Lots of Light but with Dark Frames

I’m a big trend guy and one that I have been following closely is the interior office space.  A lot has been covered with regards to the increase in glass usage but I’ve been surprised by the framing choices.  Dark is in.  So black, dark bronze or even a custom coated choice that trends darker are starting to pick up more attention vs. the traditional mill/satin look.  In Europe the darker look has been the play for a while, but its interesting to see that its now hit North America.  In the end I don’t really care what color the framing is as long as glass is being used.  We have a great building product that is surely not just for the exterior of the office building anymore.

Elsewhere…

--  Building off last weeks note on the Silica Rule, OSHA did put out a new memo on the process but it’s still not that simple, streamlined piece we need for the industry.  I am still gathering info and if you or your company are doing anything with regards to this please considering sharing with me so not only I can learn but I can share with the readers too.

--  Have you seen the NGA-GANA FAQ’s?  They give some excellent insight into the process.  This is such an important move for the industry- I am just excited to see it continue on the right path!

--  Time for this months Glass Magazine review… I loved the look, layout and copy with the GlassBuild review.  It captured so much of the flavor of the event.  Glass Magazine has been very active with articles on the workforce and this issue has a dandy on workforce development that featured a ton of best practices examples.  This sort of content is so incredibly valuable if you are running a business.  Add in the rest of the issue that had insights on codes, unitized and technology (among other articles) and this was a fabulous issue for insight and education!

--  The ad of the month I will hit on next weeks post.

--  Last week I noted the Amazon HQ2 competition.  Well 238 cities applied for it and now the predictions are starting to fly on which city may win… Moody’s came out with their top 10… and since I love lists… here’s who they think with some comments from me:

1. Austin, TX  - Hot city, everyone seemingly loves Austin these days that’s for sure.

2. Atlanta, GA- They have the space but that bad traffic will now get even worse.

3. Philadelphia, PA- This is surprising to me, it won’t be cheap or easy to be here with the size that Amazon wants- but great location in the east.

4. Rochester, NY – I know a manufacturers rep who would have a field day with this

5. Pittsburgh, PA – My old hometown has grown like crazy since I left- and now in the running for this?  I must’ve been the one holding the Steel City back.

6. New York City, NY- I will be stunned if this happens

7. Miami, FL- And stunned here as well- great weather but a nightmare to ship from

8. Portland, OR- Why?  HQ1 is in Seattle, why would they come down the road for HQ2?

9. Boston, MA – Great location and food but similar to my thoughts on NY- would be a stunner.

10. Salt Lake City, UT- Great place but seemingly too far west if you want to spread out HQ’s.

My prediction?  I think it’s going to be Dallas with Atlanta a major possibility.  We will see…. And we’ll also see how this new HQ affects all of the other businesses in that area that utilizes the same workforce.

LINKS of the WEEK

This was an incredible story- women lost at sea for 5 months!!!  Hopefully it gets some play in the news, but knowing our media it won’t.

This is the worst idea ever. Ever.

A fascinating invention…

VIDEO of the WEEK

I found these top 10 fails on Wheel of Fortune quite humorous.  But I know if I ever went on this show I’d probably miss major easy ones too!

Crowd Sourcing the Silica Rule

Do you know about the Silica rule?  Do you know that the Silica Rule is now about to be enforced after a 30-day delay?  If you are a glazier, you need to get familiar with it, but the issue as I see it is the information and direction on how this rule affects our world and what we all need to do is murky.  There’s not a great approach that I could find that we all could read from and follow.  I’m thinking “checklist” There’s various information from OSHA out there but specific insights to the glass industry is missing.  Glass Magazine has some info to follow as a very good start but I’d like to ask for insight from all of you.  What is your game plan for handling this rule?  What are best practices you can share?  This is a major change to how a glazier works… so insight we can share would be good for the industry as a whole.  I am digging more into this and I know others are well, so I’ll share whatever I find. 

Elsewhere….

--  Last week I noted about GlassBuild’s awesome microsite that has tons of video and content.  One item not on there is this excellent presentation by Building Industry Advisors.  This was a deep economic look at the market place with tons of stats and insights.  Mike Collins was one of the key speakers on here and he is always very interesting. 

--  Well the Architectural Billings Index (ABI) finally had a down result ending a strong 7-month run.  The total was 49.1, which fell beneath the break even of the 50 mark.  New project inquiries stayed strong and positive though at 59.  The analysts’ feel like this is just a quick blip and the index will be positive again next month… so we will keep watching the overall process…

--  Props to Stephanie Staub at the Architectural Glass Institute for the support they showed at an incredible program in Philadelphia called “Merge.”  This was a very cool event that brought design students and new to the industry installers together to build a structure together.  Things like this are crucial to get more young people into our industry and excited about the future.   Several industry companies donated time and materials to this effort to make it a success.  Thank you to all involved. 

--  You may have heard Amazon is looking for a 2^nd headquarters and cities all over the US want a shot at this.  Right now the biggest benefactor is ad agencies in each town who are being retained to do flashy campaigns pushing the merits of their city.   Watch the one for Detroit if you want (in my video of the week)- it’s stunningly good.  Overall it’s fascinating the awesome power Amazon has… I seriously think they could make most of these municipalities do absolutely anything for them…

--  Last this week… if you are Jerry Seinfeld fan check out his latest special on Netflix.  It’s called Jerry Before Seinfeld and its funny and fantastic.

LINKS of the WEEK

I love this article on UPS drivers and dogs- my UPS driver loves ours...

A meth vs donut mix up leads to settlement…

Stealing millions in… fajitas? 

VIDEO of the WEEK

Kudos to whomever put this Detroit pitch video together for trying to attract Amazon.  It really is incredible…

A Must See Site

This past week a very cool microsite was released featuring a ton of content from GlassBuild America.  The site has 12 Express Learning presentations on it along with videos from the floor and forums.  The Glazing Executive Forum video includes the economic forecast piece as well as state of the industry and 25 years of Top 50 Glaziers.  Plus this site has the keynote address from Cam Marston too.  This really is an incredible treasure of information and insight.  So if you were at the show but couldn’t see everything, you can now catch it and if the weather kept you away, now you can see some of what you missed.  Check it out! 

Elsewhere…

--  As if we don’t have enough to worry about with supply and logistics comes an article on a shortage of sand.  Unreal.   We’ll have to monitor this one because this could affect glass making on global basis.

--  While I was off from blogging last week the industry had a great addition… Lindsay and Dustin Price welcomed baby Alex Olivia to the world.  A beautiful baby girl born to seriously awesome parents!  I am so happy for Lindsay and Dustin and wish them the best… enjoy it all now you two, blink and Alex will be off to college.

--  I was able to attend the Glass + Metal Symposium and while there I was taken aback (positively) by a video played by Jeff Rigot of Viracon.  It was a very well done piece talking about glass usage and the Viracon employee used throughout the video was none other than Cameron Scripture!  I have been telling people forever that Cameron has movie star good looks and obviously the producers of the video agreed!  I really now can say I knew him before he went “Hollywood.”

--  The latest Dodge Momentum Index was down again last month, which continues a mini negative trend on that metric.  The analysts are not ready to call this a downturn in the marketplace but it does bear watching.  The market right now does have some soft spots to it for sure.  I am very curious to see if this gets revised up or where next month comes in as traditionally October in many parts of the US is a very big month with a lot of focus on getting jobs going before the days of winter snow arrive.

--  I think any time I see a link on the new Apple Campus and it shows glass I am all in.  This one is onethat stopped me in my tracks.  Love seeing the way glass is used here and throughout.

--  I did see the sad news of David Stark passing away.  I had a few interactions with David as he was developing products in the Vacuum IG world.  He surely brought and an amazing energy and passion to that space and his efforts and insights will be missed.

--  Last this week… Two new mixed-use skyscrapers are coming toMiami.  So a question to my friends down there- have we reached the point of massive saturation?  I am stunned that these places can go up and units sold.  The architecture and glass will be pretty cool on the one described and shown in this story.

LINKS of the WEEK

As a road warrior I must say I am impressed… and I also will say I have never seen anything like this!

Who was Mr. Monopoly behind the Equifax guys during Senate hearings.  This was good!  And by the way is Equifax a mess or what?

Can someone explain to me how a family could forget a 3 year old in a maze and not call til the next morning?  Gotta be more to this…

VIDEO of the WEEK

It is always awesome to hear from Steve Bouchard of Glass Distributors… and this time he sent me a great link for the video of the week!  It’s an older video but it holds up well as the Manning brothers are hilarious…

Challenges on the Road

The overall business atmosphere is good news/bad news right now.  On the good is a continued positive trend with regards to market conditions, though some regions have hit some soft spots recently, I’m not very worried about that.  The area of challenge and concern is the two fold.  Between manufacturing issues at one level of our industry and the impact of the run of natural disasters we just experienced getting and shipping product is an adventure. I am always stressing communication as a good rule and I usually really hammer on it when things tighten, so now more than ever making sure everyone is on the same page is crucial.  While I have confidence that the needed products can still be purchased my fear on the trucking and transportation side continues to grow.  That side of the world was already thin and now more and more the available carriers are being rightfully called into duty to help those recover from the hurricanes in the last 2 months.  This is going to be a bumpy ride for sure, so again, be proactive and communicate and work closely with everyone up and down the chain for best results.

Elsewhere…

--  When I gave my presentation on social media at GlassBuild America one of the bigger items I hit on was the use of LinkedIn.  Interestingly many that commented to me afterwards that was a sore point.  My push is that LinkedIn is a must for a business and personal.  It is a legitimatizing factor- especially when you are trying to build a business or personal brand.  But I could see where some took issue.  For a few years LinkedIn lost control, began over e-mailing you with recaps and group news that were not relevant at all.  Also as LinkedIn became world wide, pushes from all over the globe started to fill in and for many those connections or potential connections were also not a major need.  If this were 2013 I’d never recommend it.  However in the past 2 years LinkedIn has really cleaned up its process.  You have control over the e-mails you get and they are not going above and beyond that.  The global push has calmed as well.  So now it is what it was really meant to be, a very good place to make connections and learn new things and I think you’d agree both of those are pretty good attributes. 

--  The run of 2018 forecasts from the bigger firms will be coming out over the next 4-6 weeks or so.  One of them will be from Construct Connect and their Chief Economist Alex Carrick did a Q&A as a preview.  This was an interesting read- he doesn’t see it a rosy as others, which should make these upcoming presentations very interesting.  He also covers hurricane effects etc. 

--  Glass Magazine review time… a few main pieces to check out… the Carl Tompkins article on the “Top 10 Most Common Problems” in the work place is crucial for any manager.  The Cam Marston piece on the “Multi Generational Workplace” is excellent and just still bums me out that his speech at GlassBuild was missed by so many.  Great insight!  Also the winners of the Glass Magazine Awards are recognized and there are some really impressive projects there.  Plus kudos to YKK AP on the back page story for their investment in our youth.  Classy as always and I come to expect that from Mike Turner and the team there.

--  The ad of the month was tough as I try to not award the same exact ad twice- so that knocked out a good handful.  The winner this month was Assa Abloy and their “Clear Direction” piece-which was a simple layout with their panic front and center and the hot office trend of tons of glass behind it.  I don’t know the folks who designed this one- so if you do, pass on my congrats on a job well done!

--  Last this week… just a programming note. No post for next week unless some major news breaks.  I’ll be back in my familiar spots for the week of 10/15 and with the end of the year gaining on us…. get ready…. It’s Glass Industry MVP season… who will take home that insanely prestigious honor???

LINKS of the WEEK

Ok this is sickening.  And this is my main airport.  Ugh. Come on people, we gotta be better.

My gosh if we tried this approach with glass installed we’d get killed.  This story just cracks me up.

How about we finish with some good news… Groom saves child from drowning moments before his wedding was to begin.  Nice!

VIDEO of the WEEK

You may have seen the Lawrence O’Donnell freak out video (anchor who couldn’t stop the hammering) recently.  Well there have been a few others over the years and someone put them on YouTube.