Photo: © Sjaak Ramakers
We are talking about an entrepreneur and 'management guru' Eckart Wintzen. With his progressive vision and unconventional ideas, he was undoubtedly the most eccentric entrepreneur of his generation. In 2001, now 20 years ago, we collaborated with Eckart on a project that he initiated. He proved to be ahead of his time.
First, a brief introduction to the man who was even parodied by Van Kooten & de Bie. After ten years of experience in automation at multinationals, he founded the Dutch subsidiary of the American GTE/Information Systems in 1973. In 1976, he acquired the company through a management buy-out and renamed it BSO (Bureau voor Systeem Ontwikkeling). The company operated as a service provider in computer automation. It was also the place where his groundbreaking celfilosofie came to life. A management concept in which a company is divided into many small, fully independent units (cells). In 1996, BSO/Origin, as the company was now called, merged with the automation division of Philips. The company had grown to 75 offices in 20 countries, and as a result of the merger, it had more than 10,000 employees worldwide. In 1996, after his successes, he said goodbye and followed his green heart.
In the forests of Austerlitz, he focused on ethical and sustainable entrepreneurship. He founded Ex'tent, which stands for 'Eckart's tent.' As a green venture capital fund, it invests in green projects. With this, he gave the free market economy a push in the right direction. Some of the most notable 'green' projects he invested in included Ben & Jerry’s and Greenwheels. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2008 at the age of 68 from a heart attack.
Under his leadership, we had the opportunity to collaborate on a new system for video calling that allowed for direct eye contact.
Eckart, or 'Head of Chaos' as stated on his business card, had a clear vision in mind: to reduce the burden on the ecosystem, we need to move towards a world where we travel and fly less. By improving video calling — especially the eye contact aspect — we eliminate the 'necessity' to travel. Together, we came up with the product called the Eye Catcher.
In the innovative design of the Eye Catcher, you can look the person directly in the eyes.
In an interview with ITContract, Eckart emphasized the advantages of the Eye Catcher in his eccentric way: 'With this, you no longer need thousands of tons of steel to fly two kilograms of brains to a meeting. Fuel is unnecessary. Two megabytes of bandwidth is sufficient. Yes, that’s quite a bit, but many companies already have that in place between their offices."
The product consists of a flat LCD screen, with the image reflected in a mirror tilted towards the user. Behind the semi-transparent mirror is a camera that looks directly at the user, allowing for direct eye contact. This enables immediate response to each other's non-verbal communication. Even 20 years later, this innovation addresses the challenge of current online communication, where people still do not look each other directly in the eyes during video calls.
The Eye Catcher was designed to enhance communication. The design resembles a pedestal on which the screen is placed, literally putting the person you are calling on a pedestal. The screen opens theatrically and positions itself automatically to the pre-set height, which you can adjust using the control buttons on the front. You intuitively follow a 'path' to reach the correct settings. Even then, we were deeply engaged in UI/UX design.
The development work mainly involved engineering the various moving parts and integrating a screen as flat as possible for the camera behind the mirror. This camera featured pan and zoom capabilities.
Looking back, the Eye Catcher was ahead of its time; the necessary technologies were not yet mature enough, the prevailing mindset was not supportive, and the cost was too high. It is remarkable that one person was able to create products and services that are more relevant today than ever, requiring only two financial crises and a pandemic to embrace his progressive ideas.
We are known for our distinctive designs, with which we have already won many prestigious design awards. We develop products with the right choices of materials and constructions, using knowledge of the latest technology and always with attention to people and the environment.
