It’s not always about the technology – as solid at the PROFIBUS and PROFINET technologies are. Sometimes it’s about the people who are the public face of the technologies.
When you call the PI North America office during business hours, a person answers. We don’t have “press star for a company directory.” We don’t have voicemail except for after hours.
When you read the PROFInews international edition, every issue is introduced by a person from the PI community. We don’t do that as often with PROFInews North American Edition, but we should.
In past issues of PROFInews North American Edition we had a section called PROFIpeople. It served as an introduction to some of the PI Support Center staff, PI North America staff, and PI chairman from local Regional PI Associations. From PI North America we’ve covered everyone except me:
- Mike Bryant, PI North America Executive Director
- Michael Bowne, PI North America’s Director of Technology Marketing
- Lynne Froehlich, PI North America Administrative Director
- Marsha Bryant, PI North America Executive Assistant
From the PI Support Center we’ve included Peter Wenzel, PNO Executive Director. We’ve featured Paula Doyle, Chair of PI Middle East. There are 27 Regional PI Associations around the world; we’re just one of them.
We’ve featured the faces of many PI North America members in the video I Am PROFINET:
Speaking of videos, you will find my face in a couple PROFItelevision videos: What does PROFIenergy mean? and Benefits of PROFINET. Hunter Harrington from the PROFI Interface Center has a couple videos, too, including PROFINET Intro.
Sometimes the face is a hand and a voice, as in MinutePROFINET which features Michael Bowne (aka “Fastest Hand in the West”).
Even our ads have a face. Have you seen our ads in Automation World and Control Engineering?
I was prompted to think about the people when I got an Opt Out email request. Yes, even that comes to a person, although we should really automate that. But in this case it led to a pleasant exchange with someone whose career path had changed. He thanked us for past training and I wished him well in his new career.
–Carl Henning