Announcing Jens-Michael Gross as the TI E2E Community & TI E2E MCU 2011 Contributor of the Year!


"Jens-Michael's contributions and commitment to solving others challenges when using our products is an invaluable service to the MSP430 community of users such as yourself and to TI as a whole. He is a perfect example of what makes the E2E a great place- someone with an ability and willingness to share with other engineers facing the same challenges you have faced over the years in order to make one’s experience better." ~ Zack Albus, Worldwide MSP430 Applications Manager

To say Jens-Michael Gross has been a top contributor on E2E would be an understatement. He has consistently gone out of his way and taken time to help users across the world on a regular basis in the MSP430 forums. IN 2011 alone he had nearly 4,000 posts primarily aimed at helping other E2E users. With that type of outstanding effort we are proud to announce he is the 2011 TI E2E Community & TI E2E MCU 2011 Contributor of the Year! For 2012 he is already close to 3,000 posts with several months remaining!


Jens-Michael Gross on being the TI E2E Community & TI E2E MCU 2011 Contributor of the Year

Thoughts on being the TI E2E™ Community & TI E2E MCU 2011 Contributor of the Year?

Jens-Michael: Oops! I did it again :)

Well, there are others who also do a good job for the community. But it feels good to get an award. And even better if getting it twice in a row.


What would you describe as being your primary motivation for helping out others on E2E (with thousands of posts and countless users that benefited from your help in 2011)?

Jens-Michael: I’m addicted to solving (technical) riddles. But I also have a certain dedication to teaching.


With nearly 4,000 posts in 2011 in the MSP430 forum with a majority going towards helping others what common trends and challenges did you see?

Jens-Michael: 4000? Wow! I definitely spent too much time online. Well, I’m a quick writer. My many typos tell that I type faster than I can read and spell-check it. J


What trends and challenges did you see in 2011 in the MSP430 forum?

Jens-Michael: The number of “I have a job to do, so give me the final code” requests (or rather demands) has increased. I tend to ignore them, but when I reply, these posts are of the ‘not going towards helping others’ type.

Also, the increasing number of significantly different MSPs makes it increasingly difficult to stay up-to-date. More different MSPs on one side and more abstraction (due to library usage and other things that hide what’s done) on the other side make it increasingly different to figure out where the problem is buried.

Also, it seems that the MSP family is increasingly used as a teaching platform at universities. Every now and then, several people pop up at the same time with the same questions. On the other hand, this also indicates that the impetus of solving tasks by themselves is decreasing in favor of doing a simple Google search and asking others for a complete solution. I wonder what will happen if those ‘others’ die out.


How has E2E helped you since you've joined?

Jens-Michael: For the very problem that brought me here, I had to figure out the solution by myself (resulting in a change in the users guide).

But since then, my participation in the community has given me lots of ideas for detail solutions or even complete projects.
And if I (or someone else) already solved a problem, it speeds up my own development when I come into the same situation with my own projects.

Also, I get informed about new devices. Seeing a new device in action (even though the action is usually buggy when it leads to a forum post) is way more informative than the typical newsletter article boasting about the newest, best, smallest, cheapest device on the market. Honestly, I rarely read the newsletters TI sends me. Too much noise.


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