Tony Hansen: Potter, Product and Software Developer, Author

The developer at

But my first love is pottery
https://tonyhansen.com/pottery

Message me at Digitalfire.com or follow me at
       

Computer Programming, Web Development and Media

Tony Hansen is the owner of Digitalfire Corporation, a technician at Plainsman Clays, a potter and product developer and internationally known web designer and programmer, graphic artist, author, educator and dreamer.

Programming, IT, Productivity

• Tony has been a web developer/programmer since 1995, specializing in economic minimalist solutions that run securely and fast. He was among the first in North America to sell online.
• He embraced productivity tools early (e.g. Excel, Powerpoint, Word, desktop publishing, vector/pixel image editing).
• He also embraced the movement away from desktop and spreadsheets towards the cloud and databases (and their programming languages) during the 1990s.
• Tony developed early skills as a programmer by writing and maintaining multi-user inventory management, purchasing, pick list, warehouse location and costing software, it was used to manage tens of thousands of products at a warehouse and many locations.
• Tony was an early adopter of computer graphics and publishing software (bit image and vector), he self-published PDF software manuals and books by the late 1980s.
• Tony wrote desktop Insight glaze chemistry software for use by ceramic engineers and technicians.
• Tony created the principal online technical reference website for traditional ceramics at digitalfire.com.
• Tony created insight-live.com as the first ceramics-targeted LIMS (laboratory information management system), transitioning the company to a virtual MSP.
• Tony is an early adopter of AI tools, methods and programming toolkits - finding ever more ways to incorporate them into ceramics.
• Tony is an API developer and consumer, having a deep understanding of the REST API architecture and the JSON data format for inter-server and app-server communication.
• Tony has a thorough understanding of the programmatic generation of labels in HTML, PDF and ZPL formats.
• Tony is a firm believer in "infrastructure as code", task automation and the use of open source software to build and maintain systems.
• Tony is a promoter of CRM tools and has been developing and using them since the 1990s.
• Tony was an early adopter of group collaboration tools.
• Tony understands SEO and places at the top of Google searches for his name and hundreds of ceramic-related terms.
• Tony is an avid user and developer of social media posting tools and APIs, he publishes thousands of posts on a dozen platforms, managing synchronization with multiple blogs and reposting when content is updated.

Ceramic Technology

• Tony primarily identifies as a potter, thousands of images of his ware can be found at digitalfire.com, plainsmanclays.com, in Google searches and at https://tonyhansen.com/pottery.
• He has been developing and perfecting clay body, porcelain and glaze formulation and testing methods since the late 1970s.
• He has long experience in researching and testing the clay resources of southern Saskatchewan, Canada.
• Tony's methods, software and published reference materials are employed widely by technicians and supply companies to formulate and maintain their glazes, engobes, underglazes and clay bodies.
• Tony's presentation at the conference of the American Ceramic Society in Indianapolis in 1998 introduced engineers and scientists to the "Internet".
• He has consulted for hundreds of companies and artists on a wide range of ceramic fabrication techniques, cost reduction strategies, glaze and body formulation, especially the application of chemistry to understanding glazes.
• Tony's glaze and porcelain recipes are used and adjusted throughout the world (and are documented thoroughly at digitalfire).
• His online 4000-page ceramic materials database is the top material technical information destination for traditional ceramics.
• Tony's Digitalfire Insight software has been used to make everything from spark plugs to refractories, light bulbs to ceramic tile, frits and glazes to sinks and toilets, electrical insulators to fine china and tableware.
• Tony's DOS 4Sight Ceramic Database of the 1990s grew into Insight-Live, the main LIMS used today.
• Tony is on the leading edge of 3D design and 3D printing as they pertain to making molds, cutters, tools, templates, etc for ceramics. His Fusion 360 tutorials are widely used in education.
• Tony has many years of experience in integrating a system to manage SDS and MSDS data to enable auto-publishing of the sheets and product labels (HTML or PDF), he has a thorough understanding of the international GHS SDS standard.
• His background of testing and development, backed by meticulous records and data, puts him at the ready to tune existing products and introduce new ones at a rapid rate.

Plainsman Clays

The company has between five and ten thousand customers who use its clay bodies in school, hobby, pottery and manufacturing. Tony has been at the centre of its operations for decades. Tony

• Developed and maintained all product recipes
• Developed testing procedures, lab software to handle simultaneous testing on hundreds of projects
• Directed and worked in the lab testing and quality control department for decades
• Developed all of the SDSs, MSDSs, data and product usage sheets
• Co-directed raw material minings and material characterizations and evaluations since the 1970s
• Created websites for Plainsman and its stores, and a management dashboard for many aspects of its operation
• Created the multi-store product database manager, the database itself, and the publish-to-website system
• Created and maintains the Plainsman blog
• Created social media posting system and syndication to two dozen platforms/groups
• Created product support/reference library of 5000 pages
• Created product label management system, templates, linkages to product database
• Created hundreds of glaze recipes used by customers and worldwide
• Created CRM system to maintain connection and history with thousands of customers
• Helped thousands of customers solve their problems, utilize the products
• Created countless instructional videos and a tech support system
• Created advertising, workshop and trade show materials for history of company
• Become a world-class potter, highly skilled in many forming methods
• As a teen, worked on the construction of the plant (contracted by his father).

Pottery

Since the first time he saw someone making a piece on the potters wheel, Tony Hansen has been captivated by ceramics. Since 1973 he has worked closely with Plainsman Clays, a miner and manufacturer of clay materials and bodies. His intensive formulation, testing and lab quality control work there has been a primary catalyst for the development of all his ceramic-related products. Tony is also an accomplished potter since the early 1970s during which time Luke Lindoe, founder of Plainsman Clays, personally tutored him to carry on the ideal of developing local clay resources and understanding clay physics. He is a champion of DIY (in a pottery world becoming increasingly distant from basic knowledge).

Ceramic Industry Connections

Tony Hansen is well-travelled in the ceramic industry and has attended, exhibited and lectured at many international events. He has authored dozens of technical ceramic articles in magazines around the world, appears in many ceramic textbooks and has personally exhibited at many international trade shows. He has steadily built a large circle of thousands of key contacts in many organizations and sectors of the ceramic industry and is well-positioned to introduce web technologies that will be accepted and adopted. Tony is long time manager of important industry databases (e.g. Schools Database, Consultants Database, Ceramic Suppliers database, the Celebration Project).

Work Ethic

Tony prioritizes personal relationships, trust and integrity to principle above all else. He is a communicator and loves working on a team with clear, sensible and ethical goals. He is pragmatic, evolving slowly and steadily. He is a delegator to capable and amiable people, anxious utilize their skills and talents, a mentor sharing his knowledge and experience. Companies have trusted him with the privacy and integrity of their cloud and network data for decades (even including many competitors and suppliers of Plainsman Clays). Tony is wonderfully at home at a keyboard, he does not use inefficient systems or methods, he steadily improves them. He excels on the energy of enthusiastic fellow workers who are willing to learn, who focus on giving rather than taking.

He is a Dreamer!

Despite many pressures to pursue other much more profitable ventures, Tony has always stuck to his first love, pottery and ceramics. His head really is 'in the clouds' in the sense that "cloud server" technology has brought it all together in the 2020s. The decades have required a lot of tenacity to 'hang on' until the ceramic world fully appreciates the value of DIY and data in ceramics.