How useful are makers to manufacturing?

If you're in London anytime during the rest of this year, I strongly recommend you get yourself down to the Victoria & Albert Museum in South Kensington because they have a brilliant exhibition celebrating the power of making, crafting, tinkering and fixing. Curator Daniel Charny has assembled a little bit of everything, from enormous artistic makes, to the ingenious ministerial Red Box (the lock is at the bottom so you can never forget to close it) and personal 3D printers.

I was there last night to see the exhibits and then take part in a panel debate about manufacturing, organised as part of the Battle of Ideas. And to my surprise, it became a pretty heated discussion (and not just because the room had no air conditioning). James Woudhuysen, professor of forecasting and innovation at De Montfort University, said that knitters, crafters and individual makers had no value in real manufacturing because the scale at which they work is just too small. And this left Sandy Black, professor of fashion & textile design & technology at the University of the Arts London, having to defend people who work in sustainable fashion. Meanwhile I was somewhere in the middle: I'm an advocate for big scientific projects and industrial-scale technology, but at the same time I really can see the value in individual makers. Not only are they one end of a manufacturing spectrum that includes all inventors, but they help nurture a culture that values products as more than disposable engines of economic growth.

Claire Fox, the director of the Institute of Ideas, which organised this entire debate series, commented that she neither had the time nor inclination to fix things. But while I don't want to force people to knit their own clothes or mend their own toasters, one aspect of maker culture that I think everyone should experience at least once is the satisfaction that comes from fixing something. I was taught to sew, knit and do DIY by my parents, and I still get a buzz from stretching the lifespan of stuff I own by repairing it, or transforming some piece of clothing with a little imagination. Whether it's driven by necessity or desire, making satisfies a human urge. We are a creative species.

So try it for yourself just once. Make something. You'll love it, I promise.