Rob Eddy provides update on growing Info-graphics company
By Tom Ballard, Chief Alliance Officer, PYA
“We’re living in a show me, don’t tell me generation,” Rob Eddy told us recently when we had lunch to discuss the evolution of their technical communications business at Info-graphics.
We first profiled the company, located in the same building as PYA, in February 2012, less than a month after teknovation.biz launched. During the ensuing five years, we have been impressed with the manner in which the company’s President has been willing to adapt to the ever-changing needs of his current customers, many of whom have been with Info-graphics for two decades, as well as make adjustments to secure new ones.
“Forty percent of our business today is animation,” Eddy told us. That’s a radical change from a company that was started to focus on the more traditional instruction manuals for buyers and service technicians.
And, it was just five years ago – about the time we met Eddy – that the company built the first interactive training tool for a customer.
Today, he describes Info-graphics as “a technical content generator” for an ever-broadening set of clients. “We want to constantly stay ahead of the curve and put content wherever our clients need it.”
With that goal in mind, Eddy has forged a strategic alliance with CodeTank Labs. As reported in this teknovation.biz article, Andrew May of ADM Software Consulting and Dave Levi of Double Apps Inc. combined their companies in mid-2016 under a single brand that will go by the name.
“This new relationship has helped us land new customers but also deepened our engagements with our existing clients,” Eddy says.
One such example is an animated and interactive tool that the two companies are developing to showcase a new energy management technology that was developed for a major west coast university.
“It’s our first project with this client and a great example of how we’re working with our friends at CodeTank Labs,” Eddy said.
For several years, I have heard him talk about virtual reality (VR) and the impact that it would have on Info-graphics’ business.
“AR (artificial reality) and VR are the next platforms where people are wanting to place technical content,” Eddy said. “Pokémon Go showed us the potential. We have engagements with big corporate clients that need this type of technology, and CodeTank Labs has the development expertise.”
Other new Info-graphics customers include Broan-Nutone, Johnson Controls, Grainger and Briggs & Stratton.
For Eddy, industry sector does not matter.
“We’ll build your content; you tell us where you want it,” he explains. “The real value is building the content once, and then using it on multiple platforms – print, web, tablet and phone.”
Info-graphics produced a highlights video that you can review here.
