Adventures with MaKey MaKey

Today is my final day with the adventurous crew at MaKey MaKey.  Stepping in shortly after their successful Kickstater in 2012, I was able to work together with Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum to steady the ship through the first quarter of 2014.  Managing and developing customer support systems, wholesale and education sales systems, and taking MaKey MaKey on the road to share with kids of all ages was only half the challenge. 

So much of the Maker movement is about learning while you're doing. In this spirit, creating a robust daily business for MaKey MaKey that substantially exceeded it's online presence was a fantastic experiment. With an invention kit as creative and open-ended as MaKey MaKey is, the different markets make themselves known and they reach out based on their interest in applying the technology.  

I interfaced daily with kids, teachers, parents, artists, engineers, museum managers, and retail businesses to talk about how far they could take the product.  It was an enlivening experience.  As a MaKey MaKey promises, my creative confidence was boosted by the experience of creating, testing, and making things happen.

Opportunities to present MaKey MaKey from the beaches of Santa Cruz to the beaches of France was only the brilliant silver lining to a gold star experience.  Our local efforts forged the way to present the technology to school teachers throughout our local county, learning by doing so that we could inspire others to do the same.  I also had the pleasure to work with the Zeitgeist and Cannes Lions event team from Google UK, who developed a fantastic showcase for MaKey MaKey over several multi-day events.