The LRC has put together a very cool web-based tool for designing a space for healthier living (https://www.lrc.rpi.edu/healthyliving/), after playing around with it ourselves, we asked the minds behind it for an interview.

Allison Thayer and Dr. Mariana Figueiro joined us to share how they created this site and how they plan to expand it.

We discussed how hard it is to improve productivity in humans and that we should just stick to lighting occupants can work in enjoyably. Some that means balancing individual needs against bigger trends, some of that means understanding how light relates to different age groups.

We’re not a nocturnal species, and maybe we need to back away from Edison’s triumph over unproductive evenings.

We’ve always known that Ellis Yan has a story to tell. We take a break from lighting technology and delve into history, as Ellis explains his life under The Cultural Revolution under Mao. It starts with the day he was sent to school without lessons, moves through years of bullying teachers, and attacks on capitalists and intellectuals before being shipped out to the mountains.

He lived with nine other teenagers in a two-room building in a remote farming village where he had to learn to farm, cook, slaughter pigs and roll his own cigarettes. As he was getting the hang of life planting rice, his mother sent a stack of textbooks so he could study for university qualifications.

Stay tuned for more in part 2, coming soon.

Henrik Clausen has thirty years of experience as an electrical engineer, educator, and a consultant. And when he wrote for LED Professional calling for brighter, more personalized light at work (read it here: https://www.led-professional.com/resources-1/articles/personal-lighting-profiles-might-be-the-key-to-creating-a-natural-work-light-balance), we knew we had to ask him about it. While it’s true that an aging workforce will need more light, we ended up debating how to implement these ideas.

What we didn’t expect was for the discussion to go as broad as it did once we got through that debate. We discussed our relationship to light, from the anthropological and evolutionary implications of firelight, to how human-centric lighting research is rooted in the location the test was done, how culture changes how you light your home and how that will emigrate with you, to the nature of God.

We did circle around to more grounded topics, like finding more funding for research, the need for multi-disciplinary teams, and why education is so boring.

Al Uszynski has trained salespeople at the university level and he joined us to share his insights on selling right now.

He shares some adaptations to current restrictions as well as creative ideas for selling online that will be even more useful when we can get face-to-face. But the real question that comes out of this conversation is: Should we be asking sales staff to be marketers? Can we really learn new tricks? And what are we losing as we pass through the quarantine?

We also call for a new mode of etiquette and offer some advice on how to work in other people’s comfort zones.

Let’s sell our way out of this problem.

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is moving past energy efficiency research and into researching better life indoors. One of their projects was looking into ‘realistic’ lighting in an Neonatal ICU. Andrea Wilkerson, senior lighting researcher, shared her findings for sun-like colour and brightness automation. Beyond what happened during the test we explore some of the broader implications of circadian entrainment and it’s ability to signal behaviour and mood in subtle ways.

We also settle the question of whether or not we can meaningfully or honestly label something as ‘Circadian-Friendly’ and continue to probe into why we see so many women in lighting research.

Kevin Poyck just had his legs under him as CEO and President of Signify’s Americas Market Group when the outbreak threw his business into chaos. He shares his thoughts on virtual offices, managing at a distance, and the shape of post-pandemic normalcy. What really brought him to our show today was a recent study at Boston University that confirmed how effective a new Signify UVC lamp really is, which leads to a vintage Philips UV disinfection manual and the modern rush for germicidal lamps.

It’s time for us all to turn a page as we proceed out of our current crisis.

Ray Molony edits Lux Review, and in one month into lockdown he wrote what he considered to be the eight effects the lighting sector will see coming out of the current health crisis. Read that here:
https://www.luxreview.com/2020/04/14/8-effects-of-the-crisis-on-the-lighting-sector/.

After seeing it we had to invite him to push back and expand on his ideas, we shared our thoughts on established brands losing footing, payment terms changing, calls for quality over savings, local production, what the basics of lighting even means to both our clients and vendors, and how we can adapt to the near future. We did also add a ninth effect, but you’ll have to listen to the episode to find out.

Beyond the article itself, we haven’t had a chance to really grill an expert from Europe, so we took a chance to talk about their market and trade shows.

As an industry and a people we don’t have a path to recover from current circumstances, but we know what to watch for for now.

Signify’s Robert Lee returns to the show to elaborate on an article he wrote for LEDs Magazine on what SSL lighting will look like in 2030 - you can read it here:

https://www.ledsmagazine.com/smart-lighting-iot/article/14168528/picture-the-future-of-ssl-within-the-mirror-world-magazine

We get into the technologies that will converge to make the next decade of lighting a mirrorworld of augmented reality.

We also go over topics like consumer apathy in the face of new features, cost increases, the burdens of maintaining the IoT, what to do with all that data, privacy, security and the question of conflicting circadian prescriptions.

Jim Colantoni starts our conversation with him explaining the background of his company and how they’re working to create lighting tools for health and wellness. We get into the background and particulars of UVC technologies. Michael and Greg delve into discussions of safety concerns, future building codes, the lack of efficiency of LED in this case, confrontations with buzzwords, and the growing importance of listening to the customer.

The King of Lighting, Ellis Yan, returns to the main series and he brought Lesley Matt, Senior VP of Sales at TCP Along with him. They share their current virtual lunch and learn series, and the company’s own rebate and incentive program before diving into the real lighting dork content with us.

We discussed offering more colors, building drivers, modularity and replaceable parts in outdoor lighting, the meaning of ‘Full Spectrum’, creating something will match the usefulness of MR16s, and creating a new story for lighting as we move out of the efficiency era.