Sunday, October 16, 2016

It's All About GlassBuild

Since a major majority of the industry will be there in one form or fashion I am dedicating this entire post to GlassBuild America.  Obviously I am heavily involved with the show.  Those of you who go, know I’m running around the floor, camera in hand, wearing a bright yellow vest looking like I just left an earlier post of parking cars or landing planes.  So first and foremost if you are a reader of this blog, please feel free to stop me to say Hi.  I’d love to meet you and say hi!

As for the show itself, this year is lining up to be off the charts on several levels.  First off do yourself a favor and download the GlassBuild Amercia App.  That and all of the things I will cover below can be found by clicking HERE.

--  Major first key of this show for me?  They’ll be more than 400 exhibitors from all over the world.  If you are not looking to improve yourself or your business by adding or upgrading products and services, you’re missing out.  As I have been planning my route around the show I am blown away at the amount of diverse options that can be seen. 

--  Next is the education- between the forums and the incredible Express Learning, there is plenty to get your arms around.  On the Express Learning, the schedule was slimmed out a bit so you can have time to walk the floor and network and still make sure you are catching plenty of free educational sessions.  One session that I find fascinating is the “Cyber Security on the Plant Floor” – we are in a new world and with all the automation I keep harping on here comes the opportunity for bad guys to disrupt.  This will be neat to hear about. 

--  Wait until you see the new MyGlassClass.com!  It will revolutionize training as we know it and it the re-launch of this program makes it debut at the show.  I was lucky enough to see a sneak preview and this program is absolutely off the charts awesome.  The program features some seriously important collaboration with heavy hitters out there too- so the training you get will have a longer range effect than you may realize.  Sorry for being cryptic overall, I don’t want to blow the surprise of the launch.  The official kick off is at Noon on Thursday, so if you care at all about training and growth (and you should) you will want to be at booth 314 for this and learn more about throughout the event.

--  Networking.  This is my favorite aspect of the show and one that is truly the key of the event.  Pre-registration was up 27% over last year as of 2 weeks ago.  So between that and so many exhibitors on the floor, they’ll be no lack of opportunity to meet with people, renew and expand relationships and grow your personal and company brand.  Too many times the people who may not be fans of this show point out that some of the bigger companies do not exhibit anymore.  (Though plenty big ones still do like Guardian, CRL, Quanex, PPG/Vitro and many more) It is true that some companies may feel like they don’t need to exhibit.  As a marketing and communication strategy professional I understand and respect the various reasons they have for not exhibiting.  However those companies that DON’T exhibit are still sending multiple people to the show to work/walk it.  Why?  Because they hit the floor and they network as they know so many in the industry ARE THERE.  And while they may miss out on the potential business gain by having an exhibit, they are still making sure they are involved.  So at the end of the day, everyone that has an impact on the industry, or wants to have an impact on the industry is there… in one way or another.  AND THAT'S what makes this show so important and so good.

--  So there you go… my passion pitch and preview of the week ahead.  It really should be a great one.  Next week I’ll recap it with my standard of best exhibits seen, those folks who I was fortunate enough to run into, those I missed and much, much more.   I hope to see you there!

LINKS of the WEEK

--  Not sure if you saw this clip from Jeopardy and the fall out- but very odd and harsh from Al Trebek. 


Finally a drone used for something worthwhile!!

VIDEO of the WEEK

As I have said before I will not watch the debates.  But this video adding music to it was too hilarious not to watch and post!


No comments: