TJ McCue has an excellent review of the growth professional Makers in 2011 on the Make Magazine blog.
For those not familiar with Makers, they are part of the new DIY movement of crafters, artisans, digital tinkerers and others interested in making and inventing things. Most Makers are hobbyists, but a growing number are turning Pro and starting small, Maker-based businesses.
TJ's post captures some of the exciting Maker Pro news from the last year.
TJ, who's become the go-to guy on the professional Maker movement, also has a regular column on Makers at Forbes, a newsletter for professional Makers and is working on a book.
TJ is crowdsourcing the book via Kickstarter, a popular approach used by Makers to fund their projects. I'm very excited by the book and one of the backers (I also want the t-shirt). We consider the Maker movement a key component of the broader resurgence in small manufacturing.
For more on the professional Maker movement, see the Intuit Future of Small Business research report Today's Hobbyists are Tomorrow's Hobbypreneurs, which we co-authored.
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