KITA 2016 workshop

After the first successful edition of 2015, the workshop of this year focuses on the recent phenomenon of the communities of 3D makers, digital Do-it-Yourself-ers and the empowered consumers. Also in the strand of recently funded EU projects (like the Digital Do-It-Yourself project - http://www.didiy.eu/) we see these diverse actors gathering around digital platforms and social media with which to share knowledge-related and knowledge-intensive artifacts of varying complexity: these artifacts can range from design object models to thread of free-text advices and indications on how to do-things-by oneself, without the help of intermediaries; often these artifacts emerge from just the combination of all of these elements. The idea we propose as interpretative lens of this vast phenomenon is to see:
- knowledge-oriented platforms
or
- circumscribed elements that these platforms allow to create and share
as knowledge artifacts that play the role of apomediaries [Eysenbach 2007, Erdem, 2013], that is the role of helping end users and amateurs to either produce or consume a high-value product (be it a good or a service) without the direct intervention of specialized companies, consultants, professionals and institutionalized experts, e.g. medical doctors, lawyers, sale persons, technical specialists (not only in the IT domain, but also in the home and office ones, like plumbers, electricians, accountants).