Author: Brad Koerner

Creative Director and Product Manager
Business & Innovation

foretelling a massive industry shakeout?

Brad Koerner

I’ve heard rumors that my former employer, Micron Technologies, is finally killing its floundering LED lighting ambitions, at least at the fixture level.  Micron has a long, sad history of starting “hobby businesses” in an attempt to diversify outside of its core memory-chip business; Micron already killed its foray into PV Solar, which actually had far more traction then the LED group.   Micron is clearly at fault for its own failure to achieve any meaningful traction in the hot LED market over the course of four years.  But I think it is a great example of what you will see over the … Continue reading foretelling a massive industry shakeout?

Lighting Technology

thermal conductivity vs. convection rates

Brad Koerner

  If you are a specifier trying to sort through “good” LED fixtures from “junk” LED fixtures, many of the design + engineering trade-offs in the product are often obfuscated.  Heatsink design is one of those areas.  Sometimes “good” LED fixtures require big-ass heatsinks; sometimes they have no apparent heatsink.  Why? There was a smartly written post explaining the need to balance thermal conductivity of materials versus the convection rate of the overall heatsink design.  In sum, a highly thermally-conductivity material (i.e. aluminum) does not necessarily help if the overall convection rate of the heatsink does not match the  flow rate of … Continue reading thermal conductivity vs. convection rates

Future Lighting

the paradox of industry standards and creative freedom

Brad Koerner

Despite the myriad new technologies available to the lighting industry, the industry seems frozen in the past, paralyzed by suddenly having too much creative freedom.  The problem is that the industry is actually suffering from a lack of smart industry standards that would ultimately enable more innovation in architectural lighting applications.  Without modern and extensible standards, the lighting industry is effectively reduced to bunch of walled-garden, proprietary-technology fiefdoms.  To allow creative designers and solution providers to “mix and match” the best capabilities and innovations from throughout the industry, the industry must develop the connective tissue of intelligent and open standards; … Continue reading the paradox of industry standards and creative freedom

Future Lighting

the art of dynamic lighting

Brad Koerner

For several years now, it has been apparent to industry insiders that, essentially, all light sources in the near future will transition to LED or OLED.  So the question needs to be asked:  When energy efficiency becomes irrelevant (because every light source has a very high level of efficacy as a standard feature), how will designers continue to conserve energy? The answer, I think, will be a shifting of focus for lighting designers from selecting light sources to scripting lighting control systems; designers will need to engage the art of dynamic controls. Accompanying this shift will be the transition of … Continue reading the art of dynamic lighting

Business & Innovation

“sticky” information

Brad Koerner

I found a nice treasure trove of academic papers from Eric Von Hippel, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Business, regarding user-centered innovation. I particularly like his concept for describing “sticky” information:  The author’s point is that economists too easily discount the cost of “information transfer”.  Connecting the critical information of an end user’s problem to a problem solver/problem solving organization is complicated by how difficult or costly it is to transfer the required key information. http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/papers/stickyinfo.pdf “The need to transfer information from its point of origin to a specified problem-solving site will not affect the locus of problem-solving … Continue reading “sticky” information

Business & Innovation

copycats

Brad Koerner

“They are not just copying our products; they are copying our way of doing business.” This was a comment recently made by a colleague in the lighting industry, referring to the endless small startups attacking the lighting business. It was an astute comment.  In one quick phrase he summed up why the lighting industry desperately needs service innovation. LEDs are cool, and there are several other technologies driving change in the industry.  But nowadays, any technology is easily copied by any hack company.  Customer service on the other hand, particularly excellent customer service, is a very, very difficult thing to … Continue reading copycats