Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much

Helen Keller

This month I’ve decided to produce a little missive on collaboration and innovation. It’s more exciting than it sounds, I promise.

When did you last collaborate?

When was the last time you collaborated with anyone do you reckon? My bet is that it was this morning, getting yourself or your family out of the door. In actual fact we collaborate all the time and we don’t even think about it. But I got to thinking about it this week, and how much of it I do.

Collaboration, participation, association and partnership. To get the best, they all need some patience, listening, openness and honesty. A little like the ingredients of a good cookie! And that’s us – always bringing it back to cake. Enough said. We’re very lucky in that we get to collaborate with all sorts of interesting people.

Take our meetings with ceramic artists. They’re usually making jewellery or small items and thus need a cutter much thinner than our traditional cookie cutter. Often, they send me pictures of their creation and ask that I recreate a cutter to make it with. This saves them tons of time as it’s easier than using stencil cut outs. And the cutter has to be spot on – no seams on the blade of the cutter for example. Now this was a learning curve for us. Seams aren’t an issue for a cookie – you can scrape them away – but not when you work in clay.

From small scale upwards

Then we go from the small scale of ceramicists, right up to large and volume. We’ve been collaborating for a while with Fabulous Functions, and the brilliant Sandra Trusty. Her usual modus operandi is to send us a picture of something she’s seen, asking can we create something similar but with a twist. For Sandra, we’ve designed starfish, snowflakes, table numbers and adaptations of Marvel figures.

Much like a writer drafting a novel or documents, it takes a couple of prototypes or more to finalise the desired effect. But that’s what collaboration is about. And on a writing note, we’ve collaborated too with Angela Atkinson, aka Born Again Swindonian and author of Secret Swindon, on some novelty Swindon building-themed biscuit cutters  to complement the book for her book launch. They looked great and did a fab job of getting people’s attention.

Collaboration is a two way street

Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships

Micheal Jordan

So, if a potential business collaborative partner says they’ll create what you want, first time, without any feedback or planning, that’s unlikely to be right. Shouldn’t you feel at ease to say, ‘it’s great but could we do it this way?’  Collaboration is a real two-way street.  Without feedback, how can you go forward?

Children and Animals

There’s an old adage in the show business world, about never working with children or animals. I assume that the adult actors in Waffle the Wonder Dog didn’t get that memo! That aside, some of our most exciting times are when we take a 3D printer into school. It’s wonderful to see the children’s’ faces. And their questions are so insightful. They have concerns about plastic pollution and questions about what 3D printing will bring to their adult lives among other things.

STEM Workshops

In this vein of collaboration, April 2019 saw us joining forces with Scoosh as part of their STEM workshops. We showcased 3D Printing in libraries across Swindon during that month and we took our smaller 3D Printer out to children and let them design a print.

Unlikely yet wonderful partnerships

Opening our minds and thoughts to all we encounter, creates partnerships in the unlikeliest of places. For instance, we met our vintage car partner, in the middle of a steam rally field in the summer of 2018.

Since then we’ve recreated a missing car badge for a 70-year old car, brake parts and we’ve even created a steering wheel bumper. Now these were not parts we ever thought would be going through our printers, especially when we’re heating up acrylic filament in the kitchen oven!

I suppose what I’m saying is, why not partner up and open up to those around you? Collaborate in everyday life, and you’ll grow as a person, both mentally and physically.

I know we at SED Developments have. With every new person we come into contact with, we grow.

If you’d like to collaborate with us, or you have an idea that you’d like to realise, then do get in touch. You’ll find our contact info on our website here. We’re pretty friendly and open to all designs and thoughts.

Social status

And don’t forget to take a look at our Instagram and Facebook pages, to see more of our designs and projects. Our Instagram stories are legendary. Our icing on our baked goods is legendary too – but not in a good way! That’s more in a so bad it’s good way. Take a look and you’ll see what I mean. Luckily we get to work on collaboration and innovation with some amazing bakers. Ergo our Instagram grid has more than dodgy icing efforts on it.