Overheard in Kansas City

Just got back from Kansas City, Mo., and the Glass Association of North America’s Fall Conference and I just wanted to share a few observations from the meeting:

Was one of many thrilled to see Greg Carney at this meeting. He was quite the man of the hour …

Got a nice chance to chat with Henry Gorry (ask him about his tennis injury). We went to a favorite topic of travel when he mentioned that Guardian might be considering a second site in Russia for manufacturing glass, in addition to its facility in Ryazan …

Heard an interesting conversation regarding the soon-to-be-completed Protective Glazing Manual – print, digital (i.e. CD) or both? Good question – what’s your preference? …

Was happy to touch base with Rick Kalson during the meeting regarding our new Contract Glazing Site. This means some great new updates from that site coming soon on USGNN.com …

Governor Parkinson did a terrific job on his presentation before this group. Each of the Energy Seminar presenters provided a lot of interesting information, but I was pleased that the governor seemed not only knowledgeable about the audience to whom he was presenting but very passionate on the topic of renewable energy …

GANA executive VP Bill Yanek noted yesterday morning that there were more than 120 participants at the Fall Conference, even more than last year. Considering during Glass Week we were hearing this annual event might simply be a webinar, it seems the membership really supported the great benefit of these meetings. Kudos again to the staff at GANA for making all this happen …

There were oohs and aahs during the Decorative Division meeting when a photo of division chair Kris Vockler’s beautiful new baby boy were projected on the screen. Looks like she had a great excuse for missing this meeting. Congratulations, Kris, and we look forward to seeing you in March …

Can’t believe how many information bulletins are poised to come out of this group. I’m sure there will be plenty of updates by the time we get to the next big meeting, Glass Week, set for March at the Paris Las Vegas. Looking forward to seeing everyone there …

In the meantime, folks, keep an eye on USGNN.com as we’re coming closer to the November issue of USGlass, with its special GANA supplement. We’re cooking up some good ways to get everyone involved and you can expect a request for submissions to come out soon.

Greening GANA

Next Monday the Glass Association of North America’s (GANA) Fall Conference kicks off with a meeting with PGC International (that group’s co-located meeting runs through September 1). There seem to be a number of highlights on this year’s conference. Among them is a presentation by Stephen Harty of BNIM Architects on “Master Planning for Greensburg, KS.” If you’re not familiar with this town’s story, after being leveled by an EF5 tornado in May 2007, the community decided to rebuild and make Greensburg a model green town for the future. It’s a really forward-thinking attitude and I, for one, can’t wait to hear more about how glass figures into the town’s “greening.” In addition, Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson will be at the conference to speak on “Emerging Energy Technologies and Government Support/Demand.” Gov. Parkinson’s talk on September 3 will be just one of the many highlights of the Fall Conference’s energy seminars sponsored by Solar Glazing magazine.

Speaking of the magazine, if you haven’t visited our http://www.solarglazingmag.com/ site lately, you’ll want to keep checking back for daily updates to newly released products and stories in the consumer press related to this field. In addition, there are several solar events coming up that we’ll be following closely on our site in the weeks ahead. (And starting next week, just in time for the Fall Conference, you’ll be able to visit the site to sign up early for the standalone Solar Glazing magazine, coming in 2010!)

Among the recent stories posted on the site was one today for the U.S. Department of Energy’s annual Solar Decathlon, coming up again October 9-13 and 15-18 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. According to the event website, the Solar Decathlon is an international collegiate competition in which student teams compete to design, build and operate completely solar-powered houses that incorporate building-integrated photovoltaics. There were some really exciting projects included last year and now that solar energy is such a hot topic for our energy, I have no doubt a lot of unique new products and designs will be on the table for the upcoming event. If you know your company’s products will be a part of one of the houses under construction, let me know so we can be sure to include it in our coverage.

Busy Week Ahead

A few weeks ago I received a particularly nice comment on our recent “Secret Shopper” article that ran in the July USGlass. A reader down in Fort Worth commented that the details in the article proved helpful to him (the biggest compliment I could hope to get), and he extended an invitation to come visit his new 12,000-square-foot retail showroom. I was glad to know that the article proved inspiring to a few other showroom owners out there, especially since the kind folks at ABC Glass & Mirror were such good sports about letting me come in and share their showroom with the glass world at large. If there’s anyone else out there who would like to share what makes their showroom great, and get tips for improving the rest, drop me a line and I’ll add you to my list.

I’m also making plans to do a little unofficial secret shopping pretty soon here. You see, this very afternoon I’m moving into a new house. While I’m eagerly looking to leave my personality on it by swapping out paint colors and carpet, I was surprised to learn that my significant other’s first project involves replacing the ancient, heavy and largely fogged sliding glass door in the den with a fresh, new, easily opened patio door (you’d think I’d be looking at the doors and windows first, right?). So if your glass shop gets a call for an estimate on the cost of a patio door, make sure your customer service is top-notch as it could be for our Industry Outlook department; Virginia-area glass retailers, keep your aisles clean as you may be subject to some secret shopping soon!

On another note, aside from the excitement of this move, this week will also be a busy one because our company, Key Communications, is holding its annual sales meeting. It’s a chance for us editors to share with our terrific team of sales reps all of the changes and improvements we’re making to our various publications in 2010, in addition to reinvigorating our entire team for the year ahead. I’m sure your company holds similar events, and I’d love to hear what you do for your sales team and staff to get them prepared and amped up for new products or company changes. And if you’re interested in getting a copy of USGlass magazine’s 2010 media kit, drop me a line and I’ll add you to that list.

Online Pros and Cons

Late last week I got a phone call from Integrity Glassworks owner Linda Medine warning me that she’d twice this month been contacted by e-mail scammers. Here at USGlass we’ve been focusing so much lately on the positives of the Internet that this was the perfect reminder that there are a lot of things out there to be cautious of. If you haven’t read that story, I’d encourage you to check it out, and let me know if you’ve run into any request from scammers in the last few months so that we can let others in the industry what to watch out for.

Speaking of those positives, I want to take a second once again to congratulate those winners of the Best of the Web contest we held for the August issue of USGlass. (Those winners were announced as part of our July USGNN.com Newscast.) This is the second year we’ve run this contest and I was pleased not only at the large number of entries we received but the fact that some of those sites that were nominated last year had already been updated for this year’s contest. Today, more than ever, a web page is a first point-of-contact for consumers and an unattractive, difficult-to-navigate page might as well be a “closed” sign for many consumers. Personally, I spend a ton of time online and one of my biggest pet peeves is a slow-to-load web page. A search for glass on yahoo.com brings up 953,000,000 returns, so if your site is slow to load due to flashy graphics, then I’m going elsewhere for the information I need.

It was also interesting to note the number of sites that are branching out into other forms of online communications—including blogs, Facebook pages, tweets, video and more. We have a few updates in that area as well. I have offered my first tweets in the last week and I’m hoping that this will be just one more way in which to encourage you readers out there to get involved. I’ll try and keep this line of communication flowing with reminders about upcoming editorial focuses and deadlines, upcoming events and major announcements. You can start following us at twitter.com/usglass – and I hope you do so I have some new tweets of my own to follow.

Connected to the Glass Industry

I know this blog is late in coming, but I wanted to just say for the record that Glass Performance Days was a blast. I was really surprised about how many of us first-timers were there – and here I thought that I was the only person in the industry not to have made it to Tampere, Finland, for this notable biannual conference. Some people were drawn by this year’s expanded focus on solar glazing, some because they’re starting to do more business overseas and were interested in networking with the heavy-hitters that this event tends to attract. I was there to soak it all in. As I commented time and again to other attendees, the five simultaneous tracks was a bit overwhelming – but it was possible to learn about the seminars you missed just by tuning into the buzz at the coffee breaks or chatting with the speakers over dinner.

Of course beyond the flood of information on glass processing and design, there was another nugget of information I took home with me. Never do I appreciate the connectedness offered by the internet as when I’m overseas. While at GPD I had numerous comments from my compatriots over there about how at the end of the day they would check their email and find already a report on the conference’s activities on USGNN.com. (I had high hopes of blogging daily but somehow between the day-long sessions and the night-long networking, I’m sure you can understand that it was hard to find the time to collect my thoughts much less post them … ) On tomorrow's USGNN newscast (stay tuned!) you’ll see some video footage from Finland, as video is another great medium more and more people are adopting to help spread information. Following GPD, as I enjoyed a few days of R&R in beautiful Helsinki, I was able to better appreciate the beauty of social media as I kept my friends and family updated on my whereabouts by posting photos and stories on my personal blog.

What about you out there? Obviously if you’re reading this blog you’re taking advantage of one of the most popular means of social media in the name of business. But what other platforms do you use? Do you tweet about glass? Are you linked in? Does your business blog? Are your Facebook friends all in the glass industry? Let me know – not only would I like to connect virtually, I’d like to include your comments on connectedness in our electronic-focused August issue of USGlass.

In this upcoming issue we’ll also be running our Best of the Web contest (in fact, our judges are reviewing those many nominations this week …!). I can’t help but think of how for the past several years we’ve urged our readers to create and update websites, as it’s a medium you can hardly do business without these days. In the future, will a website be enough or will other forms of online marketing be a necessity for keeping competitive?

Packing for GPD

I spent my Saturday afternoon trying to cram three suitcases worth of stuff into one much-abused bag. I tend to over-pack anyway, but I wanted to be particularly prepared for anything for my upcoming trip to Finland.

“Finland?” my friends have said with some surprise over the past few months when I’ve mentioned my trip.

I do somewhat share that sentiment, in the respect that Finland seems so off-the-beaten path compared to the usual European tourist destinations. Who goes to Finland? Well, aside from the several hundred other members of the glass industry who will be flocking to Tampere for the Glass Performance Days conference?

I’ve been looking forward to this trip for about five years now, since I first joined the USGlass team and heard stories about my coworkers’ visits to this much-talked about event.

My friend and colleague, Brigid, recently shared with me a few words of advice based upon her GPD trip four years ago (which you can read about here):

• "Ask for ‘flat’ water, otherwise you get seltzer water (or be prepared to drink tea, coffee or carbonated beverages);


• If you're traveling by train, make sure you're in the right train car before you sit down;
  
• Don't be afraid to try food you've never seen or heard of before. If nothing else, it's a great conversation starter; and


• Don't worry about the sun not going down - the hotel rooms have wonderfully thick, dark curtains on them and you won't be able to tell what time it is outside. Not that you could even if the curtains were open," she says.

Ellen Rogers added to Brigid’s words of wisdom from that trip. “Get used to the midnight sun,” she advised. Ellen recalled from her last trip, “I remember being at an outside bar with a few others from GPD ... it was around 1:00 a.m. and still daylight. It's so strange ... luckily there are heavy drapes in the hotel rooms. One of the best parts about the trip was having dinner at the top of the Näsinneula Observation tower (a restaurant offering a vegetarian option!). It must have been around midnight ... maybe even later ... and from windows on one side of the tower you could see the sun setting, while on the other side it was rising. Very cool.”

And although I’m excited about the literal 24-hour days and am salivating at the thought of a week’s worth of salmon … the glass geek in me is anticipating a fantastic seminar schedule, as this show is known first and foremost for its cutting-edge presentations. As my friend Steve reminded me when I asked for his impressions on the show he attended two years ago, “GPD is the premiere world-wide glass technology conference. The breadth of topics along with the wealth of knowledge at this event is world class. Anyone involved in the glass or fenestration industries must attend for the scientific and networking opportunities.”

If you will be attending GPD—I’m sure we North Americans will stick out and I’ll be saying hello to you soon. If you won’t make it to the conference, take a look at the program and let me know if there’s a conference topic you’re particularly interested in, as I’ll be working to include the most useful information for you in our USGNN.com newsletter, as well as the August issue of USGlass. And if you have any tips for traveling to Tampere - post them here!

Back from AIA

I’m not quite over the jet lag yet, but with the May USGlass going to press and the June New Products Guide deadline just passed (yes, that’s right – but if you send in your products this week we may be able to squeeze them into this packed issue) leading to an avalanche of product releases, lounging at home wasn’t exactly an option. Yes, those West Coast shows sure can be tough for us East Coast dwellers. The American Institute of Architects Annual Convention may have been tough for a lot of exhibitors, though.

Max Perilstein touched on the show floor layout in his blog last week and I’m sure will have additional comments on the show later this week. For my part, the first day seemed to get off to a fairly slow start, but, in the South Hall at least, it remained steady even through the last minutes of the show on Saturday. While the refrain of “quality leads over quantity” quickly became tired, by the second day I found myself echoing it—not because traffic was so slow at our booth but because those architects who came by truly were excited to see the magazines we were offering. As one exhibitor I spoke with mentioned, “Probably everyone that has come by has a need where we can help them.” It just goes to show you that if you’re investing in the dollars to travel in this economic climate, you’re going to take it seriously.

But I didn’t spend nearly as much time in our booth as I did wandering the show floor (and with the many booths mismarked in the directory listing, wandering proved more helpful than setting out to track companies down). If you didn’t make it to the show, we tried to capture a sense of the goings-on via our video reports on USGNN.com, and a great many more product highlights will be featured in our full show review in the June USGlass. (If you did make it to the show, please share your observations by commenting here on this blog!)

You can see on our video post my interest in solar products was shared by a number of companies showcasing their photovoltaic products at the show. In addition to the video, you’ll want to check out our Solar Glazing website for other highlights in this arena.

My college art history courses flashed before my eyes when I stopped with my colleague Ellen Rogers at the NGI Designer Glass booth. Although I know Ellen will be writing plenty on the gorgeous decorative glass options showcased at the show I can’t help but to comment on the amazing clarity of the replica masterpieces captured within and in some cases upon the glass in that booth.

At the Dorma booth, Mari Ciastko was kind enough to give me a tour of some of the stylish new products I’d been reading about from the company. There was plenty there to impress, including the slim header of the automatic sliding door that is operated using the same magnetic technology as the “maglev” trains that float rapidly over the rails in Shanghai. According to Mari, the real “wow” factor for architects visiting the booth was the MOVEO glass operable room partitions that combine transparency with sound insulation.

Serious Materials had a serious presence at the show, and I was happy for the opportunity to talk with Sandra Vaughan and Judy DePuy in the marketing department about their upcoming projects. That’s a company that’s sure to have a lot on its plate in the months ahead as it amps up production at its new facilities that we’ve highlighted on USGNN.com. Although I got a kick out of the graphics in the booth of the Virginia Air and Space Museum in my hometown, talking with these ladies got me curious about the projects this company will be working on in the near future.

It also was a pleasure to meet up with Mark Kearns with Dlubak after visiting with him at my recent plant tour. Mark was spotlighting the company’s new Green Heat product among other things; you’ll be able to learn much more about what the company is working on these days in the June USGlass.

Obviously this list is far from complete, so for those obvious omissions - I'm blaming it on the jet lag. Please give me a hand by posting your impressions of the show here. And for those of you who didn't make it to San Francisco, there will be plenty more to learn about in our review within the June USGlass.