I went to a talk today by a fabricator. Not a term I had heard before, a fabricator is not a euphemism for a liar, as I had initially thought, but something rather wonderful and completely different altogether. A fabricator is someone who facilitates someone else’s ideas and turns them into a reality. This could apply to many different things from business ideas to musical interpretations however in this instance, the fabricator largely worked with artists to develop and build artworks that they had dreamt up yet had no clear vision of how to actually physically manifest their work.
I am fascinated by this concept of someone being able to do that for people, almost like they are a Willy Wonka style chocolate factory for dream ideas and mad creative visions. This way of collaborative working is so important to the process of creativity and the development of ideas that tend to grow as they are being bounced around between people. As technology progresses, the opportunity for increasing shared approaches to working becomes easier and easier. Rather than isolating individuals, technology allows us to work with people we at one time would have struggled to communicate with anywhere in the world at any time of day.
Instant idea sharing through social media networks, skype and mobile phone apps such as Instagram are all the more effective thanks to businesses and individuals coming on board with the cloud and allowing multi-device sharing to happen anywhere at anytime. What’s more, all the latest social updates can be automatically forwarded to my hosted Exchange email account and I can follow these up on the go from my professional domain. For example, I find myself daydreaming in a coffee shop, pondering over my latest project when THE idea hits me. I think it’s a good one and I need to know if I my client agrees with me or if it’s simply the effect of that extra shot of espresso I foolishly went for. Sketching a quick idea, photographing it and uploading it to my client’s Dropbox, instantly allows my creativity to flourish and the discussion to begin immediately – instant push email via Exchange hosting means that I won’t miss a trick. This is fantastic. Not only as I can do this wherever I happen to be, using my smartphone and inevitably consuming too much coffee, but also because it allows ideas to be batted back and forth as a result of this quick and instant beginning.
It’s not only the instant nature that benefits users of the Cloud but also the flexibility that goes hand in hand with the development of this technology. Restricting ideas to occur and fabricate in a specific environment can often be stifling and sometimes, even counter productive compared to the freedom that using sharing technology encourages and enables.
With this in mind it really inspires me to think big, see beyond the norm and allow those ideas to grow and grow. So much so that maybe one day I’ll need my very own fabricator…well a girl can dream can’t she?
Tags: 2010, Cloud, collaboration, dropbox, Email, Exchange, Hosted, Hosting, Media, Saas, social
