ControlThink Forums

Many companies have employees who monitor their online forums.

Most have policies that prevent those employees from posting, or the employees just don't take the time.

We're considering both monitoring and posting here on a regular basis.

What would you all like?  Someone dedicated to joining in and answering questions?  People listening to feature requests?  A very hands-off approach?

Chris

I would like to see 100% involvement.  Off the top of my head, there a number of reasons why control think should participate.

1.  Allow ControlThink to solve potential problems a user may encounter.  This would permit future users to solve the same issues without tech support calls (plus I wouldn't have to wait on hold for tech support.)

2.  The active participation of ControlThink show's the end user that they are willing to work through potential problems.

3.  Allows user's to work together on perhaps possible improvements and requests with ControlThink.  If  ControlThink actively participated, and agreed, would perhaps lead to better customer satisfaction and of course sales for ControlThink (a win-win situation.)

4.  ControlThink would be able to squash misconceptions posted by ill-advised forum members.

 

Please get involved.  This is a great way for you guys to advertise your support.  In todays world customer service is always lacking and using your forums to answer questions and keep us up to date in the publics eyes will only help you build customers.  Plus you guys are very much like us (Techies) and we will have a lot to chat about the may not even be directly related to ControlThink. 

I could not agree more with the comment made by RustyTek and Squintz.

The best way for you development team to get the feedback they need to improve your product is by being involved in the forums.

EricJ

I totally agree with all of you (RustyTek, Squintz, and EricJilot).  We'll have to figure out what the right balance is.  We want to have our people involved, but we also want to make sure that they don't get so involved that they don't get work done (or else we'll never ship products!).

Maybe for now, I can monitor these fourms, and can ask others to chip in as questions come up that they best answer.  Typically, I try to keep all public relations limited to two or three of us--to ensure consistent communications--but it would be fun to get some additional viewpoints here, both from our people and from all of you.

I will also ask members of our team to at least monitor the forums for threads that are of importance to what they're working on.

Some companies create products and then try to find a market to sell them in.  We tend to find problems, create solutions to them using technology, and then share those solutions with the people who would benefit most from them.  Good communication with those customers is so essential to making truly useful solutions, though--so I can guarantee we'll be involved.

I can't guarantee that we'll be able to incorporate every wish list item, or that we'll implement things in specific ways, but I guarantee that we'll make really useful products--and that we'll be very grateful to the customers who find value in them.

Chris

Squintz, It is nice to see a familiar name in here.

 

 

I too can’t say it much better then it’s been stated.

I too believe participation is key to a great company and success. For instance I can’t help but think of Elk as being a top company that is actively involved. I’m sure controlthink will find a great balance as you’ve already started one by creating the forums.

 

I too believe that Controlthink should be very involved. I agree with the previous post.

Squintz, I too am glad to see another familiar user here. I have been a ZWave Developer for almost two years and I have always believed that ZWave will become THE Home Automation standard. So it's great to see some one else with a little ZWave experience here.

HiTech Automation

Richard Higgs

Richard,

Welcome to the forums!  I'm serving as the official engineering liason for ControlThink for the time being, and Tonya should be pitching in from time to time regarding marketing and/or PR type things.  In time, we're going to need to pull a few more engineering types onto the forums, but I'd like to keep things focused around here for the time being :)

And yes, Squintz does have quite a bit of Z-Wave knowledge.  I saw a video he made the other day, demonstrating turning on and off lights.  It was pretty cool.

Chris

<P>Nice to see you guys here also Higgs and Brian.  Are either of you familiar with programming for xAP.  This is my long term project and I would really like to speed it up a little. Lack of time has brought it to a stop right now.  It would be nice to get some other people with interest into the project.  Shoot me an e-mail at <A href="mailto:Davepow16@g-nospam-mail.com">Davepow16@g-nospam-mail.com</A> if you guys are interested in the details.  In a nutshell it will be a windows service that allows xAP enable software like HomeSeer and CQC to control your Z-Wave network.  </P>

I'm amazed at how well Chris walks the fine line between keeping our appetites whetted for upcoming products and keeping his non-disclosure agreements with his partners.  They should all pay Chris for his PR savy.

I can also see that Chris has tremendous confidence in ControlThink's business model.  Where else have you seen the chief share so much information on his own forum, seemingly without fear of being undermined by a competitor?  You've got to be way ahead of the curve and have solid partnerships to operate with that kind of openness.

Personally, I feel as if I've come home.

I'd come to work for you sweeping floors, but I don't think you BYU (UVSC?) kids would want an old geezer slowing you down.

Gary,

I'm really sorry, but we (seriously) have robots that sweep and mop our floors :) But your enthusiasm is much appreciated!

And you are right, a few of our test engineers hail from BYU, which is a benefit of having an office in Utah.

Chris

   Yes to all Chris. As another "old geezer" there is one thing I have learned without doubt...The "Left Hand and the Right Hand" don't talk much. Anything to keep everybody on the same page as far as end users and designers/marketers, is a really big plus. This would also get a venue for us  to request features, ask questions like "Yes, but what does that really do?" I've always suspected that there is a lot more going under the hood in our end-user hardware than what the manuals "cleverly conceal":)

Mike