This Week in NYC3DP

Our NY3DP Week 2014 goal is to inform & transform how we citizens of New York City and State can energetically and effectively avail ourselves of change-making 3DP (3D Printing & Digital Fabrication).

The 3DP Revolution is now at-hand. With its disruptive empowerment—AND its entwined breakthrough opportunities—this Revolution promises new successes to those who can embrace this tech-tumult…and act accordingly!

NY3DP Week is the tool for assisting you to do just that. Our innovative event is a geo-politically focused (NYC & NYS), multi-day sequenced (business week), community-building (wide-spectrumed) and all-inclusive (“Big Tent”) conference. (BTW, astute observers of this blog will note that we’ve shortened our name for this event from “NetWeek” to just “Week.”)

One of our September 2013 NY3DP Summits’ Collateral Advertising Docs: Front-Side Of A Physical Post-Card Mailer/Hand-Out.

As such, our Week is markedly different from all other events now popping-up around 3DP here in NYC. Perhaps our biggest differentiator is this. NY3DP Week is as much about realizing 3DP-driven common-good—in our City and State—as it is about our exciting technology’s commercial impact.

“NY3DP Week” will be a Monday through Friday, City-based poly-event showcasing 3DP—in its most important make-over impacts, opportunity presentations and societal ramifications. Week will present Multi-Track, Multi-Sponsor & Multi-Venue Sessions from 19 through 23 May 2014 in New York City .

NY3DP Week is the next enhanced evolution of our pioneering September 2013 “NY3DP Summits.”

We’ve designed our new NY3DP Week as a five-day feast of educational, investigatory, networking, solution-developing and community-building events, panels, forums, topic tracks, roundtables, interviews, tours, mini-expos, demonstrations and debuts.

As with our Summits‘ sessions, we will video every event. In this fashion, we can continue building our online 3DP-centric library of publicly available records of all our valuable Week offerings. In addition, we intend to live-stream our Week events over the Internet. This will enable us to share real-time with our collaborating partners via narrow-casting—at organizations and institutions in the City, on Long Island and Upstate New York.

As We Evolve And Enhance Our Event, We’ll Be Updating You Via Our NY3DP Week Alerts In Blog Posts Like This…

(1) …because we are pleased to alert our readership and community to our next 3DP event well in advance. Hey, save the the Week window in your calendar. (For all of you already associated with NYC3DP.com and its offerings here, we’re planning on-going ways to further enrich your 3DP understanding and knowledge via the run-up to NY3DP Week.) Should you care to get more personally involved with Week, consider volunteering. We guarantee you a great “seat” at the session “party” of your choice! Knowing you—and appreciating your capabilities—could also lead to a more gainful role with 3DP Media as we grow our commercial operations in support of our booming industry.

(2) AND, we’re also seeking to add to our NY3DP Week Participant Team itself. We’re now building on our Summits players (who are back for more!) and recruiting additional Sponsors, Supporting Organizations, Event Partners and other Collaborators. Among our sought-after new Week Teammates are the leaders of the revolutionary 3DP industry in our City, State and Nation. And, 3DP-susceptible and/or already-affected organizations of all kinds—

Want more? Look for both updating posts and “click-throughs” to our deeper-level and background subsections via embedded links in this—and future—updates. In up-coming days, weeks and months, we’ll be enriching our NY3DP Week 2014 information-sets online here on a continual basis.

Now, we’ve designed our NY3DP Week program to present more new and disruptive technology, innovative ideas, change-making players and opportunity-offering initiatives.

We’re not interested to be simply “thought provoking.” We’re going all out in NY3DP Week planning, partnering and organizing to help make good (3DP) things actually happen for, with and to New York and its citizens, Statewide.

These advances are at the “action unit” of the local community. That’s commerce and common-good ultimately delivered to the neighborhood, the district, the township, by leveraging the new 3DP empowerment. That’s Week’s Mission.

NY3DP Summits 2013 addressed six different 3DP topics. NY3DP Week will deliver even more thorough and inclusive info-sets on nearly twice as many topics.

Here is our current set of NY3DP Week subjects—in no order of precedence or appearance—in our overall event:

1. 3DP Economic Development Engines: “Printing-Up Jobs” in Your Nabes—Kitchen-Table Maker, eCottage Industrialist & Local Manufacturer Are All Creating 3DP Jobs (Who, What & How). 
2. 3DP Re-Industrialization Drivers: New Industrial Revolution—DigiFab Transformers; Nano-Runs, Quick-Flex & Hyper-Customizing; New-Shoring…America Makes Again.
3. 3DP & Kids: Firing Up STE(A)M Education—Enabling Science, Technology, Engineering, Art/Design & Math Teachers To Foster 21st C. Skills Via 3D-Printing In The Classroom.
4. Industries Pioneering In 3DP Usage: From The Fortune 100 to ‘Preneurs In The Hood—Which Industrial Segment/Players Are 3DP-Innovating Most Effectively In The Marketplace (And How).
5. 3DP Investment Opportunities: Can Wall Street Print (3DP) Money?—How To Invest Wisely When Pure Plays Are Limited, Tech Is Evolving At Warp-Speed & Hype Even Faster…
6. 3DP Entrepreneurship: Disruptive 3DP Fires Startup Ignitions—Successful Commercial Infernos Fueled By Techreativity, New-Business Communities, Professional Services, Maker Sensibilities & Marketing.
7. 3DP Industry Players Of or For New York: Who’s Leading Our Way?—& With Whom To Build Relationships Among 3DP Equipment Makers, Software Producers, Service Providers & User-Clients? 
8. 3DP Design & Software: The Ghost In The (3DP) Machine—Creativity Animates With Design In 3DP—& Great Software Empowers Innovation, Novel Truth/Beauty & Successful Commercial Solutions.
9. Women & Girls & 3DP: Empowering The Other Half—In The U.S. STEM (Sci/Tech/Engine/Math) Is Masculine & Thus We’re Human-Resources Crippled; New Gender-Aware Ed Modes Are The Answer…
10. 3DP-Opportunistic Public Policy: At Community, Borough, City, State & Federal Levels—NYC Is Positioned To Become The World’s Dominant Industrial-Segment “Cluster” Locale: Let’s Roll…NOW!
11. The Mobile 3DP Education System: Informed Citizen/Consumers Need (3DP) Knowledge Everywhere They Live & Work—Economically Sequestered & Geo-Dispersed Populations Must Have Access…Locally!

We are peopling our NY3DP Week 2014 events with diverse experts, subject gurus, thought leaders, organization heads and startup founders. Our Week’s confreres will focus their knowledge, opinions and creativity on how 3DP is likely to shape New York’s future—and how you can position yourself to take advantage of that promising prospect.

C’mon Back!

LAND

At This Early Stage Of The 3DP Revolution, The “Maker” Route To Startup Triumph May Be The Most Effective Means To Assure Entrepreneurial Success—BUT, Regardless The Path, This Should NOT Be A Solo Trip: Better The Startupper Teams With Every Hyperlocal Power-Center Available To Her or Him…

Let’s contemplate the new eCottage Industry model of hyperlocal, human-scaled and Techreative-skilled (see below) manufacturing. That is: 3DP/DigiFab-based Maker makes good by creating a new, successful and growing product-producing organization. Atoms (things) not digits (thoughts).

Not incidentally, this vibrant enterprise promises to enhance its home Community in many ways. The most important being job creation. (And, a job IS the most effective economic development tool…)

So, it behooves every Community—Ultra-Urban to Ex-Urban—to foster 3DP-driven eCottage Industry. That is whether the eCottage enterpriser is:

• an entrepreneur by nature or predilection;
• a sole-proprietor bent on bigger things;
• an artist or artisan selling creativity by the 10s or 1000s;
• an existing small-biz intent on ramp-up; or
• our paradigm here: the 3DP/DigiFab Maker.

This last is most likely a Techreative-honcho’d, micro-producing startup with CNC (Computer Numerical Control) scale and scope built into its DNA for eventual macro-development.

(Oh yeah: “Techreative”—that individual who is both creatively inclined and/or empowered AND possessed of an understanding or expertise in digital technology. E.g., the driving force behind Brooklyn’s continued growth in tech-based and creatively engined startups. ALSO: the hybrid sensibility that enables successful 3DP commerce…)

S0—to assure high-levels of commercial achievement—the 3DP startup-fostering “Village” or community needs to develop a Collaborative Home-Team.

The impetus to build this Team can come from hyperlocal leadership. Or, a node on a nascent neighborhood network. Or, it might be coalesced and/or launched with the help of an outside organization with common-good intent—and a concrete vision and/or proven system on which to model support structures and on-going operations.

What hyperlocal organizations (and regional networks with local-node focus) might make up this success-supporting Collaborative Home-Team for fostering 3DP-startups in our hypothetical “Village”—your local community?

Here’s our current list of appropriate players (depending on your goals, mandate, resources, geography and/or community size, this list will need customization to your specific needs):

First, start with local Economic Development Organization (EDO) empowerment. These are the folks at the development organizations whose job it is to support and enhance local businesses (from Chambers of Commerce to merchant-block organizations). Leaders at progressive EDOs are beginning to recognize 3DP as a re-industrializing force at a local level. You can gain entree by helping to educate EDOs in the commercial and common-good possibilities of 3DP.

Second, look to the education systems. These are natural allies to the new—especially within the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) disciplines. AND, remember to evolve this acronym into STE(A)M: the “A” stands for Art & Design. (See the “Techreative” explication above.) Steve Jobs recognized that Design was the new Engineering—and the business leavening and  market differentiator of choice at Jobs-triumphant Apple. Your education player/partners can be found at K-12 systems (particularly enlightened middle-school teachers!), community colleges and local State university-system campuses.

Third, your local library. Libraries everywhere have two important assets. (A) Local public physical-space and (B) the new need to stay relevant. Printed books are less important and new tech knowledge systems (think 3DP) are more important. Desktop 3D printing needs the access-space and questing communities that libraries inherently deliver. Our local repositories of knowledge are already dealing in online databases, e-books and Internet access. 3DP is the next logical offering for library constituencies.

Fourth, your local digi-hobbyists, e-tinkers, gamers, makers, hackers and other digitally driven DIYers for fun (and possible/probable profit). The Internet has empowered an underground of digitally savvy people who start out playing with accessible technology. The can DIY (Do-It-Yourself) it AND now DIT it. “DIT” is Do-It-Together. This is the Maker ethos. Teach one another. Everything in 3DP/DigiFab is new. EVERYONE needs to learn. Sharing knowledge for the common-good is their common mode. Find your local Maker space, club, center, etc. You’ll be welcomed…

Fifth, Governments. From Town Hall to the Feds. Enlightened government administrations—at every level—are beginning to recognize the worth of 3DP. Start hyperlocal: your mayor’s office or town manager. Again, the elected astute and attuned are grasping that some of these DigiFabbers are beginning to build local businesses… At the very least, some of these politicians will seek to learn from YOU. Hey, you could drive your hyperlocal government’s education in 3DP: not a bad position to be in…if you’re either commercially or commonweal inclined. OR, both. And, then there are the State and Federal players. (If you’re in New York City, you’re blessed with City, State and Federal officials who are awakening to the 3DP economic-development opportunities you represent.)

Sixth, your local manufacturing base. Stuff is still made almost everywhere. Even if you’ve never really noticed. Customized offerings, short runs, re-manufacturing, artisanal products, one-offs, ethnic/cultural creations, jobbers, startups, etc. All these players and more will need 3DP. In fact: they’ll be demanding it. Your business could empower their businesses with 3DP/DigiFab orientation, knowledge, training, operational support, design, CAD/CAM file creation and actual production—on site or as a sub…

I’m intent on continuing to expand this list!

So, C’mon Back!

LAND