One of the most fascinating parts of our job is being able to be on a job site. Just seeing the raw bones, the skeleton of a space before it really comes to life and being able to visualize how it’s going to look once our products are designed, manufactured and installed. This is an example of a job site we’ve been on. It’s absolutely inspiring seeing this large atrium that’s going to ‘wow’ the residents of this multi-family building and knowing that our custom chandeliers and lighting products are going to bring it to life. Being able to mentally place where things will be, how it will look and the installation over all, is truly inspiring for us.
Ideoli is a vital asset to the design, development and procurement process for property developers. We work with our partners on their specified lighting, fixture and interior products to manufacture and source for large scale projects, and across multiple locations and countries. From wall sconces to decorative pendants, to standard lighting and showcase pieces, we help developers hit their specification needs below their budget targets. Engage us from the start so we can prove our value.
Nothing is guaranteed in this world, especially now. This is why Ideoli pushes daily to stay relevant and needed with its clients and partners. “Just finished a job site. Feels good being out here. Getting sweaty and dirty on some sites and still seeing our products being installed regardless of what’s going on in the world. People are building and we have to keep pushing to make sure we are specified.” says George Stroumboulis, Ideoli CEO and Co-Founder.
George: We are downtown Los Angeles here. Going to the job site on one of the projects we are working on to see how our products are looking. Business as usual for Ideoli during this pandemic. George: We are being safe with our masks, branded IDEOLI and let’s see how it goes. It’s refreshing to be on the ground and see our products being installed. Especially during these uncertain times. One location at a time!
LEDs magazine just featured this year’s class of “40 under 40 Next Gen” Award Winners and on that list is Chris Hartswick, Ideol’s Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer. Chris was selected in this class for his knowledge by working in the lighting industry over the last decade, which included serving as the VP of Design and Development at an LED lighting startup – working directly under one of the most revered experts in the lighting world. LEDs magazine reaches over 57,000 lighting professionals for comprehensive coverage of solid-state lighting technologies, applications, and markets around the world. Congratulations to Chris and the Class of 2020!
Welcome to another episode of: NAME YOUR CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER. George and Chris have some fun with Canadian cash while in a taxi ride. George teaching Chris some basics on the durability of the actual money notes and some guesses on the people on the money. Need to brush up in this!
GEORGE: OK, we’re at LAX, it’s Sunday and hopping on a 12-hour flight to Paris. Doing another 24 hours in Europe. And just like that, another day, another global flight destination. GEORGE: Just landed in Paris, got a quick stop over here, actually meeting a friend just outside of the airport and then headed on to Athens. Just landed in Greece… some coffee therapy and straight into meetings around this awesome city. GEORGE: We had a very very busy day here in Athens. We were here for just over 24 hours. We met with several different types of property developers, contractors and a lot of different companies dealing with investment coming into this country. And just like that, back to LAX George goes!
You have surely have heard the term “IoT” over the last few years.Well, what is this and what does it really mean? IoT stands for Internet of Things. It is about providing internet connection to a whole range of other things, processes, and environments. But how does this apply to lighting in our spaces? IoT Smart Buildings are ecosystems with many devices that “talk to” and depend on one another, sharing data and responding to various needs. IoT technology allows LED lights equipped with motion and environmental sensors to detect natural light, room occupancy and adapt their output accordingly. These sensors generate vast amounts of data that can feed artificial intelligence (AI) systems that can be used to make predictions. Using IoT and AI, these systems can manage individual lights or groups of lights based on things like occupancy, external light levels, and times of day IoT enabled lighting systems can also control dimming and color-changing. IoT LED lighting can bring maximum savings and provide valuable operational insights that can improve all aspects of building management. This is our future.
You have surely have heard the term “IoT” over the last few years. Well, what is this and what does it really mean? IoT stands for Internet of Things. It is about providing internet connection to a whole range of other things, processes, and environments. But how does this apply to lighting in our spaces? IoT Smart Buildings are ecosystems with many devices that “talk to” and depend on one another, sharing data and responding to various needs. IoT technology allows LED lights equipped with motion and environmental sensors to detect natural light, room occupancy and adapt their output accordingly. These sensors generate vast amounts of data that can feed artificial intelligence (AI) systems that can be used to make predictions. Using IoT and AI, these systems can manage individual lights or groups of lights based on things like occupancy, external light levels, and times of day IoT enabled lighting systems can also control dimming and color-changing. IoT LED lighting can bring maximum savings and provide valuable operational insights that can improve all aspects of building management. This is our future.
Chris Hartswick, Ideoli’s CPO and Co-Founder: What’s up everybody. I just wanted to share with you my new favorite International Airport. I’m currently in Nagoya Japan. It’s one of the cleanest and most beautiful airports I have ever been in. And to make everything even better, it’s 6 p.m. and there’s nobody here. I just got done spending some time in my personal and free massage chair. And while I was getting a nice massage, I was looking at this beautiful view. Mountains in the background planes coming in and out. After my nice little massage, I came over here to my own personal office space and in the background that same beautiful view. So there you have it. Nagoya Japan, my new favorite airport.
GEORGE: Last year, between you and myself if we took our just your base miles flown, we did literally over half a million miles around the world. Multiple times, all different directions, missing each other at airports and just doing that. GEORGE: Not because we want to do that and be away from our families. It’s just the nature of our business and overnight, we went from a local manufacturing type of company to a global company with manufacturing and partners around the world. So to go from that to almost at the halfway point in 2020, given the pandemic and everything, it’s just a crazy contrast to basically have flown zero miles this year or a few, to what we did last year. CHRIS: It’s probably the biggest thing we’ve prided ourselves on over the years, it’s just our customer service. Our responsiveness. Our ability to drop everything and work as hard as we can to right any wrong or whatever it may be but just to service the hell out of any customer we have and part of that is that travel. Whether it’s a meeting, we’ll be there tomorrow. If there is a potential issue or question, troubleshooting needed, we’ll be there tomorrow and I’ll be on a plane there, I’ll be on a plane here. GEORGE: You see this, that’s why I have it up over our wall. That’s the first year when we launched. That’s the backpack that we each had, and that year we did a little less we did about 200,000 miles each, but that represents what we do. You’ve got a problem on a Thursday and it’s in London, we will be there Sunday night to be there Monday. That’s kind of been our mentality all along and it will continue, but now it’s just more of a virtual approach to meet their needs. CHRIS: It’s almost shifted us in a, I don’t want to necessarily say a way better, it’s made us respond in a different way. So now we’re Skype calling with electrical contractors, we have electricians on the phone, and we have the laborers on the phone. We’re trying to troubleshoot things like that. We’re on site working with installs and explaining how to install these massive one off, custom chandeliers that we would typically be overseeing the entire time during installation. We’re now doing that remotely. Where we essentially have one of their laborers holding up a camera, so we can talk with the electrician and walk him through how it all gets put together. GEORGE: And it’s acceptable, it’s accepted now, it’s the norm. It’s not, hey we’re not getting on a plane. It’s become the norm but it’s beautiful to be able to ship from that and still have that mindset.
GEORGE – There are several good things that will come out of this pandemic. We just got to look for them. There’s obviously the negative which anyone could report on that but the positive for us is we truly been able to show how grassroots we are, how scrappy we are in taking on new opportunities. GEORGE – A lot of our partners in different industries are still building during this pandemic. Whether it’s here in the United States, Canada and even in Latin America and some parts of Europe, so we’ve had opportunities come to us, explained that they’ll be presented on a Monday. They’re in a bind because other suppliers now pushed out 12, 14, 16 weeks out and we just kind of stepped in and rocked it. CHRIS – We’re actually seeing it from a bunch of different angles. I mean we’ve had the obvious logistics supply chain disruption. Not able to get their existing product when they were supposed to get it situations like that. We’ve also even had situations where being worried that construction may be put on hold. Being worried that there may be a shutdown, people are rushing to get things completed. Getting these projects done as soon as possible, so some timelines are getting pushed out of course but other timelines are getting brought immediate. So the way we’re able to really respond to that is with how nimble we can be right? New opportunities come in. Having it quoted, specified, engineered, done, documented and back to them within 24 to 48 hours. You know and then being able to quickly roll into production and prototyping at the exact same time, so 10 days in to get the prototype, it’s seamless and it’s very effective. GEORGE – Perfect example, we’ve had several opportunities that they’ve come to us and from the time there was a new concept, new product till delivery, we’re talking just over a month with some are freight and pulling it together to meet that deadline. That is remarkable and being able to adjust and have all the supply chain lined up as we do, has really shown. We just hear our partners gravitating to us and giving us more opportunities in pandemic then we regular would see. So it just shows how effective we are with our time. CHRIS – And it has been across the board too. We’ve even had instances where someone has come to us with one specific product, they’re having a trouble with. Able to solve that quick enough that right after we solve that one issue they’re having, they throw us another 3, 4, 5 products. Hey, since you did so good there, help us out over here. It has been a godsend really, it’s amazing what we’ve been able to accomplish.