In a TEDSalon London talk given in November 2011, Lisa Harouni discusses 3D printing, which has apparently been around for 30 years. The relatively new technology allows a person to input data into a computer, which then transfers that data to a 3D printing machine that builds the physical object.
Harouni breaks up her presentation by using rhetorical questions, such as “But if these machines have been around for 50 years, why don’t we know about them?” and “How does it work?” and “Who’s using it?”. This can be a useful way to structure a presentation as it’s easy for the audience to follow and easy for the presenter to remember his or her main points. Harouni does well to reiterate her thesis statement (“3D printing will change and disrupt the face of manufacturing”) a few times throughout the presentation, so there’s no doubt as to what she is arguing.
It’s interesting material she’s working with, especially when she shows images of products created by the 3D printers that are impossible to build in any other way because they are much too intricate and complex. These visuals are some of the most memorable of the presentation because they show what incredible detail the printers can create. Harouni herself is quite smitten with the technology. She says “quite incredible” over and over throughout the presentation.
Harouni says that 3D printers bring about the “new generation of customization” and what interests her company most is that companies can now create a unique, individualized product prototype without having to create an entire run of it. She uses an example of how frustrating it is when you search everywhere for a specific product and you can’t find exactly what you want. With 3D printing, she says, you can interact with the product and make it exactly how you want it to be. This point could seem trivial by the audience if Harouni was solely talking about jewelry, lamps and shoes, but she strengthens her argument by pointing out more practical, beneficial ways to use 3D printing. It can be used to fashion extremely porous implants tailored to a specific individual, or it can be used to create a specifically designed prosthetic limb. She appeals to our desire to be more green, too, arguing that 3D printing incurs less waste and has a low carbon footprint (“instead of shipping an item across the globe, you can ship data across the Internet.”).
Harouni does a solid job of getting across her main points about 3D printing to the audience. The conversation could have been more detailed and nuanced, however. For example, she argues that 3D printing can abolish the need for manual labor. She argues that “sounds great. It is great.” We’d argue that abolishing the need for manual labor isn’t such a great thing at all because it would eliminate millions of jobs. She argues that we cannot avoid this technology–that people who don’t know how to create data for the machine will learn through technology software and processes. To that, we’d argue that people might be reluctant to learn such new, complicated technology. Until the end of her 15-minute speech, Harouni maintains that 3D printing will change the landscape of manufacturing forever. We’re not 100% convinced.
What do you think? Watch the entire talk here.
