Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/674536
A nine-hour flight requires en- tertainment, so I downloaded "Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble," by Dan Lyons. Lyons, a tech journalist laid off from News- week in the Great Recession, relates how af- ter a prolonged search, he finally gets a job at HubSpot, then a pre-IPO Boston-area-based marketing software firm. At the time, Lyons is a decrepit 53 years of age; the average HubSpotter (the term they call themselves) is 27 years old. Misadventures, indeed. As I read, it was hard to suppress laugh- out-loud reactions in the forced civility of airplane steerage. At one point, because I was shaking so hard with mirth, my seatmate asked me if anything was wrong. The book's tech start-up setting made a fit- ting backdrop as I flew to Bauma, the once- every-three-years granddaddy of construction equipment trade shows in Munich, Germany. We're in an industry that likes to talk about technology; in fact, the technology banner was the highest one flying at the show. From press conferences, to roundtables, to one-on- ones, the word "technology" was used. A lot. But this is hardly new. Technology has been the prevailing theme for the trifecta of trade shows – Bauma, ConExpo and Intermat – for at least five years now. When the mas- sive Tier 4 emissions battle had a clear end in sight, manufacturers told us they were taking a second look at the R&D schemes that took a back burner to emissions control. They found, however, that there was a grand data gift amidst all the angst of emis- sions control: the sensors required in engine electronic controls, and then throughout a machine, gave the industry an incredible amount of information. A second, more significant challenge then emerged: how to make actionable sense of all this data. (For a good start to sorting things out, check out Tom Jackson and Dan Samford's five-part se- ries, "Telematics 101," which ends this month and is available at equipmentworld.com.) Manufacturers – as always – seek either world domination or a significant piece of the pie, and many of them now view tech- nology as the one true path. Increasingly we're hearing them say the way to achieve that is not to concentrate on just how many machines they sell, but on how those machines interact with each other and the contractor's front office, and the dealer and the manufacturer, to create one massively productive and efficient whole. In one way, you could say there were no showstopper machine intros at Bauma. But underlying it all was an amped-up rivalry – no matter how old a company is – to be the tech start-up of the industry. Unlike HubSpot, the company profiled in Lyons' book, there are no beer taps and candy dispensers in the break rooms of these companies. But like HubSpot, they are telling themselves, and us, that they are leading a revolution and changing the world. It will be an interesting ride. EquipmentWorld.com | May 2016 7 on record | by Marcia Gruver Doyle MGruver@randallreilly.com And the theme of the show is...