Home Automation Podcast Episode #54: An Industry Q&A With JJ Canon
Social media and its impact on our business.
This week's home automation podcast features our host Ron Callis interviewing JJ Canon. Recorded live on Friday, September 28th, 2018 at 12:30 p.m. EST.
About JJ Canon
JJ is a 20+ year industry veteran. He founded Digital Delight in 1999 and specializes in deploying positive experiences through service & technology. He is a CEDIA member and a Social Media Influencer.
JJ’s company, Digital Delight, has expanded from their original focus on audio video solutions and now primarily deals with wireless deployment in a customer’s home.
The Digital Ramble is a weekly socialcast that JJ and his friend Kris Gamble run that creates a dialogue around smart home technology and challenges that other integration firms face.
Interview Recap
Here are some of the topics Ron had the opportunity to discuss with JJ:
- JJ's background in the industry
- SyLo - System local design & engineering. Why changed pr business strategy.
- Social media and its impact on our business
- The importance of transparency between a dealer and homeowner
Transcript:
Ron: Everybody Ron Callis with another episode of Automation Unplugged, I even wore my Automation Unplugged shirt for you today. Today is a special episode because, and I think my camera just went out of focus. So let me get that resolved. Gotta love this camera. It's funny when we were just, there we go. When we were just getting prepped to go live here JJ, my guest, his camera was doing all sorts of wonky stuff. And then here you go with my camera doing all sorts of wonky stuff. So bear with me here. You know what? There's my show art. Let's see. Look at me not even fully prepared. So anyway, we are live and got some folks watching us. Come on in. Please like and share this video comment. If you feel so inclined that helps us with the good old algorithms. And let me just check our page, make sure that we are streaming into the One Firefly page. So bear with me as I check some of that. There we are. Wow. Look at that man. JJ must've bought his crew here. We already got seven people hanging out watching us. So anyway, where have I been? So today's Friday we had JJ scheduled to come on the show in the past and we had some scheduling conflicts and so we went ahead and made room. I really wanted to get JJ on and I'll let you guys meet him if you haven't already met him and hear what he's doing. This past week and a half or really past week since I recorded the last show. It's been a bit of a whirlwind. I've been up to Portland, Maine tending the agents of change conference, marketing conference. And then I've also, I came back to Florida and then I, I jetted over to Los Angeles for the SPI, the Solar Power International show. It was out there with my friends from Sonnen and Pantech Design and Synegration. And then I went up to San Francisco and spent some time with Gordon Van Zudans from Cyber Manner and was looking at, we're going to be doing some work for him and wanted to spend some time looking at his operation. And that was pretty spectacular. So in case you haven't watched it, if you scroll down our page a little bit, if you're on Facebook, you'll see I did a Facebook live touring his facility. So I hope you enjoy that. But let's go ahead and let's do a couple of things. One, let me throw up here on the screen, the artwork. Don't forget One Firefly is now on Instagram. We've got a brand new channel there, but we'd love to have you follow us on Instagram. We'll try to make it valuable for you. And then if you just want a quick summary of our guests we've had on the last few shows, here you go. We had Giles Sutton from CEDIA and we had Joe Picirilli from Rosewater Energy. And now of course we have JJ Cannon. Let's go ahead and bring him in. Let me do that. JJ, how are you sir?
JJ: Hey Ron, I am doing fantastic. How you been man?
Ron: You know I've been busy. It has been a lot going on, a lot of moving and shaking.
JJ: You know, it's great that we have this platform that we can actually stay in contact with each other without actually having to pick up the phone. And it's so cool to see what you're doing out there, you know, improving social media reach and marketing reach and, and we here at Digital Delight have really found a lot of success in social media as well.
Ron: You are Mr social media, you know, we dabble over here at One Firefly. You guys live it and eat it and breathe it every single day there.
JJ: Well we absolutely try to do our best. We see that that what social media can do for you is it kind of takes you out of the neighborhood if you know what I'm saying. And it really broadens your community whether it's consumer based or dealer based and really create some great, fantastic networks in the process.
Ron: If you look at, I went to Portland, Maine last week is there was a trainer that was training on going live and all the new technologies and softwares are not all some of the new technologies and softwares and you know, three hours of that in-depth training on Friday morning is about all my little brain can handle that. It was gonna, you know.
JJ: Like that shot glass is just overflowing with information.
"The ability to have a full video production studio right there in your pocket that you could announce your content and showcase your content to the world at a moment's notice. It is tremendous, it's really a different age that we live in now with that power."
Ron: Oh yeah. But if you look at the power of technology, the supercomputer that is now in our pocket and the ability to have a full video production studio right there in your pocket that you could announce your content and showcase your content to the world at a moment's notice. It is a tremendous, it's really a different age that we live in now with that power.
JJ: Yeah. I really enjoy the ability to really dial into who your audience is and get them the content or the information that you're trying to communicate with them. And I liken it to a sprinkler system at a house that's well done. And one time my wife and I, we were out walking throughout the neighborhood and we came across a home and the irrigation system was going off and it was just water all over the place, all over the sidewalk. And you know, it was getting on the yard where you wanted it, but it was also over watering and not really dialing it in where it needed to be. We walked a couple of houses down and that house actually had their irrigation system set correctly and all of that investment that they were using was actually being put on the yard. And social media can be exactly like that. Being able to really dial in instead of that shotgun approach of marketing, of what we had an option to in the past, we can really dial in exactly who we want to talk to.
Ron: Okay. I want to peel the layers back on that, but before we go there a couple of things. One is I want to thank our audience. Those of you that are watching live, those of you that are watching on replay. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Make sure you give us some likes. Throw up some comments. That helps one, the algorithms. Two, we want to hear what you have to say. By the way, JJ, you've got Brett Borquist. What does he say? He's got a couple of comments. Plus then JJ sold them a ratio. I don't even know what that means, but Brett is saying hello. What's going on? Happy Friday. You've got Keith Balram has given a thumbs up. Hope Cannon that might be the wife or family member is giving you a thumbs up. Oh, there you go.
JJ: Love baby.
Ron: And let's see if, can I see anyway, well thank you everyone that are out there liking and commenting. But JJ, what I always like to do before we kind of get into some of the other topics is I want some of our audience, some of my audience may not know you. Peter Friesen. Just given the hands up. Woo. Woo.
JJ: We're going to get a lot of that throughout this program.
Ron: Oh, you say, I think your fan club is here. JJ.
JJ: My audience. Ron, my audience.
Ron: Okay. All right. Yeah. Athena just gave a thumbs up. Taylor said hello, Taylor Allen got all sorts of actions.
JJ: Throughout this whole episode, Digital Ramble, Digital Delight family. If you would please like share and subscribe to One Firefly and go ahead and share what we're doing right now. Live with all of your friends and let's get the word out and let people know about what Ron's doing over there at One Firefly and with his Automation Unplugged show that he does on a regular basis. Really, you know, delivering some fantastic content with some leaders in our industry.
Ron: Well, and you are one of those leaders. And what I want to get into, and let's, let's just go there now. Tell the audience here, many of them are your audience. But some of them are going to be my audience right here at Automation Unplugged. Help them understand where you came from. Like, how did you land in this industry? How did you end up starting an integration firm? I think I was reading in the show notes 1999 is when you got to start you know, help me understand and the audience understand kind of where JJ came from and how you're still here all these years later.
JJ: You know, Ron, I'm like one of those, a lot of the other guys out there, you know, I was the kid that could set the clock on the VCR. You know, I was the kid with the loud stereo that I did myself, you know, in my vehicle when I was young kid. And then when I got older I was job searching. I happened to come across a company that was installing satellite systems and at around that same time I got married and I told my wife Hope. I was like, you know, honey, I think we can go ahead and do this ourselves. And we were in Dallas, moved back to Houston and as technology has changed from satellites to flat panels to Blu-Ray to HD, our business has been able to grow and expand as well. I've always had a real interest in technology and the evolution in business itself, not only technology but business. And what other opportunities are there available in our niche and through social media and engaging with other people and networking and self-educating. I cut the cord wrong and when I cut the cord I really started digging into YouTube and in YouTube it's like a library of information. And once I started scratching the surface of social media and starting to look for influencers and self-educating, I kind of switched gears with my business in my businesses. You know, I jumped a lot around a lot because my businesses shifted in the gears that were used to be focused in the past. But with that shift, we've also embraced social media and really have tried to incorporate that into our business and really focusing in on who our audience is and how to get a message to them to where they know the why of who Digital Delight is and the why for the products that, that we are representing. So that's kind of the short of it. I mean, 20 years, there's a lot to cover for 20 years, but you know, that's the short of it.
Ron: So in terms of the types of integration projects and clients, right? So we'll get to social audience in just a moment, but in terms of the customers that you serve, what are examples of common types of integration projects you take on?
JJ: We do a variety of different solutions. I think our main foothold into a client's home is for wireless deployment. A lot of people are struggling with wireless in their homes and need a professional to come in and diagnose and provide some reliability for them. And so, we have a lot of leaders into a homeowner's home. Wifi being one of them. Control is another one where we're using manufacturers that are well known in the consumer world and so that gets a lot of attention and allows us to provide a reliable solution that they're comfortable with and then also allows us to communicate other solutions that we have. And so our business has expanded from our traditional audio video.
Ron: All right, ladies and gentlemen, you have seen we have lost Mr JJ which happens on occasion, but he and I have planned for this and we're going to get him reconnected. So just bear with me just for one moment. Enjoy the music. Let me get him. Oh, sorry. Of course it helps if I'm actually texting the right person. Okay. Yeah, man. You guys are dropping some hashtags and some all sorts of different like locations here. I'm going to find out what all this stuff is. Let me get Mr JJ back. Bear with me. We figured this might happen. Like you guys broke the interwebs with all this attendance and interaction here. Hey, I'm back. I logged down, I have to log back in, but that didn't work or wrong. I guess we'll go home. No. Well, give me one second here. We're gonna get me, let me, I got, we stood out in the audience. They're hanging out here waiting for us to get you back. All right, So let me see what we can do here And I am prior to joining in on a link that you sent me wrong. Yeah. Waiting to join the conversation. All right, Well let's see here. He loved troubleshooting. We, you and I just talk about this. What do you got to do to be playing with tech? You gotta have a degree and Yeah, I agree. And patient is one of the mud have with dealing with technology. I think everybody can agree to that. I concur. All right, give me, give me a second. I'm going to put the phone down and try to get this figured out and see if we can get you back. We got 11 eyeballs watching us live here in lots of interactions. Let me see if I can get you back. Oh good folks. Thanks for hanging out. Sorry for the technical difficulties. It is one of the natures of operating here on the front edge is a, this happens on occasion. All right, let's see here. Does connect, reconnect previous. There we go. I think we, yeah, I can hear you. Let me get you brought back in. This is positive. I think we're going to get you back here. All right. There you are. Say hey to all of your very patient viewers, we got you back. Oh, and now there's more people signing in. They see your smiling face again.
JJ: All right, there we go. You know, tech difficulties. You know, I've been doing my little side project with Chris Gamble over there in the UK and Ron it just never fails. Live streaming is not a perfected science quite yet. And I think we're gonna stick around until we find it as a..
"The ability to stream to a massive audience and with very little tech and software, it's mind-boggling."
Ron: I think you and I were, were patient sons of guns were we're gonna figure it out one way or another. And I mean at the end of the day, how long has live video have been around, right? The ability to stream to a massive audience and with very little tech and software, it's mind-boggling.
JJ: Right.
Ron: Or I should say maybe a lot of tech and software, but it's all right there at your fingertips and my fingertips, which is nothing short here. Let me get, I've got a, I'm doing a little configurating cause I had to, ah, there we go. I'm making you all beautiful again here on one of my other views.
JJ: All right, we're getting hazed by Brett over there at LogiTech right now he is hammering us in the comments.
Ron: There you go. So JJ, would you like me to send someone out to help? What platforms? I'm on my way, man. You got the reinforcements. I've had some good success with live stream stuff now. You know this software we're using is Wirecast from Telestream and you know, frankly it's capable of, you know, basically sending a man to the moon and all I need it to do is like send a guy across the street. And so it's a little bit overkill. And we here at One Firefly and Automation Unplugged, we're actually investigating some other softwares. Stay tuned on that. I'm not knocking Wire Stream, but either the interwebs or the video stream, sometimes they don't, they don't play nice and cooperate. Right. So JJ, question for you as an integrator you've really embraced this, this world of social media and, and you get various groups. And by the way, I went ahead and took some screenshots of some of your different social platforms and I can put that up as artwork on the screen so the audience can see that. You have, and I'll do that here as you're talking about various things. I'll put artwork to help people see, you know exactly what we're talking about. How did you really determine that being active on social was the right move? I mean, cause it's there, you don't have a lot of peers in that space right now in terms of integration firms. How did you, and I know Chris Gamble over in London is an integrator as well and he's pretty active with you or not Gamble, Campbell, right?
JJ: Gamble.
Ron: Gamble. I did have it. Right. Chris Gamble. How did you guys decide to go down that path?
JJ: So several years ago, I don't know if it was at a CEDIA course or if it was in social an article, really an image from the New Yorker came across my line of sight. And it was an image that was very impactful to me and it had a big, it was in a big beautiful room, had a big television on the wall and had a kid sitting in the middle of the floor. And he was looking at his phone and, and I started thinking about that image of like, where is the attention or where is the attention going to be? And to me, that image was telling me that content is not being consumed through traditional spaces or at least not as much as it used to be or as much as you know, what it's going to be. And so I saw through that image and started thinking about it that really, there's a very affordable way through investigating, I found that there was a very affordable way to reach an audience. And majority of the audience's attention is on mobile devices. So you can access content anywhere at any time. Whenever you want to do that. You just have to be there at that time. And through videos, videos don't ever stop. So whenever somebody is trying to dial up content or information, your video is available while you're sleeping. And so that really kind of got me on to that you know, mindset of thinking that way.
Ron: And I watch a lot of your content, JJ and you go beyond being promotional to say potential future customers. You're really at the epicenter of a community of integrators in-home technology. It's not so much that you're self-promotional about your integration firm. In fact, I think you do very little of that. You're really about talking about technology and other integration firms and challenges that they have and solutions and you create a dialogue around that. Can you talk a little bit more about why you kind of taken that tact?
JJ: Well, you know, it's kinda challenging. So whenever my friends and I who are in the community tech community of deployment communicate, it's always about pain points and things that we're seeing in the field. Whether they're with consumers or with our techs out in the field or with us as business owners. And how can we find solutions to overcome those types of those types of pain points. And I'm sorry, I'm getting distracted.
Ron: No, it's okay. Yeah. I was just going to say, Damon just set a good example. He's on his lunch break right now, watching and listening to us. I need to your point of listening and consuming content wherever, whenever.
"Transparency from a dealer's perspective to the homeowner could be very powerful."
JJ: Yeah. And so it was very challenging for me as a business owner to separate, and that's something that I'm trying to get better at. But I find it very interesting that the content that we talk about is from that we're trying to communicate to the homeowner from our side of the table in the sense of these are products that we've found success with and these are products that we've found some pain points with. And I think that transparency from a dealer's perspective to the homeowner could be very, very powerful. And also communicate the why of why do you need a pro? Why would you want to pay somebody like us in the CEDIA industry to come out to deploy something that is highly engineered or something that is very affordable that, you know, you quote, I'm putting it in quotes, you know, the DIY type of solutions. Because although it's quote, DIY, a lot of people don't want to do it themselves. They don't have the confidence to maximize this deployment. And when they finally get into it, they realize that, you know what, I really, who do I call? And so I'm trying to also create an awareness for our industry of the need to a professional. And there are professionals all over the world that are really qualified to be able to deploy systems that we talk about systems that might be outside of our scope but are still available to the public.
Ron: Damon is just filling me in, he says he's in Rockwell, Jersey.
JJ: Yeah. Hey guys, if y'all would drop down in the bottom and let us know where you're listening from cause I really enjoy seeing the global community that social media can bring together. So if you would real quick down there in the comments section drop in where you're listening from. We really appreciate that.
Ron: Yeah, you got Peter. Peter says it's the see change deploying consumer products in a custom manner. You got pound DIFY Tech. What is that?
JJ: So we can have a couple of different hashtags that we use. DIFY is for do it for you technology or technologist. Sylo is another acronym that we came up for. System local where we believe that less is more, less wires provides more reliability. We found a simple solutions that aren't necessarily for everyone to where we're able to eliminate some of that high investment from from traditional installations. And, you know, a lot of our clients are in the market that we're focusing on are really gravitating towards that type of solution deployment.
Ron: So you talk about community, what I'm going to throw up on the screen right now. I'm gonna throw up the artwork for the Facebook page for The Digital Ramble. Can you tell the audience, many of them know and our followers here, but for those that are again, seeing this on replay and this is brand new to them, can you tell me about that community?
"A lot of our community was not able to come to the CEDIA show and we thought it'd be great to create some cool content at the manufacturers that we're talking about on a regular basis. I think our engagement's up over 40,000 engagements on that page in the last month."
JJ: Oh man, The Digital Ramble has been fantastic for us. My buddy Chris Gamble at Customized, he's over in the UK. I really encourage people to take a look at his Instagram. Joe, I know you don't like me saying it, but his Instagram pages fire it is a fantastic you know, if you want to figure out how to do it right. Chris Gamble really has it dialed in with his Instagram page. But he and I, we both are very like-minded in the technology solutions that our clients are comfortable having deployed in their home. And we have tried to do exactly what I was saying is provide content for homeowners, for consumers from a dealer's perspective, and understanding the why of meeting a dealer and the purpose of the product set that we're pushing and supporting and the why of that. So, and it's been Ron, our reach over the last, and it's something that we started on Facebook probably about two months ago. And we also have a WhatsApp group community that's kind of offline behind the scenes. It's made up probably about 12 different integrators from around the world, the UK, from Singapore, from South Africa and Australia and of course from the States. And we probably got, we've probably got a guy in there from Canada too, but you know, The Digital Ramble and literally it's probably 200 different engagements on a daily basis. And that WhatsApp group alone. And from that interaction Gamble and I, we've started The Digital Ramble that's on Facebook. It's also on Instagram. And we try to come on there on a weekly basis and talk about high points that have happened throughout the week or whatever's on our whatever's on our mind. It's really a loosely you know, it's a loose production of what we're doing on a daily basis. We were out at a CEDIA a couple of weeks ago and we really wanted to provide some good quality content for homeowners. But also for dealers. A lot of our community was not able to come to the CEDIA show and we thought it'd be great to create some cool content at the manufacturers that we're talking about on a regular basis. Dude, we got some serious traction, you know, over these last couple of weeks. I don't know, I think our engagement's up over 40,000 engagements on that page in the last, you know, month. And the views are just through the roof on the different content that we're putting out there. And really finding a prod community. It's incredible.
Ron: So speaking of CEDIA. I'm pretty sure you've told the story to your audience about you and Chris saving my butt at CEDIA.
JJ: We went something like this. We were walking through the show ahead of, you know, somehow we got the backdoor pass and we walked by your booth and you were like, you guys look like integrators. I know you.
Ron: Yes. Yeah. So those of you out there watching, we John, it was just John and I, right? It was the day before my team arrived. So it was just John and I were in our booth putting it together and we had done all about all we could do, our structure was about a 16 foot tall structure and let's just say there was the hard parts or the hard bits that John and I hadn't exactly fully thought out in terms of how we were going to get it erected. And then just like a gift from the man above these two fellows walked by. Of course I knew who they were. And I was like, Hey, are you guys busy or did someone send you over here? And JJ and Chris performed like superheroes as they do with many of their customers and they swooped in and helped us get the structure, which was horizontal, finished putting together, we finished putting it together and then they helped us get it standing up, which was. I actually, we don't know how we would've done it if you guys had not showed up so..
JJ: Sure. Where there's a will, there's a way y'all would've figured it out. But you know, I was so excited. I was excited to be able to come over there and spend some time with you Ron. You know, cause we really haven't done that and what we're both good at when you're good at design. I'm good at putting things together and Gamble obviously is as well. But, you know, in my community I really encourage collaboration and there are projects that are outside of my scope that I really lean on other people in my neighborhood, you know, to help out. And vice versa, you know, and so anywhere that I can lend a hand and help out, even if I'm out and about off the clock, if there's an opportunity for me to get out there and help out and build a, you know, bigger community, I want to try to do that. Now Gamble is very like-minded like that too.
Ron: All right, we got some more comments here. Chris People here from Yorkshire in there too. So I guess we got some people from Yorkshire. We got Taylor Allen says, can't forget Lee and China. Tim Stevens says JJ is one of the best dudes in the game. I'll watch this later. That's the beauty is they can watch this later, right? It'll be sitting right there on the site and you just click play. Last day of Q3 here. Hint, hint, buy something from your favorite sales guy. So what's Tim sell? Who does Tim represent?
JJ: I will keep that offline, but Tim, I appreciate that and I'll see what I can do, brother. You know, I'm always, my distributors work really and manufacturers work really hard for us because they see that we're trying to work really hard for them. And that's, that's again, talking about that relationship building and trying to find ways that we can help each other, you know, build an audience so that, you know, one, I can move one of their boxes, but two, I can put my guys to work and you know, provide some quality solutions for consumers out there. Homeowners, small commercial.
Ron: Peter's given us what does he say? Teamwork makes the dream work.
JJ: Yeah. Peter works here in my office, he's a VP of everything that goes on around here and dude, talk about team players. He's awesome.
Ron: All right, what I'm going to throw up on the screen now actually cause my nose itches. I'm going to throw up on the screen. The home techs. #HomeTechX group.
JJ: Yeah.
Ron: I've gotten the artwork from Facebook. This is a closed group. Can you talk to us about this? Who should be in this and how did they get in?
JJ: Yeah. So HomeTechX, I'm admin to HomeTechX and it was kind of our first try at this social launch of trying to embrace and build a community of like-minded dealers and it flourished pretty quickly there. And so people, dealers in particular manage, there's some manufacturers in there, but dealers in particular, their daily goings on questions that they might have, experiences that they want to share and solutions that you might have for a problem you might be having out in the field or, you know, business related. You know, that's really what the HomeTechX group's purpose was designed for.
Ron: Is that still an active group JJ?
JJ: It's not quite as active. We've really gravitated over towards the towards The Digital Ramble with Chris and I, but we are still posting as well as we have a lot of active members in there that are you know, use it for a very impactful tool for their business.
Ron: Now, are you active JJ on other channels? Like Twitter, Periscope Instagram, YouTube, like, so your universe of being you and speaking to your community of both customers and people within the trade, how do you? Is Facebook your platform or do you use other platforms?
JJ: Yeah, Facebook is my biggest platform that we use here at the office and it just seems like it has the most reliability as well as it saves content. So there's several reasons that we enjoy using Facebook. Instagram is a very powerful platform as well. But we're using that more for style of Digital Delight. The community, the warmth, you know, that type of communication is what we're trying to accomplish there on Instagram. So it's a little bit different. So Facebook is, you know, the true message. Instagram is more of the vibe of the company. I'm very active on LinkedIn. We're finding a lot of success using LinkedIn, communicating with manufacturers and distributors. Let's see. Facebook, YouTube. I love YouTube, but there are, so many audiences that you can try to be involved with. And so you kind of have to set priorities when you're starting out. And right now, because I want to be involved in all of them, I really have to take priority. Okay. What do I want to focus on, get good at and then expand that footprint. Youtube for me is more of an editing platform. So we take a video like this and we chop it up and do a little bit better, you know, for the intros and juice it up. Youtube is more of a video educational platform that's edited.
Ron: Right, right. Yeah. The video editing tools within Facebook are pretty minimal.
JJ: Yeah. But it takes time to do that. And so to still try to run a business and also do production and content creation and everything else that a business owner is involved with is sometimes a challenge.
Ron: So, believe it or not, we've been going almost 40 minutes.
JJ: I believe it. I believe it, but, but we lost like seven, so..
Ron: But we did, I dunno if we lost seven. I think we maybe lost two or three minutes. Let me ask you this. What were some of your big takeaways from CEDIA? What were some, you know, really big nuggets of learning or new products or experiences that were memorable for you now two or three weeks later?
JJ: You know, as far as highlight products, for me, definitely Modus VR is going to be a game changer in our industry. Being able to take a consumer into an environment and designing something very detailed with a quick return on that investment. I really like what Modus VR is doing with their technology. TV templates, something that is just so straightforward and basic but so powerful visually to the homeowner. And what TV templates is, is it allows you, it's a TV printed on poster paper and whenever you go to a client's house, Mama's always saying, I only want to 55. And Daddy's always saying, I want a 65. And you're able to visually show them, you know, truly what is right for that space as well as placement of that product. And so that's been a very impactful product for us off of, it's like one of the cheapest things on the floor, but it's just a visual that really, it's a tool that really helps us move products. And then also it was self-education. We do a lot of test learning, design thinking in the sense of creating content, putting it out there and seeing what sticks and then using that data defined fine tune, how to go forward. And so social media communicating with our dealers and our manufacturers in a different way. Something that I don't think many people are doing. And showing appreciation for the quality of products that are being put out for us and for our homeowners and taking some of those pain points, you know, out of the equation so that we can truly do a quality final 10% and comfortably move on to that next job. So a couple of products out there, you know, Modus VR, TV templates and then our own exploration into social media campaigns. And not necessarily collaborating with manufacturers or distributors, but seeing what we can do and communicate to our homeowners of why.
Ron: We just had a fellow Houstonian join Paul there from Unlimited Integration in Houston. He just jumped in.
JJ: Yeah. Paul's a good friend of mine. He's one of those cats that I was telling you about that we collaborate. Some things are outside of my wheelhouse and Paul with Unlimited Integration down in Sugarland. I mean, he's literally right down the street from me and here and I are like really, really good friends. And you would say, well man, isn't he your competition, why would you want to, you know, communicate with him. It's not about that. It's about these are hurdles. These are pain points. What are you finding successful, you know, in your business. How can we, although we're in the same industry, we still have different veins, how can we help improve each other's business? Paul's been a fantastic champion of my new direction. He really gave me encouragement. Years ago we used to do a morning breakfast and I was telling them I was considering doing something unique and different and he's like, Hey man, you should go for it. I don't know. Maybe he was trying to see if my doors are closed, but I doubt that I'd know.
Ron: No, no. I've got a bunch of people. Hope's giving him some you know, Hi Paul. Taylor's saying what's up? Paul's getting some love here.
JJ: Yeah. Good man.
Ron: That's fun. All right, so JJ, what are the best social channels that everyone that here or that is listening to this replay that does not already know you? You've brought quite the fan club and/or audience to this recording or to this, this Facebook live, but for those that want to get in touch with you directly, whether it's vendors, whether it's dealers that want to pick your brain, maybe they want to join into The Digital Ramble family. What are the best ways?
JJ: It's real easy. You know, one, you can go to our company website, DigitalDelight.com/contact. Our contact information is there. If you want to place a phone call or send an email, that's just, that's a real easy way to do that. Of course you can hit us up in the messaging through Facebook and you can find us on Facebook at Digital Delight, TX. And then we're on YouTube and Instagram and you can drop us a message or a dm there. And we're at Digital Delight 1, the numeral one. And then I got my other a side project going with The Digital Ramble with Chris Gamble and myself. And you can drop us a message on Facebook, which is The Digital Ramble show or also on Instagram. Drop us a dm on The Digital Ramble show on Instagram. So yeah, if you're trying to find me, you can find me.
Ron: JJ it's been a pleasure to have you on Automation Unplugged, sir.
JJ: Hey, Ron, I've really been enjoying the content that you've been creating over there at One Firefly. You've got some incredible stuff there on YouTube with One Firefly. I love the Sonos.
Ron: UI University product.
JJ: Yeah. And I am always guiding my clients. To your YouTube page for some of that behind the scenes, some of that extra support, that easy to answer questions that they might have with Sonos. And so I find that really impactful. I encourage everybody to go check out your YouTube page because you've got some great content on there that might help some of their clients as well. So, yeah, man, you keep it up. You're doing great work over there, Ron.
Ron: Yeah, we got our machetes and we're cutting our way through the forest and you know, doing what it takes to figure it out. Just keep on keeping on, you know.
JJ: Absolutely. Hey Ron, what song have you been listening to today?
Ron: What song have I been listening to? You know, I, listen when I'm working I like to listen to classical or there's a particular type of, Philip Glass is a conductor and he writes a lot of music that has a particular set of rhythms to it that I really enjoy. If you've, if you're familiar with like the movie Interstellar, that's not Phillip Glass, but a lot of the music is themed after stuff that he listens to or what was it The Day After Yesterday, the movie with Tom Cruise, a lot of that music is themed after that. So I listened to a lot of orchestrated music. Not a lot of maybe you know, more modern music.
JJ: Hey, that's cool. Hey people, if y'all would drop down in the comments, what y'alls favorite song is that y'all like listening to? Please put that down in the comments as well. And I'm going to go ahead and pull one on Ron here. Alexa, play some Philip Glass and we'll let Philip Glass lead us out of this and I really appreciate hooking up with you today.
Ron: Yeah. Is she cooperating?
JJ: Yeah, she's right. There we go.
Ron: Hey, it's good thinking music.
JJ: Yeah, I like it. It's playing through my Origin Acoustic valet system.
Ron: Oh man. It's all about the tech.
JJ: Oh yeah. Loving it.
Ron: Awesome. Thank you JJ. Hang out here. Let me get a quick sign off. Everyone, thank you for watching Episode What is this 54 of Automation Unplugged? I was so pumped to learn that we could get JJ scheduled to be our guest. I'm looking at the comments here. Without a doubt. You guys as an audience are easily the most interactive engaged audience on one of our live recordings. We got 78 comments here. If you guys want to boost that to keep commenting, we'll see if we'll make it a record that's hard to beat. There you go. 79. I got everyone dropping in. This was great. Again, thanks everyone for watching and let me just throw up here some artwork. Let me self-serve a little bit. Don't forget to go follow One Firefly on Instagram and of course like our page if this is your first time to our page. And on that note, I'm gonna let's see if I can change the artwork here. On that note, I'm going to thank you again for watching and listening, and I'll see you on the next episode of Automation Unplugged.
Show Notes
JJ is a 20 yr. Industry veteran. He founded Digital Delight in 1999. JJ specializes in deploying positive experiences through service & technology. He is a CEDIA member and a Social Media Influencer. You can also find JJ on The Digital Ramble, another of his endeavors founded with fellow integrator Chris Gamble.
Ron Callis is the CEO of One Firefly, LLC, a digital marketing agency based out of South Florida and creator of Automation Unplugged. Founded in 2007, One Firefly has quickly became the leading marketing firm specializing in the integrated technology and security space. The One Firefly team work hard to create innovative solutions to help Integrators boost their online presence, such as the elite website solution, Mercury Pro.
Resources and Links from the Interview:
You can also learn more about Digital Delight at https://www.digitaldelight.com/ Make sure to follow them on Facebook and LinkedIn.