On Community

They say it takes a village, so the Ignition community has forums and events connecting people to learn, collaborate, and bond over their passion for the Platform. Hear how Ignition brings people together.

Transcript:

00:09
Jerry Eppler: I think that it's cool that there is an Ignition community, first of all, because I don't know if there really is a community among other softwares especially in the industry space.

00:23
Rob Raffaele: When we first started looking at Ignition, we heard the term, "Hey, the Ignition community." But when we really dug into that deeper, we learned that it's a great group of folks out there who are willing to share. That's something we've never seen in the past. This space was traditionally very close-knit, and people would keep their work and their property to themselves. In the Ignition space, people are very, very willing to be open and trade ideas and trade technical knowledge to the point where we actually took that concept and built a community inside. So not only do we have American Water employees working together, sharing knowledge, we have our preferred partners that we brought on board, ACC and Flexware. We started that community by bringing them both to the table at the same time to help us, really, on this journey. And then as new projects and new integrators come on, whether they have Ignition experience or not, we teach them up sort of in the way that we do things, and they go off and learn on their own and come back and they contribute. So it's been really fruitful so far. We exchange a lot of great ideas, we constantly make our solution better, and then we share that back out into the greater operational technology world. And hopefully we make water and wastewater, as a utility, better.

01:45
Keith Gamble: The Ignition community has really been changed by things like the forums, the Exchange, ICC, and all the different community-focused engagements that Inductive Automation is pushing into the community. One of the other really cool parts about the forum and ICC together is, in the past, I was very involved in the forums, and it was really exciting. My name was all over there, and I really had fun talking to people, building those relationships. And I remember the first time I ever came to ICC, having people identify me by my name tag and saying, "Oh, that's Keith Gamble on the forums." And we built that relationship. We'd talk, we'd hang out. And it was really exciting to be able to meet those people that I'd talked to for so long over the forums and really help solve problems together and work together. I almost think it's a good idea to take your forum username and put it on your badge. So that way, when you get there, people can see it and go, "Oh, that's Phil Turmel. Good to meet you, man."

02:32
Jonathan Swisher: We feel like we're not alone when we're using Ignition. There's a great community out there. The support is wonderful. So even if we do get stuck and we're like, "We don't know how to do this," we know we have people to reach out to that will help us or at least point us in the right direction.

02:47
Chris McLaughlin: Ignition has a vibrant community. And obviously, it's had an impact on my life, it's had an impact on Vertech. There are friends that we have made at the first ICC. And so it's been over eleven years at this point, and we're still hanging out. There are so many people that I can name in this industry that have had a lasting effect on me, that we do projects together all the time.

03:07
Alicia Lomas: So yeah, the Ignition community is very unique. And what makes it very different is that it's just very open. So you form these open relationships with people in which you're not necessarily selling services. People just want to talk about it 'cause they're passionate about it. So I have multiple friends in the industry that sometimes I haven't even ever met in person, but we've just connected, whether it be at an Ignition conference or some other opportunity. And we just share a passion about Ignition. And I know if I run into a problem, I'm trying to connect to a new Modbus device, I can email or WhatsApp these people, and they'll help me. They'll drop everything. Teams call me, help me solve a problem. Because we're all just passionate about the work, the software, what it does for us, what it's opened up for us. So I think that's what's really cool to me, is just everybody's openness. And it's this close-knit community, and just very different than how it used to be, where everything's kind of about business and can I sell this next project to you? It's more about let's just share ideas and talk about this really cool project that I did, and maybe spark an idea to me on something that I can work through, which is just very cool.

04:20
Remus Pop: I think one of the coolest things about Ignition, and I talk about this a lot to my customers, because occasionally we do have to educate our customers on what Ignition is and where it is. And one of the things I always make sure to highlight that I don't think is there in any other competitive software, is this community that lives around it. The Inductive conference is focused on Ignition, and the people that do awesome things with Ignition. Ignition itself was built for the integrator community. So I think one of the most amazing things is this community that's sprouted up around it. I went to ICC one of the first times, and the training classes that I took, I met people in that training class that I still talk to regularly all over the globe. I still meet with my good buddy, Glen Fry. We met in training class, gosh, 10 years ago now. We make it our pilgrimage every year to go to ICC. We meet every other year in Chicago before that to do IMTS, and then we fly together to California. We've played golf together. We've met over the phone. We've met in different parts of the world. It's really been awesome, the type of people you meet. He's become a great mentor. And just that story can resonate so many times with different people that I've met throughout the years. Even just the Ignition employees that I've met have been awesome.

05:27
Remus Pop: I don't think you see that anywhere else where you have this entire community of users, and developers, and programmers, and customers that are so eager to share what they've built with Ignition, what they've done with Ignition. I think it's just unlike anything else in the space.

05:42
Chris Taylor: The community surrounding Inductive Automation and Ignition is definitely something that separates you from everyone else. Phil Turmel was in France, and he came to England, and we had lunch. That would never happen with any other company we're involved with. There's this external link where people connect and share ideas, like the Ignition Exchange and the forum. But there's also a back exchange where people share ideas, and that's really unique. If you like Ignition, at its heart, it's about sharing information.

06:15
Evelyn Granizo: The word "community" is the perfect word to describe people who work with Ignition. Being an integrator with other platforms is just selling a product, but being an integrator using Ignition is more than just selling a tool. Ignition is a community that supports you and backs you up in all the solutions, from the design to the maintenance of the platform.

06:38
Phillip Bourner: So the Ignition community is pretty great. The forums, everybody on there is always looking to help everybody else. No one's trying to get one for themselves, trying to sell their products. Everyone's helping people with their problems and stuff, and it's been great.

06:55
Arnaud De Clerck: ICC is a group of passionate people, I would say. It's the first time I see such a thing made by just only one company.

07:04
J.C. Harrison: I do remember the first ICC, and I don't know if Inductive Automation meant to do this or not, or if they saw the potential as to what was about to happen. But there was a lot of people like Roeslein & Associates who were looking for something new in the industrial automation area, in terms of software, where we could get together and collaborate instead of get together in a competitive nature. And that's what the first ICC did. It was a wonderful conference where people wanted it to happen. Inductive provided us a way to get together, and it's been a great thing ever since. This is unique to Ignition and Inductive. It's 100% unique. I think some other ones have come along and tried to do some things in a similar fashion, but it's very unique in the industry. I don't know of any other company or software company that does it to the level that Inductive Automation does. That's a beautiful thing that they do.

08:01
Courtney Smith: I never felt like I was alone. No matter what issue or problem that was presented to me, I always felt like there were other people that I could go to, to ask questions to. Whether it was my coworkers in the office, or I could go to a forum and ask questions. And it was just a very collaborative environment, both in this company that I joined and in this community that I didn't realize that I was stepping into at the time that I accepted my offer. I hadn't realized just how much of a community it actually was. It's not just a platform, it's this whole little world that you're stepping into.

08:40
Julio Velasco: The Ignition community is made out of different layers, I believe. You have the people who are starting off and using the software, the people who have been using the software for a long time, the educators, the end users, and also the new generation, like the home automation. And I've been able to see it grow and expand, and I was able to experience the enthusiasm that everybody comes from all over the world and just shares in this kind of forum. And people speaking in different languages, different accents, and they all have something in common, which is, "Look at what I did."

09:22
Bart Mans: If we take a look at communities, I think it's really cool to see how everyone is collaborating really together. And the Ignition community enables us to share projects, share resources, share our experience with competitors, but actually automation companies all around the world. It really enables us all together to create a better world. We need to automate, we need to get things more efficient, more cost-efficient, more energy-efficient, for instance. And by sharing all the knowledge, we can reach that. So we are really focusing together on creating a better world.