Recently, I had a phone conversation with an insider to the connector industry, and that conversation pretty quickly turned to the need for increased interactivity among our industry’s professionals. We observed that some current efforts at this interactivity are effective and useful. For example, the International Institute of Connectors and Interconnect Technology (IICIT) hosts an annual educational event that is now tied in with the International Wire and Cable Symposium (IWCS) and held in the fall.
In addition to providing a comprehensive and technical educational program, the IICIT symposium lives up to the ancient Greek definition of the term by providing a social environment in which intellectual discussion is held. Design-engineering professionals from disparate parts of the United States convene at the IICIT symposium and enjoy the once-a-year opportunity to strike up conversations on topics that have not necessarily landed on the established agenda.
For all the benefits this event brings to its participants, the flipside is the “once-a-year” part. Maintaining an in-person learning-and-sharing experience is like steering the proverbial aircraft carrier. Its course is well set, and trying to turn it in any significant way will require more time and space than one might imagine.
Take any annual event that you attend and it is very likely the same can be said for it. Ideally, the professional stimulation that the event invokes would be carried on in some form after the lecturers, technology exhibits and, of course, attendees have gone their separate ways.
Coinciding with the nature of annual live events is the reality that some of the business being done in our industry is on a custom level. While we all pay attention to market reports that speak in terms of billions, I distinctly recall a term used by industry watcher Bishop & Associates. Bishop dubbed our marketplace “niche-rich,” and once we reach the depths of those niches, we are doing business on very much a custom, one-to-one level. Just take a look at some of the advertisements you see in the periodicals that serve our marketplace. The following statements are lifted directly from such ads: “Custom design to fit customer-specific needs.” “Send us your drawings.” “Made to spec.” “[We] design and build a connector to your exact specifications.” Our industry comprises a dynamic blend of high- and low-volume business; the low-volume side of that equation furthers the argument that a well-functioning tool for interactivity fosters business activity and innovation.
We at Connector Specifier are launching a tool that is aimed directly at this need for customized rather than broad-based information sharing. We call it Interconnection World, and it is a Web-based social-media platform. We on the staff have tried it out in preparation for its formal release to the industry at large. And we hope you will find it to be as useful a resource as we have.
In short, the site will become whatever you make it. Those who have participated in social media already will find it familiar, with some groups already established and the door open to any other groups’ formation. If you are new to social media, please at the very least stop in and take a look. Of course, we hope you’ll choose to join, and perhaps even start a group or a discussion. On what topic, you ask? On whatever topic you wish. Just as this industry is niche-rich, so can Interconnection World be.
Our one governing rule for Interconnection World is that its contents maintain the level of professionalism that we have come to know and admire in our industry. We don’t expect, and honestly won’t allow, Interconnection World to become an arena for nothing more than industry gossip. Rather, we optimistically look at this site as a step toward rewarding and productive technical and business discourse. We hope you see it the same way.
To give it a try, visit: http://interconnectionworld.ning.com
 |
Patrick McLaughlin
Chief Editor
Patrick@pennwell.com
