4dconcepts

4d concepts was the name of the company that we visited yesterday, Thursday October 4.

Oneday, M decided to sit down and send an email to a list of companies that dealt with 3D Printing. I am not sure how many of these companies were contacted but the best thing was, ONE replied via email like 3 weeks ago and we had been waiting for this meeting for so long. Well I have anyway.

The night previous M told me that we had to get up at 5am in the morning since it would take like 2 hours or something. I was like, “WTF?!” but only in my head. It turned out that we only had to get up in time to take the 9am train. I got up at 7:30 something .. just in time to iron my clothes, the only black pair of pants that I have been wearing since I got here in May, my white top, the only white top that is warm enough for me to wear and of course my Sketchers. The ONLY pair of shoes that I have been wearing since I got here. If you count my Rollerblades, then woot! And even then, I only got to wear my blades once since I’ve been here.

Anyway.. so we make it to the train station .. but OMG I need to blog this. We really had not prepared any presentation of any kind. Well, after all the meetings that I have attended thus far where there are all conducted in German and where I have no say whatsoever during any of them, why would I even think of preparing for something when I will not get to talk.

What I DID do to prepare was to look at their web site and use Google Translation thingamajig to try to translate the page. OMG that totally sucked too. I managed to find the company in Boston that sells these guys the 3D printers so I was able to read up on the specs of some of the printers with a general overview of the company. Oh, but it was like, 8:25 am and the Second Life downloads that they provide for us to use for presenting Second Life to people could not be opened properly so I was really starting to worry.

This company is an engineering based company and to go there to meet with the CEO of the company and NOT have an tangible presentation was a ‘no no’ in my eyes. I had to do something that would appear as if we really were prepared for this meeting. The only thing for me to do was access a ‘marketing’ technique in where you provide your client with information or tools to get the ‘ball rolling’ so to speak. I quickly emailed the CEO and told him “WE” ( I always include “M” in all my correspondence relating to the business, or in discussions etc … meanwhile that does not hold true, the other way around), were looking forward to our meeting yaddah yaddah yaddah , and I even that “M” has suggested we send him some links that would be valuable in understanding the 3D platform of Second Life. I was glad I sent it, even if he did not get the chance to see it before we met (he has an earlier appointment off site) at least he now knows that we are ‘pro-active’ …… whatever.

We got there 20 minutes early which was great. The company was located in a small brewery town (long ago) and I quite enjoyed the walk through the autumn leaves. I had not had an autumn in 11 years and as Autumn is my favourite season I was really enjoying the scenery.

The Meeting:

We finally met with the CEO and his head of engineering. We made small talk for like 5 minutes until that oh so familiar ‘pause’ of “well… let’s get started..”entered the scene.

M spoke first.

This meeting a good from my point of view mainly because it was conducted in English. M did really well expressing his thoughts to the people, I was proud of him. I was really happy though to be able to talk. To be able to express and present my own ideas as well as the ideas we had been talking about – in Second Life. I was even more surprised that M actually allowed me to talk and even gave me many opportunities! WOW. Are things starting to change for the better? Oh, I hope so.

It turned out that the company had similar ideas with their 3D printers in a marketing sense only thing is, that particular idea that they wanted to implement had not the platform to do so – until now. We talked in detail about what could be done on a 3D platform and of what other companies and individuals were doing with it. As it was totally new to them, the concept of Second Life they seemed fascinated and at the same time perplexed by the entire myriad of possibilities. I don’t blame them.

Later we received a detailed tour of the company from the design aspect all the way to the prototyping results! I never knew there were many types of 3D printers out there and it really was an invaluable time for all parties involved to share information. It gave both parties new ideas in how to expand their already existing services.

The meeting lasted for a good 2.5 hours and next week 4D Concepts will be attending a trade show in Stuttgart, which we will be attending … so it will give M and I a good opportunity to network and see what other entities we could possibly approach.

As it was, the CEO said that ‘presently’ the company and their marketing department were very busy getting ready for the Stuttgart show as well as their annual host show in December so they would not be able to spend the time thinking about what we wanted to offer them until early next year, January. I know this disappointed M and that it would seem like that was their way of being nice and saying “no thank-you, we don’t want to work with you’ but in reality, the yearly projected budget was probably already submitted and I told M later that companies DO THIS. They just cannot jump on the band wagon like that on a project, particularly whose concepts are entirely new. I am sure that if we kept in touch until January, we would find ourselves back in the meeting room with them – this time discussing more tangible ways of starting a project together. I have good hopes indeed!

Well, that’s it for now. Ciao.