Prepping for the future

The Affordable Care Act, known in some circles as “ObamaCare” is certainly a program that every business owner needs to understand.  This past week, I was enlightened greatly after a tremendous presentation as a part of the Glass Management Institute.  Susan McKay and Matt Johnson of the The Gary Law Group presented in one hour as much of this gigantic program that they could and it was really mind blowing.  The amount of work that will be needed to be done when this act is fully implemented looks to be insanely large.  The amount of uncertainty from now until that happens is beyond belief.  As a business owner you are truly stuck in the middle of the road, not preparing will leave you in deep trouble, but preparing and possibly seeing actions delayed or change would surely be inefficient.  Needless to say if you have not dug into this yet, you need to.  And yes I know this is a hot potato politically, but this thing is coming down the pike, so you need to be prepared.

Also if you have not looked at the Glass Management Institute for learning, then you absolutely are missing out.  Now that the warm up act (me) is over, the real pros have taken over and the remaining three sessions (Business Forecasting, Leadership, and Legal/Contracts) on the schedule promise to be top notch.  In any case, with issues like the Affordable Care Act, knowledge truly is power…

Elsewhere…

--  Tough few weeks for our industry as two excellent men involved with our world passed away.  Merv Murphy was a staple in Detroit and a class act all the way around. “Murph” treated everyone well, knew all of the ins and outs of the industry and deeply cared about every organization he was involved with- especially the Glazing Contractors Association.  We also lost Alec Spielberg, the former President of Kentucky Mirror and Glass.  Mr. Spielberg built a tremendous company that is respected far and wide.  I never met Mr. Spielberg, but always-heard great things about him from everyone I worked with that were in direct contact.  My thoughts and prayers go out to both families during this difficult time.

--  Thank you to Mandy Marxen of Gardner Glass Products for her comment on my last blog… I need to go see Pacific Rim… especially if that movie does break tons of glass… I appreciate the comment too!

--  Stumbled across an excellent blog over the last 2 weeks… Steve Watts the VP at Walters and Wolf keeps one at www.division8.com.  Excellent and interesting content… gotta get him signed up to blog at Glass Magazine too and join the incredible stable there.

--  We are 6 weeks from the opening of GlassBuild America and excitement is building.  Love the exhibitors that have signed up, can’t wait to see some neat new technology and I am pumped for the seminars and forums.  There’s a great mix of people involved to make this, like always, the premier industry event.  In the next few weeks, I’ll be breaking it down.  Oh and if you haven’t booked your hotel room yet, go ahead and get that done before the blocks close out.

--  The Architectural Billings Index continues to stay positive… can this nice rush of a busy season be real?  Can it be sustainable?  After my last blog I got several notes from glaziers and fabricators who noted they are busy… real busy.  Hopefully we are truly headed in the right direction.

--  Last this week… is it me or has summer just flown right by?  If you go by the sports world calendar it sure has… The NHL schedule came out last week, the NBA schedule comes out this week and the NFL is in training camp… college football kicks off in 4 weeks.  Unreal.

LINKS of the WEEK

--  I have showed stuff like this a bunch of times.. when schools don’t set great educational examples.. here’s another one…

--  This guy is the most connected person on LinkedIn… I can only imagine how many endorsement e-mails he gets!  Shame is I thought Scott Surma was the most connected there…

--  I am speechless on this one…

VIDEO of the WEEK

What to do when a bear attacks… thanks to local TV news… this is actually somewhat comical and creative, two things missing from local news today.  Guessing most viewers would be thrown by the irreverent tone though.