Community Discussion Topic

Hi Farhad,
I have been invited to the 2022 Technical Community Committee. TC needs to do better, and I promise we will.
We are looking forward to the wishlist.

Thanks Vesna,

I did initial outreach to both AM groups but I didn't hear back :( 

It made me think that the TC groups may need to create the means for the chapters to setup technical events/ discussions with them. They are a great resource for SME and the membership body and I think they can play a great role in chapters' technical activity planning. 

Thanka @Phillip Waldrop 

That's a great idea. We had initial problem when we launched our Technical Focused Groups because there were many of the members with unidentified technical interest. We can engage with the members of the chapter through this route

Thank you so much Cynthia

Hi Farhad,

• As Phillip suggested, Technical Communities (TCs) have great experts at hand.  - Example:  We invited Dr. Godfrey Onwubolu, who is on the Medical Additive Manufacturing Technical Advisory Team and a member of our local chapter, to present to us on AM for healthcare.  

• Technical Communities participate in conferences and are familiar with the speakers. If you wish any conference speakers to present to your chapter, TC can help you reach out to them. 
• Another TC collaboration opportunity is engagement with the 2022 Digital Manufacturing Challenge. The DDM team organizes webinars related to the challenge to help the student candidates achieve the best possible results. You may promote the DM Challenge webinars and, if you want to engage the students and educators in your area, set up a webinar with DDM participation.  
  This year's challenge is  “Supply Chain Opportunities Enabled by AM,” and the deadline is March 31st. 

• Plastics, Composites & Coatings Community is another community you could find very interesting. 
• Consider joining one or all of them :-) or suggest additional ones. 

Farhad,  I hope that you will get some good suggestions.   I am reminded of when I chaired chapter 95 back in the Dallas TX area around 1980, and also when I was responsible for monthly program planning. I tried to schedule speakers or tours that covered the several major interests of our membership - aerospace, electronics, etc.  

Given your metro location, I am guessing that you may have a larger group of active local members,  but I have always been concerned about the many members who do not live or work conveniently close to their professional chapter meetings  - and thus rarely if ever get to them for face-to-face networking. Today, our technical communities can be a great resource for diverse topics and speakers who may be local or distant.  Some SME members are technical sales reps for materials, tools, equipment, etc. and they typically make good tech speakers because they are involved with and knowledgeable of the  latest things of interest.  They may have good presentation materials at hand, and since they have an incentive to communicate, you need not have to beg or twist arms to get a commitment for a presentation.  Consider also that as they visit industry in your area, they have good potential contacts for plant tours and demos of new equipment installations.  tech communities may also include university faculty who are involved in research  on topics of interest.

In any case, a basic idea for interaction between your professional chapter and our technical communities is for you to poll your chapter members to see which topics are of interest, then reach out (perhaps via a local member who is engaged with a technical community) to see if a tech community will broadcast a request to their group.  I am hoping that some other members may respond here with different, and perhaps more specific, suggestions.

Phil Waldrop, SME Member Council and Atlanta Chapter 61 liaison to Georgia student chapters

Hi Farhad,

It is great to see you thriving in SME since seeing you start in a Student Chapter.  This is a great question and one I would like to see  examples of from other Chapters who have completed this requirement.

Cynthia, SME Silicon Valley Chapter 98