Translating Additive Manufacturing Speak in Unprecedented Times

We are, as you may have heard, living and working in unprecedented times. Uncertainty amidst the unprecedented is having quite an impact on the additive manufacturing industry – and on everything else, from egg prices to tech layoffs by the thousands.

A pandemic, potential (imminent?) recession, military aggression, catastrophic earthquakes, SPAC letdowns, inflation, slowing investment, political unrest, social reckoning: these are all symptoms of “unprecedented times”. What does it all mean though, translated plainly, and specific to the 3D printing industry? Let’s unpack some doublespeak.

The Red Flags

Some red flags are obvious, especially to the trained eye. Learning the right questions to ask when “groundbreaking news” is announced is, though, only part of the parlance of a marketing-heavy industry like AM.

We’ve already discussed the red flags you might see in a press release. Hint: any “world’s first” probably isn’t, and any “best” better come with third-party validation.

But what about the less formal red flags in, say, LinkedIn posts, company announcements, or presentations at self-congratulatory industry events?

First, their origins. From where does misunderstanding (or misrepresentation) arise?

The Hokum

A highly-recommended 20-page essay digs into the heart of the matter, as Princeton’s Harry Frankfurt discusses the societal impact of, well, BS. Saliently, as Frankfurt points out, BS or, politely, hokum, is not quite lying, and we needn’t think of it that way. Indeed, often the heart of that hokum isn’t deception at all.

Let’s think, for the sake of our discussion, of this hokum as more puffery than deception. As with so many facets of life, often he who BSes wants simply to be seen as informed – or to soften the blow of undeniably unpalatable news. So different phrases come into play; it’s not “layoffs”, it’s “tightening the belt” or “focusing”.

It is, in short, spin.

The spin can come from marketing, from executives who don’t want to admit that mismanagement played a role in less-than-impressive results, from CFOs who don’t want too many eyes on their ledgers, even from early-career workers who want to impress their families with slightly-inflated job titles.

The spin, the hokum, the BS has always been present in 3D printing. We live at the mercy of the ebbs and flows of the Hype Cycle. We live in collective fear of dipping back into another Trough of Disillusionment. That’s when the investors and customers balk – or bail.

Over-hype “killed” our industry years ago, when consumer 3D printing was declared “dead”. It wasn’t. And it isn’t. First, we-as-an-industry reincarnated from death-by-overhype, powering up to earn a second first look as a manufacturing technology.

Now, we must save ourselves from needing to rise again from the “dead” at our own hands in the face of wider spread macroeconomic variables.

The Translation

Let’s get away from the metaphors. 3D printing isn’t dead; it’s a technology suite, something inherently incapable of death. That means the human factor, those who create messaging and spin it into the world, is the variable at play. How does messaging parlay into reality – and how can we analyze our observations to dig into the heart of what’s really happening?

Let’s play dictionary. What are we hearing these days in additive manufacturing, and what should we actually be understanding?

A few common phrases and their simplest unspun definitions, regarding the market environment, operations, and technologies of the industry:

Market Environment

• Unprecedented times
  • → The last three years, circa 2020-2023
    • Tends to relate to pandemic conditions
    • Can be used to explain “tough decisions” or reduce/remove corporate responsibility
• Reflecting price increases
  • → Our pricing structure is increasing too, and it probably won’t drop again when the market stabilizes
• In line with market conditions
  • → Hey, it’s not just us

Operations

• Tightening our belts
  • → Layoffs
• Managing costs
  • → Layoffs
• Restructuring, refocusing, optimizing, consolidating, or streamlining efforts/resources/operations
  • → Layoffs
  • → Possible business (segment) closures
    • Often heard following M&A activity
    • Often heard following Board/investor meetings
    • Often heard around the time financial results are reported, especially when “did not meet expectations/projections” is part of the report
• We have full confidence in our long-term strategy
  • → Please overlook our short-term results
• Our team members wear many hats
  • → Team members typically perform the functions of multiple job roles while being paid for one
• Our team is a family (fAMily)
  • → And we’ll treat you like one
    • Often expects additional hours worked and/or duties outside scope of job description
    • Can be a good thing in the right circumstance in terms of benefits (e.g., parental leave, sick leave, healthcare), recognizing the personhood of personnel; usually a red flag

Technology

• Complexity is free in additive manufacturing
  • → Simple parts are relatively expensive
  • → Nothing is free; pay in training and education, hardware installation, software licenses, material costs, and post-processing
  • → Yes, new geometries and part consolidation are possible
• Design freedom
  • → Design with a different – but very necessary – set of guidelines
• Resolution = pixel (voxel) size
  • → Actual minimum feature resolved may differ from published specs
• Eliminating the need for (blank)
  • → This is a very narrow scope of replacement of a technology
  • → Asterisks to this statement include deep dives into whether this solution might be the right use, material, size, and quantity.

(With thanks to Derek McMullen, Mat Havekost, Meghan Rock, Elliot McAllister, Ludivine Cherdo, and Allen Mishek for input)

The Takeaway

We see naturally arising a few common threads. The first, in light of the times, is a simple one: layoffs.

Layoffs are abundant today. Headlines abound with the next major tech company slashing thousands of jobs, the small companies that are going out of business, and the impact these activities have on workers, families, and The Future of Tech Itself. No doubt these are difficult conversations, from the actual handing down of the proverbial pink slip to managing public perception after enacting layoffs – so the doublespeak is in a large way human nature.

No one wants to say, “We failed in some way as a company and have to fire people due to no fault of their own.”

It’s much easier to say, “We are restrategizing in the face of difficult macroeconomic conditions and are streamlining operations to optimize resources.”

Even if they mean the same thing, after a careful read.

So far as some of the other phrases we’ve identified, we can cross-reference these with known red flags and corporate doublespeak to best understand and approach 3D printing today.

As ever, the single largest takeaway to translating corporate-speak is analysis and awareness. The hokum is rarely intended to willfully deceive, and is often a means to make the message more palatable more than anything else. So far as the intent, the why, behind the actions – well, that’s another conversation entirely.