That’s Brilliant! – Details, episodes & analysis

Lighting controls are evolving and creating new opportunities. While the technology can seem daunting, you don’t necessarily need to be an expert to incorporate a control system into your lighting designs.

In this episode, Raelle sits down with C. Webster Marsh of Penumbra Controls and host of the Lighting Controls Podcast to discuss what’s new and evolving in lighting controls and how you can take advantage of these changes to strengthen your business model. Plus, hear Webster’s take on what’s most exciting about the future of controls.

Show notes

C. Webster Marsh is the owner of Penumbra Controls, where he provides lighting and lighting controls design, specification guidance, and education. Webster brings over 20 years of applied experience with lighting and lighting controls, and he enjoys sharing his wealth of knowledge with the industry. He is a Certified Lighting Controls Practitioner, Lighting Controls Association contributor, and instructor and speaker for various industry groups. In his spare time, he co-hosts the Lighting Controls Podcast.

Hosted by Raelle Bell

Produced by Association Briefings

Bridging the gap between technology and design, lighting is an essential element to every space. Understanding style and design, choosing the right products, and ensuring a beautiful and functional layout require time, expertise, and an awareness of personal style. In this episode, Raelle sits down with Traditional Home’s Editor in Chief Jill Waage and Style and Design Editor Krissa Rossbund to discuss the most recent issue of Lighting magazine. Plus, they dive into what’s leading the design world, how to balance your personal style with what’s trending, and the keys to creating beautiful living spaces.

Show notes

The most recent issue of Lighting magazine, produced by the ALA Advertising & PR Program in partnership with DotDash Meredith and Traditional Home, is now available in select ALA-member showrooms and on newsstands across the U.S. and Canada. Click here to find your local lighting showroom or view the digital copy online here.

Jill Waage is the Editor in Chief of Traditional Home magazine and Dotdash Meredith’s Premium Portfolio of over 100 newsstand titles in the home, garden, and food categories. She is a Chicago-area native and a proud graduate of Drake University, where she studied journalism and interior design.

Krissa Rossbund is the style and design editor at Traditional Home. She covers décor, entertaining, and home tours, and has experience writing about all kind of design styles, from boho to nautical.

Hosted by Raelle Bell

Produced by Association Briefings

Merchandising your lighting showroom? Hang something no one has ever seen. Your showroom will be memorable, and a place to discover the new and unusual. Even if your customers end up buying a bread-and-butter piece from the catalog. That’s just a taste of the advice we get from Mary Soeder of PDI Nashville – where lighting sales increased by 120% over the past five years.

Show notes

Mary Soeder, a Business Development Manager at PDI Nashville, has been with the company for over 12 years and in the industry for 16+ years. Soeder, a Nashville native, became accustomed to working with designers and their preferences while at PDI in Atlanta and later came home to open the Nashville showroom.

She was recently featured in Nashville Interiors recognizing her outstanding work in the lighting, kitchen, and bath industry. Mary is commended not only for her contributions to PDI, but in her charitable work with the Ronald McDonald House in Nashville and Our Little Roses, an all-girls home in Honduras that gives girls of all ages a safe, loving home and education. When she is not working, she enjoys traveling, live music, and trying new restaurants in her hometown.

Education, Education, Education!  ALAEducation.com

See you in Lake Tahoe for the ALA Conference! 

Raelle Bell – Host Liz Ware – Host Association Briefings - Producer

You may be tempted to avoid “Light & The Aging Eye” topics. But designing a well-lit room for folks with low vision can help those of us with healthy eyes in our 40s and beyond. Tom Butters sits down with Raelle and Liz to tell us all about it.

Show notes

Further reading:

Lighting Your Way to Better Vision is a non-technical document from the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES,) addressing vision issues from extreme low vision to aging in place and how lighting can help improve quality of life. 

RP-28 is a technical document, produced by the IES.  Get a copy of Lighting and the Visual Environment for Older Adults and the Visually Impaired

Glossary:

Foveal Vision: The seeing of objects in the central (foveal) part of the visual field, approximately two degrees in diameter. It permits seeing much finer detail than does peripheral vision.

Specular: of, relating to, or having the qualities of a mirror

Bio:

Tom Butters LC, – Founder and Executive Director of The Lighting Agora

Tom Butters, LC, is the creative mind and developer behind some of the most well received educational tools and events of the global lighting industry. Since 1986, Tom has worked in or served the entire array of the lighting industry. He uses this diverse background and empathy to understand the needs of the individual or organization to deliver high quality lighting education to suit the precise needs of the user. Tom is a proud board member of the Nuckolls’ Fund for Lighting Education and an Emeritus Member of the IES.

Tom is a multiple award-winning lighting educator who counts the following as some of his proudest accomplishments.

• Director of the team that won the 2020 Lightfair Innovation Judge’s Citation Award for the on-line “IES eLearning Portal”
• IES Section Service Award – 2018
• IES Toronto Section’s prestigious G.G. Cousins Award – 2015
• IES Toronto Section Mentorship Award – 2011
• Canlyte’s initial class of Certificate of Achievement in Lighting Excellence – 2007

While awards represent his professional success, Tom considers his true success to be the hundreds of former education attendees whom he has helped find passion through lighting. The Lighting Agora intends to continue this trend on a global stage.

See you in Lake Tahoe for the ALA Conference! 

Raelle Bell – Host Liz Ware – Host Association Briefings - Producer

The color rendering needs in a space vary, so how could one number accurately depict which light source renders colors “best?”

While Color Rendering Index (CRI) provides one metric, TM-30 provides a robust suite of metrics that convey much more information than any previous attempt at characterizing color rendering. Jason Livingston, co-chair of the IES Color Committee, explains what TM-30 is (and isn’t) to Liz and Raelle, and explores how we can use TM-30 when evaluating lighting needs.

Show notes

Jason is the principal of Studio T+L. His lighting work has garnered awards from the Illuminating Engineering Society and project profiles in Lighting Design + Application, Lighting & Sound America, Design Bureau, and Architectural SSL. He is a co-author of the IES’s Lighting Science 5 – Color and Design Guide 1 – Color and Illumination. He is also the author of a leading lighting design textbook, Design with Light: The Art Science, and Practice of Architectural Lighting Design.

Download ANSI/IES TM-30 IES Method for Evaluating Light Source Color Rendition for Free!

Check out this DOE webinar on understanding and applying TM-30.

Lighting Agora has great lighting speakers, instructors, and consultants.

Seen you in Lake Tahoe for the ALA Conference! 

Raelle Bell – Host Liz Ware – Host Association Briefings - Producer

We expect LED lamps to act like incandescent lamps, but they don’t. Why is that, and what do we need to consider to make LED light beautiful? From flicker, to burn out, to the color just seeming “off,” there are reasons why consumers run into issues and report dissatisfaction with their LED light bulbs. Don Peifer joins Raelle and Liz, taking us through the key points to consider as we switch from a hot glowing wire (tungsten) to the glowing computer that is an LED.

Show notes

Don began his career in lighting as a designer for film and fashion. He designed the lighting for Annie Leibovitz, Steven Klein and a variety of award-winning cinematographers. He received his Masters of Architectural Sciences in Lighting from the Lighting Research Center at RPI. He designed the lighting for the Nike Media Store in NYC.  In 2007, he founded Lunera Lighting, a venture-backed start-up, which provided lighting for the fleet of Apple Stores and scores of Fortune 500 companies.

He has worked with many of the industry leading manufacturers including Acuity Brands Lighting, where he was the VP of Innovation and Legrand, where he held the position of Creative Director for the Lighting Sector. 

He is currently the founder of Smash the Bulb, a luminaire manufacturer that uses alternative manufacturing techniques, circular design and sustainable materials to address issues with the current paradigm of lighting. In February, 2022, Smash the bulb was awarded one of 4 L-Prizes by the Department of Energy. 

Don has lots of great information.  We put together a glossary to help out.  Send us an email at Podcast@ALALighting.com if we missed a term you’d like defined.

25°C = 77°F

85°C = 185°F

A Type Lamp

Electrolytic Capacitor

MOS-FET

Peltier cooling

Phosphor

YAGs - Yttrium Aluminum Garnet LED Phosphor

TAGs- Terbium Aluminum Garnet LED Phosphor

Tungsten

Underdrive

Lighting Agora has great lighting speakers, instructors and consultants. They put us in touch with Don, and can put you in touch with a lighting expert, too.

Loved listening to Don?  He talks more about his work on the Get A Grip on Lighting podcast.

We’ll be at Lightovation in Dallas June 21 – 24. Come to our free seminars in TM4826.

Raelle Bell – Host

Liz Ware – Host

Association Briefings - Producer

Hear from the executive editor of Lighting magazine on what’s trending as we prepare to release the 2023 issue. Plus, she’ll share some expert insight with Raelle and Liz on the important role lighting and lighting showrooms play in home design.

Show notes

Samantha Hart is Executive Editor of the Home Design group for Better Homes and Gardens. In that role, she oversees the group’s high-end decorating titles, including Lighting, Country Home, Modern Farmhouse Style, Beautiful Kitchens & Baths, Dream Kitchens & Baths, Country French, Cottage Style, and more. She also manages the group’s storage & organizing, do-it-yourself, and holiday-focused titles. Originally from Cape Town, South Africa, Samantha joined Meredith Corporation (now Dotdash Meredith) in 2006. She lives with her husband and two daughters in the Des Moines area. 

Lighting magazine is made possible by the ALA Advertising & PR Program, which is supported by member funding. To learn more about this program and how you can get free copies of Lighting for your showroom, email Amy@ALALighting.com.

Go to the ALA Conference! 

Visit ALAMembers.com for more information about the American Lighting Association and membership.

ALALighting.com has lighting tips and inspiration, and a listing of ALA-member showrooms. 

Raelle Bell – Host

Liz Ware – Host

Association Briefings - Producer

Raelle and Liz sit down with ALA’s new President and CEO to find out his plans for ALA.

Show notes

Larry Lauck was just named American Lighting Association’s new president and chief executive officer. He talks to Raelle and Liz about what will change, and what will stay the same as he develops the ALA’s next five-year plan. Plus, learn how you can get more involved with ALA.

To see the full press release, visit ALAMembers.com.

With more than 27 years of experience working for ALA as a member of the association’s senior management, Larry most recently served as executive vice president.

During his tenure with ALA, Larry has consistently placed a focus on improving the association and taking strategic steps to enhance its programs and membership. He was responsible for spearheading the research and execution of the association’s training and education programs.

Prior to working for ALA, Larry managed affiliate public relations at HBO. He studied journalism and public relations at The University of Texas at Austin and holds his MBA with a focus on business strategy from Southern Methodist University.

Lauck will officially take over as President and CEO March 1, 2023. 

Go to the ALA Conference! 

Visit ALAMembers.com for more information about the American Lighting Association and membership.

ALALighting.com has lighting tips and inspiration, and a listing of ALA-member showrooms. 

Raelle Bell – Host

Liz Ware – Host

Association Briefings - Producer

Do you want to use an led light bulb, or use a fixture with the LEDs built in? Raelle and Liz discuss the topic with Chris Primous, who wrote a paper on the subject.

Show notes

With over 24 years in product development, sales, and consulting with companies such as Acuity, Progress Lighting, MaxLite, and EPA/ENERGY STAR, Chris Primous has well-rounded industry experience. A 2018 ALA Pillar of the Industry award winner, Primous is the current VP of Business Development and Sales at LiteTrace where he provides software and sensors to manufacturers and building owners for smart commercial lighting controls.

To read the industry version of Chris’s whitepaper on this subject:

https://alamembers.com/Portals/1/Socketed%20vs%20Integrated%20LED%20Guidance%20ALA_1.pdf

A consumer version will come out soon.

Go to the ALA Conference! 

Visit ALAMembers.com for more information about the American Lighting Association and membership.

ALALighting.com has lighting tips and inspiration, and a listing of ALA-member showrooms. 

Raelle Bell – Host

Liz Ware – Host

Association Briefings - Producer

You don’t have to be an expert to offer your customers incredible tape light solutions, you just need to know who to ask. Dane Brock of Richard Alan & Associates walks Liz and Raelle through the key considerations when it comes to selling tape light. Plus, he offers some insightful ideas on how you can sell just about any product in your showroom if you have a strong industry network.

Show notes

Beginning in college, Dane realized that he had a passion for lighting when he was presented the opportunity to do lighting design and programming in the theater.  That love of lighting has only increased in the 16 years that he has been in the residential lighting industry.  Beginning with showroom sales, management and outside sales, Dane concentrated on technical lighting specification and training on LED usage within residential and commercial projects.  In 2015, he had the opportunity to join Richard Alan & Associates as a manufacturer's representative and in 2020 earned his Certified Lighting Manufacturer's Representative Certification with the American Lighting Association.

Visit ALAMembers.com for more information about the American Lighting Association and membership.

ALALighting.com has lighting tips and inspiration, and a listing of ALA-member showrooms. 

Raelle Bell – Host

Liz Ware – Host

Association Briefings - Producer