All,
For the right amount of money, a dedicated land line, and a dedicated
computer, I will function as your dedicated Help Desk. Let me know who is
interested in funding me to be this resource. Let me know how much you think
this resource is worth. As you all know by now unless you've been sleeping,
I am a self-employed professional that takes time to answer your questions
but must quit giving my time away for free.
--
Carol Gardner PE
I am all ears. That being said this needs to be seen by all.
With respect,
Carol
I'm not a contributor, just a reader/learner of this forum as it
pertains to eQuest, so take what I have to say for what its worth. I'm
all for people making money doing whatever makes them happy. I'm also
very appreciative to those that regularly contribute to the questions
and problems posed in this forum. I read through nearly every question
and the corresponding responses. eQuest is a free program and this forum
was set up to support it and reflect its "open sourceness" as a way for
like minded individuals to help each other.
However, I don't feel comfortable with using this forum as the promotion
of a business or doing market research for a prospective business. If
you feel that you are spending to much time and losing revenue because
of it then maybe you need to scale back your contribution. The impact of
you answering less questions would be felt by all because you are a
highly valued subject matter expert. This is the great thing about the
forum though. People can come and go as they please without any
expectations placed upon them.
I hope for your success in whatever you plan on doing.
On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 3:13 PM, Nely Martinez
wrote:
--
Carol Gardner PE
See earlier email about training.
Thank you Nely.
Dear All,
The problem that people seem to be having is that they think it's either one
thing or the other thing. It is never that. As Thich Nhat Hanh says about
non-duality: positive and negative exist together and are organic; you can't
make compost without garbage;you can't grow flowers as well without compost.
Don't turn yourself into a battlefield of right/wrong, should/shouldn't,
free/not free. Another Buddhist concept is desirous attachment. Do you need
to be paid and not pay others for advice? Do you need to be employed and not
allow self employed people to make money? Do you want more, more and more
while others have less, less, and less? Do you want BP to continue to spill
oil and to not take yourselves out of the your comfort zone to help? Today I
asked myself, where can I do the most good? Here or LA or Fla or where? I
heard that I would do the most good here doing what I do best. Doing what I
have done for over 25 years. But I hear you, Nick and the gentleman from
SMUD say no, I want to do it for free. You has to be one or the other.
I guess you must feel that you don't have enough. I am so sorry for you if
that is true! Only you know what is in your heart. Take a minute to notice
and to count your abundant blessings: employment, steady pay check, health
insurance, family, friends, health, wealth. Treat others who have a lack of
any of that with kindness.
In heart and with truth,
Carol Gardner PE
The key to restoring balance is to acknowledge the discomfort, pay attention
to it, and allow it to be released the way it wants to go. Deepak Chopra
Hi Carol,
for what it is worth, you provide a great service and it is your right to
give it away or charge for it, only you can decide. If I may make a
suggestion, provide the service that you can, some are happy to pay you but
there will always be those that won't want to pay. Don't listen to the
nay-sayers.
It sounds like some folks would be happy to pay you for your services and
could benefit from your hard earned experience.
One of my favorite Buddhist says roughly translates to "all things are for a
positive reason".
Good luck
Wayne Seward, CEA, LEED AP BD&C
While this software may be free, it wasn't free to make. I have personally
written software of this nature in the past and let me tell it's not easy.
It takes a lot of skill, experience, and effort and often sleepless nights.
Likewise, to provide one-on-one level support for this or any software of
this nature takes a lot of skill, experience, and effort. If anyone has the
skills and experience to offer this level of one-on-one support and another
person is willing to pay them for their time and expertise, well I just
don't understand the problem. It takes just about as much knowledge,
experience and effort to support this kind of software at that level as it
does to build the software in the first place.
One last question, would it be better to see Carol or anyone with her level
of experience go away because we think it is wrong to want to be compensated
for her experience. Or would it be better to support her in her choices and
maybe she will continue to stay around and help to those of use that
appreciate her help and support?
I don't know about the rest of the folks in this group but I work hard every
day to earn a living, and lately it's getting harder to do that. I don't
have the time to provide hours of free support, but I do appreciate and
support anyone that can.
Thank you for your time and your ear, and I hope you can find a way to
support free enterprise.
Wayne Seward, CEA, LEED AP BD&C
Most receive paybacks from corporations (you can do your own research on corporations). The one who may be self employed may have the freedom. There is my transcendental thought for this transcendental link. May the one who chooses to be self-employed do so by choice and desire, not from rejection from corporations. Anywho, It is nice to sometimes read these unusual posts of (almost) enlightenment verse persons just needing answers to LEED questions. This whole energy bust thing that we do through the remote viewing of computers is fairly new to us considering timeframes. And I don't necessary appreciation of the fact that we are trying to reduce, constrain, mimimize, curtail energy. It is still the same grid.
I do think equest help desk is a good idea and should probably be pursued, just a few years back when I was learning an equest for dummies book probably would have been pretty helpful. One should be working diligently creating there own websites on equest help desks and tools or just write a book. Look at what the sketchup school guys are doing, it is pretty good, but at the same sketchup tube vids are all over. Right now though we are communicators, teachers, code interpreters because many people don't know and want to know or just make sure we give the right answers and as enforcement ramps up. People need to know what we are talking about. I am even still in a job right now where OK lets do energy code compliance when bid sets are due in 3 weeks. Is anyone learning? Some people need to find out the hard way. Play ball!
Carol,
Let me cut through the philosophical stuff and set a starting bid: were I to find myself in need, I would pay $125/hr for one-on-one, pay-per-use, phone/WebEx-style assistance, billed in 0.25 hr increments or each fraction thereof, with a minimum charge of 0.5 hrs. This assumes the person providing the help has both a mechanical engineering degree and years of eQUEST experience, which appears to fit your description. If Portland has not eliminated your Canadian accent, I would gladly pay aboot $126/hr..what?s another loonie, eh? Naturally, there would be a high expectation that you should be able to solve nearly any issue somewhat quickly, and you would have to determine how you want to handle issues you are unable to resolve. However, I have no qualms about charging or paying for one-on-one help?it?s called ?consulting?. In my early days I posted a couple questions and received no responses ? I could?ve just as easily been talking to my HP DeskJet while printing ?I hope that helps? messages to myself. Having an alternate, fee-based help resource would have been a blessing.
If I may enter the philosophical arena for a minute, I?m amazed by the eQUEST users who will comfortably charge their clients thousands of dollars for a model, using ?free? software, but expect free assistance and get up in arms when anyone brings up the idea of fee-based help (or that it would be brought up on a forum created for eQUEST help). There has been talk about helping for ?the greater good of the modeling community?, but I don?t find it to be intellectually honest. Such a notion is predicated on an equal contribution from all participants, but the reality is that there are far more help-seekers than help-providers, and such will always be the case with voluntary forums. Quick questions that can be answered in five minutes are not an issue, and the forum is wonderful for that, but when it turns into me taking an hour or two to go through someone?s model for free, while they get paid for my findings, is not inherently good for me or the community. It has been done for me in the past, and I have paid it forward. However, there are not enough active participants to make this standard operating procedure. I also refute the notion that having an alternate help source undermines the forum; the two are not mutually exclusive.
So, Carol, please put out your shingle. I might break my model just for an excuse to call you.
DAKOTA KELLEY
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Yes, PLEASE, someone offer this. We would love to have this kind of option
to help us. Frankly, we?re way overworked (a good thing) and don?t have
time to describe our problems, post to this list and add screen shots, etc.
We?ve tried outsourcing modeling but prefer to have control over the model.
What we need is expertise available real-time that can look at our model
input via Webex, etc. and help us through these models. I would pay good
money for this service. If there are any of you out there that can offer
this, please email me. Thanks.
Michael K. Mantai, PE, CCP, CEM, LEED AP
I third the motion. To get my thoughts in, I don?t think that having eQuest consultants available for hire takes away from the forum at all. The forum is a good place to share experience, philosophies, and get answers to simple questions. But, a community forum is not necessarily a good place to expect time consuming answers to complicated problems.
Having one-on-one guidance available for complicated issues that don?t get answered on the forum could be an extremely valuable additional resource. It could have saved me thousands of dollars over the past several years. I would be happy to pay $125/hr to save me hours, or potentially days, trying to figure it out complex problems on my own. In fact, now that I know someone is available to provide eQuest consulting, I?m going to include a few hundred dollars for QC/trouble shooting expenses in future fee proposals for just this purpose.
Jeremy McClanathan, LEED? AP
Hi Carol, as I told you yesterday, I would be really interested in having advanced training in. E-quest. I have attended others and we have paid $500 for a two day event with about 20 people. If you consider doing something like this let us know. I would definitely attend.
Nely
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
I do not have a strong opinion on this issue because it offers a service not currently available. But to me the issue is one of effect on the whole eQuest community. My fear is that once this service is offered, many who have spent their valuable time offering free advice will tend to back off and let the paid services take up the slack. This will probably reduce the usefulness of the current list and leave small firms and individuals without extra cash out. This may eventually reduce or destroy the value of the free list service. The future of DOE2 and eQuest depends on young beginners who currently have little money and need the free help.
This list is one of the few truly valuable free services available in the world today. It provides a forum for old codgers like me to mentor those younger and less experienced (those who need help the most and can afford it the least), and, currently, I am in good company.
Glenn
All,
I sent an email to Carol but thought I would jump on the bandwagon...
From my understanding, eQUEST is funded through the California government, through grants etc. Would an "eQUEST help desk" grant be an option for receiving funding to do what you are doing? Also, I agree that If this "help desk" was made available, I do not think the listserv would be necessary/used. For example, I am also a member of the TRACE listserve, but receive very few emails, if any, as a member (because there is a paid support staff).
Once individuals would need to pay to get answers to more "complex" questions, this "free" software no longer becomes free. At that point, would it be more useful/cost effective to switch to Trace or Hap who have dedicated (and paid) support staff that answer questions for free (as part of the "seat" cost)?
Thanks to everyone for their contributions,
Gordon D. Schweitzer III, LEED AP BD+C
I write with all of the onebuilding.org lists in mind. If they survive, the onebuilding.org admin can publish and enforce.
I assert that the lists have to stay non-commercial with no money changing hands for any activity on it. Any convoluted attempt otherwise is absurd.
Whoever wants to perform modeling related services for a fee should do so, off of the lists. Best wishes in those endeavors.
Then we just need a few rules about the intersection, I propose:
1) If you post a request to the list you are assumed to be open to free advice and offers of fee based services unless you state otherwise.
2) Those responding to requests with offers of fee based services must do so off of the list, direct to the individual.
3) Individuals who offer fee based services but are legitimately posting to the discussion are allowed a signature line note to that effect like
"Offering modeling review and support services at ... "
4) Posting to list looking for project work is prohibited or constrained (e.g. 1 per quarter).
Paul Riemer
Dunham
P.S. If you are really good at DOE-2 and want to work reviewing and supporting other modelers, I may know just the opportunity for you....for the right price :).
Entertaining discussion going on. Anyone trying to ask California for money is insane (jokingly). There is better chance of winning the lottery than getting a dime from this great state. California is pretty much broke and its not a pretty site here for all the civil servants.
Back to the topic at hand, we live in a capitalistic society and anyone should be able to offer advice/knowledge for whatever price the market will bear. For example, the California building codes are public domain information (If you want them, go here-?http://resource.org/bsc.ca.gov/index.html). I am involved on a project where the client elected to solicit the services of a code consultant. My view is this example mimics the eQuest situation everyone is talking about. Which btw is also a public domain tool.
A previous post mentioned they were willing to pay $125/hr for eQuest advice. I know for a fact, the code consultant?s billing rate is more than $125/hr (which in CA may be just enough income to buy a house, again joking). Maybe the codes in CA are confusing enough that we need additional consultants to agree on what is code compliant and what is not. Who knows?point being the client was willing to pay a premium for this service. From the clients perspective, It brings value to a project knowing there is an expert on board. Same thing with the idea of consulting eQuest related issues, it can bring great value to a project to have someone well-versed to assist in the energy modeling.
Thank You,
Tu Diep, P.E. LEED AP BD+C
It has always been offered if someone asked, it is only a new phenomenon
that someone has advertised.
Seems to be a help to the community. It would only be a detriment if we
start to get these announcements on a daily basis from everyone, or if Carol
or someone else follows-up with each and every poster whether or not they
mentioned any inclination for a paid consultancy.
A separate post from Gordon S. after I started this one compares eQuest with
HAP/Trace with paid help ? there are still plenty of people out there who
don?t need assistance on a regular basis, and enjoy using eQuest for free.
If the user was inexperienced and knew they would need a lot of help, then
we?re talking a different story ? but that doesn?t cover the majority of
practitioners. Hopefully most of those entering the market are working with
established modelers, but I guess there isn?t a rule that you can?t enter
the industry starting from scratch.
Personally I hope to offer advice from time to time when I?m able (for
free), and hopefully someone out there will be willing to offer me a tip or
two when I?m in need.
As long as we don?t become inundated with commercial requests I think the
list will remain quite viable?even lively!
*David S. Eldridge, Jr.**, P**.**E**.**, LEED AP BD+C, BEMP, HBDP*
*From:* equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org [mailto:
equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] *On Behalf Of *Haynes, Glenn
*Sent:* Wednesday, May 26, 2010 3:03 PM
*To:* Dakota Kelley; Carol Gardner; eQUEST Users List
*Subject:* Re: [Equest-users] eQUEST Help Desk Funding
I do not have a strong opinion on this issue because it offers a service not
currently available. But to me the issue is one of effect on the whole
eQuest community. My fear is that once this service is offered, many who
have spent their valuable time offering free advice will tend to back off
and let the paid services take up the slack. This will probably reduce the
usefulness of the current list and leave small firms and individuals without
extra cash out. This may eventually reduce or destroy the value of the free
list service. The future of DOE2 and eQuest depends on young beginners who
currently have little money and need the free help.
This list is one of the few truly valuable free services available in the
world today. It provides a forum for old codgers like me to mentor those
younger and less experienced (those who need help the most and can afford it
the least), and, currently, I am in good company.
Glenn
------------------------------
*From:* equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org [mailto:
equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] *On Behalf Of *Dakota Kelley
*Sent:* Wednesday, May 26, 2010 2:14 PM
*To:* Carol Gardner; eQUEST Users List
*Subject:* Re: [Equest-users] eQUEST Help Desk Funding
Carol,
Let me cut through the philosophical stuff and set a starting bid: were I to
find myself in need, I would pay $125/hr for one-on-one, pay-per-use,
phone/WebEx-style assistance, billed in 0.25 hr increments or each fraction
thereof, with a minimum charge of 0.5 hrs. This assumes the person
providing the help has both a mechanical engineering degree and years of
eQUEST experience, which appears to fit your description. If Portland has
not eliminated your Canadian accent, I would gladly pay aboot
$126/hr..what?s another loonie, eh? Naturally, there would be a high
expectation that you should be able to solve nearly any issue somewhat
quickly, and you would have to determine how you want to handle issues you
are unable to resolve. However, I have no qualms about charging or paying
for one-on-one help?it?s called ?consulting?. In my early days I posted a
couple questions and received no responses ? I could?ve just as easily been
talking to my HP DeskJet while printing ?I hope that helps? messages to
myself. Having an alternate, fee-based help resource would have been a
blessing.
If I may enter the philosophical arena for a minute, I?m amazed by the
eQUEST users who will comfortably charge their clients thousands of dollars
for a model, using ?free? software, but *expect* free assistance and get up
in arms when anyone brings up the idea of fee-based help (or that it would
be brought up on a forum created *for* eQUEST help). There has been talk
about helping for ?the greater good of the modeling community?, but I don?t
find it to be intellectually honest. Such a notion is predicated on an
equal contribution from all participants, but the reality is that there are
far more help-seekers than help-providers, and such will always be the case
with voluntary forums. Quick questions that can be answered in five minutes
are not an issue, and the forum is wonderful for that, but when it turns
into me taking an hour or two to go through someone?s model for free, while
they get paid for my findings, is not inherently good for me or the
community. It has been done for me in the past, and I have paid it
forward. However, there are not enough active participants to make this
standard operating procedure. I also refute the notion that having an
alternate help source undermines the forum; the two are not mutually
exclusive.
So, Carol, please put out your shingle. I might break my model just for an
excuse to call you.
* DAKOTA KELLEY*
*From:* Carol Gardner [mailto:cmg750 at gmail.com]
*Sent:* Tuesday, May 25, 2010 4:45 PM
*To:* eQUEST Users List
*Cc:* Benville, Jim; ed.wall at ee.doe.gov
*Subject:* [Equest-users] eQUEST Help Desk Funding
All,
For the right amount of money, a dedicated land line, and a dedicated
computer, I will function as your dedicated Help Desk. Let me know who is
interested in funding me to be this resource. Let me know how much you think
this resource is worth. As you all know by now unless you've been sleeping,
I am a self-employed professional that takes time to answer your questions
but must quit giving my time away for free.
--
Carol Gardner PE
Having a free eQuest forum is no different from having professional
associations for engineers and architects. They are a meeting of educated
minds. It still involves a certain art and innovation and is not completely
dependent on experience.
Just because Carol/Pasha have experience doesn't mean they know how to
simulate all of the custom systems which eQuest isn't designed to simulate,
however energy modelers share and compare methods only through dialogue and
discussion, not through paid consultancy amongst each other. This is how
knowledge develops and evolves. Otherwise as a community we stop learning
and growing.
Maybe we should start charging for the exchange of emails and a fee for each
post to the eQuest group now also.
I think those that care to hire her as a consultant or helper should do so offline between themselves. Otherwise those of us who either don?t have the need, or cannot afford it will go on using this free forum.
Gregory Sarkisian, P.E.