Sunday, July 08, 2012

Knowledge is Power


Hope everyone had a good holiday.  Though having the holiday on a Wednesday made for a seriously disjointed workweek!

GlassBuild America is about two months away and judging from the suppliers lining up to do the show, it’s looking to be a terrific event.  In this world we live in, information and knowledge leads to extreme power, and with what will be on display in Vegas this year that “powerful” opportunity will be at hand.  Obviously I am biased as I am a supporter of the show, but take that away and look at some of the people and products that will be on display and you will see where I am going with this.  The technology and innovation being readied are difference makers and the people that attend will benefit and those who stay home will be steps behind.  So starting with this week’s post I’ll make one note a week here on the blog about GBA, just because I believe its THAT important.  And I’m also sure you’ll be hearing tons more about the show in the next 30-45 days but take a few minutes, review the current trade show floor, and go book your flights & hotels as the prices are pretty economical.  It’s worth it folks, plain and simple.

Elsewhere…

--  Quietly it looks like Kevin Surace is now gone officially from Serious Materials.  Surace surely made a heck of an impression in his short time in the industry.  He was a memorable keynote speaker at the Glazing Executive Forum last year and was never shy with an opinion or new approach.  He was a lightning rod for sure.  My favorite was when Surace blogged that the window industry needed to shed 50% of its capacity… pretty bizarre since you know we’d all like half our competitors to just “give up” and his company actually was adding capacity including grabbing plants for publicity more than production.   So all that said you now have to wonder how what happens next there… especially will the famous Chicago plant (the sit in plant, where Surace rode to the rescue) be sold to the employees, as they want?   Gonna be interesting…

--  Hot enough for everyone?  Hopefully my friends in the DC/Virginia area are starting to get back to normal after the brutal storms.  Mother Nature has not been kind.

--  There were some sneaky good tweets by Mark Silverberg of Technoform during the Facades Tectonics Conference last week.  He linked to a few good pieces and he passed on a great line from conference speaker Mic Patterson of Enclos  “We must innovate our way to sustainability in the building sector” Right on guys! Oh and to clarify, I say “sneaky” because Mark is like the “EF Hutton” of Tweeters… when he tweets, people listen! (At least I do)

--  Speaking of good tweets, Glass Magazine’s Katy Devlin kept everyone up to date on what sounded like a great WDMA meeting in Minnesota.  The highlites once again were the advanced technology plays (see that theme again!) that are an absolute must for our industry to thrive. 

--  Was introduced to one of the brains behind Swarfbuster this past week.  I had heard of them and seen them mentioned on blogs and on LinkedIn but honestly I never knew what/who they were… so it was pretty cool to actually get some knowledge.  Turns out to be a fascinating product too as I never knew about “Swarfs” and it’s effect on glass fabrication.  (Swarfs are the dust and leftover particles that end up bonding together to gunk up glass fabrication equipment like polishers) You learn something new everyday.   I hope to see them at the show!

--  Last this week this comical story from New Jersey about the New York Giants and Jets filing a lawsuit to stand in the way of some redevelopment in the area around their stadium.   The teams are worried about the traffic it will cause during their game days…. Uh can we get any shorter sighted?  Football teams play once per week….  So sure let’s stand in it’s way right?  Unreal. 

LINKS of the WEEK

And yes our society falls down yet another peg… yeesh.

This was hilarious… the real names of foods… Love the Twinkie one as I may be the only human alive that think they are awful.

This is a classic case of being really book smart and having zero common sense.  Amazing. 

VIDEO of the WEEK

This one comes from my friend Manny, still glowing from his Miami Heat title… it’s the most amazing printer I have ever seen… simply mind blowing stuff here.

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