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I've been thinking a lot about how collaborative making – everything from open-source hardware projects to community art installations – has changed since the pandemic. It feels like the initial rush to online collaboration tools has settled into a new, more nuanced landscape. On one hand,remote collaboration unlocked participation from people who were previously geographically isolated or had scheduling constraints. We saw amazing things like distributed teams all over the world contributing to the development of open-source respirators.
However, I also think we lost something intangible. The spontaneous brainstorming sessions, the shared tools and physical spaces that fostered unexpected connections and cross-pollination of ideas…it's just not quite the same on zoom or Discord. Now that many places are opening up, are we seeing a shift back towards in-person making, or will the hybrid model become the norm? What are the biggest challenges and opportunities for encouraging effective collaborative projects now that we have these new remote capabilities alongside the desire for face-to-face interaction? I'm especially curious about how funding models might need to adapt to support this evolved collaborative landscape. Are there any interesting examples of organizations or initiatives that are successfully bridging the gap between online and offline collaborative making that you've come across?