MakerBot’s Bre Pettis Helps Cut The Ribbon (With 3DP’d Scissors) On The World’s First “MakerBot Innovation Center:” Team DIT Hyper-Shapes A Strategic Epic-Win (3D)Printed BOLD <<< First Impressions >>>

Much Was Made At The Snowy SUNY New Paltz Campus Yesterday About The “Historic” Nature Of What Had Been Accomplished By A Passionate And Visionary Team Of Players—Working At Warp-Speed To “Do It Together” (DIT)—In Constructing The Physical, Organizational & Operational Reality Of The Premier “MakerBot Innovation Center.”

Opening Celebration of the MakerBot Innovation Center at SUNY New Paltz Campus, 11 February 2014: Some of the key players—who helped make the Center happen—speaking at the public Ribbon Cutting (off-screen left Donald Christian, President, SUNY New Paltz; on-screen from left-to-right: Dan Freedman, Dean, School of Science & Engineering; Paul Kassel, Dean, School of Fine & Performing Arts; Bre Pettis, CEO, MakerBot; Sean Eldridge, President, Hudson River Ventures; Laurence Gottlieb, President & CEO, Hudson Valley Economic Development Corporation; Katherine Wilson, Graduate Assistance in the MakerBot Innovation Center.)

If anything, the momentous nature of this Center’s debut was NOT hyped enough. It was a tech/social/transition temblor—epicentered at a cutting-edge maker-space cum curricula! A college-based Lab/Center designed to (re)create the future of manufacturing in the U.S. by educating the players who will make it happen! The earth moved under every individual and organization that is (or will be) building commerce and/or common-good on the new 3DP ground (now “printed out” in over 200 different materials)—here, there or anywhere!

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Unless they’re paying top-management attention, MakerBot competitors are unlikely to recognize the effects of this “crypto-earthquake.” At least not until some of their commercial edifices fail from the strategic damage done to their positions in the marketplace yesterday. And, the on-going “competitive hurt” sustained daily in every college-class run in a MakerBot (organized, outfitted, branded and sanctioned) Innovation Center.

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One rack of MakerBot 3DP equipment — of 35 plus “Replicator 2″ 3D Printers & “Digitizer” 3D Scanners — with a Graduate Assistant at the MakerBot Innovation Center Opening Ceremony, 11 February 2014, SUNY New Paltz.

As an ex-teacher, CEO Bre Pettis understands what empowering students will do for winning hearts and minds for the mid and long-term. As I posted Monday [10 February]: the MakerBot “Edifying Enterprise“ does Marketing-By-Education! AND, assuring that—as our 3DP Media mantra goes—3DP=Jobs! Good (middle-class sustaining) and creative (passion-making) jobs… Complements of MakerBot’s “Common-Good” Centers?!

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I’m confident that Bre aspires to the Education Niche that positioned (and protected and projected) Apple for some many years—through think and thin. Nor would Mr. Pettis—I’m confident—eschew the comparisons that will (are) inevitably be(ing) made between MakerBot and Apple. (Hmm: Bre’s black safari jackets versus Steve Jobs’ black mock-turtles?! Sartorial Branding of the SpokesIcon…)

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The speed of the realization of this MakerBot Innovation Center was truly remarkable. This “baby” was conceived and delivered in more-or-less nine months. From May of 2013.

Signage at the MakerBot Innovation Center Opening Ceremony, 11 February 2014, SUNY New Paltz, showing some of the Team of local collaborators who helped realize this break-through project.

The team—particularly the local players—involved could only have pulled this off with vision, commitment, coordination and implementation across the spectrum of participating organizations. This was a public/private partnership that worked. In an unseemly (and non-bureaucratic) fashion! Some of the local people and organizations that deserve credit for this remarkable achievement to partner effectively with MakerBot include:

SUNY New Paltz and its leaders President Donald Christian and Deans Dan Freedman (School of Science & Engineering) and Paul Kassel (School of Fine & Performing Arts);

Hudson River Ventures and its President Sean Eldridge (initial funder of the Center’s immediate predecessor, the Hudson Valley Advanced Manufacturing Center at SUNY New Paltz);

Hudson Valley Economic Development Corporation and its President & CEO Larry Gottlieb (primary catalyst for the relationship between SUNY New Paltz and MakerBot).

These local players built the vision and the impetus to make the very first MakerBot Innovation Center happen in a small town in Upstate New York—despite every common impediment to accomplish the remarkable…

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Small segment of the packed audience at the public ribbon-cutting for the MakerBot Innovation Center Opening Ceremony, 11 February 2014, SUNY New Paltz.

MUCH more to discuss around this phenomenon…because it needs to happen in MANY more places…and we can all learn from the processes that worked for this success “pilot!”

C’mon Back!

LAND