CK interview "auf deutsch"

  • so what he said about future of KPA ?

    1988 Branko Radulovic Hand Made Strat in Macedonia (SFRJ)

    2006 Steve Vai vwh moded with SS frets and Sustainac 2006 (Japan)

    2008 Fender YJM , moded (USA)

    2010 Tom Andersons Drop Top 2010 (made in California)

    2017 Charvel GG sig Caramelised Ash (USA)

    2022 Gibson ES 335 2011 Custom Shop Cherry of course ( Memphis)

  • so what he said about future of KPA ?


    Nothing specific - he mentions that - as with the evolution of the Virus - there are many plans for the future of the KPA. But I mean: What is he supposed to say? When I have a look at what's going on here in the forum, I am not surprised at all that he avoids mentioning specific ideas and plans.

  • Thanks Joerch ! :)


    Nothing specific - he mentions that - as with the evolution of the Virus - there are many plans for the future of the KPA. But I mean: What is he supposed to say? When I have a look at what's going on here in the forum, I am not surprised at all that he avoids mentioning specific ideas and plans.

    1988 Branko Radulovic Hand Made Strat in Macedonia (SFRJ)

    2006 Steve Vai vwh moded with SS frets and Sustainac 2006 (Japan)

    2008 Fender YJM , moded (USA)

    2010 Tom Andersons Drop Top 2010 (made in California)

    2017 Charvel GG sig Caramelised Ash (USA)

    2022 Gibson ES 335 2011 Custom Shop Cherry of course ( Memphis)

  • ... But I mean: What is he supposed to say? When I have a look at what's going on here in the forum, I am not surprised at all that he avoids mentioning specific ideas and plans.


    I disagree with this, sorry.
    It's just a matter of how the company and its management deal with the feedback. If they take it personal and negative, of course they try to go the seemingly easy way. I know that it's common practice to keep the doors closed as much as possible. But that doesn't mean that this is the best solution.
    Some companies have learned to take the mix of requests, complaints, questions, reminders as a valuable and positive expression of interest and community feel. No need to get angry or offended by a few individual negative posts. Openness can be a very welcome and appreciated attitude and it can contribute a lot to a positive brand recognition.

  • Hi,


    of course I can share a few company names. But it really depends on what you accept as "being open".
    First let me post a link to an article that imho is a good read.


    So if you read this article, you understand, that "openness" doesn't necessarily mean that you publicly share detailed future product feature lists at the earliest planning stage, although it can, of course. But there's a growing number of companies that encourage their staff to blog or tweet publicly, even their personal thoughts on future products or asking the community for feedback in certain topics. Sometimes they're even allowed or encouraged to share some sneak peeks of upcoming new products or new versions of products.


    There's a whole arsenal of tools a company can use to create a general feel of "openness". Let me give you a few examples regarding Kemper:


    1. Perform Mode
    They had a first implementation of "Peform Mode" on the KPA shown at Musikmesse. They could have easily produced a short video with a demo of the feature and some words on what, how and why. That wouldn't hurt them at all, otherwiese they wouldn't have shown it at Musikmesse. But for some reason they don't want to talk about it here. Isn't that kind of strange and disturbing for those highly interested in the KPA and its evolution?


    2. Bug reports & forums
    My personal impression (and I dare to claim I'm not the only one) is that once a bug is being reported, Kemper's first response takes a. to long and b. most of the time is kind of neglecting the existance of the bug. Like "how can you say that there's a bug when we can't see it, can't reproduce it?". That's not really good practice, imho. Expecially if the reporting user(s) aren't first time posters.


    3. Blog & Facebook:
    Blogging is non ecistant in Kemper world and Facebook is used for marketing only. No honest and open communication appeal there. Open would be something like: "Wow, today we busted a stupid, small bug in Pitch Shifting effects. Glad we got this solved, thanks to those who helped to hunt it down. Next firmware beta update soon."
    This kind of communication doesn't hurt anybody, it doesn't help the competitors. it's just what it is: Open and honest.


    4. Kemper Foot Controller:
    If CK is 100% convinced that he invents and produces superior products, why is he so shy and can't provide some layout graphics of the current Controller design or some other bits of information like: "Hey guys, I think today is a good day to tell you, that we will use Ethernet for the Foot Controller". Small bits of information and news that can't seriously hurt the business but give public proof of ongoing work and the will to share.


    Anyway, I just feel they are much to afraid of sharing anything publicly where they shouldn't be afraid. If they learned how to filter the unavoidable feedback "when will it be ready?" and just focus on the general "feel" and "shown interest" of the community feedback, they can benefit as well as the community. Companies can learn to take even negative customer feedback as something positive: The community cares, no matter how individuals express their opinions!


    Ok, finally one example of a company that learned to be way more open than years ago: Adobe. Many of their staff run their own blogs and frequently post bits of information and opinions and publicly call for opinions and ideas and actively support the community in many many ways. And most of them are very open to direct feedback and respond if the feedback is valuable ... although most of them are VERY busy.


    Cheers,
    Martin


    PS: Nachbar? :?:


  • I disagree with this, sorry.
    It's just a matter of how the company and its management deal with the feedback. If they take it personal and negative, of course they try to go the seemingly easy way. I know that it's common practice to keep the doors closed as much as possible. But that doesn't mean that this is the best solution.
    Some companies have learned to take the mix of requests, complaints, questions, reminders as a valuable and positive expression of interest and community feel. No need to get angry or offended by a few individual negative posts. Openness can be a very welcome and appreciated attitude and it can contribute a lot to a positive brand recognition.

    Amen.


  • 100% AGREE with your arguments!!!! 100%!!!... as a modern company EVERYTHING is about keeping the contact with my customers... it is not enough to suck the infos from the forum and never feed it back. I claim that 2 years Kemper sold the performance mode (and me too) it was wrong! the product didn't have at least one single bit of performance mode for public usage. thats really a shame... it was simply a lie! Ok.. now we have it and I AM REALLY REALLY HAPPY...MANY THANKS!!!... but in the end there are concerns left. There a lot of nicknames in the forum (i dont care who they are) coming from inside the Kemper company who in fact don't live customer relationship management.


    finaly lets hope that my different pices of equipment to compensate missing KPA equipment such as: editing tool for rigs, midi software for changing rigs, midi hardware to change rigs on stage, different foot controllers to manage my rigs and settings on stage, night of spent time to turn the knobs because of missing editor tools to organize all my rigs, etc. are not longer needed at least end of summer. The USB/ethernet connection of the KPA to the PC/MAC and the software to maintain, and the integrated foot controller is highly welcome... Please give us a sign what circumstances will meet our expectations and roughly when...

    ...I had a lot of equipment... but 2012 I got the KPA.... :)

  • I don't know what your problem is. There is this feature request forum and the company has already implemented a lot of our requests and also their staff is srufing the forum and answering questions. What more do you want?! It's a company that develops and sells profesional audio gear and not a fashion blog.


    And just to set something straigt about the interview part about the future of the kemper because it kinda got lost in translation, they asked him what he thinks about the sustainibility of the KPA and he said that they have more than enough ideas to keep it going. So this communication policy discusion is pretty off-topic, like the first half of my post ...d'oh!