Our company name, Eisenworks, is derived from Darrell's family name, which was Eisennagel before the authorities at Ellis Island changed it to Icenogle. German surnames were often trade names. The name Eisennagel (German for iron nail) told people that Darrell's ancestors were in the nail making business. As it turns out, our business has nothing to do with making nails. We just liked the name.
Before launching Eisenworks, we worked for other companies and a few educational institutions. Darrell was a software engineer at Avid Technology, working on one of the most prevalent media editing suites used by pros in the movie/video making industry, and at Digital Equipment Corporation. Prior to that, he was involved in developing alternative strategies for adult education while working for University of California Extension, San Diego and Western Behavioral Sciences Institute. Kathy spent many years developing computer-based instruction and online documentation for various high tech companies around the Northeast. That experience gave us a reasonably good foundation on which to launch a business.
We are both comfortable with multi-media and web technology, and excited by its potential as a medium for learning and communication.
A few years ago, we began working with an open-source content management system called Drupal to develop a community news site, an online business directory, and a municipal website for our home town of Dunstable, MA. As screencasting technology emerged, we saw an opportunity to provide effective instruction in the use of software and other technologies, so we launched Mainstream Guides, which is proving to be a rather popular site.
More recently, we have been building a site that is focused on video technology at the consumer/enthusiast level. FlipinFocus.com is the first of several sites that will focus on a particular home video product. We have plans to launch other video product-specific websites that will all be tied into VideoinFocus.com, which is designed to serve the needs of video enthusiasts in general.
Sometimes it seems like we work on these websites 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. But, as you'll see in some of our videos, we occasionally take time out for family and friends. We have a really cool 16 year old son, an incredibly cute dog, and two cats whose main interest seems to hiding from the dog.
