Lighting Controls + Integration with Nathan Rudolf

Introduction

Adam: This WiLL Cast was with Nathan
from Interactive Technologies. They are a hardware manufacturer based here in
the U.S. They work on DMX applications and support integrators and dealers and
OEMs, really across the world. And primarily to make lights do cool stuff.
Becca, what did you think?

Becca: It was really interesting. When
I found out we were sitting down with him, I was not nervous, but I didn't know
how much value I could add to the conversation, because typically when we have
these kind of folks in for that, they are a little bit more technical, and I'm
not super well-versed in DMX or anything like that. Obviously we have our
in-house control system, and I know enough about that to be dangerous. But
Nathan is a super cool guy, very down to earth, very easy to talk to. It wasn't
all engineer speak. So that made it a lot easier. But also just learning more
about this idea of lighting integrations and how it's becoming more and more
common — it's not just in commercial settings anymore. It's individuals doing
it at their home, stuff like that. And just learning more about some of the
crazy projects they work on and how it's really shifted the industry. I learned
a lot during this one, which is always fun.

Adam: Yeah, I think Nathan has a
unique perspective because he's in a customer-facing role, but with their team
— they have a highly technical team — so he kind of sees both sides of it. And
as you mentioned, you have these worlds that are colliding — the entertainment
and theater lighting world, where — what was it? The “archetainment.”

Becca: Archetainment. Which we find
out is maybe not a buzzword that the industry gurus like.

Adam: But yeah, you really have all
this technology that's been created that isn't quite integrated yet for the
commercial markets. And they are really ahead of the curve, I would say. We see
it too, where our products are becoming more connected, more integrated, more
types of applications beyond just sports or architectural where people want
control systems. They're making an investment in their facility, and for a
little bit more of an investment, suddenly they can do light shows and
color-changing lights — some of the things that we've done in our facility
where you can do holiday shows and have fun with it. I think it was a nice
perspective. He kind of confirmed that's where things are headed, and they're
growing quickly, and the demand for this type of product is in alignment with
what we're seeing.

Becca: I think it's always interesting
too to talk to people that — especially in my role here at WiLL — I don't see
the bigger picture all the time when it comes to some of the product
development. I see it through the lens of what we're doing here. So it was interesting
just to hear what the bigger trends are and where the industry is going, where
the world is going when it comes to lighting and entertainment and controls and
things like that, and then kind of reflect back on what we're doing here. So
that's always fun — we're pointed in the right direction, we're doing the right
stuff, but it's cool to see how that fits into the bigger picture.

Adam: Yeah. And also just the
different players and businesses in that world. You have local solutions
providers and integrators that are really focused on that, and learning how
that work is different from what an electrical contractor does, and
understanding how much programming is needed — is that programming needed to be
done by the customer? Is it done through a third party? Is that stuff OEMs can
do? So it was really, like you said, good to hear from an outside perspective
on where they see things going and how this market's going to keep growing.

Becca: Yep. Enjoy this WiLL Cast with
Nathan from Interactive Technologies.

Welcome & Background

Adam: Well, Nathan, hey. First time
we're meeting. Welcome.

Nathan: Thanks.

Adam: So, we were just talking. You
are from outside of Dawsonville, Georgia.

Nathan: Yep, that's where I'm living.

Adam: Home of Bill Elliott. Are you a
NASCAR fan?

Nathan: Not as big as I could be.

Adam: Have you been to Atlanta
Speedway?

Nathan: No, never been there. But I
have been to Bristol.

Adam: That's a cool race. Was it the
night race or — do you remember?

Nathan: It was years ago when I used
to tour with a band. But anyway —

Adam: A band? What did you play?

Nathan: Oh, I was a tour manager and
audio guy. Lighting guy.

Adam: And do you have a technical
background, or what's —?

Nathan: Oh, sure. Musician myself.
Somebody had to figure out how to make a mixer work. Somebody had to figure out
how to make the lights work. Like, okay, I guess I'll try to read the manual.

Adam: I don't know if Tyler mentioned,
but we've — so you know Brian?

Nathan: Yep.

Adam: So, Brian, and then Ryan, one of
our embedded engineers — we play at our work holiday party. Ryan's a guitar
player. I play guitar and sing. Tyler plays bass. And Brian's a drummer.

Nathan: He mentioned that earlier.
That's great.

The AV & Lighting Overlap

Adam: So it's cool how in the lighting
world — you know, we're more on the commercial side, the industrial side,
sports — there's more and more tech and more and more stuff that people want to
do with lighting. And there's a lot of people that are interested in the AV
kind of overlap. I guess if you guys defined your markets or the most common
markets and applications, what space do you guys play in?

Nathan: Oh, that's a question we get
asked all the time. It's about 10 different markets, but it's all kind of
entertainment-lighting based — color changing, sometimes moving heads, all that
stuff. But we're in everything from, of course, House of Worship, fountains,
theme parks — indoor and outdoor — more of your architectural stuff, tops of
buildings, sports lighting, cruise ships, high-end residential. So it's about
10 different markets, and everybody has a thirst for this technology.

Archetainment: What Is It?

Adam: And there's — like in the
architectural world, they call it archetainment.

Nathan: Archetainment. Yeah.

Adam: Love-hate relationship?

Nathan: Sometimes. That's a buzzword
people like. It gets thrown around a lot.

Adam: Aside from the buzzword, what is
it?

Nathan: I think there was kind of a
bifurcation in lighting technology. One side went toward — well, I guess you
could call it big, dumb lighting. General lighting. The stuff we encounter in
our day-to-day life, always have been — whether it's a potentiometer on the
wall or just a wall switch, and it turns on loads in your house or in an
industrial building or whatever. And then on the other side of that, stage
lighting and entertainment lighting. You want finite control over dimming and
being able to focus people's attention using lighting.

Adam: Dimming into a different world.
Yeah. Theatrical lighting, entertainment lighting, stages, all that stuff.

Nathan: And now it's kind of — those
things are in a head-on collision. People in the general world want stuff that
they see at shows, or whatever, in their day-to-day life. So it's like, how do
we reintegrate this thing that kind of split apart at some point in time? And
now we're putting all the pieces back together.

Integrators vs. Electrical Contractors

Adam: And are you guys working with a
lot of integrators and dealers? They're kind of the last mile between the
market and the customer — and really the hardware?

Nathan: Well, people have different
theories on how to get to market. We tend to like to work directly with
integrators, directly with manufacturers from time to time.

Adam: How do you define an integrator?

Nathan: An integrator is a person or a
group of people who are going to actually figure out the technology, how it
actually works, and be responsible for mapping it out, designing it, working
with the end customer as far as their needs, and hopefully coming up with the
experience that the customer wants, and being able to actually purchase all the
equipment directly as well.

Adam: And that's often a distinct role
on a project from an electrical contractor?

Nathan: It can be. Sometimes the
electrical contractors don't understand the programming side so much.

Adam: And they're really focused on
line voltage and the infrastructure, and the integrators are working on the
low-voltage tech and making the system integrate?

Nathan: In most cases, that's correct.
There are some smaller systems where integrators can do it by themselves, but
not really in some cases — the Class 2 wiring and stuff like that. So if it's
Power over Ethernet or other lower-voltage —

Adam: Yeah. There's been different
things over the years, but Power over Ethernet's been pretty common as far as
controls?

Nathan: But not so much running the
fixtures. Essentially, there's going to be an electrician in there somehow.
What actual role they have in the overall build of the entire thing varies
depending on the project.

The Q Server & What It Does

Adam: So you guys are really the
hardware layer between the lights and the lighting controllers?

Nathan: Yeah. I think from the
perspective of the general public, there's a misconception that these lights
just know what to do. But according to our engineering team, that's not true.
They're intelligent lights, but they're not that intelligent. They still need
to be kind of told what to do. So there's a controller — just like if you go to
a show, a concert or whatever, there's an actual person running a lightboard in
real time with the band. That guy's using a tool, which is kind of like an
audio board, but it's a light board. We take that lightboard and scale it down
into a little box that's hiding somewhere in a back closet sometimes. And it's
programmed on timers, or it can receive button presses or communication over
the network from a third-party device and change light looks based on demand.
And that's used regardless of application.

Adam: You guys have different —

Nathan: Our primary controller is
something called a Q Server. And then we've got other ancillary things that
work within the ecosystem of the Q Server. We're on to our third generation —
six different models of Q Server at this point in time, based on the need of
the customer.

Interactive Technologies — Location & Team

Adam: Where are you guys located?

Nathan: Just north of Atlanta, in a
little town in Georgia. Up 400, if you know where that is. That was touted a
handful of years ago as, like, the technology parkway. And I guess we're part
of that.

Adam: Nice. Seems like there's a lot
of development around the Huntsville area too.

Nathan: Oh, sure. We know people out
there for sure.

Adam: There are a few controls
companies down in that area.

Nathan: Absolutely. There's pretty
smart people out there. I think at one point in time, Huntsville was like the
per capita had the most PhDs in the entire United States at some point in time.
I don't know if that's still true. Big program there called NASA.

Adam: Yeah, I think we've heard of
that. What's that stand for? Have you seen the Saturn V? There's a Huntsville
Rocket Museum.

Nathan: I've never been in there.

Adam: I've been to Cape Canaveral in
Florida, but I've always wanted to go to the Air and Space Museum in
Huntsville. Tyler and I have talked about it.

Nathan: That tracks entirely.

Band Days & The Music Connection

Adam: So, you were the lighting
engineer for the band.

Nathan: Yeah, anything. Bus driver,
merchandise manager.

Adam: What was the name of the band?

Nathan: It was a band called Scythian.
They were on the Irish market out of DC. You know, the Irish band out of DC
that played at the Irish bar in Chinatown. Does that make any sense?

Adam: That sounds like fun.

Nathan: It was fun. After years of
kicking around trying to do my own things, I kind of ran into these guys and I
said, “I think they need me.” And that was true for the time — about four years
of being on the road.

Adam: Do a lot of your team members
have a music background? Are they musicians over at Interactive Technologies?

Nathan: A couple of them do. Wayne,
who's an assembly tech, does actually a lot of support as well — he's a
keyboard player. Eric, who's one of our developers, has been playing guitar
lately. Our procurement guy, Brett, he plays a little bit of guitar. But we don't
have a band like you guys do.

Adam: We have a band like once a year.
We just got back on the dock — the WiLL party's coming up. So the band gets
back together. There's a date on the schedule. That means we'll need at least
three practices before we play.

Becca: Yeah, but we've gotten smart.
We now hire a band and then use their equipment.

Adam: Correct. Can you just bring your
stuff and we can play it? That's part of the contract for the party — the band
has to let us play three songs.

Nathan: It's kind of like a DJ, you
know — you don't get paid for being a DJ, you get paid for bringing the
equipment out and DJing for free.

Industry Trends & Growing Demand

Adam: Where do you see your industry
going? What are some of the big changes happening right now?

Nathan: Well, as you said, more and
more demand for this type of technology. It's just getting bigger and bigger
every year — as far as the demand and as far as the variation of what people
want. It used to be where people just wanted the rainbow chase. Oh, just do the
rainbow chase. Now, people want a little bit more sophistication in their
lighting, but they don't want it all the time. They want it at specific points
in time, or on demand. So sometimes the lighting is just general lighting, and
it's got to magically transform at some point in time into something special at
the touch of a button.

Adam: Do you see the demand outpacing
the number of kind of qualified customer technicians that can keep up with it?

Nathan: That's a great question. Every
year — I've been with the company for 11 years now. I'm thinking, how much
demand could there possibly be for our little blinking boxes? And it just grows
every year. Along with that is just more and more integrators. People who are
starting from the AV side of things and then attach the L onto the AV — audio,
video, and lighting. So they're starting to jump in there as well. People want
the full package, and more and more people are jumping into lighting.

Adam: Do you guys go on job sites
quite a bit and support?

Nathan: Luckily, I do. Yeah. I get —
because you can see the full feedback loop of what's working and what's not.
Not everybody at our company is lucky enough to do that. But yes, there have
been certain scenarios where it's like, hey, I'm here, let's sit down for two
or three hours and really fine-tune this thing, and I'll show you a couple
tricks here. I'm happy to do that when I can. However, a lot of that can
actually be done remotely by just emailing our support staff. They're
fantastic.

Adam: And can the products be
accessible remotely? Is there a data connection?

Nathan: Yeah, because they are
Ethernet devices, they can be connected to the internet, and remotely basically
get to it for mild programming or even full-fledged programming, if
everything's set up properly.

AI & Lighting Programming

Adam: Do you see people doing any AI
programming?

Nathan: That's a big question. I'm
sorry — AI. Gosh, yeah. Talk about a buzzword.

Adam: Archetainment, AI —

Becca: Buzzword bingo.

Nathan: The big thing I was joking
about the other day: I said, oh, it's only a matter of time where somebody sets
up a server specifically designed to program our things, our Q Servers, that
basically knows the entire language and all this stuff. But I don't really know
if that's practical, because there's an emotional side to this thing. If the
emotional side to programming lights ends up turning out anything like any
AI-generated music, it's not going to be that great in my opinion.

Adam: And I think if anything, it'll
just keep increasing demand. You're a music — I heard this analogy recently
about AI. You look at what it took to set up a recording studio back in the
60s.

Nathan: Oh, gosh. You needed four
engineers, and you needed people that — it was a highly skilled and trained
position.

Adam: And then I've recorded on my
MacBook over the years, and you've got GarageBand and Pro Tools, and it gets
compressed more and more. But the demand for recording and video editing and
all this stuff hasn't gone away. It's actually increased exponentially.

Nathan: Well, the accessibility — now
more people are able to do it. Everybody has a slightly different
interpretation of what they want to create with it. And is it going to get so
easy that anybody can do a cool light show? I don't know. Time will tell. I
mean, maybe we're not as far away as I actually think we are. But there's still
so much integration that has to happen.

Adam: Oh, yeah. You've got different
lighting manufacturers in different positions on site, different power
supplies, different controllers. Stuff breaks.

Nathan: Stuff breaks. Yeah. Being able
to fix the physical layer of something — that's never going to go away.

What He Loves Most

Adam: What do you love most about your
job?

Nathan: I love going to visit
customers and talking about their workflow with our product and how we can
maybe make it better. Introduce new ideas, make it more radical, whatever it
needs to be — more stable sometimes.

Adam: How do you guys balance the
feature suite with also making sure that it doesn't complicate to the point
where it's not usable for a specific customer?

Nathan: So our product is fairly
sophisticated, and it's the antithesis of a one-trick pony. We already kind of
consider it a little bit of a Swiss Army knife. How do we balance that?
Sometimes — well, sometimes it needs improvement. But it seems like that's part
of the value of the system — it can be a lot of things to a lot of people.

Adam: And that's why you're working
with integrators and people that know how to use it.

Nathan: Absolutely. And back to the
original — we're in 10 different markets. So it's not just for this specific
thing, it's for all these different lighting purposes.

Theme Parks & A Half-Million Channels

Adam: Do you do a lot of theme parks?

Nathan: Yes. There are a lot of Q
Servers in theme parks — from the first-generation Q Server, second-generation
Q Server, and third-generation Q Server, all over the world. There's one huge
one in China, in fact, that uses something like —

Adam: What's it called?

Nathan: I think it's in Shenzhen. It's
like their Disney World. It's a parade float. I'll think of it in a minute.
There's a write-up on our website. I'm just blanking right now. But it's over a
half million channels of lights. It's just a fire hose. It's like 18 different
floats or something like that and like a hundred costumes, and they're all in
sync. It's crazy.

Adam: That's really cool. You guys are
probably on site a couple times for that one.

Nathan: We never went on site once. We
had people from the United States who knew how to program our stuff that were
there programming it. But definitely some phone calls coming in at midnight,
1:00 in the morning.

Fountains, Audio & Integration Requests

Becca: Is there — do you specialize in
a specific market when you talk about your customers? Do you have a favorite
market?

Nathan: I like seeing it all. That's a
great question. In my role, I like to kind of digest how the customer can best
use our product to do in that field what they need to do. That's what keeps it
really exciting for me, because I have to think about our product differently
based on the applicable scenario and how to get there from here.

Adam: And your integrators are using
the same product regardless of the application?

Nathan: That's correct. Their approach
might be this or that or the other depending on what they're trying to
accomplish.

Becca: Because I'd imagine when it
comes to — there's like a style aspect to that, like everyone —

Nathan: Art, right? Well, the actual
programming, once you get to the lights, making the looks and all that stuff,
is very artistic. But the logic and everything to kind of get there differs
based on the industry that you're in. Even fountains, which — I'm not sure you
guys have tons of fountains around here.

Adam: You can quote one a day.

Nathan: They're pretty heavy in Texas.
Texas is a big state for fountain manufacturers. We'll have the Q Server that's
actually running PLCs for the water pumps at the same time as running the
lights, all through DMX.

Adam: Industrial controls too.

Nathan: Well, we don't make the
industrial controls, but we integrate with that stuff one way or another. And
of course, you have to do all this math on the base of the diameter of the
tube, how far it's got to go. The timing for the water to go up in the air has
got to be timed with the light. And the light, of course, is automatic. So you
have to offset them. It's a lot of math that would probably fry my brain.

Adam: Separate PLC interface, or —?

Nathan: It's all custom-made. Yeah, by
the fountain manufacturers. Wow. They custom figure out how to do it. So not
just lighting.

Adam: Do you get a lot of requests to
integrate beyond the lighting with the other pieces? Like the theme park is a
really good example — I'm sure you see a lot of that.

Nathan: Yeah. Most of our Q Server
models actually play back audio as well, but it's not going to be as advanced
as, like, Dante audio with a nice mixing console. It's going to be real basic
audio. And of course, inevitably — I was just waiting for the day — somebody
emailed the other day: “You guys do video as well?” It's like, everybody wants
it all in one box, and you start to kind of get into trying to do all the
things — you do nothing well.

Adam: Yep.

Nathan: So we try to stick with mostly
lighting. We've definitely been called to integrate with displays and enhance
that stuff, but we're going to stick with being the lighting, maybe have some
ancillary stuff that dips our toe a little bit into stuff. But when you really
need it to be done well — such as audio, such as video, such as some other
things that we integrate with — there are professionals in that area as well.

Path to Market

Adam: So we talked about the
integrators. Are there other customer types — like dealers, or what are some of
the other aside from integrators and OEMs?

Nathan: That's pretty much it. We
typically have not been successful in what we call the manufacturers'
representative market. Simply because — multiple reasons. It just seems to not
work as well as going to the integrator for our path to market, or to an OEM who
have people on their staff who know how to program it. It's generally — the
manufacturer's rep is not going to learn how to program the unit, and that's
how we make massive improvements, is getting that feedback.

Adam: Yep, that makes sense.

The Road Trip & Wrap-Up

Adam: You're a sales manager? How long
have you been in that particular role?

Nathan: Did sales starting in — geez,
what was it? — 2018, I think I started.

Adam: On the road quite a bit?

Nathan: From time to time. Goes in
bursts.

Adam: O'Hare or Milwaukee? Where'd you
fly?

Nathan: A Toyota 4Runner.

Adam: Really?

Nathan: Yeah.

Adam: I saw it in the parking lot and
I went, wow, this guy knew exactly which vehicle to roll into our parking lot
with.

Nathan: No doubt.

Adam: Tyler's got a 4Runner. His is a
little nicer than mine.

Nathan: Just kind of cruising down the
road.

Adam: Well, they're about the same
from like 2005 to 2020. Do you get any snow in Georgia?

Nathan: It might get like a half inch
once a year. Kind of shuts things down. Well, we don't have the infrastructure
like you guys have. We have a lot of hills. Actually, 2014 was pretty bad. It
just came in sideways and froze all the streets, and kids were stranded on
school buses for like a day. It was bad. You can look that up.

Adam: We've got a lot of snow this
year. It's been wicked. I mean, it's been December — it's been crazy.

Becca: Started in November.

Adam: Well, cool. Becca, any
questions?

Becca: No, I'm good.

Adam: Cool, man. Thanks. Appreciate
it.

Nathan: Yeah, appreciate it a lot.