Philosphy

[Gary Harmon]

A fellow Heathkit nut composed the following words in a message to me.  I
found them very profound and asked his permission to repost them.  His words
express why we love the Heathkit stuff so.

"I was talking with my boss yesterday and he described how our VP of
Engineering had just returned from a trip to the Left Coast and had this
great idea.   Seems that he thought it would be a really neat idea if we'd
make our product easy to use!

In fairness, that's not as dumb as it sounds - the group I work in is kind
of a start-up business operating inside a large business, and we've
struggled with ease-of-use issues because  some folks seem to forget that
not everyone has a staff of engineers and C programmers.

But what caught my ear when we were talking was that the VP used the phrase
"like a Heathkit"!  So I came prepared for his meeting today - and right on
cue flopped a Heathkit manual out on the table and asked him "Oh, you mean
like this?".   It was pretty neat, if I say so myself!  It was a manual for
a Heath reel-to-reel tape deck, which I don't even own, but is a good
example of a complex mechanical device, not just PC board stuffing.  It got
me to thinking about Heath's business strategy...

I think Heath did two things very well:

1.  They de-mystified complicated things and through their technical
documentation, made it possible for the average guy (or gal) to say, "Heck,
I can do this"!   I think this led to their reputation being based more on
the confidence they instilled in their customers (who'd come back for more)
than on the quality or performance of the products themselves.  There was a
lot of pride in saying "I made it myself!".

2.  By assembling all the parts together, Heath made it fun and easy to do.
They even supplied tools (aka the little red nut-starter) or built-in test
circuits when needed and never assumed you had a labful of test gear or a
PhD in Science!

They also designed good products, and made them look good too.  But of all -
I think their ability to write clear and understandable "step by step"
manuals was their greatest strength.  And this ability to simplify and build
confidence is what I'm going to try to duplicate...

As a Heath afficinado Gary - what do you think?   Am I all wet, or does this
make sense?   I don't underestimate how much work went into their manuals -
we look at them as a way to fix an old radio but when you think about the
hundreds - even thousands of man-hours that it took to prepare one of them,
they become more art than science.   And an art that is not often equaled,
even today.
73, Bob W9RAN"
ranickel at mwci.net
=======================
Gary H. Harmon, Jr., K5JWK
6302 Robin Forest
San Antonio, TX  78239-3218
(210) 657-1549
gharmon at txdirect.net
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