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Before the 2016 Bay Area Maker Faire, my inner-child set out on a goal to re-live the freedom I felt when I got my first car—a 25lb plastic, electric blue, Power Wheels Jeep. Those of you who have attended the Bay Area Maker Faire may have seen the awesome PPPRS races. PPPRS stands for Pow-Pow […]
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At Fictiv, we believe there is a right way to build a healthy company and the first step for us is to create a foundation of values that all team members share and uphold in words, thoughts and actions. By creating this shared understanding, we know how to treat each other and also everyone we […]
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On track/off track is a “get stuff done” framework shared with us by business coach Kate Purmal, to help us drive projects end-to-end and focus on sharing results-based updates. Meeting fatigue infects many companies, stealing valuable time and status meetings are especially ineffective when people spend too much time reporting activities (“Last week, I worked […]
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Well designed toys can have a major impact on a child’s creative and intellectual development. Lots of engineers I speak with have serious nostalgia around LEGOs (some still build LEGOs today) and fondly consider that toy a launching point for their passion and love of building things today. So to inspire the littlest makers and […]
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Earlier this month, we had the pleasure of hosting Women in Hardware at our space for an inspiring panel on prototyping best practices. Women in Hardware is a fantastic organization that aims to connect the female founders, engineers, investors, manufacturers, and marketers who are building the future of connected hardware. Women in Hardware is comprised […]
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Growing up, books and the people they contained were the most important thing in my life. The characters I read about dramatically influenced my personal philosophy, whether it was the compassion of Jean Valjean or the fierce protectiveness of Jo March. One of my favorite series is the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett, which introduced […]
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This past Saturday afternoon, the Fictiv team hosted a group of 20 high school girls to teach them about prototyping and manufacturing. The girls were part of ChickTech, a nonprofit program for high school girls that creates engaging hands-on engineering workshops, in partnership with startups and big technology companies. Groups like ChickTech are doing incredible […]
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Ineffective meetings are a major time-suck. People straggle in late, not exactly knowing what the purpose of the meeting is. A quick review turns into a length discussion.. which turns into a debate, which ends in no-one-really-knowing-what-the-point-of-the-meeting-was-or-what-to-do-next. Sound familiar? When run properly, meetings can provide clarity, alignment, and keep projects on schedule. Thankfully, we had […]
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We had the pleasure of welcoming accomplished and exceptional leader Kate Purmal to Fictiv to lead us in a workshop on teamwork. Kate launched her career as a member of the founding management team at Palm and has since worked in CEO, CFO, and COO roles at multiple startups and as a strategic consultant for Hewlett-Packard, […]
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Hellooo 2016! Is it seriously February already? Well, in the spirit of nostalgia, we’re takin’ a drive down memory lane, looking back at our most popular posts from 2015. 1. Ultimate Guide to Surface Finishing 3D Printed Parts First up: our popular Ultimate Guide to Surface Finishing 3D Printed Parts. The guide covers different finishing […]
