This year, both my daughters joined the high school debate team. Team parents are asked to judge tournaments from time to time, so a few weeks ago, I spent a day as an official judge of ASU Southwest Championships, held at the Arizona State University campus. It was a high-level event, and I was blown away by the skill, poise, knowledge of topic, and delivery that these young adults displayed. One of the events I judged was Original Oratory, and although many of the 10 minute speeches were very persuasive and compelling, there was one that really stuck with me. It was titled “You can’t ‘Spark Note’ Your Way through Life,” and it addressed the concept of inquisitive learning, rather than through passive reception of information.
Do you know what “SparkNotes” are? I didn’t, and had to ask the speaker before she started. She said they were the Internet equivalent to “Cliffs Notes”, something I’m sure we’re all familiar with from our high school literature days. Her point was that many people have become lazy learners, simply taking the information they find in places like Google, SparkNotes, and Wikipedia as gospel. She encouraged us all to question what we read, because great questions create enthusiastic, inquisitive learning. I’m sure the folks in R&D will tell you that there is more to be gained through active construction of knowledge than from simply reading a paper.
When I listened to this speech, and thought about what we are trying to create here on 3D InCites, I knew there was a blog post brewing. I have learned all I know about 3D integration and packaging not because I studied engineering (which I didn’t), or even from reading technical articles on the various topics —although that helped — but from listening to the real 3D experts and asking questions – lots and lots of questions. Through interpreting and writing articles based on their words, verifying facts, and asking more questions, I have developed an understanding of what is going on in this area of the market, while at the same time realizing how much more there is to learn. We’re really just getting started here.
What really excites me then, is that by the looks of our growing membership (up to 153 registered now) you all agree. I encourage all of you to participate in the discussions that we run, comment on blog posts and articles, and ask more questions. We’ve even created a new open forum for all members to create discussions on the topic of their choice. The general forum area can be found here. The first discussion on Design Issues was started as a result of an email exchange between Bill Acito of Cadence Design Systems, Eric Beyne of IMEC, and me. I encourage you to keep it going or start your own discussion. I also take requests. Let me know what you’d like a discussion started about and I’ll set it up and promote it to the membership.
The point is, this isn’t intended to be a one way transfer of information. I’m sure we have as much to learn from you as you have from us. Our intention at 3D InCites is to foster a collaborative culture that will collectively strengthen our abilities to achieve the goal of commercializing 3D integration and packaging technologies.– F.v.T.
