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AMUG Newsletter October 2012

By October 7, 2012October 7th, 2016

President’s Report

Gary Rabinovitz President

Gary Rabinovitz
President

Wow, where did September go, and why is October already half over? The entire Additive Manufacturing Users Group Board continues to move forward with preparations for the 25th Silver Anniversary meeting in Jacksonville, Fla.

You may have already started to notice our push in the social media markets. We heard your voice at the 2012 business meeting and have acted accordingly to your requests. A social media committee has been selected and will be working closely with vice president Mark Barfoot in getting pertinent information out into the AM community as fast as possible. We are always looking for additional help in this area, so if you have not been contacted but would like to help out, please contact mark at vicepresident@am-ug.com.

New this year on the registration form is a check box for volunteers at the 2013 Conference. Please check this box if you are interested in helping out with registration or acting as a session moderator. Both of these roles are extremely important volunteer positions that are needed to be filled to run a successful conference. Please think twice before moving past this box, you will not regret it.

I stated in last month’s newsletter that I would have additional hands-on training information available each month as I confirm each session. Unfortunately, several of these sessions are not yet ready for me to release, so stay tuned to the social media sites as we will release these sessions as they are confirmed.

Two last notes before I close. First, look for the 2013 registration to be open within days of this newsletter’s release. Please tell us how you like the new registration process as a great deal of time has gone into making it user friendly. Second, congrats to Jim Woodcock and the whole team behind TCT Live. I hear you had a great show!

Until next month,

Gary Rabinovitz
AMUG President
president@am-ug.com

Our Mission: Additive Manufacturing Users Group (AMUG) educates and advances the uses and applications of additive manufacturing technologies.

Vice President’s Report

Mark Barfoot Vice President

Mark Barfoot
Vice President

“Getting Our Social On”

At the 2012 AMUG Conference, you encouraged us to become more social…online. I think we can all agree that what we like most about AMUG is that we are a very social group but you told us that we needed to work on building our social media community.

Over the last couple of months, your AMUG Board has been working on selecting and building the right social media channels for us to build awareness of AMUG, provide additional ways for our members to receive information and expand the marketing value our conference sponsors receive.

To everyone already following, tweeting and Googling with us – thank you! We appreciate the support and the sharing of information on your social network.

If you haven’t already joined our social community, check us out at:

  • Facebook: facebook.com/AdditiveManufacturingUsersGroup (New FB Account! Please LIKE us)
    • Facebook will be used for promoting our newsletters, website, conference information and as a recruiting tool for new members.
  • Twitter: @AdditiveMFGUG (New Twitter Account! Tweet with us)
    • We’ll use twitter to push updates on the new conference or key events that AMUG is involved in. We also will highlight key news from our sponsors.
  • LinkedIn: Additive Manufacturing Users Group (AMUG) (New User Group)
    • We want to keep this focused to technical exchanges. See notes about the new group below.
  • Tumblr: additivemanufacturingug.tumblr.com (New blog)
    • If you have an interesting article or industy-related press release you would like for us to post, please send it to additivemanufacturingug@gmail.com. We prefer that you do not issue these items to the LinkedIn group. Instead, we will try to post your article or press release on the Tumblr page.
  • YouTube: AdditiveMFGUG (There might be a video of you on YouTube!)
    • Check out our nine videos we have currently posted.
  • Google+ page: Additive Manufacturing Users Group (posting) (If you are adventurous, Google+ with us.)
    • This is our newest social media source and will be used in a similar fashion as Facebook.

Get Social with AMUG and stay up-to-date on the 2013 AMUG Conference registration, agenda, educational and training sessions, and our sponsors.

Purpose of the NEW AMUG LinkedIn Group

As you know, there are many LinkedIn groups available to you, so what makes AMUG different? Well for starters, AMUG’s LinkedIn Group is designed to provide a technical forum for member exchange. Additionally, the group provides our AMUG Board a forum to interact with our members and discuss technical sessions for the AMUG Conference.

Many LinkedIn Groups have an open posting policy that enables group members to post anything and everything. What we have found is that this format leads to PR overload and unsolicited sales pitches. We ask our group members to use the forum as a venue to ask technical questions and provide expert feedback/advice/guidance. We do allow the publishing of certain industry news, such as new product announcements from manufacturers. However, we will be limiting the amount of industry news in the discussion group, and we encourage you to use our Tumblr page instead to promote industry articles and additional PR releases. Again, we would like to keep our LinkedIn Group focused on technical exchange.

Do you think you’re already signed up for AMUG on LinkedIn? Please note, there was a LinkedIn Group previously called AMUG that has caused some confusion. This was not the official AMUG LinkedIn group and has since changed its name. Although it is also a great group to belong to, if you are looking for the official AMUG member technical exchange group, you can find us at LinkedIn: Additive Manufacturing Users Group (AMUG). We currently only have about 25% of the people that attended our last conference on the LinkedIn group, so please join us.

Calling all AMUG Social Members

If you are active on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Tumblr, we would like your help. A few of you have already signed up to be part of our Social Media Committee at the last conference. Anyone interested in participating and helping us get the word out about AMUG and the 2013 Conference, please send your contact information to vicepresident@am-ug.com, and we will be in touch to discuss how you can be a part of the team.

Thanks,

Mark Barfoot
vicepresident@am-ug.com

TCT Live 2012 – Recap

Todd Grimm AM Advisor

Todd Grimm
AM Advisor

AMUG was well-represented at TCT Live 2012 (Birmingham, England). I opened the event with a keynote presentation, Graham Tromans, European ambassador, delivered his annual tech briefing and hundreds stopped by the AMUG booth.

The event was quite enjoyable and well attended. For years, I’ve listed this as one of my must-attend events, and the latest show only strengthened my convictions.

Hardware, material and software vendors were out in force. Their presence gave attendees —novices, experts, researchers and educators — the opportunity to get the details on new products announced over the past six months and a chance to learn more about the newest items, both soon to be available and recently announced. I particularly enjoyed seeing and discussing the BluePrinter SHS (nylon parts without laser sintering for a fraction of the cost), ExOne’s M-Flex (a multi-material 3D printing platform), and Mcor’s upgraded Matrix 300+.

tct_live_2012Attendees flocked to the pavilion where a dozen or so low-cost, consumer-oriented 3D printers were exhibited. It seemed to me that many professionals were trying to understand the capabilities of a sub-$2,500 3D printer, me included. While interesting, I found these exhibitors frustrating since most would not budge from their “print anything you can conceive” and “soon every home will be manufacturing their own stuff” pitches. We know better, but they persist in promoting the fantasy.

Overall, the event was fantastic in every way: quality of presentations, number and type of exhibitors and breadth of attendee types. To cap it off, Graham and I enjoyed a well-deserved Guinness at the Mcor booth.

TCT_Live_graham_toddCheers Mates,

Todd Grimm
amadvisor@am-ug.com