Thank you QQQ. It seems that you and Echoslob are not only professional installers of HT and other gear but also level headed and insightful. I appreciate your help and support.

As for Shoe, you calling me disingenuous is not very nice, and certainly not accurate. It is not my fault that you don't know the common definition of 'prosumer.' And from the rest of my posts, I certainly made it clear that I had some experience at limited installations.

Why would you choose to pick a fight with me? I'm not trying to take business from you, nor steal your business secrets.

You are here to freely share information with guys who compete with you directly. You don't even mention that. Do you know who it is that you help and where they are doing business? They could be a REAL threat to your business. I'm not.....

Now, before the rest of you guys jump on me. I don't believe that at all. I was just pointing out who ridiculous Shoe's point was, and that he was missing the big picture.

As for not being a pro, I would wager that I could teach a few people here about programming the Pronto.

It's 2 cents time:

First of all, I can only speak for myself. We each feel the way we feel. To be told to keep it to ourselves is repressive, and to name-call people with differing opinions is simply immature.

My view is that the only people who have a direct effect on your income are those who buy their own parts and then ask you to install them. Either just say no, or give them a price that will satisfy you if they say yes. Nobody gets every job.

Maybe, in the abstract, sharing "trade secrets" could be seen as a financial problem. To me, it's no secret that professionals (are supposed to) get a better price than the do-it-yourselfer.

As an electrician and general contractor, I get a 20% markup on materials, and I buy most of mine at Lowe's or Home Depot. Why? Convenience. There everywhere when I need them.

In the real world, unless the guy you're helping here just asked you for a bid on work, and then came here looking to circumvent you, chill out! Like Echo, I assist people all the time in the store, over the phone, and with my "Ask the Electrician" link on my site.

Occasionally, it turns into a job. Usually not. I don't do it for the money. I like to help and teach others. It's fun. That's why I do what I do. It sounds like some of you here see your work as more of a chore than it should be. I bet it was fun when you started.

I'm all typed out. I had a long day today. Yes, I work on Sunday. We just installed X-10-controlled exterior lighting in my brother's house. I will get paid, but not as much as I would on a retail job. I can live with that. I had fun.

Larry
www.fineelectricco.com

C'mon guys....((GROUP HUG)) time
AAAaaawwwwwweeeee :0)

For cripes sakes (good minnesota boy here)

All said and done, the parts will probably be less than 200 bucks. Is that even really worth my time as a dealer to research what he needs, order it, and ship it/prep it?

NO!!

Now if we're talking someone buying Marantz or Sony etc at dealer cost, we may have an issue.

Last post for today. Carl, I did a search on the word prosumer. Could not find it anywhere. It seemed to me you were labeling yourself a professional. A customer would likely be termed a consumer. Being in the restaurant IT business is not the custom installation of audio/video or homrautomation equipment. As a former voice/data tech/designer I cannot say I was a custom installation tech at that time. My post simply asked how professionals felt about divulging profesional resources. I was not the only one who felt you might have been misqualifying yourself. I respect anyone who becomes expert at programming a Pronto and I realize you have more than passing knowledge installation. All the professionals on this site can do anything they want with there professional acumen they spent plenty of time(which is an irreplacwable resource) and sweat accumulating. I never said not to. I just raised a professional issue and questioned the meaning of prosumer(try finding it let alone the common meaning) and caught alot of shit from rank amateurs and pros alike. So what. I enjoy good relationships with colleages, competitors and customers and I love this business. I just didn't realize some of you would lose it because I don't necesarily have a popular point of view
You can get the items you mentioned at the depot and good luck with your project.



This message was edited by Shoe on 09/22/02 23:06.59.

Shoe:

In case you are really interested, the term prosumer is sort of a combination of the word professional and consumer, with the emphasis on the word consumer. For instance, it is often used to describe equipment like high-end camcorders that are geared to the serious hobbyist that is still a consumer, but who wants many of the features of a professional.

p.s. I also did a search on the term but it hasn't made its way into any dictionaries yet.

[Link: wordspy.com]
[Link: quinion.com]

Shoe,
It looks like to you hit a raw nerve.

This might be off point but this thread sounds like economics 101. Knowledge is one of the most valuable assets a company in our industry has. The main difference between a trunk slammer who statistically will be out of business within a year and a successful operation like ZoneOne (and others) is KNOWLEDLGE.

The free flow of information is something that can benefit everybody and I am all for it. But when you are trying to make a living for yourself, your family and the people that work with you, the success of your business is a totally different. Trade secrets and experience are real assets with a high value (Yes! I’m referring to dollars).

I write software for a living. I would have no problem telling somebody how to create a dialog box in Windows, that is common knowledge. However, telling them how write an application that captures IR commands is something I would not do. That is something that a private company paid me to do for them. I don’t think I have the right to give or sale it.

Asking an installer about a component and what a problem might be is one thing. Asking an installer where the cheapest place to buy that component is something totally different. One of the most frequent comments I hear is that a customer buys a big screen TV from a local discount store and the next day they call the installer to setup it for them. I have no idea what you should do in this case.

The point here is that there is a difference between common knowledge and hard "earned" knowledge.

CEDIA should offer a class that talks about competing with local discount stores and the Internet. For a price of course.

ZoneOne – the next time you go to Paris for the weekend, can you bring me a Crescant?

Hector: YES YES YES YES ! ! !

as for everybody else, first, where the hell are you doing your research? A google search for the word "prosumer" gives ten pages of responses.

Moving on, WOW what a bunch of responses we have here.

Did ANYONE ever think Carl was looking for an installer? He was plain and up front about that. I never thought so, and do not understand that comment.

Now, we have one guy calling Carl disengenuous, and Carl being offended but spelling it right. We have Carl saying he is a "prosumer," which is a type of a consumer, but Carl later says "I am also resourceful enough to know how to use a business license and tax ID to buy from whomever I need to." Gee, Carl, maybe you should look up the words "consumer" and "disingenuous."

Matt is not too worried because it's not like anybody told him where to get Marantz or Sony wholesale. Matt, did you check out the link that was given to him, that shows Sony and JVC in their line card? Are you upset now?

Contrary to opinions I have seen above, I am actually a guy who will offer help to a confused soul at Home Depot or Lowes, and I really do want others to know what this stuff is about. I am actually secure that what I know how to do and at what level will keep me in business and doing well. I am not jealous of the information.

Years ago, my wife and I had a children's bookshop. A customer came in looking at a couple of books that we had in Russian. In the course of conversation, I mentioned the part of town that we got the books at. Later, my wife told me I was an idiot for sharing a source with a client.
She was right. If you share your sources with clients, you are an idiot too. Okay, go be an idiot. But the problem I have is that if you share your sources with people on this site, you may be sharing my sources with my clients, and all I can do is ask you to stop. Or call you an idiot, which hardly ever helps. We'll just have to see what the responses are.

Ernie

P.S. Larry says he marks up items by 20%. ZoneOne is quite explicit about his very high costs. Larry, don't forget that if you give someone in your neighborhood the power to save 20%, you may be giving somebody in ZoneOne's neighborhood, Manhattan, or my neighborhood, Beverly Hills, the power to save up to 50% on parts. And save it by keeping it from us. THAT PROFIT IS NOT A RIPOFF BECAUSE OF THE COST OF DOING BUSINESS IN THESE AREAS.

ERNIE,

ADI is mostly geared to the alarm/security industry. They do sell A/V products and cabling but a limited inventory. I am just guessing but I think Matt was referring to Sony consumer A/V products. They do carry lower end Denon and H/K. They even have Pronto's. As for the Sony stuff I think all they carry are monitors for CC camera's. Most of their A/V prices can be found cheaper on the net but they are good if you need something local and want to pick it all up at once as Carl was looking to do.

Ernie:

I have a question for you. People in our business build their own home theater rooms (in the basement or whatever) themselves ALL the time. We go out and get the best pricing on lumber we can find (we buy it as a contractor if we can, who wouldn't), and wire and build the room ourselves.

When we do that, our we stealing the food out of a builders mouth? Is there something morally wrong with doing the work ourselves, as long as we aren't endangering someone with shoddy work? Would a builder who told me where to buy cheap lumber be hurting his fellow builders.

Now, if I have three contractors come over to my house and bid on the job, try to suck as much knowledge out of them as I can, while all the while intending to bypass them and build it myself that is inappropriate as hell.

Otherwise, I'm just a guy who probably doesn't have the money to pay someone $20,000 to build a room for me when I can do it myself on weekends for $2000. Or maybe I'm just a cheap son of a bitch. Either way, IMO I'm not harming anyone else.

This thread is really dealing with a bunch of different issues and we may be closer to agreeing on some of them then it appears. Here are a few things that I DO think are inappropriate:
1. Visiting showrooms and doing long auditions of components (speakers, projectors etc.) with salesmen and pretending as though you are interested in purchasing from them when you really intend to purchase on the Internet.
2. Getting quotes from people when you have no intention of even considering doing business with them. Then taking the quote and trying to use it as a "system design".

I'm off to bed. Let's continue this later.

That is the exact reason we are by appointment only since the beginning of this year.


This reason is we charge a retainer for any work we do up front. Including system design (aka proposal), engineering fees, research, and consultation.

You won't believe how much this "weeds out" non-serious clients.

JJP

SHIZ IT

FIGURES THAT ONE POSTED.
AFTER MANY ATEMPS TO REPLY.
BOTOM LINE IS THAT THIS IS THE WWW. JUST THE NATURE OF THE BEAST. THOSE WITH TOO MUCH TIME WILL FIND THEMSELVES HERE OR ELSEWHERE LOOKING FOR CLUES. OTHER WITH TOO MUCH MONET WILL FIND THEMSELVES SEEKING OUR EXPERTISE.
I THANK ALL THOSE WHO FREELY GIVE OF THERE KNOWLEDGE SO THAT WE (1000'S OF US) CAN BETTER SERVE THOSE THAT DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TIME.
CMACK

Not being an HT Professional, I normally only lurk on this forum. But for what little it's worth, I'd like to comment on this thread please.

First, it took me only seconds to find the definition of "prosumer." (Anthony posted some links already).

This is exactly what I presumed when reading Carl's post.

More importantly, why are most of us here on a Remote Central forum in the first place? I thought it was because we are HT hobbyists who want to share information!

Since I'm not in the business, I can't quantify whether replying to Carl's request damaged anyone's income. If this is truly a concern, may I suggest a compromise? Let those who feel a request like Carl's deserves an answer send him the data by e-mail. He gets his replies, the data is not posted to a public forum, "every body is happy?"