tormach open house 2015: john and john

As I mentioned, John Saunders and John Grimsmo were in attendance at the recent Tormach Open House. I was fortunate enough to get a chance to talk to both of them. I know there were just swamped with people wanting to talk to them, so I appreciate them being so gracious with their time. They did a session on running a business, making things for a living, and their sponsored work with Tormach. 

It was really interesting to hear about how things changed for them both when they turned the camera around and started filming themselves in their videos. I was also intrigued by the fact that they both have such a following as a result of You Tube, but that they neither one rely on any other form of advertising; this is a real paradigm shift in my opinion. Think of it as the next phase in reality  TV, but it also starts to challenge the typical form of education as they share information to an incredibly large audience. Their popularity at the event is proof enough of this, not to mention them discussing machinists from Telsa and other major manufacturers who subscribe to their channel and contribute to their knowledge base. 

I personally have followed both of these guys early in their machining careers. I started checking out the NYCCNC site when John had a Taig set up in his NYC apartment, and I remember telling Eric about Grimsmo when he was using his little Grizzly CNC conversion. It stuck me at the time that John Grimsmo was willing to show all of his failures as well as his successes. 

John Saunders gave some of the best advice that I feel most of us need to hear: "just get out there and do something regardless of all of the people who feel the need to hand out advice on why you shouldn't do something" also "fail often and fail fast". Pretty much sums up why I have respect for both of these guys. I have a feeling I could have sat down and chatted with both of these guys for a long while.