Recap: Open Science Shop & OpenFlexure Microscope Working Group Meeting (September 2024)
Update on the new OpenFlexure vendor page & promotional strategies
Written by Jo Long for the Open Science Shop Newsletter
Each month, we share a summary of our most recent Open Science Shop & OpenFlexure Microscope Working Group (OSS-OFM WG) meeting as we continue to work together to enable distributed manufacturing of the OpenFlexure Microscope (OFM) on a global scale.
The Open Science Shop convenes these working group meetings on a monthly basis. These monthly meetings serve as an opportunity to share updates from the various task forces and brainstorm actions the group can take next. Keep reading below to learn more about what happened at this month's meeting!
Update on the vendor/manufacturer's directory
The main topic of the meeting was an update from the OpenFlexure team on the vendor directory. Since the last meeting, they have developed a dedicated page on the Open Flexure website for listing vendors: https://openflexure.org/about/vendors.
Some points discussed:
- Additional work is required to make the page mobile-responsive
- At the time of the meeting the list is still missing some vendors. One of the goals before the next meeting will be to reach out to contacts in the open science shop community that had expressed interest in being involved
Vendor Badges
In addition to the webpage, the OFM team has also developed a catalog of vendor badges that indicate how vendors are contributing to the open hardware project. Some examples of these badges are shown below:
The group also discussed developing a similar-styled "OFM" badge that vendors can use on their online stores to indicate that they are (for example) part of the network/ a trusted vendor.
Promotion of the OFM Vendors Page
At the time of the meeting, the vendor page was live on openflexure.org, although not yet promoted as it was noted that more vendors will likely be added soon. The group discussed a possible Sept/October launch time once vendors are on board.
The group discussed ways to promote the page once the vendor list is more filled out:
- OFM press release
- Open Science Shop will share via its newsletter
- Vendors should also plan to share via their networks for example via social media, newsletters etc
OSS Website
The status of the broader OSS project and website was raised. Currently the group is focused on the OFM distributed marketing project, with not alot of capacity to take on other items. Any future goals around the broader open science shop should probably include either funding and/or finding volunteers to work on the website. Anyone interested in volunteering on the website are encouraged to attend a meeting for more information or fill out the contact form here: https://www.openscienceshop.org/contact/
Summary & Next Steps
- Goals before the next meeting
- Onboarding more OFM vendors
- Working on mobile-responsiveness for the vendor page
- If time permits and vendors are onboarded: promotional/launching the vendor page via newsletters and press release
- Agenda items for next meeting
- Proposal for Heads of Agreement List for OHW Manufacturing
- Check-in on vendors page and where we are with launching the vendor page
Interested in bringing your open science hardware design to market? Connect with Open Science Shop
Open Science Shop's role is to facilitate connections between open science hardware project creators and a distributed manufacturing network. In addition to the OpenFlexure Microscope, we are also seeking to pilot distributed manufacturing initiatives with other designs. As mentioned at the beginning of this post, the format we are developing is a space where anyone in the open science hardware community can bring a Product Proposal to the group for consideration. If you are interested in collaborating with Open Science Shop to support bringing your open science hardware design to market, please let us know by submitting this form, and we will follow up with the next steps.