On this day five years ago, I released the first three parts of the “PLC programming using TwinCAT 3” course on YouTube. Over the following 21 months, I would release the rest of the 15 parts of the course. In the end I spent a total of 700+ hours making this course, which turned this into my biggest hobby-project ever. In the now five years this course has existed, it’s been watched by tens of thousands of people equating to so many watch-hours that I would have to spend multiple lifetimes if I held this course the traditional (in a classroom) way instead. The crazy thing is that the watching curve doesn’t flatten out, it increases! The more time passes, the more people watch the course! So YouTube is apparently an extremely effective way to share your knowledge.
I’m beyond overwhelmed by the response this course has gotten, and thanks to it I’ve talked to and met a lot of interesting people from all over the world. I appreciate all the feedback that has been provided to me. It gave me a very good understanding of what people primarily struggle with starting with PC-based control, which can be quite different compared to working with the more “traditional” PLC-programming platforms. The last years I think I’ve managed to get a decent understanding of what people like, and dislike, using Beckhoff’s TwinCAT 3. I even got a handful of messages from people that managed to land a job (at a systems integrator, or even at Beckhoff!) thanks to my course. It’s this kind of feedback that makes it worthwhile to create content.
What’s the next step? I regularly receive messages asking when my next Beckhoff course lands on YouTube, so I want to take the time to share some thoughts with everyone. Let’s start with the bad stuff. Unfortunately this course (in combination of TcUnit) has led to an unsustainable amount of work for me in the form of questions from people and companies that want to get started with (or convert to) Beckhoff. Though some of it has lead to great job opportunities for me, a disproportionate amount of it is basically me being an unpaid Beckhoff marketing/support/sales guy. My point is that the 700+ hours I spent on making the course are just a fraction of the time I’ve taken to support new users/system integrators on TwinCAT 3. It’s a lot of time every week I’m spending on answering messages. This TwinCAT 3 course (and channel) has basically turned into a marketing channel for Beckhoff (though in no way Beckhoff’s fault). The unfortunate thing is that even to this day, a large fraction of my viewers still thinks I’m working for Beckhoff, and thus assuming that Beckhoff are throwing money at me for providing all the support and sales, which I (again) want to make clear they are not.
I’m happy that my content contributes to Beckhoff’s growth, as I think they currently have the superior industrial automation platform on the market, but the side-effect is not sustainable. What I’m doing right now is honestly really dumb. I can’t be spending this much time in growing someone else’s business. Beckhoff have plenty people in their organization that are much more suitable than me in making good videos. They have people that are much better speakers and presenters than me, and they have a budget that vastly outgrows the ~€5000 I’ve spent in total in equipment/software licenses on making my course. Beckhoff is a multi-billion company and don’t need a random guy from the Internet/YouTube. The fact that so many people watch my videos can be mostly attributed to pure luck. I can probably afford spending 700+ hours on making another Beckhoff course and put it out on YouTube. What I can’t afford and what will bankrupt me personally is doing all the work afterwards. “But you’re a Beckhoff-celebrity” I hear you say. Unfortunately, my local grocery store doesn’t accept the “Beckhoff-celebrity”-currency for payment.
So, what does this mean?
Will I stop making YouTube content? Nope! Will I stop making Beckhoff content? Absolutely not! I love working with Beckhoff technologies! They’ve enabled me to work with some amazing projects that I could only dream of 15 years ago. And technologies aside, more importantly all of this has meant I’ve met so many interesting and talented people.
My idea and goal has always been that industrial automation needs to be more open and knowledge-sharing. I will continue to make content on Beckhoff and TwinCAT 3, as I still think it’s the superior industrial automation platform (as of now, things are changing on the horizon…). However, I will experiment with content on other automation platforms, and more importantly cover topics that are more “general industrial automation” in nature. Questions like: How do you shift focus from manual testing to automated testing? How do you make time estimates of projects? What’s the things that new automation engineers expect from the automation vendors?
In other words, I want this channel to be more “Modern Software Engineering in Automation” and less “Beckhoff Marketing/Sales YouTube Channel”.
There are so many other stories that need to be told, which don’t have to include Beckhoff or TwinCAT. If you’re an automation vendor and think that your products fit in this channel (in the context of “Modern software engineering in industrial automation”), drop me an e-mail! Do you know someone that you think I should interview on my YouTube channel, drop me a message! If you’re a systems integrator and have worked on an exciting project of which you can share some details in a video on my channel, I want to talk with you! I’ll try to broaden my horizon, and five years from now I’m pretty sure I’ll have a good understanding of whether it was a good idea or not.
I want to finish by thanking every single one of my viewers (including the ones that write mean/non-constructive comments on YouTube. You’re helping me with the algorithm) for watching my videos.
Until next time, happy coding! 🧑💻