Well the big news of this week, this month and possibly this year is that Colin Guinn is back in the multicopter business and this time with 3D Robotics, his employment was confirmed this afternoon.
Colin Guinn was the global face of DJI on YouTube, known for his tutorials on using the Phantom, he specifically credited his team for DJI’s 27,000 Facebook likes and 30,000 YouTube subscribers and millions of views in the injunction against DJI that was filed on 22nd of January 2014.
The fact 3D Robotics is a US company and Guinn has experience building up a multicopter brand in America makes for an interesting combination.
The multicopter masses had a love hate relationship with Colin Guinn, his tutorials on the Phantom were universally well received but there was frustration that problems such as fly-aways were never really addressed except on one video by Mitch Bergsma, which DJI recently tried to have taken down but appeared to relent after a social media outcry, even this video presented fly-aways as a preventable user error which isn’t a fair analysis.
If Colin Guinn enters the social media limelight for 3D Robotics, it would be welcomed if this time around there’s a more open and honest appraisal of the benefits along with the risks of using multicopters.
Colin Guinn clearly is successful at marketing but new users of multicopters such as those from professional photography backgrounds expect excellent customer service such as that offered by Canon, so marketing spin alone isn’t enough. 3D Robotics has to date offered, especially to IRIS users, very good customer service, that is a focus it cannot afford to lose.
3D Robotics is playing catch up, whilst its newest quadcopter the IRIS has a loyal following and has a lot of power features, it clearly wasn’t designed for video photography and the offering of the Tarot gimbal really isn’t inspiring. With Colin Guinn on board, could his passion for creating video with multicopters help 3D Robotics redefine its product offerings?
Comments
I'm not sure how people can pin this on Colin. Was Colin the calling the shots on this, or were his hands tied?
To answer that, maybe have a look at how things are in DJI-land now that he's not there. Well, they recently went through a completely terrible situation with the A2, their flagship controller. The system has been for sale for how long now? Until recently, it seems people have not been happy with the performance. As if it was released before the firmware was ready. Then, a fix was pushed out with the number 2.2 However, early testers found the firmware was VERY bad, and pretty much crash-o-matic. A few days later, after a number of people crashed expensive machines, DJI's representatives on various web forums stated that the problem had been fixed by DJI who replaced the firmware being dispensed by the servers, BUT DID NOT REV THE NUMBER! This led to a lot of confusion. Some people didn't believe the representatives, because there was no mention of this officially from DJI. And some people wanted to know how to get the update, it wasn't clear. If they already had the "old 2.2" then there was no way to update to the "new 2.2". Because DJI's uploader thought they were up to date. The only way to force it, was to use a link in an obscure post by a DJI Rep, to backdate to 2.1. Then, if they re-update, they'd get the "new 2.2".
Meanwhile, one user had bought a brand new RTF system from a DJI dealer, and assumed the 2.2 that was on it was the fixed version. There was no way to tell. Nope. Crash.
Finally, several days later DJI released 2.3. They never admitted to causing a mess, or even the faults with the old one. But just cited a few random improvements.
I'll let you decide if you think Colin is responsible for DJI's mess 6 months after he left.
Not sure if there was any truth to the 1 Reddit conspiracy theory, but at least it didn't affect his bottom line. If he was a worker, it would have ended his career.
I figured that was why 3DR opened an Austin office so suddenly when they have 3 offices on the west coast.
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