A Kodak moment

BLOG

Singapore, 5^th September 2013

After nearly 10 straight hours of meetings today, that started off with an 8am international conference call, I feel a little bit depleted. Meetings can be tiring certainly listening in most of the time to other presentations, where you occasionally contribute, then doing your own presentation after which you fall back in listening mode. The point is that you need to remain fully focussed and alert along the way as this kind of design coordination meetings, involving the presence of international key consultants, are organised to trash out any design issues and get everybody on the same page…maximum input creates maximum output, isn’t it…

Anyhow I wanted to talk about something totally different but very real and very happening in this new age of LED lighting technology. I was recently made aware of the bad economical shape of one of the biggest electric gear manufacturer (ballasts, transformers, etc.) in the world. I will not name the company, a house hold name in the industry, as I am more focussed on the happening as a general trend rather than the company as an individual as most likely there are others in the same boat. I call that a Kodak moment, where a company who for years and years was the leading manufacturer in its field, the undisputed king now, out of arrogance or pure ignorance, finds itself caught out as it did not move or embrace the new times and emerging technologies.

This is very much the case with LED technology now where the manufacturers of conventional (magnetic) ballasts find their market dwindling at an incredible speed. Factories set up for multi-million production quantities, suddenly find their market collapsing with the unbelievable fast change over to LED technology which requires electronic drivers and a totally different attitude to production, sales and marketing. Change can be a real bitch if you don’t see it coming or think that you stand above it all because you are “the king”! We have seen it happen with Kodak, we see it happen in the lighting industry as well…It’s just a confirmation of how fast this LED revolution is changing our lives…

Light Watch 4-149: Photography exist by the grace of light and I guess my first introduction to the field of lighting was with my first camera, the historic Kodak Brownie Starlet (with Side flash!) …Here are some memories….