President's Column
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Joe Adkison, IADD President |
The following President's Columns first appeared in The Cutting Edge, the IADD's monthly magazine:
To view columns from previous issues, chose the issue from the drop-down list below:
This column first appeared in the May, 2009 issue of The Cutting Edge
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| Dear Friends, My thoughts this month push me to exhibit some strong leadership and get everyone moving in the right direction. So, keep your head up, take a deep breath, think and act smart, and start moving in the right direction. For anyone lucky enough to read the book "The Greatest Generation Ever" by TomBrokaw, one could realize that although history and world conditions created many hazards, their future was determined by how they handled the hand they were dealt. Brokaw’s heartfelt explanation conveys how people persevered being products of The Great Depression entering into a world war where many countries were angry with one another and how they lived through it. Brokaw said that our world was ripped to shreds, and they rebuilt our world facing almost insurmountable odds. Think about the very year you were born. What were the conditions at that time? As yougrew up, was your glass half empty or was it half full? There is no doubt that anyone could ponder times were tough or times were easy. I have had people tell me, “I made moneywhen it was easy to make money.” I have hadpeople tell me, “Wow, when I first got started things were tough all over.” So, how do yousee times right now? For those who made money, where is it now? For those who did not, how did they make it to this spot in time? You may have heard people say “When one door closes, another door opens,” “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction,” “Act enthusiastic and you will be enthusiastic.” Are you starting to feel better yet? Are we moving in the right direction? The point to ponder is, no matter when you decide to get into the mix, there will be challenges and there will be opportunities. If you started a new business today there would be plenty of both. If you bought a new pieceof equipment, you could ponder, yes, there will be costs, but will they offset the benefits. I would invite all of you to think back on why you made your decisions of the past. Take responsibility and make some of those same decisions once again. Does my decision allow me an opportunity to get one step ahead of my competition? Does it allow me an opportunity to provide exceptional service and quality to my customer? Does it allow me to be more productive by reducing my cost and making me more desirable to my customers? All of these thoughts were pondered by successful companies in our industry in the past and they were pondered each and every year since then. I would like to add, is it fair? My message this month is full of question marks. I am hoping that all of these questions will get you proactive and reinvigorated to do something rather than nothing. A decision is better than no decision. Yes, conditions are different now. They will be different next year. How are we going to think like the Greatest Generation Ever and get going in the right direction? They rebuilt our world after living through massive problems.They used individual responsibility knowing that they had to first depend on self while sharing in a teamwork effort. We are no different. Make no mistake, we have problems now. We will rebuild our economy and be back firmly on the right path. I am very confident that we will make them proud of us and we will do a very good job. I feel better already,do you? I will speak with you again next month. Please work safely and make your actions fair and honorable. Share something useful witha friend. Call me if I can help you in any way. Thank you,  Joe Adkison, IADD President |
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This column first appeared in the April, 2009 issue of The Cutting Edge
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| Dear Friends, I have made for myself an easy Saturday afternoon to visit with you and to share with you my thoughts for the month. Sitting herein my office, looking out the window, I can see out into the woods all of the springtime activity developing. The trees are budding out, the grass is turning green, and the birds are preparing for their new families. With all of these things that look so natural it becomes possible for me to accept this as just the way things ought to be. All of nature has a predictable cycle. It would be nice if we all could have predictability in our business world. How many of us would pine away for predictability? Sometimes being positioned in such a way to work around unpredictable events gives us an advantage for maintaining profitability. I realize that all of us have unique situations, but I could make an argument for trying to prepare for the near and not-so-distant future. How will you position your business for the near future? What are you doing internally to prepare for any and all opportunities that you will face? I have heard people say when times were more intense that “there never seemed to be enough time to get things done” the way they would like. Now they have this opportunity—perhaps to further train and cross-train their employees. I have heard people say that they have a different pool of potential employees available now that many people have become unemployed. They have an opportunity to upgrade their employee base with some selective hiring. They may even create new jobs with the right qualified employees in mind. This could make the value to their customers even more desirable. You may now be able to provide an added resource to your customers, creating a new profit center. Think about it. On your roadmap to the future, take a breath of air, think, brainstorm, hold internal group employee meetings to surface new and creative ways to be one step ahead of the competition. Ask them for their opinions and they will feel that they are truly part of the process. As you work together as a team,everyone will share in the personal satisfaction and will more quickly be prepared to understand where changes need to occur. If you think about the farmer preparing for his new crop, he prepares his field, researches his soil conditions, and selects the proper seed and fertilizer. He confers with his suppliers, listens to his local farm association,shares with other farmers and plots his best course of action. He sows his seed. He cultivates the upcoming crop while working around any hazards or potential pests. He uses the best known elements of his harvest.He prepares his product for the best opportunities available to get it to market, ultimately taking his profit while placing aside assets for the next season and seasons after that. The seasons after that part are his chance to be prepared for any possible future downturns that may be unforeseen and or unpreventable. How does this differ from your circumstances? Some day they may even harvest the crop using a laser or waterjet. It just can’t get any simpler than that. How would this scenario work for you? Did you notice how I slid in the association part of my scenario? Think about your association. Last month I shared with you about the opportunity to visit Odyssey. Now more than ever we need to position ourselves to be ready to react to our customers’ needs more quickly and better than the other guy. Attending Odyssey will help put you in that position. It’s your chance to be educated and updated on new products, processes, supplies and equipment. In lean times, sometimes new companies appear on the horizon to be the next leader in our industry. Established companies update using their assets to solidify their standing in our industries. The others in the middle have the same opportunity to flourish and grow stronger if they want to. Some companies will not stay up-dated and will face a natural downward progression as we have seen in our past. Back to the natural selection angle, it’s survival of the fittest. This hits home to me as we are trying the things above in our own company and it gives our team a sense of participation. Your association is also on this path, as we do hold staff meetings to surface new ideas for success. Our Executive Committee and Board of Directors meet regularly to discuss the best course of action to take given the existing conditions. You are all part of this process, as we are open to any and all ideas you may have to improve our association. Please call me and let me know any thoughts you may have for improvement or just any general discussion, and I will do my very best to serve you. On a personal note, I would like to tell you that I have already signed up to attend Odyssey, May 6-8, 2009, at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta, GA, USA. For the third time, I was lucky enough to be the first to sign-up for 2005, 2007and now 2009. In fact, within one hour after the registration went online and before the announcement went out, two other applications came in, and now we are in the full swing of things. I urge you today, as soon as you read this President’s Message, to get started on your application and hotel arrangements. Please consult our IADD website orwww.iadd-fseaodyssey.com for further details. Thank you for letting me share this time with you. I will talk to you again next month and I am perpetually optimistic that many good days are ahead for us. Thank you, Joe Adkison, IADD President |
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This column first appeared in the March, 2009 issue of The Cutting Edge
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| Dear Friends, My thoughts this month just keep me coming back to the theme “Hang in there.”We have been hit in the face very hard but we did not fall to the floor. We are still living and breathing, and while we are breathing we can’t let our fears paralyze us. We must all make smart decisions that will breathe new life into our companies or adapt to a new business climate that helps maintain fairness for all concerned. A very good friend of mine told me that we should all be suspect of entering into contract that does not allow both sides to benefit. In all of our actions and deeds we all win when both sides prosper. Can this happen? I Believe it can. As we have seen in recent times, greed and one-sided manipulation of our money and assets has put a tremendous burden on our economy. How did we let things get so far out of hand? Another good friend once told me that the way to determine if you were making a profit was to work very hard, provide good quality products and services on time as promised at a fair competitive price. At the end of the month determine your sales, pay all of your bills and the difference left over would be your profit. It’s just my opinion, but a month seems more than a reasonable time for all of these actions to occur. There would not be a reason to extend this cycle any longer. If you work through this process and you do not show a profit, you will then need to rework your process, and take a hard look to determine where to alter your business model until you can show a profit. We are told that many of our struggles relate to lenders extending credit to many customers who were not qualified to maintain the payment structure. I also see the reverse. Some companies do not pay to term sand it only takes 60-90 days to create devastation. Well, in this scenario it turns out to be a very poor deal for both sides, and now look where it has brought us. Creditors and their creditor’s creditors suffer. In our world it would be very wrong for me to even suggest that anyone should be limited to how much money they could earn.Most definitely everyone is entitled to legally earn to the best of their ability. We can all see that sometimes when the sense of fairness is offset then we can expect trouble. Ask yourself on a contract: is it fair to both sides? It would be my hope this month to appeal to all of us to maintain a sense of fairness. Make and maintain fair deals for all concerned. Pay your bills fairly and promptly and reinvest back into your companies. As I first started thinking about this month’s message, I contemplated asking everyone to hold off, take a breather, wait and see. But I could also make the argument that we need to stimulate our industry and reinvest. Smart companies can make smart moves using good judgment and position them selves in an economy that we hope to expand in our years to come. All of this sounds too easy to be true, but optimism is the path that I have chosen and I have high hopes that we will break out of this cycle and work towards a better economy. This gives me another reason to remind you of our upcoming Odyssey, May 6-8, 2009 in Atlanta, GA, USA. Companies need to position themselves ahead of our up-cycle and research new state of the art products, processes and equipment. It is just the shot in the arm we all need to build our momentum into the future. We can all stimulate our industry and build new confidence. Please visit our website for further Odyssey details atwww.iadd-fseaodyssey.com I started out and I will finish by saying,“Hang in there.” Please call if I can be of any help to any of you. I will talk to you again next month. Thank you, Joe Adkison, IADD President |
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This column first appeared in the February, 2009 issue of The Cutting Edge
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| Dear Friends, Well, as we creep into our new year, many of us are optimistic. A few are pessimistic. Many are unsure. Whatever group you find yourself in, one thing seems inevitable: we will all witness changes in our world. When one door closes, it opens another new door. Changes are upon us, so we might as well embrace each day with new eyes and ears. Take a deep breathe, get creative, improvise and adapt. In the very beginning of the 20th century, motor vehicles were being mass produced. Henry Ford’s Model T made its debut in 1908 with a purchase price of $825. Over ten thousand were sold in its first year, establishing a new record. Four years later the price dropped to $575 and sales soared. By 1914, Ford could claim a 48% share of the automobile market. This must have put a world of hurt on horse and buggy and buggy whip suppliers. They would either have to fold or adapt to change and new markets. While our current state of affairs is slightly different, we must all embrace changes. How will you navigate these waters for your survival? Our troubles, it would seem, relate to our credit and the money supply. This is a major problem. All world markets are affected. We may be headed toward a one-world economy. We are in a cycle of correction. Some of us will need to take a wait and see attitude, but it will just not be possible for some of us to wait. While we are waiting for the thunderstorm to pass, what are some of the things we can all do to enhance our situation or at least stay dry? One of the things I have heard in the past and even more recently is, we must help make our customer’s pain go away. Try it—this may enhance your chances for survival. What can you do to maintain a profit and make their pain go away while adding true value to your customer’s needs? In a more perfect world, I would ask that we work harder to develop a fair, 50/50 customer/supplier relationship. Is the customer always right, or is the customer always right when both parties win? Open, honest conversations can be used to develop what is best for all concerned. In this mode, greed cannot be an option. Some of our experts will tell you that greed is one of our main problems. Greed creates a feeling of mistrust and the dynamics fall apart. If A wants B to produce their product, it must be understood that a profit needs to take place, and the customer must receive exceptional value. How can both parties be assured of being treated fairly? This is where we can do our best work. This is a very simple example that begs for alterative thinking. I hope that we will all be able to accomplish these relationships for our future growth. Discuss with your customers the logistics, the timing, and the exchange of front-end information. Do we really need overnight delivery? Could a little better planning earn a little better price? Have you invited your supplier in to discuss your goals and further define your requirements from start to finish? Both sides need to participate for this to truly work. Did you ask them to stock 1000 feet of stock only to pull 10 feet a month? Did the tooling you asked be delivered sit on your floor for two weeks before you ran your order? Would a value-added tool perform faster, adding more value and longevity than the lower priced tool you forced them to provide? All of these ideas have a chance to improve our relationships and move us into a profit mode without compromising our basic goodwill with our customers. How about a win/win situation? What can you do to improve your customer/supplier relationship? Think about this and put things into another gear starting today. Ask new and different questions. Your customer will be impressed. New dialogue will develop from your new questions. And then of course new ideas will surface. We all win. Let’s give it a try. This, indeed, is what your Association is trying to do for you. At our most recent Executive Committee meeting held in Las Vegas, NV, USA, December 11, 2008, I listened to quite a few new and different ideas from our group that inspired me to send you this message. We definitely want to know how we can add exceptional value to your IADD membership. Let us know what you need. In the meantime, we are constantly making improvements to our website, reenergizing our Odyssey programs, adding more support information to our Chapters, and working very hard to increase our membership. Ongoing new members and their support are needed to bring in fresh blood with new and different ideas. I don’t think that this falls very far from our very basic commonly accepted ideas related to personal relationships. We get out of our relationships what we put into them. We get by giving. Maybe some of these ideas will pull us through the tough times we face. So if we must have change, why not have change for the greater good of all concerned? Be optimistic, get creative, improvise, and take that deep breath. As always, I also am here to help you. Please give me a call. I’ll talk to you again next month. Give an old friend or a relative a call; ask new questions: it will make their day and enrich your relationship. Thank you, Joe Adkison, IADD President |
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This column first appeared in the January, 2009 issue of The Cutting Edge
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| Dear Friends, By the time this issue gets to you we will have completed our year-end celebrations. As we look into our New Year, many of our thoughts and actions are geared to our future. So many opportunities lie ahead. We can pause to reflect and be thankful for family, friends, coworkers and business associates. As we remember to be thankful, we can take great comfort in our accomplishments and remain hopeful of continuing the jobs we have started. Personally, my wife Dee and I were sharing with each other how lucky we really are. We have food, water, shelter. We have jobs, health insurance, vehicles and the means to conduct our lifestyle. What more does a person need, especially in the face of the difficulties in our changing world? Compare this to people facing tough financial uncertainties. Try to understand that in parts of our world some people do not even have shelter and are faced with having to fight for water and food and further do not even have their health or the means to medical care. Some people are in direct fear for their lives. Put these struggles together and you see, just as Dee and I do, that we are so blessed. I do believe that hard work has a payoff. Our rewards come from hard work, involving our passions and our relationships, and sharing our accomplishments. Search out what you are good at and what pleases you. Work at it to the best of your ability and you will realize a wonderful feeling of self worth. Any true good feeling comes from within anyway. As we enter into 2009, what will we need for success? What did our parents need? What will our next generation need? Our world economy was in overload and we are in a correction cycle. The laws of supply and demand dictate that we will have to be competitive in more ways than just price. We must strive to keep reinventing what our customers will require. It is not enough for us to be reactive to what our customers ask of us. We need to create products that keep our customers knocking on our doors and we must be more proactive with fresh ideas and better ways to produce. It will be even more evident that we will have to sell the sizzle, do our homework and convince our customers that price and cost are different. We have heard this comment many times. “We are only going to run 500 displays for this year’s model and then throw our tooling away.” A customer’s request for a tool or product that only has a need for a short life span makes it difficult to compete. What else can you do to create your edge? What can you do to place the product in your customer’s hand with the minimum of trouble? What about your company’s longevity, logistics and working relationship? Have you convinced them that the cost of doing business with you will offset the front-end price they will pay? It will not be enough to tell them. We will have to prove it to them. We will have to be able to keep the short-run product in mind while knowing when to place the value added product in their hands. Apologizing in advance for such an elementary example, I would offer that a generic tool that has a price of $1,000 and nets you 100,000 parts, creates a cost of 1 cent per part. Now if a second tool lasts through 200,000 parts, it would create a cost of a half cent per part. Now all things considered, one could say that the cost of selecting the second tool was by far the better choice. I want to be careful and not leave anyone out; create your own scenario for your raw materials, supplies, converting press, processor or equipment and we can all get a feel for this comparison. We are hard at work in your Association to offer new and fresh ideas. Although we are in a tight economy, we meet often to tender and develop new and ongoing elements of our strategic vision, more narrowly defined as our strategy blast. We will continually revisit its components to determine where any changes are needed, and reinvigorate ways to accomplish our goals. We are open to any ideas you may have to make the price of membership well worth the value that it brings to you and your company. Let us know of any ideas you may have to offer. We also want to make it an easy sell for you to gain new members while helping your own company. The thoughts in this message lead me to remind you about our upcoming Odyssey. Please make your plans to attend the IADD•FSEA Odyssey May 6-8, 2009 at the Cobb Galleria in Atlanta, GA, USA. If you need to stay on the leading edge of our industry you will want to attend Odyssey. This is where our industry comes together to learn of new products, processes and equipment. I have often mentioned that this is where you may see something that has not even been invented yet. You may see new products that are just now being presented to our industry. You may see the 2009 model of converting equipment. At a minimum, you get to visit with industry experts and ask questions pertinent to your application and seek solutions to your problems. I would say that attending Odyssey is a must for those wanting to become a better company and stay ahead of the curve in our uncertain economy. I hope to see you there. For more information, visit http://www.iadd-fseaodyssey.com. Thank you for your time today. Let me know how your Association can help you get a better grip on the future. Call if I can help you. I’ll visit with you again very soon. Thank you, Joe Adkison, IADD President |
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This column first appeared in the December, 2008 issue of The Cutting Edge
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| Dear Friends, Sitting here at my desk with the enjoyable task of creating this month’s Presidents Message, I looked out my window this weekend to see the autumn leaves falling. In Arkansas, and I hope where you live, the leaves are an amazing array of colors. Purple, orange, yellow and red—these leaves send a changing of the season mixed message: the beauty to behold and the need for a trip to the tool shed to find the tools for raking these leaves. The changing of the season is just as inevitable as the changing of our world. No one can escape change. The seasons, our businesses, our relationships ... all change. Take a breather and enjoy your life; now head to the tool shed to find the necessary tools you will need to smoothly transition through the changes you will face. World economic conditions have everyone pondering just where to find the tools to pull things back together. It will take a tremendous amount of faith, hard work and intelligence to calm down our recent meltdown. Opinions vary of just what to do, but I have faith that we will stay the course and work through these difficult times. We have to stay optimistic because failure is not an option. What if you had a customer who told you they were going to use their existing diecutter to cut a new plastic substrate? They also ask you to produce the tooling. They have a one-week time frame to obtain 36 new cutting dies. Suppose you had never produced tooling for this particular plastic and you wanted to put your best foot forward. Obviously you don’t want to install 36 new tools without a little homework. Call on your Association for some help. Many of our world economic policies are the result of implementing economic policies that ultimately did not work. Maybe we have something to learn from this mess. Time will tell if we can learn from our mistakes, learn from experience. Many times you will hear me say that, “Everything we have learned in business as well as in life, we tend to learn the hard way, and that is what made it stick.” We learn from our mistakes. We try not to repeat our mistakes. We want to continue to do things that work for us. Then we all share in our successes. If you had a problem with your diecutting operation and your diecutter seemed to be cutting fine on the left side, yet not fully cutting on the right side, you might casually say, “I think my press is out of parallel.” Do you have tools to work through this? Yes you do. Where can you find the tools? You have many available tools in your IADD tool shed to help you work through your problems. Many of our machinery manufacturers are eager to help, as they want their diecutters to work as designed. Many of our members have the experienced knowledge and the tools to help. You can ask our IADD TechTeam™ for help. You can go to the website at www.iadd.org to search our database of technical papers and information. On our website you can locate related websites, names and phone numbers to call on any of our member companies asking for their help. They will be happy to help you. If you are thinking of asking for help, improving your company or searching for diecutting or diemaking supplies, you can try all of the things above. All of our Association is your encyclopedia for help and information—just ask. If you are thinking of researching new ideas, new products, new processes and equipment, set your sites on IADD•FSEA Odyssey 2009. It is not that far away. Set your plans to attend, May 6-8, 2009 at the Cobb Galleria Centre, in Atlanta, GA, USA. Visit www.iadd-fseaodyssey.com for more information. It is my opinion that things are in constant change and we have to continually refresh our knowledge base. You can never stop learning. Our Association will continue to be on the leading edge of this knowledge base. We will continue to refresh our membership with industry knowledge made even more useful as we are of and in the international diecutting and diemaking community. Now with all of this bragging, I am truly humbled because what makes this work is our total desire to share knowledge with creative international teamwork. It is made possible by all of you and your dedication to the IADD. And it starts right here—call and tell me how I can help you. Be optimistic and stay the course. Thank for sharing some of your time with me. I’ll talk to you again next month. Thank you, Joe Adkison, IADD President |
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This column first appeared in the November, 2008 issue of The Cutting Edge
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| Dear Friends, This marks the end of my first year and the beginning of my last year as your President. Wow, it just flew by for me. I had a ball. We accomplished a lot, and yet we still have endless opportunities to pursue. When I became your President, I repeated to you the sage advice of my father who said, “Set your goals and when you reach your goals, immediately set new goals and your plans to attain them.” It would be all too easy to say, “lets just do more of the same,” and although that would be a goal worth going for, I want us all to look way above that and reach out beyond our comfort zones. We know what it took to get to this point. We also know what it takes to kick it into the next gear, and I’m confident of our ability to set, plan and reach new goals. Keep this idea strong in your heart as you begin your day. Our achievements can bring us great comfort. One of the highlights of our IADD Annual Meeting was the introduction of this very publication, The Cutting Edge, exploding on your monitor in the form of a digital webzine. We will continue to refine and fine tune it and I invite you to visit the website http://www.iadd.org/TCE/index.htm and you will be astonished. Our creative Webmaster and IT genius, Ron Crouse, obtained the software and creatively displayed a sample of our magazine for all to see. Using your mouse and keyboard, you surf through the pages. Literally, you turn the pages, pan, expand, read and enjoy. Information is available for immediate accessibility. Use of this electronic format will open many options to us, such as speedy worldwide delivery, easy access, lessened postage costs, and an additional tool for our Chapters and our Membership Committee. Discussions will continue for further enhancements and possible archiving. The sky is the limit. When former president Dan Johnson handed me the gavel, I told you that I wanted to support and invigorate our Chapters. For the first time in history we had an active officer from every one of our Chapters on hand to give their individual Chapter reports. We deeply enjoyed watching and listening to fresh blood with new ideas. They are our future. I can’t say enough about Shaun Larson of Jonco Die and his hand- picked group of future leaders who planned our Annual Meeting content. They teamed up to bring us what I will say was one of the best programs I have ever had the privilege to attend. They brought in outside speakers, who held the attention of our members, which was proven by the quantity and quality of our Q and A throughout the meeting. They brought us “Sustainability,” the current awareness of our environment by introducing numerous programs on “Going Green” and “Reducing Our Carbon Footprint.” Alternative uses of our equipment made us all ponder new ideas and opportunities. Credit and bankruptcy themes led to the highlight, in my view, of the program presented by Chris Kuehl who explained our current world economic state of affairs with his easy to understand method. Thank you once again to Shaun and his task force: Kim Moravec, ABC Diecutting and Embossing; Justin Smith, Shreiner Company; Tommy Moore, Stafford Cutting Dies; Jim Cincinello, Marco Die Supplies; Jeremy Guest, Diansuply; and John Dickison, Bobst, for an outstanding job well done. Great organization was evident behind the scenes by our staff Peggy Odle and, as always, our CEO, Cindy Crouse, our master at keeping the whole meeting transparently humming with her experienced professional touch. Special thanks back at HQ to Jill May for her unselfish help with our Chapters, to Janet Clay in keeping our books, and to Mike Vanderspool for assisting in many ways and helping our TechTeam™, Membership Committee, and on numerous conference calls. Call any of them, they are eager to help you. Heading into our next year, we are working on an aggressive performance plan striving to expand every entity of our association. We will continue to carry out our strategic vision more narrowly defined as our Strategy Blast. This continues to be our blueprint of where we want to take our Association. We will hold our Midyear Leadership Conference March 12-14, 2009 in Phoenix, AZ, USA. Please make your plans to attend. Talk to your Board members of any ideas that you want us to discuss. We are here to work hard for you. Speak up. Be part of the Association’s process and progress. We will all come together at the IADD•FSEA Odyssey in Atlanta, GA, USA, May 6-8 2009 at the Cobb Galleria. This will be our 5th Odyssey to date, and it promises to please. Walk the floor and learn of new state-of-the art products, processes and equipment. At our Board Meeting in Kansas City, I conducted a roundtable survey to determine that 100% of our 22 Board members indicated they would attend Odyssey either as an attendee or an exhibitor. I’ve been fortunate enough to be the very first person to send in my registration for the last three Odysseys, and I hope to be the first to sign up for 2009, and that you’ll sign up right after me. There is no doubt in my mind that as we head into the holiday season we will spend an increased level of time with family and friends. In addition to our business lives, these are the people who truly enhance our lives and add to our happiness. Make your families your priority. I’ll speak with you again next month. Call if I can help you. Please be safe and nurture your friendships. Call a relative or an old friend. Thank you, Joe Adkison, IADD President |
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This column first appeared in the October, 2008 issue of The Cutting Edge
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| Dear Friends, Every four years our world gets to behold the Olympics. My wife Dee and I were in total amazement watching the opening ceremonies. It was like no ceremony we had ever witnessed, and it becomes impossible to imagine how the next host will top this one. Their synchronization was perfect, and every single person knew where they were supposed to be. Their arm and legs were as if they were one united body. You could even catch them smiling as they performed. As many as 3,000 people at a time were on the floor of the stadium, moving in perfect harmony. They created a circle and moved it around, creating new shapes and movement so astounding that it pales in comparison to college marching bands spelling out the initials of their college. The Moving Big Screen was visible on the floor, as well as completely around the top of the bleachers, in a size and resolution I can only describe as enormous. They had a percussion session that was in perfect time. They had cheerleaders who went through their continuous movements for over two hours in boots with heels; try your aerobics class for 30 minutes, four times in a row, back-to-back. Fireworks producing shapes were orchestrated with such timing and beauty that one could only think that it took incredible planning and creativity. For those who did not see the opening ceremonies I can only say that it is impossible for me to truly explain the awesome event. One commentator explained that the Chinese wanted to make sure the event was perfect for the world to see, so they held a previous dress rehearsal days before the event, spending over 40 million dollars. One of the Chinese directors did not like the style and color of outfits that one group was wearing so he had 3,000 new, lighted outfits created almost overnight. China has many people and had its golden chance to show the world its very best. They spared no expense and they truly shined. For the Olympics, many countries of the world come together for a specific purpose, and that is to send their best athletes to compete with the best of the best in the spirit of fair competition to bring home the Gold, Silver or Bronze medals. It is in that spirit and nothing more that makes the Olympics work. World leaders attended the opening ceremonies and briefly tabled their differences for the benefit of the competitions. Our world is drifting closer to a one-world economy; the Euro is becoming more and more prevalent. The ebb and flow of business still thrives in a free enterprise system. Terms of business and conversations have to be understood, so we try to use an acceptable language that can be easily understood by all concerned. This makes things come crystal clear to me and it’s how we exist as an international trade association. We all belong for many reasons but a very strong reason we belong is that we all come together as an Association that promotes a common voice. We communicate with common terms that are understood by all. China knows how to put on an Olympic Opening Ceremony. Even China and the world can gain from the IADD and see that we are the definitive resource in the diecutting and diemaking world. We have been down roads that many have yet to travel. Our TechTeam™ has wrangled and solved hundreds of industry problems and questions sent in from all around the world. One of TechTeam’s™ original goals was to create a global knowledge database. Our online resource library continues to grow. We have made this available to the International community via their membership in the IADD. I want to repeat the word “we” and remain humble to our members because “we” still repeat, “All of us are smarter than one of us.” And so, the Olympics work because everyone comes together for one goal. And the IADD works because everyone comes together for one goal. We can all share and be proud of our accomplishments if we remember that we have only just begun our task. I really enjoyed the Olympics and it makes me mindful of our upcoming International event. The IADD•FSEA Odyssey is our chance to bring together the International community for one purpose. Join us May 6-8, 2009 in Atlanta, GA, USA. We will showcase international state of the art equipment, products and processes for the diecutting, diemaking, foil stamping and embossing industry. Please consult the Odyssey website for details at www.iadd-fseaodyssey.com. Thank you for sharing with me some of your time. Let me know how I may help you. I will talk with you again next month. Please be safe and remember to thank your families. Share as much time as you can with them. Thank you, Joe Adkison, IADD President |
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This column first appeared in the September, 2008 issue of The Cutting Edge
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| Dear Friends, I hope you are all having a good year. I am very pleased with our progress. I had the good fortune last week to attend my family reunion. In attendance were 85 Adkison descendants. Our last reunion fielded over 100, so our attendance was down roughly 15%. Fuel prices in Florida finally hit $4.00 per gallon. But hotels on the beach had vacancies, and they were willing to offer creative rates. Our families visited and shared stories and events from the past year. There was no shortage of food and drink. The dessert table was full of goodies from recipes handed down from many generations. Don’t worry, my comparisons are coming. Yes our attendance was down. Was it the pace of our lives? Was it the fuel cost? Was it just the overall cost of living and travel? Did our lives get even more complicated and full? At the end of the day my thought was that we tend to set our priorities. What is important to you? How do you get a chance to break up the pace of life and breathe a little? Up to the podium a particular discussion came from one of our elders who begged us to ask questions and seek out stories of how our families developed. Ask questions he said. Beg for stories from Grandma and Grandpa. Learn how things used to be. You can really appreciate electricity when you hear about the times when no electricity existed. Good-bye computers and cell phones. Good-bye air conditioners. Good-bye cars, planes, and trains. It is very important to think about where you are going by learning where you have been. How lucky can we be? Isn’t life great? How true in life and business can that be? We all face similar challenges, be it family, personal, business or even our association. We have often pondered where to take our association based on events that happened in the past and brought us success. We try not to repeat mistakes we made because we listened and learned. Share a little of your time and work on association business. You will net more out of your efforts than what you put into it. Now as you have heard me say before, things change in our world. We have to always keep an open mind. Adapt and improvise, work around your problems. Listen to your family, listen to our association, and the solutions will pour out. Try to get with people in our association and ask questions about how we got to this spot. How were dieboards made before lasers? Freight used to be shipped in wooden barrels that took days to make. Now 100,000 shipping boxes can be produced in an 8-hour shift. Should we pine away for the good old days? Ask questions and share knowledge. All of us are smarter than one of us. As you think about these thoughts I have shared with you, can you even imagine where we will be in five years? Think back to our world just five years ago and look where we are now. Have you heard me mention the IADD•FSEA Odyssey lately? It’s just around the corner—May 6-8, 2009 at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta, GA, USA. Visit the IADD website for more details at www.iadd.org. See you there. I’ll talk to you again next month. Call me if I can help you. Thank you for your time,, Joe Adkison, IADD President |
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This column first appeared in the August, 2008 issue of The Cutting Edge
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| Dear Friends, Recent observations have brought me to share the following ideas: Our world is always in a cycle of change. Seldom do things remain the same for very long. If you are worried about the weather, stick around for an hour and it’s sure to change. If business is a little slow, it won’t be long before you hear people complaining about all of the overtime. Our economy will rise and fall relating to many indicators that will make the stock market sing its songs. World monetary system changes pose opportunities on all sides. When one door closes, another door opens. Free enterprise screams for the realization of the laws of supply and demand. Albert Einstein once shared, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” This deserves some additional thought from us. How do you feel about Einstein’s observation? In our diemaking history, many die shops saw the need to update their plants with state of the art equipment. Automated CAD systems made the way for automated lasers, automated rule processors and automated waterjet cutters that aided in the production of state of the art steel rule cutting dies. This was the CAM part of CAD/CAM. (Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Machinery). The inventors, developers and suppliers of this equipment will tell you that the amazing thing about this technology is although it aided in highly speeding up the particular process they were designed for, it also created a vacuum or bottleneck for other parts of the process. In our shop over the years, the addition of several lasers and rule processors did create several other challenges. Things now are different than when we first automated. As we revisit what Einstein pondered years ago, we may have to face these new challenges in a different way. Yes, we created more capacity to burn our dieboards and install the rule in them. This created a vacuum in our CAD department and a bottleneck in our rubbering and shipping departments. We had to take a new look at how to increase our speed in our CAD department, sending out more projects to the shop. As that increased, we really had to kick it into yet another gear back in shipping. Our employees loved the challenge, and it took employee solutions to move forward. We had to look at things with different eyes than we used in our planning from the previous years. Improvements were made through common sense planning and people reaction to the automated world in which we placed ourselves. We weren’t in the world of high technology; we backed up to just plain old human ingenuity, and it worked. Similarly, Einstein would be proud of our Association’s progress. Our world has changed since we were formed. Our economy and challenges are different. Your Executive Committee and Board of Directors are surfacing great new ideas so we will continue to move forward. New projects require added energy and assets. We have created new positions and added new staff. We have the backing of the full Board that we are moving in the right direction. It is a strong investment in our future and a risk worth taking. We just completed a full slate of projects at our Executive Committee Meeting at the Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport. Many new ideas were discussed and will be brought to the full Board in September at our Annual Meeting in Kansas City, MO, USA. Please make your plans to attend and be part of the process. Visit www.iadd.org for details of the meeting as well as all other IADD information. Call me if you have any ideas or concerns. I’m your guy; please tell me how I can help you. Be careful through the vacation season. I’ll speak to you again next month. Thank you, Joe Adkison, IADD President |
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This column first appeared in the July, 2008 issue of The Cutting Edge
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| Dear Friends, I just got off of the DREC (Diecutting Resource Exposition Conference) Spring Tour 2008. DREC offers an extremely excellent opportunity to provide educational opportunities to our industry. Please visit www.drec.org to learn more. DREC visited six different cities in two weeks, showcasing new products, processes, ideas and services made available by its sponsors. Industry experts Kevin Carey, Clint Medlock and Kevin Koelsch presented interactive seminars on a wide variety of subjects. DREC sponsors asked the attendees to surface problems they face daily and to bring problematic diecut parts for discussion. Questions were asked, solutions were pondered and shared. I was able to take away something new and useful from every meeting for my everyday challenges. One amazing thought that I came away with is that although facts were given and solutions were offered, there is still more than one way to skin a cat. What works better for you? We must all become better educated and work with our vendors and suppliers to create a better mouse trap. Our Association offers just that. We all have a unique opportunity to join together, share knowledge and gain valuable experiences from our efforts. Take advantage of it. Work at it. Share. Special thanks to Dennis Garrity and Andrew Carey for the tireless energy they have given to produce the DREC program. We had IADD Chapter officers, staff and personnel in the IADD booth at every city reporting that we had attendees interested in joining the IADD. You may have heard me before saying that “It was a risk worth taking.” So are many events in business and our own personal lives. Every day is a new opportunity and life is what we make of it. I totally enjoyed DREC and all of the sponsors. We will have a full agenda for our Executive Committee Meeting at the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport June 24th. Much of what we discuss will frame how we present issues to the full board for their advice and consent. We will hold a full IADD Board of Directors Meeting at our Annual Meeting (AM) in September this year in Kansas City, MO, USA. Please make your plans to attend and share in the programs that Shaun Larson of Jonco Die and his AM Task Force will provide. I very much want to support young members with fresh ideas, and Shaun is the right person at the right time. We have already had a few more conference calls regarding our newly formed Membership Task Force. Greg Zimmer has spearheaded this and continues to work very hard conveying to potential members the value of belonging to the IADD. Without a doubt, the very best way is a personal contact with someone you know who would gain from belonging to the IADD. Call someone today or make that personal contact. Ask them to join. Tell them why you belong and how it helps you. We will all gain from this. A special presidential “thank you” to Rick Putch for embarking on a wide-reaching Chapter speaking tour this year, sparking record attendance in at least four of our Chapters. I want everyone to know that I support our Chapter leaders and all of their hard work. They are the grass roots working arm of our Association, aided by our world class IADD staff. You want to know about Chapters, contact Jill May. You want to know about Meetings, contact Peggy Molitor. Mike Vanderspool has shifted into high gear. I worked with Mike on the DREC tour, listened and shared many ideas with him. He can provide a valuable connection to Membership and TechTeam.™ Our CEO, Cindy Crouse, has got us hitting on all cylinders, and all of this makes my job as being your President a complete honor and joy. Life is great. Contact me if I can help you. I’ll talk to you next month. Thank you, Joe Adkison, IADD President |
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This column first appeared in the June, 2008 issue of The Cutting Edge
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| Dear Friends, My thoughts for the last week have focused on the Chapters and how remaining confident will enhance your chances for success. I am reminded of a story I heard over 25 years ago. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had a reputation for being loved and admired by the troops from the privates all the way up through the ranks, was conducting a staff meeting with his immediate generals. It seemed that there was a small amount of strife within the ranks, and some of the generals were complaining that they were struggling to keep their troops motivated. He laid a piece of string on the table and asked one of his generals to take one end of the string and push it around to all ends of the table; of course the string bunched up and wadded into a balled-up mess with nowhere else to go. He then laid down another piece of string twice as long and asked the same general to pull it in many directions. No mater which way he pulled it, the string moved in a straight, organized fashion. He then told them that if they pushed the troops with no clear direction, they could expect poor results. But if they would lead the troops with great confidence, they could expect them to follow, accomplishing the desired results. I have shared this story many times, and I do not believe that it can be explained any better. Leadership is not easy, but to truly lead, you must trust in yourself and expect the desired results. Now what does this have to do with my Chapter news? Well 10 days before their actual meeting, the Kansas City Chapter had only six people signed up to attend. Chapter leaders Dave Hilton, Mark Pierce, and Christine Guest, supported by Rex Williams, held a conference call to discuss how the meeting could proceed. Knowing that the program and speaker were world class, they took the Chapter database and divided the responsibility among all members who went to work on a personal telephone campaign. They connected with a personal invitation and shared the advantages of attending this meeting. Within 10 days, they took the count from 6 to 60 attendees. This represents a record amount of attendees for that Chapter. It made for an excellent meeting with a more varied group experiencing great networking. Q&A extended to the end of the meeting, leaving everyone wanting more of the same. This adds substantial value to belonging to the IADD. This success is an example of great leadership. They all pulled the string in the same direction. I have witnessed this same leadership from the Southwest, Lake Michigan, Can-Am, and IADD of the South Chapters. Our newer and remaining Chapters will also feel this success as we involve our new leadership who share fresh ideas. Great leadership is the key to our Chapters’ success. We are ahead of our goal for presenting Chapter Meetings, and I would like to personally thank all of our Chapter officers for their hard work. I’d like to thank Chapter Development Chair Michael Barkin and all of the other Regional Vice Presidents supporting the Chapters, plus Cindy Crouse and her IADD staff—Mike Vanderspool, Peggy Molitor and of course Jill May, our Chapter Relations Coordinator. Thank you, Jill, for your endless support of all of our Chapters’ activities and for being the cheerleader behind the scenes. Thanks to all of you guys for pulling the string and leading everyone forward and in the same direction. I am very pleased with this Chapter movement, as this is part of our Strategic Vision and our Strategy Blast. Great job, guys. I’ll speak to you again next month and, as always, please call me if I can be of any help to you. Thank you, Joe Adkison, IADD President |
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This column first appeared in the May, 2008 issue of The Cutting Edge
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| Dear Friends, At our most recent Midyear Leadership Conference in Clearwater Beach, FL, USA, I shared with the Board of Directors that I was able to listen in and participate on many conference calls since my last report. I was quite impressed with the Finance Committee chaired by IADD Treasurer Natalie Pepper. They worked through every line item of our budget, fielded questions, and gained a consensus. Our Board was very upbeat in approving our budget, providing the assets required for the smooth running of our Association and fulfilling our Strategic Vision. We are in very sound financial shape, with substantial money in reserve. I listened in on numerous TechTeam™ conference calls which allowed me to learn even more than ever before. The TechTeam is a diamond in the rough and I encourage you to explore the possibilities that the TechTeam has to offer. Mike Vanderspool, IADD Executive Administrative Coordinator, has been a welcome help to leader Mark Baril and its 14 members. I thanked them all for sharing their passion. TechTeam was represented by staff and several members at the Gasketing/Converting Expo in Florida (presented by the Gasket Fabricators Association and co-sponsored by IADD). I also chaired and participated in a new Membership Task Force initiative. IADD President-Elect Greg Zimmer, CEO Cindy Crouse and her staff, as well as Mike Porter, John White, Gino Gaultieri and Justin Smith brainstormed creative ideas to increase membership and retain our existing members. Greg asked us to promote recruiting new converters/diecutters as a core value, bringing more balance to our Association. Vice President Andrew Carey chairs a task force to review certain points in our Bylaws, to reword the terms and duties of our officers, and to make them easier to understand. The task force made some excellent progress and its recommendations were favorably reviewed by our full Board. Our next step is to seek advice from legal counsel and then present to our Association for approval and adoption when completed. I shared with the Board that we are earning our international designation, as 22% of our Board members now come from outside of the US. Derek Ames, Peter Witzig, Mauro Tomelleri, Simon Lile, and Sam Vial make up our international contingent. We were able to discuss a vision statement for international initiatives and activities. Odyssey is just over 12 months away. Immediate Past President Dan Johnson shared an excellent report from Planning Task Force Co-Chairs Eddie Mucci Jr. and Clint Medlock and shared that we are well ahead of Odyssey 2007 in all areas. Vice President Eric Anderson chairs the task force to promote and increase attendance at Odyssey. More opportunities are sure to follow. Vice President Michael Barkin led all of our Regional Vice Presidents in sharing some outstanding reports of Chapter meetings completed and new and exciting meetings planned in our near future. Vice President Rick Putch has been very busy and has a full schedule presenting some excellent Chapter meeting programs. We have an Executive Committee meeting scheduled for the middle of June to review where we are and where we want to go heading into our Annual Meeting in Kansas City, MO, USA in September. We are still hard at work for you and appreciate your efforts and ongoing support. Cindy, Greg, Natalie, Dan and I continue to be in touch weekly and are available for your thoughts and ideas. Let us know how we might further be of service to you. Thank you, Joe Adkison, IADD President |
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This column first appeared in the April, 2008 issue of The Cutting Edge
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| Dear Friends, I would like to share with you two of the many compliments we have received regarding the new look of our monthly publication, The Cutting Edge (TCE). We received many, but these two struck a spot in my heart:
It is also the result of the Board’s trust, but the yeoman’s work was done by (and credit goes to) IADD’s IT Director Ron Crouse for his infinite patience and diligence as we worked through each exceedingly detailed step to both redesign and reformat the publication. He is responsible for creating the new bright graphics, the basic layout, and many of the interesting details that you might not notice individually, but which subliminally add to the beauty of the piece. And the poor guy had to do it day after day, long into the night, with Cindy Crouse, our CEO, hovering at his side, constantly requesting this change here and that improvement there. We were fortunate that we were able to make the switch without dramatically changing our software program. Despite the fact that working with the new layout and color is a big change, Jill and Cindy made the formatting transition with minimal sweat and tears. Even though the layout is now more complicated to implement, we’re relishing the fact that the use of color gives us more options in terms of communicating our message. To be honest, now that we’ve all survived the process, we are very excited about the results. We are confident that these improvements will take the IADD to the next level in the eyes of all who see it. People will pick it up and be compelled to flip through the pages, so as always, we ask your help in getting as many people to notice it as possible. It truly is a leap of faith and now we need everyone’s help in getting the word (and the magazine) out in the field! Maybe you could encourage everyone to pass along their copy to someone new this month. Spread the word to others. Bring it to their attention. In addition, a major block of credit goes to our previous leadership. When I came on the board in 1999, I remember talk of this new look for our magazine. Rex Williams and Ken Holiday introduced some ideas. Clint Medlock and Eddie Mucci Jr. started putting teeth in these ideas. Dan Johnson and I said wouldn’t it be nice if we could finally make this happen. It does take money, assets and energy to make this happen, and I want to thank all of our previous leadership for having the vision and energy to see this come to fruition on my watch. They deserve much of the credit, but I can tell you they will all turn down the credit and defer to others. How can we top that? Of course every one of these past leaders had a strong Board of Directors behind them. With 20+ members of our Board times that many years—we are talking about over one hundred members and staff; so with that many people behind this project, we are very blessed. Your Board of Directors is the body that put the wheels in motion and makes things happen in our Association. Thanks to them as well. With all of this feel-good energy, where do we go from here? I do believe that we can put our monthly publication in the forefront, sharing news and information with our members. It makes a very nice first impression. You can show it to a new potential member to learn what we are all about. TechTeam™ articles bring instant results with solutions to our problems. New products, processes and equipment are quickly known to the industry. Our industry calendar alerts us to upcoming events. Make sure you read Money Matters, World Watch: Monthly Economic Forecast and Safety Corner. The Member News and Chapters Update sections keep us updated on association activities. We also have a salute to our Patron Members each month. TCE is a “must read” each month. Many people start reading and can’t put it down. The advertisements are very eye catching and promise to be seen by more and more people each month. This makes having an ad in the magazine even more desirable. New advertisements will bring revenue to the mix, making the new look a calculated risk worth taking. We will continue to grow and get even better as time goes by. Thank you for giving me a spot of time out of your busy day. Please give me a call if I can help you. Enjoy your new magazine, you are part of it. Have a great month. We’ve just returned from our Midyear Leadership Conference in Clearwater Beach, FL, USA. I’ll update you in my next message. I have communicated with our Chapter Chairs and Vice Chairs, with our Board of Directors and Executive Committee. I had the great personal privilege to have a working lunch meeting with our IADD staff in Crystal Lake, IL, and I want to report that we are in great shape, with many opportunities at our reach. Thank you. Joe Adkison, IADD President |
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This column first appeared in the March, 2008 issue of The Cutting Edge
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| Dear Friends, Wow, I just got back from our IADD Executive Committee meeting in Kansas City, MO, USA. The night before, we were first treated to the IADD Kansas City Chapter’s Post Holiday Dinner held at Em Chamas Restaurant. We had a nice attendance and networked with one another throughout the night, sharing events prior to and planning our strategy for the months to come. The next day, we had a full and very active agenda planned for our Executive Committee meeting and hit the ground running. We are charged with overseeing the smooth flow of our Association and fielding data designed to keep everyone updated on any new programs or projects underway. At the forefront was our Strategy Blast. We discussed how we will implement tactics to carry out the charge of our Board of Directors. We will be calling on members who have volunteered and others to share their passions and be a direct contributor to the priorities listed in our Strategy Blast. We discussed possible meeting sites and will continue to gain information allowing us to make suggestions to our Board for locations for our 2009 Midyear and Annual Meetings. Because our TechTeam™ is one of our solid anchors to share technical knowledge to the industry, we will continue to commit energies here. If you have not consulted the website lately, let me invite you to the wealth of information available to you at www.iadd.org. As I have often told you, we know somebody that knows somebody that knows about this. We are the definitive resource to the diecutting and diemaking industry. We had a very informative discussion regarding our Bylaws to better understand the inner workings of our association and defining our roles, duties, structure, and terms of service. Great reports surfaced from our Regional Vice Presidents, sharing the news of our Chapters. We have had great Chapter meetings, allowing our grass roots members the opportunity to network, share and gain valuable knowledge. If fact, many Chapters have exceeded their normal number of meetings this year, with additional meetings planned. Our Board has become quite diverse. We explored ways to continue our international thrust and bring in an understanding of how we all relate within the international economy. We hope to increase global awareness of our Odyssey program which is coming to Atlanta, GA in 2009. I was extremely pleased and impressed with the level of participation and conversation at our Executive meeting. We had great feedback and surfaced many creative ideas. So I would like to share with you that we are hard at work for you and continue to welcome your thoughts and feedback. We will still call on everyone to expand our membership, with a special focus on converters. As every new converter comes on board, it increases the diversity of our membership. When we continue to bring in new members, we gain new contacts and expand to new and different areas of our industry. Every new step opens a new door, creating new jobs and the need for new products and processes. This is a concept likened to a tree branching out with new limbs, creating newer limbs, producing many leaves. We will be implementing a new membership drive designed to create diversity while keeping us on the leading edge of our industry, bringing in the next new product or process. I am encouraging everyone to bring in a new member. We will all share and profit from our newfound diversity. Thank you. Joe Adkison, IADD President |
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This column first appeared in the February, 2008 issue of The Cutting Edge
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| Dear Friends, In the only way I know to say it, the IADD has done more for me than I will ever be able to repay. This is my simple attempt at explaining the IADD to potential members. I am truly blessed. Now, for as good of a salesman that I think I am, why can I not be 100% successful at convincing people to join? You may have heard the phrase “All of us are smarter than one of us.” So together, we as a group should be able to spread the word and take a new look at increasing our membership. I’m asking you to take a moment to consider this and make that personal contact to get a new member. After that, consider what new step you can take to add value to your association. Take your passion—what you are good at and what you enjoy—to the next level and you will see value back to yourself tenfold. It’s often said “You get by giving,” and I truly believe that. All of our past leaders have seen and greatly endorsed the idea of bringing in new blood with fresh ideas. Our future leaders are here watching and learning from us, and we will not disappoint them. Who among us thought that leadership was a cake walk? I seriously doubt if any of us could say that. We all had fears on the front end, and we learned from our past leaders as they shared their knowledge. Fear of public speaking hits most everyone. Fear of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time silences many people. But allowing someone to take a chance without the fear of ridicule will instill confidence for them to try again and again. This is called mentoring. I hope that this is how we will continue to bring up our new leaders. Teach them and mentor them; they are our future. How many of you gain a warm feeling in your heart when you help someone else through a learning process that you yourself traveled in the past? Life’s rewards sometimes come in small packages, but the personal satisfaction of helping another person through something you have had an experience with is enormous. In our businesses we want to mentor and train new employees to expand our own knowledge base within our companies. This allows us to tackle new obstacles and create new products, processes and value for the further success and expansion of our companies. We simply duplicate ourselves and hope to double up our strengths and profits. Likewise, I would like to see us expand these same opportunities for our association. If every one of us brought in a new member, in one month we would double our membership. How easy does that sound? This brings me back to one of my opening statements: “All of us are smarter than one of us.” We will continue to work on our membership drive using many new and some familiar tried and tested ideas. Nothing works as well as the old personal contact explaining why you belong to the IADD and how it would be a benefit to your potential member through participation, education and the sharing of knowledge. Please contact someone today, share with them your excitement and ask them to join the IADD. Help them through the process. Collectively we will all benefit, and we will have a new member who will some day bring in another new member. Life is great. Have a great month. Thank you for your time. Joe Adkison, IADD President |
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This column first appeared in the January, 2008 issue of The Cutting Edge
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| Dear Friends, Our Chapters serve as an immediate venue to share valuable knowledge through participation. I would like to share with you that some of my most satisfying times, learning and networking, have been at Chapter meetings. In my earlier years in the IADD, I belonged to the Chicago Area Chapter. We had a wide variety of participants from an even wider group of states. At one memorable meeting—I believe it was in the mid to late ‘80s—a new machine called a CNC Automatic Rule Processing Machine was introduced. We all had an understandably doubtful tone about the meeting, and I remember many people sharing that it would not be possible to get a machine to put the necessary craftsmanship required into a steel rule cutting die. Wow, were we wrong about that or what? Take a look at how things are done today and compare that to an even shorter period of time like five years ago and you will start to ponder where we will be five years from now. You can’t stand in the way of the train of progress or it will run you over and flatten you out. I have previously stated that many people attend Chapter meetings because they are seeking ways to make their jobs easier and they are also seeking solutions to their problems. Many like-minded attendees are all gathered in the same room, and they ultimately find that everyone else shares in their similar problems. At first thought, people do not want to expose that they have problems, but that fear quickly goes away when they realize that life is just too short and much more can be accomplished by talking and sharing. You just have to give it a chance to work. Soon you find that you have a lot more in common than you first thought, and you can begin to understand the phase, “all of us are smarter than one of us.” Anything we can do for our Chapters gives value to the IADD. When is the last time you attended a Chapter meeting? You might be surprised to learn that these are not your father’s boring old Chapters any more. They are coming up with creative and innovative ways to revitalize and reinvent themselves. In the past months, Chapter attendees have met and played teamwork games at Dave & Buster’s adult playground/restaurant, cheered at a national league baseball game, been serenaded at a Styx concert, played cornhole (a beanbag game), ridden on two wheeled Segways, and of course listened to many excellent technical presentations. This thinking outside of the box and the fact that our Vice Presidents are supporting new ideas and venues tells me that we are not slowing down; rather we are adapting to change. We have experienced an ebb and increased flow of Chapter movement, as is promoted in our Strategy Blast. I do believe that when our Chapters meet, and even if it is a social event such as a party or golfing event, networking does take place. Ideas are exchanged, questions are pondered, and solutions are surfaced. Information is asked for and given. Information is then “regiven” and shared with other members. As members return back to their respective home bases, this information is reprocessed over and over again. Just participating in our Chapters is enough of a reason to be involved in the IADD and realize some of its remarkable payoffs. Our customers expect us to come up with improvements long before they can even dream up that they need them. Going to Chapter meetings for me is one way to learn, network and try to grab on to the leading edge of our industry. Please make it a priority to attend your next Chapter meeting. Ask questions if you need to learn when and where. Please attend, come loaded with questions, and you will glad that you did. We have a great year ahead of us. Thank you. Joe Adkison, IADD President |
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This column first appeared in the November/December, 2007 issue of The Cutting Edge
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| Hello Friends, This is an extremely exciting time in my life. Thank you for taking a spot out of your busy life to allow me the time to share some thoughts with you. As your new president, I am deeply humbled at the faith you have placed in me. I will work very hard for you and try to deserve your faith in me. Past presidents have shared with me that their time as President went by so fast. Just as you start to learn the ins and outs, they say, “It’s time to step down.” I appreciate the wise counsel of our past presidents and I want you to know they have not left us. They are still around to watch, enjoy and share in our progress. We all can thank them for paving the way and putting us on the right path and allowing us the opportunities to adapt to the current conditions of the world. I would like to personally thank past presidents Clint Medlock and Eddie Mucci Jr. and our new immediate past president, Dan Johnson, for helping me, mentoring me and especially for all of their support to me during our 2007 Odyssey in Milwaukee, WI, USA. They say good friends are hard to come by. I say good friends are easy to come by in the IADD. Our incoming Executive Committee is made up of our President-Elect, Greg Zimmer; Secretary/Treasurer, Natalie Pepper; our six Regional Vice Presidents (Andrew Carey, Peter Witzig, Rick Putch, Jeff Zaiger, Michael Barkin and Eric Anderson); our Immediate Past President, Dan Johnson, whose experienced advice we will welcome and enjoy; our CEO, Cindy Crouse; and myself. We will maintain contact all through the year, discussing ideas, fielding data and conveying such back to our Board of Directors for their advice and consent. Our board is a cross section of our association membership. There is no doubt in my mind that every board to date led us to what they considered was the best path for the conditions in existence at that time. As we worked at our October Annual Meeting, I believe that our current Board did just that. Our Strategic Vision, more narrowly defined as our Strategy Blast, is our road map of where we want to take this association into the future. Look in your 2008 Membership & Resource Directory to see where we’re going. Let us know if you have skills that can help make this happen. As new ideas develop, we will have more to follow on implementing our plans for the future. Sometimes you hear the statement that “you are either part of the problem or part of the solution.” While I think that seems a little harsh, I would prefer to say, if you want to make a difference, effect a change or make your thoughts known: speak up, be heard. Get involved; get on a committee or task force. Get on the Board. Tell someone that you want to be more involved. Participate or work in your Chapter. Bring a few friends to a Chapter meeting. I joined the IADD in 1982 (25 years ago)—From my experience I can tell you that I have gotten more out of the IADD than I will ever be able to repay. In my early years, I stood in the background and watched. I did not actively participate. A good friend said to me, “get involved.” I cycled through three election cycles, only to hear, “not this time.” I was told to get more involved. I even had to submit a written document begging to get on the board. I then started working on various committees, programs task forces and really started to learn and understand how valuable our networking can be. I have often said that the ongoing networking in the IADD is my million dollar payoff. In 2000, I accomplished my goal and got on the board. I now continue to learn new and exciting things that make up our industry. I often tell people that we are the definitive resource in the industry. I also say that we know somebody that knows somebody that knows about this. So ask your questions, share your experiences and we all win together. I now have a great opportunity to pay back to our association for all of the wonderful things that have happened for me. I have quite a way to go so I need to get busy. Call me if I can help you. As I take on this responsibility of president, I will do my very best to make the best decisions and lead this association with a listening ear. I will continue to promote fairness, openness, mentoring,and education throughout the ranks. I will give of my time, talents and energy and do my very best to leave us in better shape than when I started. Thank you. Joe Adkison, IADD President |
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This column first appeared in the October, 2007 issue of The Cutting Edge
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Dear Colleague, |
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This column first appeared in the September, 2007 issue of The Cutting Edge
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Dear Colleague, |
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This column first appeared in the August, 2007 issue of The Cutting Edge
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Dear Colleague, |
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This column first appeared in the July, 2007 issue of The Cutting Edge
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Dear Colleague, |
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This column first appeared in the June, 2007 issue of The Cutting Edge
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Dear Colleague, |
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This column first appeared in the May, 2007 issue of The Cutting Edge
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Dear Colleague, |
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