This week in 3D printing adventures…

Posted February 6, 2016 by Amy Wilson

Last Tuesday, I hosted a lunch event at my law firm as part of our “Innovation TED Talk Series.” I’m on my Information Services department’s Innovation Board, and one of our most successful “ideas” has been this series of lunchtime sessions, where we view a TED talk and then discuss it as a group. Even though we have the capability to have meetings with multiple cities, we have kept this at the local office level because it has been very nice to just have a discussion with people that you might cross paths with in the kitchen but never really have an opportunity to talk with. It’s also a venue for people to brainstorm and share ideas generally. After the first talk, I also campaigned to have these kind of events count toward our department-wide annually required professional development training.

This quarter, our talk was “Where Good Ideas Come From,” a 2010 presentation by Steven Johnson that examines what kinds of spaces and environments lead to innovation (if you have 18 minutes, it is worth a watch). Our ensuing discussion ranged from open concept workspaces, to standing desks, to nutrition. We also ended up talking about the Innovation Board itself and how it fields new ideas and fosters innovation in our firm.

Since it was lunch time, I also made a snack for the event – I have been baking cupcakes like crazy for my boyfriend’s birthday (we had a party and a surprise bar night). I made a batch of vanilla cake/chocolate frosting mini cupcakes and my boyfriend created “idea lightbulb” cake toppers in Google SketchUp. We 3-d printed them overnight and they were the perfect addition to my TED talk snacks.

Rob’s design

Speaking of nutrition… Sugar high anyone?