingLabs to show up with trucks and trailers and tools to help us carry the heavier things, like the TIG welder. They came out three times to help us, during the cold winter, and in one occasion they stayed with us for 6 hours, while we were trying to figure out how to get an enormous air compressor out of the garage (it was wired into the wall, which complicated things significantly, not to mention that it took 4 strong people to carry it out)” (Andrea).
Furthermore, as they learned later, BloomingLabs was also in search for a new space and the idea of sharing a space with ShareBloomington came up as a feasible way to move forward (it still is something they are considering).
According to Andrea, there was no way that they could anticipate how nice and helpful BloomingLabs would be; they have showed up at all of the events of BloomingLabs to volunteer, they always have great ideas that make the work easier and they regularly reach out to Ryan and Andrea to ask how things are going.
The learning that came out of this CTP is the importance of connection building, creativity and flexibility.
After the state government came up with their intervention programme, Andrea and Ryan have been looking for a new place for the tool library. BloomingLabs has offered to help ShareBloomington by making space available. However BloomingLabs itself is running out of space too, mainly because a part of the tools of Sharebloomington are located there already. Currently, the two organizations are looking together for a space to share: “We are still looking for a place to move in, because they (BloomingLabs) are running out of space, so they are looking for a bigger space and we are also looking for a space, so we are still definitely working together to find a space where we can share.”
Accordingly, Ryan and Andrea emphasize the importance of connecting and network building in town, as the connection with BloomingLabs caused a lot of progress in their projects. They have not succeeded yet to find a suitable place. This is mainly due to the fact that renting a place is very expensive. Also, both BloomingLabs and ShareBloomington need a relatively big space as they have big tools. This does not make it easier to find an affordable place for rent. Even though they have not succeeded to find a bigger space now, they are still very happy to locate their tools at BloomingLabs, until they find a place.
Moreover, as it appears from the interview, Andrea and Ryan both learned that creativity and flexibility is really an important asset or resource when there is not enough money available. Their cooperation with BloomingLabs, shows that they are willing to do everything to save ShareBloomington; Even though the goals of both organizations differ from each other, Shareable is willing to cooperate and is considering to sign an agreement with BloomingLabs.
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