Light Minds Think Alike

White Glove Inspection

dnorth — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:45:00 GMT

Now you might think it a little odd that a company where the head dude walks around in Birkenstocks holds what's called a White Glove Inspection. At least once a year Fred warns us that inspection time is coming so that we make sure to get things cleaned up and organized. To be honest I think I have one of the offices he looks into to determine when to trigger these as I certainly seem to collect more than my share of gunk.

Fred is proud of the company and its employees and with the clean look of the new buuilding he wants to makes sure everyone buys in to keeping it neat and orderly. The general rule is that there should be no boxes on anyone's floor space but as we have been through these for a couple of years now it seems to be slowly morphing into keeping a clean desk and storing away office supplies. So many people come through for tours of the unique and fun space that is ETC there's also the desire to have them see a nice AND neat place to work.

For days leading up to the inspection, employees hustle around in their spare time to empty boxes, recycle leftovers, wipe down the horizontal work surfaces and conspire how to hide things from prying eyes. Fred almost always finds everything. Usually about a day before the walk through, Technical Services gets various odd tested and prototype equipment dumped on them from R+D and Manufacturing and then we run even a little crazier catching up. I personally have talked about loading up all the oddities from my area on a cart and with the help of some wireless technology and associates in other departments figured I could push the cart from department to department avoiding the inspection crew so that I could return back to my grotto with the cart contents while still passing. Although a fun game for sure, Fred never takes the same path twice. He's smart.

The day arrives and no one knows when Fred and his chart-toting minions will pass through with bright pink Post-It notes. You see, each item that is deemed out of sorts is documented and tagged with the bright pink stickies. In a few cases, entire offices have failed with the Post-It being placed on the door. It is those rare cases where the note also has something written on it like, "Condemned," (engineer) or "Not a great example." (vice-president)

This year I lucked out as I was busy in a meeting during his trip through our area and that's a good thing as I may have been a candidate for a sticker on the door. I felt bad enough that I came in over the weekend with the help of my lovely better half to dig through my stacked filing system and dust bunnies.

Truth is I think we all feel better that Fred does this and are still thankful no white gloves are really involved.

A PhD in Economics from This American Life

john.kuehl — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:28:00 GMT

This is off the topic of lighting, but on the topic of just about every other conversation going on these days...

If you're like me and interested in knowing more about what's at the root the US economy's problems recently, but are not at all the kind of person that typically understands finance, I cannot recommend more that you listen to two episodes of This American Life. I guarantee* you'll feel so much smarter because of it.

"The Giant Pool of Money" - Espisode 355

A special program about the housing crisis produced in a special collaboration with NPR News. We explain it all to you. What does the housing crisis have to do with the turmoil on Wall Street? Why did banks make half-million dollar loans to people without jobs or income? And why is everyone talking so much about the 1930s? It all comes back to the Giant Pool of Money.

and

"Another Frightening Show About the Economy" - Episode 365

Alex Blumberg and NPR's Adam Davidson—the two guys who reported our Giant Pool of Money episode explain more of what has happened with the economy, including what regulators could've done to prevent this financial crisis from happening in the first place.

* - This guarantee is worth about as much as the credit default swaps discussed in Episode 365, but I'm really quite certain you'll enjoy the programs and find that joke mildly amusing after listening.

Sorry About the Outage

john.kuehl — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:34:00 GMT

Forums are back up after a little hiccup on our end. Our apologies for the outage, and hope we didn't leave any of you hanging in the midst of trying to solve an urgent problem!

We'll try not to let it happen again - especially in the middle of the day.

Not just another day in Vegas

dlincecum — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 13:38:00 GMT

Thursday was not Friday. Friday was quite exciting!!!

The Ribbon Cutting Ceremony took place and then allowed hundreds to burst through the gate. We were the first booth on the right and got slammed right off the bat. I had photos and then accidentally deleted them thinking they were old! Oh well. More laterr.

The biggest buzz on the floor is really digital lights and LED's. Big surprise ?? Not really.

Barco and Robe are really pushing the digital light while PRG pushes the analog light with a great name "The Bad Boy"

This light is well named. It is amazingly bright - big fat beam. Look to see it in stadium shows. Amazing optics.

At the same time PRG distribution continues to amaze me. As I walk by I snow see a "State Automation" dimmer rack on their booth?

Seems like one of the industrys big customers has become a competitor to everyone.

And a congratulations to Trisha Traut on becoming the new Quotations Manager at ETC! She is also at her first LDI.

Last but not least. Someone at ETC planned a brilliant bit of marketing that even I did not hear about. Imagin my surprise when I went to the restroom nearest our booth to discover this!

It's better than web advertising! It's better than print! Whoever did this - (and I think I know who you are) we appreciate your generosity and humor. It got me a lot of laughs! I think we have really reached a new pinnacle when even the little guys take shots at us!

LDI is great - now for day 2.

Another Vegas trade Show

dlincecum — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:30:00 GMT

The Sun rises over opening day of LDI 2008. Just another trade show in Las Vegas. All is well here in the west. Cranes and construction continue to be the primary decorative elements of the Vegas skyline. I haven't ventured out to see signs of the economic crisis and how it grips Las vegas yet -- but it does not appear to have arrived here. The streets are still crowded.

We are introducing the new Paradigm and SmartLink systems to a new audience here at LDI, expanding our networking options and features, still introducing our successful console lines to many new customers (and old.) I had planned to get really excited about LDI this year - but so far it just seems like another day in Las Vegas. Of course we are regailed with the promises of huge crowds and record turn-outs. We never really know if that happens, but each year seems to bring continued success for us and we'll give LDI some of the credit.

I walked the floor yesterday and didn't see anything that knocked my socks off. I'll try to report more for you after day 1.

Useful Email services

dlincecum — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:36:00 GMT

I saw this article on the facebook page of a friend.

Google launches Mail Goggles to save you from yourself

This really cracks me up. It is called Mail Goggles and it bears some attention from other technology companies. It throws math problems on the screen when you hit send on Gmail and you have a certain length of time to solve them. Are you geting the picture? This saves you from the famous drunkmail.

I really think other companies should look carefully at this concept. My suggestions --

1. an outlook add-in that monitors your replies for certain words and gives a good old "are you sure?" when you hit send.

2. Maybe a next level of protection makes it appear that the email left your outbox but actually stores it away and then 24 hours later asks if you still want to send this.

3. Options settings to watch emails sent to certain people more carefully!

4. Perhaps the software could monitor the speed and intensity of your typing and catch those emails too.

5. Any Reply-to-all email is rejected for 24 hours cooling off period.

Innovations like Mail goggles are the reasons that Microsoft and other technology companies should be very afraid of Google.

David Lincecum

Of old jobs and Vulcan mind-melds

dnorth — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:25:00 GMT

A couple of weeks ago, at lunchtime on a Friday, Steve Short (of Lite-Trol fame) sends me an email wanting to know if we have spare parts for an old LMI dimmer panel. He even included a very fuzzy picture from his cell phone and said the job is the Marriot Glen Pointe.

I wasn't able to find the job in our system right away but in looking at the photo I surmised it must be an ACS rack. This was based only on looking over old drawings years ago as I had never seen one in person. Flash (Bill Florac) confirmed it was an ACS rack and that he had originally done the job turn in 1983!!

I tracked down the job in our system and noted that it was job #00015!! Yes, I ran around the department exclaiming that I had the old job for the week, the month and the year! Not really a formal policy around here, I still think it's fun when one of us gets a job that starts with two or three zeros. Yes, a lot of them are running everyday.

Unfortunately I had to tell Steve that we don't have spare driver cards. He's working with the ballroom on site to figure out how to keep lights on as I offer to bring the card in for a quick repair. We both come up with different solutions that would work and it dawns on me that Lite-Trol can fix this in their shop as long as I can find documentation.

Now most of you know Steve and Lite-Trol but I guess almost none of you know Roger. I've only met him over the phone and he certainly doesn't get out in the field, but when it comes to bench repairing products, there's probably no one to hold a flame to him. Some even says he bonds with the circuits, a kind of Vulcan mind-meld, and intuitively knows just where to poke and prod to bring things back to life.

Turk, Spencer and I wandered over to 3036 Laura Lane - yes, we still have stuff in one of the old buildings - to dig through the flat files of drawings that never got converted to pdfs. There's definitely some cool stuff in the drawers which of course appeal to an old technology geek such as myself. Not far above the ACS drawings I found Bill Smith's sine wave dimmer drawings from 1990. LMI was definitely a technology leader!

There they are! Hand-drawn ACS dimmer card schematics and PCB layouts with lots of erasure marks on them. Lauren was nice enough to take them out to get scanned and printed and the next day Steve and Roger had the electronic copies in their email.

Steve emails me a week later and says that after a couple of LM324s and a cap the card was up and running again. The customer was thrilled and Lite-Trol has saved another system. I roll up the original job drawings and put them away with all the others waiting for the day one of us can once again say, "Old job of the week!"

Another ETC innovation reaches retirement

john.kuehl — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:00:00 GMT

The recent arrival of a new automated coffee machine in the Finance/Sales/Marketing kitchen has brought delicious dark roast coffee to many - and the end of an era for one.

With the fancy schmancy new coffee dispenser, the brew-your-own lineup of coffee pots has been put away. And, with no responsibility falling on the taker of the last cup to make a new pot, the ETC Coffee Cam, symbol of justice and respect, has been disassembled.

Rest in peace, little buddy.

Updates to the Unison Minisite!

joebokelman — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:36:00 GMT

We recently completed an update the Unison minisite at www.etcconnect.com/unison. The most exciting change is the removal of the movie of me! ;)

Another important change adds interactive features to the riser diagrams found at http://www.etcconnect.com/minisite/unison/products-Paradigm.html and http://www.etcconnect.com/minisite/unison/products-SmartLink.html when you click on a link to a riser in the left-hand column. These changes allow us to post datasheets and product details in a more organized way.

Also, the links to the Paradigm and SmartLink brochures connect you to the latest revision – adding new photography to the Paradigm product line.

We are hard at work right now in completing the product pages for the new products, including full family pages, product pages, and a full complement of downloads including more datasheets than we've ever had for legacy Unison! Look for an annoucement of the changes to the website soon!

Enjoy!

Joe Bokelman

A new look at Net3

john.kuehl — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:48:00 GMT

Someone said to me recently, "I honestly believe you shouldn't have to know Net3 from the wind in your hair." Perhaps that's a fair statement - how many people in any office around the world have the slightest idea what's going on behind the scenes with their computer network? Still, we certainly think an ETC system connected with Net3 brings many, many benefits to the system's users, and starting today, there's a new way for people to discover those benefits - even if they may not need or want to understand what's going on under the hood.

Check out our new Net3 feature on etcconnect.com for a dynamic, humanized look at the benefits that Net3 delivers to you. We encourage you to use the feedback from on the site (or the comment form here) to share your comments on what you see, and, if you're so inclined, to use the demo request form to make an appointment to get a closer look at Net3.

Where'd you get help before?

john.kuehl — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:28:00 GMT

I think I'm the stats guy of the blog group here, so how about another one:

We have over 3,000 members of our online community, and we appreciate the contributions from each of them. When we talk about this group, which we do often, there's a rhetorical question that's often posed. The question is in regards to the popularity of our forums - over 280,000 pageviews on our forums and blogs in the last seven months, not including ETC staff - and it goes something like this:

"Before our forums came online, where did all these people go to get help?"

It's such a good question - and one that probably had a good answer - I just figured we should just go ahead and ask. So, tell us:

If you've asked or answered a question in our forums, where did you go to get or offer help before we had them? Other forum sites? Our 800 number? Nowhere?

If you want to expand on your basic answer, I'm curious if ETC's forums have totally replaced your previous resources, or if you continue to use a variety of avenues to find help for a variety of needs.

Thanks for sharing!

The Seasons of Service

dnorth — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:18:00 GMT

It's the silly season in Technical Services. Summer time is when electrical contractors are let loose to install lighting systems in municipal buildings and since we are near the end of summer we are also facing crunch time in support. Oh, and so you know what I mean by municipal buildings, that is generally going to cover schools, convention centers, board rooms, meeting halls and other facilities like jails and courtrooms.

So now as the contractors are trying to finish the jobs up and get paid right before school starts, we're doing a lot of new system turn ons, we're getting calls to answer technical questions, replacing a bad part here and there, and offering support to all the Authorized Service Center contractors out there that do a bulk of the heavy lifting. The techs are twisting wires, writing Unison configurations, training on consoles, filling out field service reports and getting to the next job to do it again for another customer.

Next comes Fall. In late September and most of October we expect to get more than the usual share of calls from Drama Teachers. The request is simple and goes something like, "My student that knew all my tech stuff and did the lighting graduated last year. I have a show next week and need to get the lights on. How do I do that?" We help them through some basics over the phone and suggest they choose another couple of tech students to take class time to learn the lighting system. Let's face it, just about any kid these days can pick up any electronic device and know it inside and out in no time.

In November and early December we get the calls from different worship centers needing to run their installed system to the limits for one of two times a year (Easter being the other time) or have rental gear and need help getting through a few details.

Late December through about February we hit the municipal cycle again as ECs have been let in do installations during the holiday break. We switch our brains back over to console and equipment instruction instead of installation technician support.

March, April and May hit with the Spring school musical cycle shortly followed by year-end dance recitals. Questions on how to record effects and cue stacks come in.

Well, then we're back to summer aren't we. In May and June we get to work with folks getting ready for summer festival and outdoor theatre productions. This is right before we get to the summer installation push again.

There you have it. The service cycle through ETC as it were. Maybe you're asking what's going on with all the professional shows. To be honest, we work with them pretty much year round as they don't seem to take many breaks in the year.

So yes, we're really busy right now but we're looking forward to the next stage of busy when eager drama teachers add the art of light to their Fall productions. If you see one out there that need help, jump in...it's rewarding!

The real story on Express and Expression

dlincecum — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:59:00 GMT

Many of you may have heard that we had to abruptly stop taking orders for Express and Expression consoles a couple of weeks ago. With the dust having settled a bit I wanted to offer a clear (we'll see how clear!) explanation of what is up with these products. This may be the longest post ever on a blog. But I am also revealing a lot to you all in this public blog. I probably should seek permission to post all this – but I won’t. I’ll just ask forgiveness later. Enjoy – or hate this post as you see fit. ( I switch liberally between I and we in the post as I and telling you about the process that We went through.)

First – let me say that the abrupt announcement (our customer service reps refer to it as the “stop sign”) was in no way a part of our plan. We have known for some time that some day we would reach a point where we could no longer ship them. Both Express and Expression include parts that are simply out of production and we have done multiple “lifetime buys” in order to keep the hardware alive. No doubt we could have made a decision to develop new hardware – but we chose not to – and I will address that decision as well. We recently were faced with a shortage on a part that couldn’t be replaced and therefore we had to look at what we had on order, what it would take to service thousands of consoles in the field; this resulted in the stop sign. We had planned to be able to phase these products out over the remainder of this year – but things don’t always work according to plan. Let me first apologize to many of you who considered this event to be sudden and unexpected. It was necessary to assure we could meet our commitments to customers.

Now let me speak to the background on this. To stay organized I am going to number the items I will cover.

1. Decisions on platforms we would develop and why we made the choices

2. Results of those decisions and the various issues going with them

3. A few other points

Part 1 – background on decisions we made on platforms we would develop and why

A couple of years ago we chose to make a commitment to the SmartFade, Eos/Ion and Congo platforms for future development. This means we had to make a decision to cease any future development on Expression and Express. This was really tough for us. The Expression platform is the most popular in the world and I would tangle with anyone on that claim. ETC has grown up on the Expression. We love it and there are thousands of fans worldwide. The market for Express and Expression was shrinking however. The sales trend was down with many mid-range customers defecting to products like Hog 1000, Whole Hog 2’s and yes – the Strand 500 series. We had to accept that Expression was not the right platform for the future for many reasons. We had incremented the development for about 20 years and there were some fundamental concepts in the console philosophy that kept it from adapting much further.

We already knew then that the Eos software platform would become the primary platform for ETC. We also knew that Congo was doing great in certain markets and had a broad acceptance – sales are very good and it is a powerful platform. It was clear that Congo would never enjoy the widespread acceptance in the US market – where we already had a huge market-share and therefore we needed to put our muscle behind Eos in the US. This meant that we need to replace Express, Expression, and Emphasis with derivatives of Eos (these represent thousands of units sold per year in the US.) Ion was designed to replace a majority of these sales.

Are you following me so far? I am trying to be as concise as possible – but this is a complex matter – so bear with me.

So what did this transition mean for us, philosophically speaking? We had to make some decisions based on a few criteria: Where the market development was; what we needed to make a complete and consistent console offering, and where we thought the market needed to go to be ready for the next ten years in lighting control. Reviewing these criteria, we made some decisions:

1. We felt that the market was ready for using a tracking, last action, move fade console like Ion – as opposed to a preset based platform like Expression. This was a gating decision as we knew that Eos was built on these philosophies.

2. We also knew from that many ”would-be Expression customers” in the US were able to learn the Congo platform and were having good luck with it, especially churches and some universities and regional houses. Congo is funny – either you love it or you hate it! It has many major fans and I am one of them. But it would not be right for many customers, especially in the USA. An Eos derived console was a much better choice. My point here is that we learned that the user base was more flexible than we thought.

3. We felt that 2 scene preset was basically dead in anything over 24 channels. It is unreliable (prone to human error,) requires significant paperwork and is ultimately a big hindrance to add-on to a console from a development point-of-view. We developed the point-of-view that 2 scene is basically a teaching tool and we would support it in the SmartFade. We also discovered that very few customers could be found who were actually using it on the Express.

4. We determined that outside of 2 scene preset there was still a reliance on faders that some segments of the market felt comfortable with. We also determined that this reliance was fairly limited in actual usefulness. Once you set levels on an Express with faders and record them to a cue – you have to clear the faders to play the cue back. You also cannot take a channel down below its recorded level with faders because they operate in HTP. This means that after you record a preset you have to use the keypad to modify it. So the reliance was there - but of limited use. The faders did serve to make people comfortable and this was important.

5. We saw that new technologies like LED’s, moving lights and color changing devices were becoming more prevalent every year, and that ETC had product strategies that would seek to popularize these products even more. We wanted our console platforms – even in the least expensive market spaces – to support these devices.

Ok – these were our assumptions and you can argue with them. I accept that. Since I am telling you our entire strategy here I expect you can take issue with any part of it – and I want to hear your input -- but at least you know why we did what we did. We developed Ion and made the decision to step away from Expression for new development.

So – this is where we stand. We very much believe that people will benefit from moving to Ion for many reasons. End users will get in on the ground floor of a platform we will develop for years. They can control many types of products beyond dimmers. They will learn a lighting philosophy that is the most prevalent on Broadway and in large theatres (ok – this is a very American point-of-view, but they are also the main customer group who is affected by this change. Only 10% of these consoles went to Europe.) These Ion customers will get a lot more console for their money. Dealers will be able to offer these Ion customers more products in the future; networking, moving lights, LED’s, color changers. Customers will be able to adapt to these products using a console designed for them. This is a good thing for everyone.

We are also listening carefully to the feedback we’re getting on this. Not all customer segments are happy with our reasoning.

Part 2 – Results of our decisions

Let me start by saying we are thrilled with Ion – sales are great. Now let me tell you where we made errors. An Ion with a 40 fader wing has a list price of about $9,000. The same Ion with 20 faders is about $8,000. Many, many buyers should consider these options. We feel that they will be very happy with the value we offer in this range. We recognize that buyers (and sellers) in the least expensive end of this market feel we have left a gap. This represents the $5,000 to $7,000 market, a market that we defined with Express. These buyers also want more faders than we can offer in this price range.

I could make a lot of excuses for this. The cost of the wings was much higher than anticipated and the Ion unit costs came in higher as well, yada, yada, yada. OK – we are not perfect. Far from it, in fact.

We also realize that some people have an issue with the perceived complexity of Ion. The encoders and numbers of buttons have made some people feel that the console will be hard to use. We ultimately feel it is pretty easy to use – but we have to accept that people differ with us on that. We are soon rolling out training videos geared toward first-time users and we will build this library as fast as we can. We believe this will help – I guess we will see.

We also have been helping our dealer and rep network learn Ion and help buyers feel comfortable learning to use the console. We know that most of our dealers and even many of our reps knew Express like the back of their hands and felt comfortable selling it because of that. They had many customers who were having good experiences and this made them confident. We have “moved their cheese.” In fact we have moved everyone’s cheese. Even our own.

OK – so we are catching some flack about all this – the pricing gap between the SmartFade consoles and Ion, the perceived complexity of Ion, and the retirement of one of our dealers’ go-to products - and we are trying to respond. It is hard to keep everyone satisfied (including ourselves.) We realize we have some things to overcome here. Some of it is training and acceptance among dealers, we need better training aids for end customers, and we may need a simpler piece of hardware for the low-end market. We are working on how to deal with these issues.

Part 3 – a few other issues

In closing let me say that I know this is a really long bit of an explanation. If you are still reading I thank and admire you. There are a few more things you should know.

1. We do still have a few Express consoles if you just have to have one. We understand that there are reasons you may prefer Express at this time. We’d like to see you make the move to Ion and we feel you will be happier if you do – but we respect your opinions too. We are not 100% out of these consoles and while we have officially stopped taking orders you can speak to your ETC regional manager (or ask your dealer to do so) and they may be able to get you a console. (They will kill me for posting this)

2. We are executing a strategy that we believe in and we are committed to it, but we aren’t immune to making some errors and adjusting the strategy. We also encourage your feedback. Please post comments here on the blog.

3. I’m not just pitching Ion in this post. The SmartFade and the Congo family offer great solutions for hundreds of customers. Take a close look at them.

4. We are planning expansions to the Eos/Ion family.

5. When? That is the question. We are working on a lot of projects; releasing all new Architectural products, finishing ACN implementation in all products, adding more network gateways, in addition to expanding software for Eos/Ion and Congo. I cannot begin to make promises and I simply won’t. You will just have to trust me on this.

I encourage you to give our new platforms a try. Take a good look at what we have done with the Eos, Congo and the SmartFade platforms.

So – that is the best I can do for now. If you have questions – ask them. If you have opinions post them. Please be open with us – I have been open with you. Have I missed anything? I look forward to hearing from you.

David Lincecum

Service throughout ETC

dnorth — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:39:00 GMT

Currently we have a number of Professional Services employees working with the fine folks in R+D on a several projects the most notable of which is the current development towards the release of the new Unison products. Also, just recently a Technical Services employee accepted a position in R+D to help with Acceptance Testing of ETC products before they are ready for general public release. This is an exciting time for sure and just as we are trying to make products better towards release it is also important for us to be ready to design and install systems as well as train Authorized Service Technicians on everything coming out the door.

All of this got me to thinking about all the other Professional Services people that have wandered over to other areas of the company during the past umpteen years and what benefits this gives both the employee and the company. So here's a list of people I could think of off the top of my head who have helped spread the Professional Services experience out into other areas of the company. Many of you may have talked to them on the phone or worked with them to design and install a system. They didn't go away....they're doing all they can to help make ETC that which is ETC.

Sales:

Heidi Bowers

Micah Rahn

Spencer Lyons

Marketing:

Jake Dunnum

Steve Traut

Ginger Swart

Joe Kirschling

Bryan Palmer

Manufacturing and Manufacturing Engineering:

Colin Beranek

Chad Weberg

Mike Webb

R+D:

Kristine Wolfe

Dan Talajkowski

John Hessler

John Thurk

Nick Schulze

Greg Thomas

Steven Peterson

IT:

Tony Romain

Alex Fortney

Anthony Garcia

Cori Schlegel

If you think about it, where else can you get totally immersed in product not to mention develop great customer relationships than to work in Professional Services. Ok, so yes, Sale and Marketing jobs do create this experience too. The Professional Services group is comprised of Project Managers, Application Engineers, Regional Assistants, Quotations, Customer Service, Phone Support, Repairs, and Field Service Engineers. Careers in these roles provide some unique experience and qualifications that can help improve offerings in products and services throughout the company. We have active roles in development teams, technical writing review, software testing and validation, beta testing, pre-sales technical support, and many more areas. It's great to work with all the other groups in the company and still be able to answer the phones and emails as they come in every day.

In fact, you could almost say that not only are we helping customers we're helping ourselves. You see, the more we listen to customers the more we feed info into development for product improvements. The more that the product improves for the customer, the less problems we have to work to solve. Sounds easy but it certainly is a lot to juggle and sometimes we ask for more that what is needed. This is where we achieve great balance by working with Marketing and R+D to discuss in detail the items and their priorities.

It's also great to take a hold of a field problem and be able to talk with an engineer or someone in production to get the right answer and develop a solution for the customer. It helps that the customer focus we maintain is also held by all those people in other groups that we work with. A production supervisor will ask how to make sure that the testing on the floor matches its use by a customer in the field and we jump right in to answer whatever we can. It's not uncommon for an engineer to first help us out and also ask us why this application matters. When the engineers know what customers are trying to do, the product development process moves more smoothly.

It's great to share.

I Don't Want to be a Downer...

mmeskill — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:08:00 GMT

It seems like there is always a good bit of talk about what a fun place ETC is to work but last night I was lying awake in bed obsessing over a number of different issue I need to deal with and felt that someone should address the fact that we do real work here J Now I’m defiantly of the belief that ETC is a great place to work but it is still work.

One must keep in mind that for everyone of us sometimes crazy theatre people that work in customer facing departments, there are countless others that are doing the day-to-day labor that actually leads to products getting shipped to customers. Remember, in real terms ETC is a manufacturing company. I often find myself envying these individuals in the ability to come to work, complete a quality task, and then go home with the feeling of a job well done. When I was a Factory Field Technician, I had that feeling on a regular basis as I spent the majority of my time installing new ETC Lighting Systems and was rewarded with a happy new ‘end user’ at the end of my efforts. Or I got to fly into a city in the 11^th hour, do some magic and save the day; usually with the assistance of a much smarter Phone Support Technician who did not get to see the smiling customers face or get the free beer after the show.

Now, as a manager of 10 years, I endeavor to ensure that the cogs in the machine run smooth for any employee or customer I come in contact with. Although I find the task enjoyable and rewarding, it is does not give the same degree of daily or weekly satisfaction I once had and thus it seems more like work and therefore less fun.

Then there are the fights and arguments that are the opposite of fun. Fights you say? Arguments? Well yes, but in the: ‘We all want to go for Chinese buffet but spend so much time debating which is the best place that we use up our lunch hour and have to order in pizza’ kind of way. Meaning that the people I work with are so committed to finding the best way to things that we often fight about what the absolute best course of action is and on the service side I have seen it spin out of control…always to the benefit of the customer. For example: A call might come into Phone Support and it is decided to that a RMA should be issued. A coffee break 10 minutes later leads to discussion about the problem and a manger decides that a new unit should be sent. Then a second manager is consulted and believes that a Field Tech should first be sent to site to investigate the problem. Now the fun begins. The cheapest thing would be to send a loaner and issue an RMA. Sending new equipment or a service tech to site is expensive. So we fight about the best way to resolve the issue and eventually end up sending new equipment and a service tech and some extra parts that we think maybe will be needed.

Finally there is the guilt that makes working in service at ETC un-fun. You see, I was raised Catholic but joined the Unitarian church 7 years ago…but I still suffer from “Catholic Guilt”. I also suffer from “Service Guilt”. Service Guilt happens when despite your best efforts and intentions you outright fail to fix the customers problems. In the case above, the best decision might have been to send a loaner and issue a RMA. But then the loaner does not work when it shows up at site. You send a service technician to investigate and the problem is with the loaner. You do a quick-turnaround on the repair and send it back right away. It breaks again 4 days later. You send a whole new unit. It shows up with a broken GM fader. These things happen and they are beyond my control but I end up with an extreme sense of guilt that I have just put some TD at the local community theatre through the worst service experience of their life. It is not a fun job on that day.

In the last month I have: Had a picnic for all my German employees at my house, gone to the ETC Inc Summer picnic in my Lederhosen, gone to the ETC GmbH Summer picnic on a large hill overlooking a beautiful valley, went to a ETC Professional Services potluck, and had countless after work outings with coworkers who are also loyal friends. Yes, there is the unhappy getting up and going to work every day thing but God help me, I love it so.