Re: RP presentation to 'Civilians'

From: Marshall Burns (marshall@ennex.com)
Date: Thu Oct 29 1998 - 18:09:23 EET


Patrick Dunne wrote:

> Has anybody made presentations on Rapid Prototyping to an audience
that
> has little or no background in Engineering. Have you used any clever
> ways of simplifying the concept so that everybody is interested and
can
> see the importance of it??

Dear Patrick,

    A couple of years ago, I spoke about fabricators (or "RP") to a
group of ACCOUNTANTS at Arthur Andersen. You can't get any more
"civilian" than that! Facing the challenge of keeping these guys'
attention and getting them to understand anything at all, I decided to
have fun with it and get the audience involved. I had three volunteers
from the audience come down to the front, where I had a table laid out
with the following paraphernalia:
        -- A block of light-density foam and a spoon.
        -- A several-pound block of modeling clay.
        -- A basket of one-inch foam blocks and a can of spray adhesive.

I assigned one accountant to each station, gave them a drawing of a
coffee cup and gave them five minutes to make a model of the cup from
the material given to them. The rest of the audience howled with
laughter as they watched their colleagues struggle with their
assignments and the rediculous looking results. In the midst of all
this, I stood to the side explaining that these were the three basic
types of fabrication: subtractive, formative, and additive. When the
contest was over I sent the fellows back to their seats with some prizes
and the room was alive and awake for me to explain how companies like
Volkswagen, Mattel, and Anderson Windows are taking advantage of these
processes to made dramatic improvements in their product development.

    After the 30-minute talk, this audience of accountants pelted me
with questions for more than another half-hour, which told me that they
had been paying attention. The conference organizers were very happy.
I've recently had a speaker's bureau inquire about a presetation for
another major accounting firm.

    The important thing when talking to "civilians" is to talk to them
on a level they can appreciate, get the audience involved, and use humor
to liven up what might otherwise be perceived as a "dull" technical
topic.

    By the way, the talk given for Andersen was called "The Magic and
Practice of Fabricators." A description can be found at
http://www.Ennex.com/Expertise/speak-keynote.htm#MagicAndPractice.

    Good luck with your presentation.

Best regards,
Marshall Burns
Marshall@Ennex.com

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