Johnny Lee: Success Through Rapid Prototyping & Sharing

Do it now, do it fast, get feedback, fix do it again. Nowadays the TOTE algorithm is sped up to ludicrous speed -or as fast as our communication tools will allow us to operate.

Core 77 shares with us the story of Johnny Lee, formerly of Carnegie Mellon University. His homemade video of how to hack a Wiimote into a VR display has brought him a TED talk, a bunch of job offers and millions of Youtube views. The point of the story is that a perfect storm of user friendly technologies has made it possible for everyday people to rapidly prototype and share their ideas like never before.

Core 77 explains:

We hear a lot about the democratization of design, or the adoption of design practices in other areas, but what we’re really talking about, more than anything, is iterative problem-solving; the idea, hammered into young minds at any good design school, that the most effective way to solve a problem is to make something, and see how it works. What’s so exciting about Mr. Lee’s videos, the growing number of gadgety TV shows, and online communities like makezine and instructables, is that they represent a happy confluence of several technologies that make this kind of iteration accessible to the interested layperson. The internet is responsible for several of these technologies, primarily the advent of discussion boards and easy access to specialized knowledge and equipment, but the Times article is correct in saying that the ability to share what you created is just as crucial.

Core 77: “Johnny Lee, YouTube, and the future of prototyping”