I’m thrilled to be kicking off our new BLOG! I hope to have 1-2 posts per month. Some will be instructional, a way to learn the app, or learn new things about the app. And some will give you a glimpse into our R&D process and maybe even a sneak peak at what we are working on “behind the curtain”.

Idea to Product – An R&D Journey

In terms of the R&D efforts here at kC, they are always ongoing. A lot of our upcoming new things have been in the research phase for years, with lots of starts, stops, and dead ends. This isn’t new; Smart Counters, Magic Markers and Chart Detection took many years in research and development.  Our process for developing one of these complex systems basically looks like: try something, it fails, go back and try a different approach, fails. Rinse and repeat for what feels like forever (and is often several years). Sometimes you find just the right approach and it works really well. Sometimes you think you’ve found the right approach and right at the 11th hour, just as you think you are REALLY THERE, it still fails. And sometimes you get something magical that becomes a really amazing tool.

I thought it might be interesting to provide a glimpse into that journey. While our overall process is not really unique in the R&D world, I do think we have become pretty good at surviving the process (it really feels like some days you are just happy to still be standing) and producing something really helpful in the end. I don’t like the metaphor that we are “making sausage”, so I’m going to call it Idea to Product (as a riff of Sheep to Shawl).

Guide Posts – An Instructional Journey

Instructional blog posts are something I’ve been toying with for a while. kC has become a pretty sophisticated app. About 4 years ago we released our updated interface which has made picking up the app and getting started about 1 million times easier than it was (I’m not even sure this is the hyperbole it was originally intended to be). And it has made accessing and using the more advanced capabilities much easier as well. Everything in the app is more streamlined and fewer steps.

But kC is an app created to tackle crafts which are simple on their surface (Knitting, how hard can it be? It is just 2 stitches!) and devilishly complex as you dive in. Likewise, kC is pretty simple on its surface, and offers a great deal of depth to address that most complex of patterns. You probably wouldn’t pick up your first pair of needles and make a super complex lace-on-every-row and highly fitted sweater as your very first project. And kC is probably not an app you can pick up and become expert with in the first 10 minutes.

We have created lots of content and instructional material internally and also had the absolutely pleasure of partnering with some amazing teaching gurus including VeryPink and Knitty Knatty. It is my hope that our Guide Posts will provide a guided journey for all of this content. A way for new users to start coming up to speed at their own pace. And a tool for users of all experience levels to learn something new.