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.
GEORGE – You see everywhere everyone’s posting these social gatherings online and these happy hours and zoom meetings and zoom this and zoom that have become the buzz word over the last couple of months. Which is great for companies adapting quickly and being able to navigate this as they’re going but to us it’s basically business as usual. GEORGE – Most of our employees are outside of the United States, so that daily face talk whether it’s Skype, Google Hangouts or Zoom that happens daily for us. So this has been an easy transition for us to keep communication going. CHRIS – We’ve gotten so accustomed long before the pandemic happened. So accustomed to having different types of Gchat, Google Hangouts, Zoom meetings, just within our department, one-on-one’s as an entire company in order to bring everybody together and keep that atmosphere. Keep that camaraderie going that it was, knock on wood, fairly easy you know? To slide into that during this time, which was nice. GEORGE – It also keeps us in check too, even personally. Where if you are engaged with someone visually, you’re not doing other stuff and not on your phone you’re not, you know it’s just it makes it that much more effective and efficient. And so, for us it has been seamless and even post-pandemic it’s business as usual, we have a global team on several continents and it just makes it so much easier for us. CHRIS – It’s really amazing what, very simple or very easily ready technologies are out there, how much more efficient that can make your business and your time. Especially when you are dealing with your team that’s literally spread all over the world.
GEORGE – So Chris, we are kind of living in a new world we got the obvious stuff and then we got new to our world which is basically virtual product reviews and presentations.I know and you know but explain like what a typical pre pandemic approach was. CHRIS – Kind of obvious right? For us it’s golden when we get time with the client. So our most ideal situation what we typically did before wherever the meeting was we fly in for the meeting, meet the entire team, set up the product, table top it and let them see it. Bring whatever type of system is necessary to properly set it up in the space, mock it up. GEORGE – Regardless of where it is in the world, whether it’s New York or Mumbai, right? Like we do it anywhere. CHRIS – Absolutely, walk underneath it, see what it’s like, see what it’s like in the space, how you feel it, is it too glary, just full analysis both in your hands and in the space itself. GEORGE – Yeah and what we’ve been doing the last six to eight weeks is that approach online basically like this and it’s been a little weird because right now we’re still preparing the same way we would, and making sure we physically are presenting ourselves well but you know the products look good and presented in the right angle and doing all these troubleshoots. Then the biggest thing is and we will always talk about this, it’s harder to engage people on their reaction to the prototype and the finishes and being able to touch it. So that’s been our biggest hurdle and then the other thing is just physically getting it in their hands. CHRIS – It’s a crazy challenge trying to get that right? We have multiple cameras set up, zooming in on details, trying to spin the product around so we can get all the correct angles, so people can see what they’re doing. It’s interesting, it’s different, it’s definitely been a learning experience but still very successful which is nice. GEORGE – Yeah, it’s definitely our new world that we’re in. We want to get back to our human look, touch, feel, like gauge them and we will get there soon but in the meantime we got to keep it going and it’s been wildly successful for us.
Ideoli CEO, George Stroumboulis, sits down with Ideoli CPO, Chris Hartswick, to discuss. GEORGE – Part of this craziness and everything that’s going on is people are price gouging. There are always going to be those people in those companies in those you know those angles of trying to take advantage of negative situations and one of them is just price gouging in general. Whether it is for face masks and critical items that are needed, we have that arena but we’re also seeing a trickling into our world when it comes to the air freight model. You are seeing it first hand and the quotes that we are dealing with and what is going on, it is actually disgusting on what they’re doing and why but let’s talk a bit about that. CHRIS – Yeah it just seems, you know it seems like there is no control really. It’s no matter where you’re going whether you’re shipping product into Europe, South America the US obviously, North America everything just seems blocked, everybody seems to have it locked up. And now all of a sudden there’s surcharges and extra port fees and maintenance fees in and all these additional fees on there that are now causing our air freight to be 4 5 6, we’ve even seen almost 9 X on what it typically should be. GEORGE – Taking advantage of the situation. CHRIS – Blaming it on supply and demand. You know all the typical expected wording you would get from that, but I mean ultimately what it boils down to it is that price gouging. GEORGE – And you know what, we can’t change what we can’t change but one thing we do here we’re not depend on one or two partners. It is a matter of having a handful of freight partners that we could go to and then go back to our clients and say instead of this option we could do this and what the sacrifices are. So having a dedicated team that are professionals in the global freight arena because that’s where we compete has helped us navigate this.
We met up with our client, Dr. Bobby Awadalla – esteemed dermatologist – to discuss the importance of lighting. Let’s hear what he had to share. I work in over 12 offices. I’m going into offices all over Southern California, Nevada and Arizona to go do surgeries and skin checks for people. The lighting conditions in every office is very different. It poses a big challenge because if you are in poorly lite offices you can’t really do your skin checks as well. The scariest part of all that is the end result of missing a possible skin cancer or not being able to see it in a certain light,” says Dr. Bobby Awadalla, board certified dermatologist. Dr. Bobby knows his lighting. “In an office situation that you are going to be in regularly, you certainly want to have a nice even light in your exam room so you can see all the details of the skin. Often times we do what‘s called side lightings. We take the light from the side and we’re able to visualize skin lesions easier that way. It shows you how important to actually have good lighting in the room in the first place,” says Dr. Bobby. What kind of lighting does a dermatology office need? A dermatology office requires nice even, beautiful lighting so you can do skin exams. I can see how that can relate to other fields and numerous other physician offices that could use great lighting to better enhance their ability to take care of patients,” says Dr. Bobby. At Ideoli, it’s great working with our knowledgeable clients to create custom lighting products to enhance their spaces
Now that our partners have started receiving Ideoli’s premiere magazine, we’re excited to share what some of them are saying: “Congratulations on the outcome which underscores the tremendous work you have done.” -Robert. “As a guy who once published magazines, I’m very proud of how these turned out. Nice work!” -Grant. “I think this is exceptional. What a great marketing tool and statement of your dedication to your craft and customers. This is a game changer.” -Allen. “It looks great, I’m going to share it with the team.” -Michelle. “Shut the front door! It’s beyond fabulous – congratulations!” -Maelisa. There you have it. We love hearing your feedback and insights. If you want to receive a copy of our magazine, contact us invigorate@ideoli.com.
Ideoli’s Invigorate Your Community initiative is a great way for the team to get involved to help make a difference. Last year, God’s Love We Deliver prepared, package and delivered 2.1 million meals for 8,300 clients, children and senior caregivers. The Ideoli team volunteers at God’s Love We Deliver in Soho, New York City. The Ideoli team is busy today packing 1,000 meals for dinner and doing it as a team together. These medically tailored meals are proven to reduce hospitalization, improve health outcomes and keep people healthy and happy in their homes, as per God’s Love research. It is really important to support your local community and the people. Ideoli continues to have a community footprint the same way we have an international footprint.
Our clients are quite intriguing to say the least. We asked esteemed dermatologist and Ideoli lighting client, Dr. Bobby Awadalla, to share his background, the importance of lighting and working with us. ” I’m a board certified dermatologist. I focus on general, cosmetic and surgical dermatology. Practicing mostly in the Southern California area,” says Dr. Bobby Awadalla, board certified dermatologist. Top of his game and partnering with Ideoli. “We contacted Ideoli for a solution. We said we need nice even lighting. A bright white light that can give us the ability to do a skin exam without having to rely on flashlights or gomastic scopes,” says Dr. Bobby. How important is lighting in your exam rooms? “When you have too bright a light, it kind of whitewashes the skin so it makes exams really difficult. When you have too dim a light, it does the reverse. You can’t really see the shadows that created by certain lesions. And so, you really just need that perfect amount of light that gives you a perfect skin exam. They really found that balance and allow us to do skin exams much more comfortably and with a lot more confidence,” says Dr. Bobby. An example of how we partner with leaders in their own space to customize lighting products for them. Thanks, Dr. Bobby! Facebook-f Linkedin-in Tumblr Envelope
At Ideoli, it’s valuable to reflect upon the past year and what we’ve learned during that time. We asked some of our team members “what lesson did you learn working at Ideoli last year?” Here is what they had to share… “Being detailed oriented makes a difference in all projects,” says Georgios, Ideoli’s Product Designer. “I learned how awesome we are and how truly amazing we can be in our capabilities working together,” says Janeen, Director, Project & Client Relations for Ideoli. “Working in such a fast pace projects and getting creative in no time, it’s like a learning curve every day,” says Vito, Ideoli’s 3D Renderer. “I’ve learned that communication is very important. To make sure that everyone is on the same page about projects and to make sure you do updates about the timelines and the status of the project,” says Kathleen, Ideoli’s Marketing Manager. “I’ve learned there is always room for improvement. You can never really finalize something,” says Armando, Ideoli’s Applications Engineer. “…more importantly teamwork and how we all work together to get everything done,” says Abby, Ideoli’s Operations Coordinator. “Working with people from different cultures create a wonderful and unique mosaic,” says Kostas, Ideoli’s Content Producer. “I’ve learned to be more effective in my communication,” says Matias, Ideoli’s Graphic Designer. Based on the teams’ reflections, it is going to be a very productive year at Ideoli!
George Stroumboulis, Co-Founder and CEO of Ideoli, goes to the airport to pick up our other Co-Founder Chris Hartswick, which results in some great commentary!