Ican recall countless stories from my consumer product editorial days in which an original concept came to
market with merely a product design…
and dream. Without any funding or
marketing skill, some manufactured
product on their own dime, selling initial
pieces out of their garages, using word of
mouth as the easiest (and cheapest) of
marketing form.
No Shark Tank. No Crowdfunding.
I’m sure most of you have heard similar tales. And, you may
have even thought you had the million-dollar idea but not the
wherewithal to make it come to life.
By now, some of you may have learned of our new initiative
here at the Design Engineering Group (DEG) of Advantage
Business Media: TinkerEng. From Concept to Completion.
Essentially, we are calling all creators to submit an original
concept, idea or design to us by September 29. From there,
we will choose ten projects/concepts that will be the focus
of an online, reality-based video series and will follow each
of the products from prototyping all the way to potential
crowdfunding.
Co-hosted by James McArthur, CEO of Formtap, and Peter
Ragonetti, a visiting professor at Pratt, co-founder of Formtap,
and the managing director of PTR Design Studio, a full-service
product design studio, along with DEG editors, the series will
air at least 3x per month at TinkerEng.com and many other
DEG sites.
This is quite an ambitious undertaking but one we believe
can catapult makers to their end goal: a marketable consumer
product. To learn more about the criteria to submit to
TinkerEng, visit TinkerEng.com.
In other ECN news, we are happy to announce that
Spencer Chin has joined DEG as managing editor, overseeing
ECN, WDD (Wireless Design & Development), PDD
(Product Design & Development), and MDT (Medical
Design Technology). Spencer will help ensure the smooth
daily operation of the four editorial brands as well as assist in
content generation.
With a history in electronics and technical writing,
Spencer has most recently served as a managing editor
for Power Electronics, as well as a contributing writer for
How2Power.com, Electronic Products, and IEEE GlobalSpec’s
electronics360 Website. Feel free to welcome Spencer by
emailing him at spencer.chin@advantagemedia.com or via phone
at 973.920.7182.
We look forward to you joining us every month on our
adventure with TinkerEng. We can’t wait to bring new
innovations to the world of design engineering and the market.
Joyceann Garippa
Editorial Director
Design Engineering & Manufacturing Groups
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
Jeff Bader, Micron Technology
Harrison Beasley, Global Semiconductor Alliance
Carlos Castillo, Engineering Manager position,
Midmak Medical Device Division
Stacey M. DelVecchio, 2014 President, Society of Women Engineers
Tom Donofrio, Central Semiconductor Corp.
Christian Fell, FRABA Inc.
Joshua Israelsohn, JAS Technical Media
Dan Jones, Motor/Motion Controls expert
Anthony Le, Spansion
Ron Moore, Avnet Electronics Marketing
David Niewolny, Freescale Semiconductor
Robbie Paul, Digi-Key
Steve Sargeant, The Marvin Group
Aung Thet Tu, Fairchild Semiconductor
Rick Weitfeldt, Qualcomm
4 JOYCEANN GARIPPA | EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
joyceann.garippa@advantagemedia.com EDITOR’S VIEW
Engineering Minds