This month, I was invited to be a guest speaker on MakingChips, a podcast hosted by President of Zengers, Jason Zenger, and President of CARR Machine & Tool, Jim Carr. It was a thrilling opportunity to discuss, more in depth, what The Hardware Store™ by Bi-Link represents.
In the latest episode, "The Third Place for Engineers", Jim, Jason, and I discussed how The Hardware Store evolved. The more I talk about it, the more I realize that the foundation of The Hardware Store was built way before it was even an established idea.
Here's a closer look:
Creating The Third Place for Engineers
The common response to The Hardware Store is that it's very similar to coffee shops. There's research on why people interact the way they do in coffee shops, and it's called "the third place." Urban Sociologist Ray Oldenburg in his 1991 book, The Great Good Place, defines it as: "the public places on neutral ground where people can gather and interact."
The Hardware Store is not home and it's not work. It's the third place for engineers. It's a comfortable environment designed by engineers for engineers to explore, tinker, communicate ideas, as well as problem solve.
The concept of The Hardware Store is a byproduct of the traumatic changes that impacted our business and customers early in 2008. The tactics we'd used in past economic/industry downturns weren't working, and we needed to innovate our way out of the problem.
Reflecting on our history, our greatest innovations, successes, and best business relationships were always created through technical collaboration. The founders of Bi-Link built the company around innovation. They attracted customers by problem-solving, thinking ahead, and providing fast solutions.
We were (and still are!) good at it. Technical collaboration adds big value for our customers. Every situation we've had where we can be involved in a project with an engineer as soon as possible — and influence the design so the manufacturability can be improved — has always resulted in a higher quality end product.
At this point, the only question/challenge was: how can we do more of it? How can we "scale" innovation? We already knew what worked and whom it worked for. And we also knew it worked best through face-to-face interaction.
The answer was right under our noses! We already had an R&D Lab in our Illinois facility that was proving The Hardware Store concept every day. The R&D Lab was a destination for engineers to test, tinker, and collaborate with our engineers. So we thought: what if we replicated this space, this idea, and this experience, in other locations?
Last November, the first Hardware Store officially launched in Raleigh, North Carolina to create a technology-driven "home away from work" for engineers and product development experts.
So, if you live near Raleigh, North Carolina or San Diego, California (opening this Summer!), make The Hardware Store your "third place" destination to tinker and test ideas.
And stay in touch. We have plans for more locations. Subscribe here for updates.
To listen to the full episode of MakingChips – Episode 18 – The Third Place for Engineers, click here. Thanks Jim and Jason for having me on the show!
Ray Ziganto
President
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