Employee Corner: Control Concepts Custom Development Welcomes David Glassman
David Glassman is moving…but not too far! The Control Concepts team member, who has been with us since January 2013 as a Junior Programmer and has earned several certifications including Crestron Programmer Certification last December, is joining our Development Team, led by Director of Product Development, Jeff Mackie.
As a member of the growing custom development services team, David aims to “continue building [his] knowledge base by working closely with Jeff” and to “diving headfirst into new technologies and new programming languages.” Recent custom development projects have whetted Dave’s appetite for more. He shares how he looks forward to the variety of project types, clients and problem-solving opportunities that development brings beyond what “we might typically see in traditional control programming models.”
What are some of the new directions you look forward to exploring as part of the Control Concepts Development Team?
I am most excited about the projects that incorporate front and back end web development, as well as those that require the building of custom apps on desktop and mobile platforms, including Windows, Android and iOS. I’m looking ahead to the possibility of creating custom software that you might not normally expect to see from a control programming company.
I believe many customers are thinking differently now about control. They are starting to realize they need custom solutions to fully utilize their products and systems. I’m looking forward to helping them get the most out of their equipment and to have the best experience possible while doing it.
What are customers looking to Control Concepts for, and how is the Development Team poised to help them?
Customers are coming to us with all manner of requests related to control. While a good portion of our business serves the traditional/project integration side of control programming and will continue to do so, we are seeing requests come in more frequently that don’t fit into that traditional model. The Custom Development team exists to serve this side of the business.
I feel that what makes us stand out is that not a lot of control companies are doing what Control Concepts is doing with custom development. Our work is setting us apart and that’s why I’m excited about joining this side and helping to build it even more.
What unique skills do you bring to the Control Concepts development side?
I think my background in art and design brings a slightly different perspective to custom development projects. I often tend to think more like a user than a programmer which really helps with solving user experience problems and anticipating features that they might want.
With custom development, the needs and wants of the user are paramount. When we do custom development projects, there is even more give-and-take and consultation that goes into it than what we might see on the traditional project side. The client often has an end goal in mind but might not know exactly how to get there. We have more of a voice in figuring out the best path to take by making suggestions and working with them to design a solution that works exactly as they need it to.
Traditional AV programming projects, which we have been doing for a long time and with which our clients are perhaps most familiar, tend to be more defined at project inception in terms of scope and feature sets. With custom development projects, we are often far more involved with the process of fleshing out the requirements, features, and how to get from Point A to Point B. This is one of the more exciting aspects for me. It offers more flexibility and more hands-on opportunities to steer the direction a project takes.
As you see it, what role does custom development play in the AV marketplace?
Although the ultimate success will be determined by customer response, I think that custom development is definitely going to be the way of the future. Systems are getting more complex and technology is advancing so far so quickly that the need for custom solutions is going to grow. The utilization of web technologies, in particular, I feel is going to play a big part in the coming years.
In addition, many people are spending a lot of their time interfacing with their phones, tablets, and the Web. The more time they are spending there, the more they come to expect those interfaces to be involved in every aspect of their lives, including their control systems. That’s where the potential of custom development really shines. If users don’t have to transition to a different interface and way of working, it makes them more likely to use their systems. And if the solutions they are looking for don’t exist, we can help make them a reality!
Why custom development from Control Concepts?
We’re doing custom development because we firmly believe that this is where things are headed in the industry. Custom development projects are keeping things fresh. The clients are happy, the work is good, and more of it is coming.
The wealth of experience we have on our team as a whole makes any project we take on just a little bit better. On the custom development side, I think our lead developer, Jeff, really sets it apart. I know that there is a tremendous amount of knowledge to be gained from working alongside Jeff. And I know that Control Concepts customers are in good hands with us, just as they have been for many years.
Custom development from Control Concepts gives you AV programming power that extends the boundaries of your AV systems. As technology has evolved, expectations have risen. It’s not enough to simply provide a user with basic functionality using typical features and still call that a custom integrated system.
Learn more about custom development from Control Concepts, and check out some of our recent projects.
