Visiting SlideShare Offices in San Francisco

 

SlideShare is a fabulous way to present information about your art or craft to your online audience. Many of my SlideShare presentations have over 10,000 views!

SlideShare presentations are akin to online PowerPoints that can be easily shared on your LinkedIn profile, Facebook, website or blog. You can also choose to narrate your slides with a voice recording. What an entertaining way to explain your work to a new or familiar audience.

Some of my most widely viewed SlideShares are The GOOD, The BAD, and The UGLY in the AGE of the Internet  with 11,782 views, Documentation for Shipping Art and Craft with 11, 662 views, and  Digital Images with 10, 539 views.  I hope this post gets your mind rolling on how you can use SlideShare to share your work or ideas.

I have been using SlideShare since 2008, so when I had the opportunity to test their unpublished mobile platform at the SlideShare offices in San Francisco, I said "YES" with enthusiasm.  TALK ABOUT EXCITING!

We all know that mobile is the future from the recent presentation during the 2013 PDS Customizing the Cow: New Trends in Cross Platform Web Optimization from All You Can Eat Website Guys.

I am a big fan of SlideShare! 
This was an opportunity to see the future, but it was a little nerve racking. Would I be savvy enough to navigate a new platform?

Andri Kristinsson was their User Researcher charged with understanding how SlideShare users would interact with their new mobile site. I was given specific assignments while trying out SlideShare on a new Android phone....Andri offered no help! His goal was to see how I figured out the mobile user interface on my own, and then help guide the design process to be an intuitive process for everyone. They recorded my confusion and successes and made note of my expectations in each step of the presentation creation process. They are set on creating a well designed experience, so that we (SlideShare's users) can share with ease.


The programmer fraternity in SlideShare San Francisco, Ca.

   SlideShare  "Jerk Trophy"
   Told this directy by Sylvain Kalache

For 45 minutes he listened to my feedback about SlideShare's new mobile interface and recorded my insights gained from creating 30 + SlideShare presentations. My technical feedback went directly to SlideShare's self-proclaimed nerd team (shown above) in their high tech bubble.

Are you wondering how you can get started on SlideShare for your own work? Below are several tutorials about how to start using SlideShare to promote your artwork.

Promoting YOUR art or craft with SlideShare - Take Your First Step

Promoting YOUR Art or Craft with SlideShare - Adding Audio!

Here is another fabulous idea... create a SlideShare of your resume if you looking for a job.

Stay tuned.
Over the next 3 days, more ideas for using SlideShare to support you artwork will come your way.
Harriete Estel Berman

"Make Like the Masters" Manufacturing Insight

There has been a lot of discussion these days about using modern manufacturing methods to create production jewelry or design objects.  Laser cutting, CAD/CAM, water jet and 3-D printing all come to mind.

AND they are wonderful, dazzling, and enabling technologies.  Throughout history, jewelry fabrication (whether high end Tiffany's and Cartier or costume jewelry) has used the latest available manufacturing methods with impressive results in both new capabilities and improved productivity. Jewelers, going back much further than we may realize, have constantly been exploiting the latest technologies to make their work both novel and affordable.  It is  fascinating that the same financial issues and "handmade debate" are not new struggles.

This lecture (below) by Peter DiCristofaro from the Providence Jewelry Museum reveals some background and offers insight into these ongoing issues about manufacturing methods for jewelry and metalwork.

No matter what your medium, it is worthwhile to consider the potential that advancing manufacturing methods offer the designer/maker to create or improve productivity.

Make Like the Masters by Peter DiCristofaro, Providence Jewelry Museum from Harriete Estel Berman

Think about how you could use modern manufacturing to reduce your labor, lower your price point, increase your market, and become more profitable -- or to avoid repetitive stress injuries.

Photo courtesy of Angela Grace

Unfortunately, what we miss with this online presentation is the impressive samples that Peter DiCristofaro laid out on the stage during the 2013 SNAG Conference. The audience buzz was electric! Next time I am near Providence, the Providence Jewelry Museum will be on my destination list.

 

Photo Courtesy of Angela Grace

This photo (left) shows conference attendees touching the Elsa Peretti chain mail scarf mentioned during the Peter DiCristofaro lecture.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Watch this video (below) of one of the Janvier - C&W Steel Stamp machines mentioned in the DiCristofaro's SlideShare PowerPoint.

PS. This SlideShare presentation "Make Like the Masters" was originally given during the 2013 SNAG Conference in Toronto. It is posted with permission from the speaker Peter DiCristofaro from the Providence Jewelry Museum and SNAG.

You are welcome to share the link to this lecture "Make Like the Masters" . It is also posted on the SNAG website,

Your comments are welcome.

Harriete Estel Berman

Maker Faire Inspiration & Technology

 Every year the Maker Faire comes to San Mateo. In the past, I participated with hands-on projects (left photo) but this year I just went to look around. As usual, there was an amazing mix of entertainment and budding entrepreneurship. My favorite is the new technologies.

 

 

Look at this 3-D printing shown below.

The forms in this photo are a little silly and decorative, but you can see the potential of the technology.

3-D printing doesn't have to be in white any longer.

From Printbl.com this plastic "wire" is for 3-D printing machines. The colors are bubble gum to banana yellow and "gemstone translucent" shown below.

These plastics for 3-D printing are all biodegradable PLA.

Check out Sugru! Air cured silicon rubber.  It "hardens" when exposed to moisture in the air. It is soft and flexible when cured.


Below are examples shown at Maker Fair:

Sugru has adhesive properties but is flexible.

• It sticks to most materials, from steel to cotton
• Colors can be mixed to get a huge range of in-between shades
• It's flexible when cured so great for prototyping parts

A package of Sugru contains individual envelopes.

•     It bonds to most hard plastics used to make gadgets and car parts;
•     It's stable up to 180C/360F so it's good for dashboards in the summer;
•     It comes in black - interior repairs can be very subtle.

Have you ever used Sugru? I have been using this to fix things around the house and it is phenomenal. Just rebuild the broken parts with Sugru (it is kind of like dense Play Dough) and then come back the next day. It is hard, ready to go. 

Another thing I love about MakerFaire is the clever ideas and entrepreneurial spirit. 

How about this sign for MAKEY, MAKEY made from...

spray-painted keyboards. Very clever, and it was just wired to the temporary hurricane fencing used to delineate booth spaces.


"MaKey MaKey is an invention kit for the 21st century. Turn everyday objects into a touchpad and combine them with the internet. It's a simple Invention Kit for Beginners and Experts doing art, engineering, and everything in between." They funded themselves successfully on Kickstarter. It was a good fit for the Kickstarter young adult geek audience.

There were numerous technology companies demonstrating their equipment priced and sized for the consumer.  I love, love, love laser cutters.

These consumer models cut wood, plastic, fabric, felt, paper, cardboard, etc. at 600 dpi. They cut all the way through the material or can be rasterized for creating patterns and designs.

Before you buy a Laser cutter consider the size of the laser bed. This one was small which keeps the price lower but may limit your projects. Go as big as you can afford.

I know how to solder and weld, but thought this sign was hilarious.  It was at a large booth for Radio Shack.

Go to Maker Faire if it is in your area.
There is so much to see, do and learn.
Harriete

This post was updated on March 31, 2022, to provide current links.

TECH Shop Open House Build Your Dreams

TECH Shop is having an Open House!
Menlo Park, CA is Saturday.
San Francisco, CA next weekend.

If you don't know about the TECH Shop CHECK IT OUT! Learn how to use Laser Cutters, anodizing, welding, sandblasting, and all kinds of machine tool technologies. CAD (Computer-Aided Design) CAM Computer-Aided Manufacturing, CNC Mills, vinyl cutters, and more are all at your disposal.

TechShop is a membership-based workshop that provides members with access to tools and equipment, instruction, and a community of creative and supportive people so they can build the things they have always wanted to make.

You can think of TechShop as a fitness club, but with tools and equipment instead of exercise equipment. It is sort of like a Kinko's for makers, or a Xerox PARC for the rest of us.

"TechShop is designed for everyone, regardless of their skill level." While I am super lucky to have the original Tech Shop 20 minutes from my house, they now have locations in San Francisco, San Jose, Raleigh, NC, and Detroit, MI. Brooklyn, NY is planned.

"TechShop provides access to a wide variety of machinery and tools including milling machines and lathes, welding stations and a CNC plasma cutter, sheet metal working equipment, drill presses and band saws, industrial sewing machines, hand tools, plastic, and woodworking equipment including a 4' x 8' ShopBot CNC router, electronics design and fabrication facilities, Epilog laser cutters, tubing, and metal bending machines, a Dimension SST 3-D printer, electrical supplies and tools, and pretty much everything you'd ever need to make just about anything. TechShop is for EVERYONE!"

Harriete

P.S. I have taken classes. People will help you...there is no reason to be intimidated because you aren't an engineer or geek.