TCT Live Dates Small
So we are just a week out from TCTLive 2012, which this year will feature the Personalize Pavilion — right now I am a paradoxical bundle of excitement, stress, gleeful anticipation and dread. (Straight-jacket, anyone?) Having once again coordinated the programme for the conference on Additive Manufacturing & 3D printing, final preparations and communications are typically frenetic. The one thing that keeps me going is that I know it will all be worth it — and when Todd Grimm kicks off with his keynote address next Tuesday at 10.15 am, which I know for a fact will engage and provoke the delegates in attendance, all will be well.
In fact the 2012 edition of TCT will be great, not least because of the new Personalize addition. The past 18 months have seen unprecedented growth in the 3D printing sector for the maker community and for consumers that want to engage with 3D printing. I could wax lyrical about that, but I won’t. Suffice to say Personalize is a reflection of that growth. Last year saw a shift in the demographic of visitors to the TCT event, with a surge in numbers of designers, makers and consumers looking for 3D printing solutions that could meet their needs. The Personalize Pavilion is dedicated to doing just that and will present visitors with specific 3D printing processes, applications and solutions — all in one place. And the truly unique aspect that Personalize offers visitors is that it is situated within a larger event that provides the full history of the RP/AM/3D printing technology sector. True perspective and insight will be available to anyone that wants it within the halls of TCT, with current prototyping and manufacturing capabilities — right across the board — not to mention how those same halls point to the future with new material developments and the very latest process specifications.
There’s another important reason why TCTLive and Personalize will be successful — PEOPLE! Real time blogging and social networking are fantastic and wholly engaging tools for the writer and the reader alike — it’s fast and it serves a meaningful purpose. I seriously would struggle to contemplate my work today without the Internet and Twitter. But that said, after a while, nothing beats getting up close and personal with real people — particularly in the AM/3D printing community — and that’s what TCT and Personalize are all about.
Meeting people, some new and some you may have known for years and years, face to face. From its inception TCT has been all about networking – reengaging, building and extending networks. And in 20 years I seriously can’t recall a year that I did not extend my network for the better at TCT. It is also about creating and sharing knowledge.
As one of the biggest and the best (yes ok, I may be a tad biased) TCT and Personalize here in the UK also marks the start of the silly season for the 3D printing calendar of events across the globe, which will continue right up until the end of the year when the community tends to collapse in an exhausted heap after Euromold in Frankfurt. And there are new events this year too, so we may all need extra batteries, I know I will.
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Exhibit at the UK's definitive and most influential 3D printing and additive manufacturing event, TCT 3Sixty.
