Dale Dougherty is publisher of Make Magazine, a quarterly that is full of great do-it-yourself projects for geeks and non-geeks alike. He also produces the annual Maker Faire in San Mateo, which is a fantastic bizarre of homegrown projects, rides and inspiration. Dougherty is also co-founder of O'Reilly Media in Sebastopol.

Web site: www.makezine.com, www.craftzine.com and www.makerfaire.com
Blog: www.pillowroad.com
Twitter: @dalepd and @make

Questions and Answers:

DailyGeek: The 4th Annual Maker Faire Bay Area is back at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds on May 30 & 31. What is this year's theme and what can attendees expect?

Dougherty: In his recent address before the National Academy of Sciences, President Obama encouraged us to "think about new and creative ways to engage young people in science and engineering, like science festivals, robotics competitions, and fairs that encourage young people to create, build, and invent -- to be makers of things, not just consumers of things." America needs more makers, which is why making needs to be integrated more fully into education and celebrated in our culture. This is the mission of Maker Faire and we are having significant impact. Yet we're just getting started. There's so much more to do and we need more people getting involved.

DailyGeek: You recently wrote that this year's Maker Faire them, "ReMake America," is part of a giant, multi-generation project. How do you foresee that project coming together and playing out over time?

Dougherty: All of us need to be engaged in thinking about how to build a sustainable future and allow that thinking to shape our actions today as well as tomorrow. We have to start where we can make a difference, making changes in our personal lives that affect what we eat, what we buy, how we use energy to move from one place to another and what kind of work we value most.

The boldest actions we might take, however, have a scope that goes beyond our lives. We should be involved in great projects that we ourselves can't finish building in a generation. Many of the great cathedrals of Europe took 300 years to build, and they've endured for hundreds of years beyond the lives of their creators. What kind of world do we want build, even if we don't live in it? What are the projects that might take a span of a hundred years or more to complete? Are there projects we can start today that our kids will want to finish?

We also have to think about educating kids today for the future they will live in, not the past we grew up in.

DailyGeek: What are some innovations people can use to reduce their energy consumption?

Dougherty: The first thing is a change in mindset. What we call the DIY mindset is grounded in being resourceful. My grandparents who lived during the Depression were practical, resourceful people. They knew no other way. We have become used to thinking of resources as abundant; now, we're understanding that these resources are precious precisely because they are limited. Practically speaking, we need to make and buy products that last longer; we need to repair things instead of throwing them in a landfill.

In the current issue, we focused on home energy metering. We look at a number of different technologies to buy or build to measure the energy you use in the house. One is Tweet-a-watt, which connects a Kill-A-Watt meter to Twitter and tells you how much energy that an appliance is using. Having this information helps you realize how to adjust your own usage, which can save money, but also save on a precious resource. Indeed, some of the best innovations are things we've forgotten to use, like a clothesline to dry laundry in the sun.

DailyGeek: For parents wanting to inspire a young maker, what would you recommend?

Dougherty: Doing projects yourself is a great way to influence your kids. When I ask makers how they got started, many of them talk about an influential parent or neighbor who introduced them to a hobby or craft. If you develop your own interests, your own passion and enthusiasm will rub off on your kids. Even if your kids don't seem interested, they will take notice, and it matters. With young kids, you can do projects together with them and their friends. I'd include arts and crafts projects just as much as those based in science and technology. Do something that you remember was fun for you as a kid. Chances are it's still fun for you, too.

Making is a set of practices for achieving one's own creative goals. I like to think of becoming a maker in terms similar to learning music, although I've never really succeeded in learning to play music myself. You need to have those goals and you need to practice - to acquire skills and knowledge over time and integrate them into what you want to do. Ultimately, you want to play your own music - you want to make things yourself, and discover your own talent for coming up with ideas and making them real. You might want to make things do professionally one day, but many enjoy making things as a hobby, as amateurs who share what they make with family and friends. Similarly, there are relatively few professional musicians but there are many who play for their own enjoyment and share with others what they know.

DailyGeek: What are some good resources for people wanting to dive into the maker movement?

Dougherty: Apart from makezine.com, you can check out Instructables.com. Even Wikipedia has lots of good information on electronics, woodworking, and other topics. However, the wealth of the Internet is widely distributed, not limited to one place. Depending on your interests, you can find individuals or small groups of likeminded people that are willing to share ideas and projects. This must be one of the reasons we're seeing a resurgence of interest in DIY today. The Internet makes it much easier to find people, even those who live nearby. I see lots of ad hoc groups getting together in person to share their interests.

Also, the community college system in California is a great resource for hobbyists and enthusiasts.

DailyGeek: Now to the standard questions, what are some of your favorite Web sites (and what is your homepage)?

Dougherty: One site I've been following recently is iFixit.com, which shows how to repair any Apple equipment. iFixit also sells the parts and tools you need to do the repair yourself. It was started by two students at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo.

I have a custom Google homepage with a Japanese "Tea House" theme.

DailyGeek: What type of phone do you use?

Dougherty: I have an iPhone, first generation.

DailyGeek: What is your favorite cellphone application?

Dougherty: I like the Major League Baseball application. It turns my iPhone into the modern equivalent of a transistor radio, like the one I used as a kid to listen to Vin Scully. It has about the same audio quality and Vin Scully is still calling Dodger games, although now I follow the A's.

DailyGeek: What is your favorite productivity tech tool?

Dougherty: My garden. Getting away from technology is useful, too. I enjoy being disconnected, spending some time in the garden to see how my plants are growing and gathering up fresh vegetables for dinner. I still get excited seeing strawberries or snow peas ready to pick. I also enjoy cooking, baking bread and making cheese.

DailyGeek: What is your favorite piece of technology that is not mainstream?

Dougherty: I just got a kitchen gadget for making my own sparkling water so I don't have to buy expensive bottles of French or Italian fizzy water. It's The Penguin from http://sodaclub.com/drinksmakers

DailyGeek: What is your favorite Open Source software program?

Dougherty: Mozilla.

DailyGeek: What question should have I asked?

Dougherty: What were you doing in Madrid, Spain besides visiting great art museums?

Dougherty to Dougherty: I was there in April at the WWW2009 conference, on a panel celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Web with Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web, and Vint Cerf, one of the founders of the Internet. I met Tim Berners-Lee in 1991 and immediately I shared his enthusiasm for the Web. I began working with the Web in 1992, producing what became known as GNN, which we launched at O'Reilly in 1993 as the first commercial website. In its earliest days, most people in technology and business didn't understand the Web or believe it was important. On the panel, I asked the question: could anyone have imagined twenty years ago putting together a team of the best and brightest and asking them to create a system to put all the world's information online and then to do so in 10 to 20 years? Hardly anyone would have thought it was possible, let alone feasible. If the design had depended on control from a central group, such as a government or large corporation, the goals would never have been accomplished. We can learn from the way the Web was built as an open system to frame other great challenges that we face: how can many self-organizing individuals and small groups collaborate and contribute? The Web is really one of the Wonders of the World.