Another Manufacturer Wanting Something for Nothing - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Zad
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2012, 07:03:45 am
content: In the past on The Amp Hour, Dave and Chris have both had a good rant about manufacturer competitions. You know the sort, on the lines of "Design a <something> using a part from the sponsor, and you could win a prize". Where only 4 people enter and the sponsors get all the rights to the design, plus loads of advertising copy. Well, earlier this week I received the following email from a major components distributor. It was not explicitly confidential, but I have redacted the names to be fair to them."<Distro> and <Manufacturer> would like to invite you to participate in a new challenge, beginning on February 20th."Oh, interesting, I thought. This isn't something that is widely publicised, so it is nice to be selected personally. It continued:"The task will be to produce the most innovative and dynamic creation possible within 8 weeks with the following:"Wait, what? 8 Weeks. It takes me that long to get a prototype sketched usually. Innovative and dynamic? Anyway:" Free access to one MPU / MCU development tool per architectureAssociated IDE SoftwarePlus a 500 dollar budget for purchasing parts from <Manufacturer>’s website."Well the $500 is nice I guess, but the manufacturer makes semiconductors, which pretty much narrows down what you can buy to dev kits (which are notoriously expensive). It is a very notional $500 that they get back anyway."The solution should include at least one <Manufacturer> MPU / MCU architecture and one sensor. Those selected are also expected to contribute (at least weekly) blog entries on <Distro> chronicling their progress." So they only want at least 8 blogs. That's all. 8 hours at my full consulting and copy writing rate, but free?"The competition will be judged by one of <Distro>s luminaries (Ben Heck or Jeri Ellsworth), making the "contest not only an opportunity to use <Manufacturers> leading edge tools, but also a chance to interact with one of the stars of engineering."Now Jeri is a lovely person, and a really good engineer, I have a lot of time and respect for her. But I'm also a professional engineer with 2 Degrees and 20+ years of experience, so I'm not quite sure what the benefit here is. Ben is an artist and a hacker. He would be the first person I would turn to if I wanted a PS3 in a laptop housing."The winner will retain access to the tools provided by <Manufacturer> in order to support their development activities in the future."Hang on. Hold on one cotton pickin' moment. Back up.Up there it didn't actually say that I get some dev hardware and software, it actually said "Freeaccessto". So I'm working on a project that <Manufacturer> get to use in their advertising, plus 8 blogs that I write. And at the end of it all, they get the dev hardware back and I lose access to the software that I used to develop it on? Meanwhile, the winner gets the stuff they were using anyway.I'm sure it is great for a student or hobbyist who needs some free stuff for their project that they already have designed, but I can't help think that they haven't thought this through.Mike

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 08, 2012, 07:20:47 am
content: QuoteSo we know the distributor is Element 14No surprises there, yet another attempt by them to get content for their convoluted site that hardly anyone uses.Umm, what was the prize?, I must have missed it...Dave.

author: slateraptor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2012, 08:11:09 am
content: Quote from: Zad on February 08, 2012, 07:03:45 amI love how they're playing the whole "challenge" psychological marketing game.

author: Zad
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2012, 04:59:16 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 08, 2012, 07:20:47 amYou might say that. I couldn't possibly comment....QuoteThat's what I thought at first too. Here is the appropriate line:"The winner will retain access to the tools provided by <Manufacturer> in order to support their development activities in the future."So, the winner gets to keep the stuff they were just developing on. The direct inference is therefore that everyone else has to hand back the dev hardware, and gets the software locked out. Which is so generous of them. I wonder if they would throw a hissy fit if contestants withdrew their blog and all rights to that too.*Shakes head in disbelief*

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 08, 2012, 05:46:23 pm
content: component suppliers should just care about supplying. We all buy the brands, not the people supplying them, so if they stopped throwing money at stupid publicity stunts they could lower their prices and be as popular as they hoped to become !Just in case they missed the point: WE ARE NOT A BUNCH OF WOMEN CLOTHES SHOPPING !!! WE WANT THE GOODS CHEAP AND DON'T CARE ABOUT THE WRAPPING !!! (no unintended sexism intended !)

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2012, 07:33:34 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 08, 2012, 07:20:47 amElement14 has about 70.000 registered users. But most forum participation is Eagle Bug reports. And they have so many links on each page it takes forever to load. But it is because they use JIVE community. I cant find a SINGLE Jive based community that is a pleasure to work with. Their experts are overloaded with questions from beginners with less than little knowledge - so the experts have mostly stopped answering questions - or takes 2 months to answer.Anyway their Christmas re-tweet competition was won by housewifes mostly.... (I counted a total of 14 retweets in two weeks - and you just had to retweet to enter a competition)Element14 does clearly not understand their target group.

author: gregariz
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2012, 09:25:44 pm
content: Quote from: kaz911 on February 08, 2012, 07:33:34 pmThe element14 idea is pretty good I think. And the quality of postings is pretty high. Also the fact that they have some guys like the regulatory guys over there are posting articles is nice - on a few occasions I feel its actually educational.Its just that the website has so much going on its just really hard to navigate and find the topics that interest you.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2012, 09:30:01 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on February 08, 2012, 05:46:23 pmI'd disagree on that one - I've often had SMD parts on scrunched tape, and don't get me started on their lame 'patented' blister pack for QFPs.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 08, 2012, 09:48:35 pm
content: Quote from: kaz911 on February 08, 2012, 07:33:34 pmI love it how they proudly proclaim on the main page that "75,000 engineers use Element 14 to connect with leading experts.... etc"Bullshit, that's just how many they have led to the waterhole, but few of them stick around the drink.This forum gets more activity than the entire Element 14 site, and they have poured countless millions of dollars into trying to make it successful.#FAILDave.

author: firewalker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2012, 10:20:36 pm
content: The Look n Feel of Element 14 web space is just crap. They really need to hire a web designer.Alexander.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 08, 2012, 10:49:52 pm
content: Quote from: firewalker on February 08, 2012, 10:20:36 pmYep, but that will never happen. They have too much invested in the current system, and those in charge can happily quote the 75,000 number and various other inflated KPI's to senior management and collect their social media bonus chequeSo no need to fix something that does not require them to admit it's broken.Dave.

author: Zad
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2012, 11:01:48 pm
content: Sadly, Element14 ran a poll not long back, asking people whether they preferred the existing design or a more minimal and slightly more useful one. The bad news is that by far the majority voted in favour of keeping it the same design. As you might expect though, most of the comments looked like they were probably written by people whose writing implement of choice was a crayon.

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2012, 11:22:47 pm
content: Quote from: firewalker on February 08, 2012, 10:20:36 pmEhm, the problem is likely that they hired a web designer. But of the wrong kind. That website looks like the brainchild of a certain younger generation of web designers. This is from Generation ADHD, from people who can't focus, can't prioritize and can't figure out what is important and what not.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2012, 02:15:01 am
content: Quote from: BoredAtWork on February 08, 2012, 11:22:47 pmNo it is just a standard JIVE based community - nothing special about it at all. But problem is they have huge issues with content updates like "menu" or "headline" updates, notifications etc. etc. etc. But I have yet to see a JIVE system that works. It is slow and bloated....

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2012, 03:06:16 am
content: QuoteAgree. Too much "design", not enough ... I dunno.QuoteIMO, I was a big mistake to "merge" the Eagle support forums into what was supposed to be a "social" network for engineers. (The EAGLE forums are quite good, as support forums go. And they were fine implemented as newsgroups. But the volume is too high and too specific for the crossover between "news" and "commentary" that I want for "socialization.")I don't think anyone has quite figured out how to do a Technical Social Network. Which I guess shouldn't be a surprise since regular social networks seem to be pretty hit-or-miss as well...Webpage/contest-wise, the one that gets me is avnetexpress. They've been having weekly contests where you have to answer some questions by searching for info on their website. It's sorta neat, "showing off" their information/etc by encouraging you with prizes. Unfortunately, the main thing I've learned is that their website is incredibly baroque. Without the clues they provide, I don't think I'd ever figure out which combination of tabs, buttons, links, and menus it would take to answer the questions! (which may be OK in reality, since the questions are sort-of stupid. I really don't care how many widgets are in the jiggy section of their online catalog...)

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 09, 2012, 06:46:18 am
content: Quote from: westfw on February 09, 2012, 03:06:16 amum, this forum ? I find forums quite social enough, things like facebook are so so superficial