First year, the idea of echonet gets orange and blue. The team is made up of a few fellows as a part of the ECHO Advertising Agency and the VWZ Publishing House. echonet is there to be the department for the digital agenda. Initially Marcin Kotlowski, who was already working in the advertising agency, startet echonet and formed a team of digital experts around him. Some of them were already in the company, others were taken on board for building up echonet. In december 1999 a team of 4 people moved in to a small office of about 12 square meters (about 130 square feet) at the first floor of the companys office in the 7th district of Vienna (Austria).
echonet communication
Digital Handcraft in Vienna since 1999
echonet was founded in 1999. At this time it was only a department of an advertising agency. 2004 echonet became an official company. Since 2013 the web-, design- and technology-agency echonet is lead by the owner Roland Vidmar, who took the shares in a management buy-out process. The focus of echonet's work is digital presences, online-portals, e-commerce and of course the main topics of our know-how. These topics are search engine optimization, responsive web design and accessibility of websites and digital applications according to the WCAG of the WAI. Our focus is on clean, performant coding and works in all our working areas.
The grade of quality and individualization for the needs of our customers and for the needs of the projects is only possible when concept, design, and technology fit perfectly together. And that is why we do Digital Handcraft.
Digital Handcraft means...
At echonet we code sign by sign, command by command, routine by routine in text only working-surfaces. Our work is based on our own development. Our tools and systems are based on the content-management-system which we developed continuously over the past 20 years. This was all digital handcraft. And this way of thinking is our idea of work for our customers. It is part of the DNA of echonet and is implemented in every process, starting at the idea and concept, the design, coding and finally support and maintenance.
Why "Handcraft" is important?
We do not click colorful plugins together. We do not confront our customers with "This is the way this tool {xyz} can only work"-solutions. Digital Handcraft has advantages for us and our customers. We know exactly what we do, how the things we implement work and we also take responsibility for the things we do. And we're also able to change things if requested. We and our customers are therefore independent of proprietary solutions. And the idea behind real handcraft is the inspiration for us in our daily work and processes.
We are the motor mechanics of the internet, who are able to use screwdriver, pliers and welding machines. We are not those, who can only plug in a USB-stick and then helplessly look at a screen.
We are the plumbers of the internet, who are able to lay and bend a water pipe. We are not those, who can only lay the pipe when the 30-degree spare part of the pipe it is fortuitously available in the hardware store.
We are the carpenters of the internet, who are able to create furniture also when the room is in an unusual shape. We are not those, who can only build a shelf when boards are drilled in advance.
History of echonet
In this timeline, we show you the most important years in our history. Take a break with us and walk back in our time machine through the years until we're back at 1999. Just know that projects we name in our timeline are of course only samples of our work in the mentioned year. This does not fully cover the work in the selected year.