Better Roads Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/109757
Lattatudes betterroads.com /BetterRoadsMagazine @betterroads Editorial Editor-in-Chief: John Latta Editorial Director: Marcia Gruver Doyle Conversation Soup Executive Editor: Tina Grady Barbaccia Editor Emeritus: Kirk Landers Truck Editor: Jack Roberts Construction Editors: Tom Jackson, Tom Kuennen, Dan Brown, Lauren Heartsill Dowdle editorial@betterroads.com Design & Production Art Director: Sandy Turner, Jr. Graphic Designer: Kristen Chapman Advertising Production Manager: Linda Hapner production@betterroads.com Construction Media Senior VP of Market Development, Construction Media: Dan Tidwell VP of Sales, Construction Media: Joe Donald sales@constructionmedia.com Corporate Chairman/CEO: Mike Reilly President: Brent Reilly Chief Process Officer: Shane Elmore Chief Administration Officer: David Wright Senior Vice President, Sales: Scott Miller Senior Vice President, Editorial and Research: Linda Longton Vice President of Events: Alan Sims Vice President, Audience Development: Stacy McCants Vice President, Digital Services: Nick Reid Director of Marketing: Julie Arsenault 3200 Rice Mine Rd NE Tuscaloosa, AL 35406 800-633-5953 randallreilly.com Better RoadsTM magazine, (ISSN 0006-0208) founded in 1931 by Alden F. Perrin, is published monthly by Randall-Reilly Publishing Company, LLC.© 2013. Executive and Administrative offices, 3200 Rice Mine Rd. N.E., Tuscaloosa, AL 35406. Qualified subscriptions solicited exclusively from governmental road agencies, contractors, consultants, research organizations, and equipment and materials suppliers. Single copy price $5.00 in U.S. and Canada. Subscription rate for individuals qualified in U.S. and Canada $24.95. Foreign $105.00. Special group rates to companies qualified in quantities over five names. We assume no responsibility for the validity of claims of manufacturers in any advertisement or editorial product information or literature offered by them. Publisher reserves the right to refuse non-qualified subscriptions. Periodical circulation postage paid at Tuscaloosa, Alabama and additional entries. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage retrieval system, without written permission of the copyright owner. For quality custom reprints, e-prints, and editorial copyright and licensing services please contact: Linda Hapner, (224) 723-5372 or reprints@betterroads.com. POSTMASTER: Send all UAA to CFS. (See DMM 707.4.12.5); NON-POSTAL AND MILITARY FACILITIES: send address corrections to Better Roads, 3200 Rice Mine Road N.E., Tuscaloosa, AL 35406. I must say I do look forward to trade show season. There are old friends, so many, and that is always something to delight in. And so many new products, from giant machinery to software and gadgets and everywhere in between. I'm like a kid at a fairground. Wow, look at this, wow look at that, tell me how it works, all day long. The ingenuity and engineering in so many of these products is head shaking, and how much fun is that. At seminars, press conferences, dining tables and in booths I constantly find solutions offered for industry problems, answers to questions that puzzle me, and technological explanations for things that, without help, would be well beyond my learning. But there's something else. Not quite an intangible, but something to do with all of the different people, the show events and after-show events, the show floor, the noise, the demonstrations and the sales pitches all running into a single feeling. It's a show, not a meeting or a convention, and it's exciting, it lights up and gets loud. Exhibitors "work" their booths and wander to every competitor's booth, talking, analyzing, guessing and making mental notes, and their summaries, their highs and lows, will come out in discussions late in the day. It is here, in this mix, that I can get a reading that is hard to find elsewhere. All of the people I'm talking to have talked to other people who have talked to other people and so on until we are in a sort of conversation soup. It is, to use such a modern word, interactive, but the interactivity here is people talking to people, thoughts compounding like interest and developing, changing and being rethought after each conversation. Pulses are taken, estimates, projections and assumptions are made and surprises are registered. On the more concrete side there are sales numbers and deal details. All will go into the soup. There seems to be an accepted off-the-record approach, a consensus, that we talk about anything and everything, that we are perhaps a little less guarded, shoot from the hip a little more, we're maybe willing to be unconventional, even daring, in our thinking. Not all the shows are in Las Vegas, but a lot of what happens inside those big convention center halls tends to stay inside those big convention center halls. Or maybe it's just an impression. Maybe we just have a good time and I make more of it than is there. But I'm looking forward to this year's shows and I expect to come back from them with a feeling of having been loaded by John Latta, Editor-in-Chief down with new ideas and understanding. jlatta@randallreilly.com Better Roads February 2013 3