My most recent befuddlement came when I was reading a news item in FloridaToday.com about the conversion of Fawlty Towers Motel in Cocoa Beach into a clothing-optional “naturist resort.” Owner Paul Hodge says he’s simply trying to survive in business—also perfectly natural. Local laws apparently do not prohibit this kind of establishment. But what really caught my attention, first, after trying to imagine such an establishment opening in Minnesota, was Rule #4 posted on Fawlty Towers’ website: “Sexual and provocative clothing is not acceptable.” What constitutes provocative clothing at a nudist resort? I wondered, but after a while I realized that what I was really thinking about was what kinds of fabrics, especially upholstery, are used in these rooms, and how they might have to change in the presence of all of this unhindered skin.

The U.S. Army is looking for “omniphobic” textiles that not only repel liquids and dirt but can protect against biological, environmental and chemical threats … and can withstand the rigors of the washing machine as well as the battlefield. Any coating used would have to be thin, comfortable, durable, abrasion-resistant, air-permeable, moisture-wicking…basically, sort of the ultimate fabric. Add electronic interactivity to it and it could probably run the world, and make an excellent cup of coffee to boot. The question then becomes, naturally enough, could it run a nudist resort?

I admire a creative approach to business, and if “clothing-optional” catches on—or even if it doesn’t—manufacturers of performance fabrics and coatings have another opportunity to address not only a potential new market but also to outdo any existing fabrics in the hospitality arena. Is there a truly “omniphobic” textile, and if so, is the military just the beginning?

If you manufacture the ultimate fabric, please let me know. If you have purchased the ultimate fabric from someone, please let me know. If you’re opening a nudist resort, please let me know. If you think I should do more mowing…well, that’s always an option.

—Galynn Nordstrom, senior editor, Specialty Fabrics Review magazine

Read "Tapping commercial niche markets" on the Upholstery Journal website.

Words to live by, while we’re still pulling out of recession but also facing an explosion in communication technology. Few industries have been unaffected by these developments, but when it comes to communication technology, those of us in publishing have probably been hit the hardest. They told us print was dying, and not just because too many of us were dropping our paperback mysteries in the bathtub. As it turns out, print is not dying, but certainly the delivery mechanisms for information now offer an often aggravating list of choices (if I buy an iPad, will I drop that in the bathtub, too?) But looking at the program for that MMPA Summit, I was struck by the differences between the editorial and the design tracks: the design seminars tended to focus on digital technology, but the editorial seminars stressed the value of managing and promoting “content creation.”

That would be—writing. Telling a story. But while listening to our lunchtime speaker, a former television newscaster, talk about his online news delivery service (most of which is derived from other sources), all I could envision was a smaller and smaller contingent of content creators (writers), valued but probably eventually imprisoned to safeguard their output. (This is how writers think, especially during lunch: Ultimately, there will be only one … and when they come searching, the last writer will have vanished, leaving only the word “Croatan” slowly fading from the screen of her smartphone … now that’s content.)

For most of the readers of this magazine, you’re fortunate enough to be in the business of producing tangible, touchable products—designed and created to have enduring value to your customers. While we work to bring manufacturing back to its former eminence in this country (and others), craftsmanship has never gone out of style, even during periods of economic stress. You need to produce, package and promote your content, in terms of things such as market research, marketing and customer service. You need to tell your story. Technology has an important role to play in bringing your products to your customers—but your delivery systems aren’t likely to surpass the importance of the products themselves. You can’t tweet a fabric structure into existence. Yet.

As a writer, I think I envy that. As senior editor of Specialty Fabrics Review magazine, I also work to create a magazine (and a website) that has enduring value to our readers. That means telling your stories, striving for an editorial balance between content and delivery, tradition and technology, innovation and continuity. Creating content that works.

So meet me in Boston this November, and tell me how you’re doing, and how we’re doing, in working to evolve, profit and thrive. If I have a smartphone by then, you can tweet me.

—Galynn Nordstrom, senior editor, Specialty Fabrics Review magazine

At first I was amused by the concept of being able to download a book about how to best utilize graphite to make marks on processed wood pulp, still one of my favorite activities. But it also brought to mind a recent story in the Minneapolis StarTribune about the re-opening of Minnesota’s Faribault Woolen Mill Co. The existing plant, which dates back to the 1890s, at one time had a workforce of about 80 and produced half the woolen blankets made in the United States. The mill is resuming production with 31 workers, some of them former employees, and will likely expand to 50 to 60 before long. 

Although the plant is being upgraded, most of the existing equipment was still serviceable. The blankets are being updated for the hospitality and health care markets, and will also be sold in Bloomington’s Mall of America. That blend of tradition and technology, innovation and craftsmanship, economy and value isn’t unique to the specialty fabrics industry, but it has been a dominant theme in our history.

As IFAI prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary at IFAI Expo Americas 2012 in Boston, we’re working to uphold that tradition, bringing together equipment from sewing machines to lasers, fabrics for everything from awnings to implants, and educational sessions from basic business to advanced textile technologies. We’re also starting a new tradition with the “ShowStopper” awards for exhibitors, to recognize the importance of the new products being shown each year at the show. Unlike IFAI’s annual International Achievement Awards (IAA) program to recognize excellence in specialty fabrics projects, ShowStopper entries will be displayed and judged during the show—by show attendees.

For IFAI Expo exhibitors, entry instructions will be available soon on www.ifaiexpo.com. For attendees, you won’t be able to vote on your favorite products until the show, but applications for this year’s IAA competition are now available at www.ifaipublications.com/iaasubmit. A “Shade Sails” category has been added for 2012, and entries are due by July 15.

As it says on the Faribault Woolen Mill website: “We recognize that in today’s highly dynamic and competitive international marketplace, the ability to meet our customer’s expanding expectations for exceptional service, value and unique product design is absolutely critical.” Our awards programs are another way to recognize this kind of success in our industry.

IFAI is 100 years old this year. The International Achievement Awards are 65. And the ShowStoppers awards will be one. Don’t forget to cast your votes for your favorite new products before joining us at the opening reception on the show floor. It’ll be more fun than that other election.

—Galynn Nordstrom, senior editor, Specialty Fabrics Review magazine

In our February 2012 issue, “Retooling online reviews,” the benefits of embracing even negative customer reviews are outlined. “If the critique is honest, it is a great opportunity for improvement,” says Phil Tyson, CEO of the AGI Group Inc. “Everyone makes mistakes, but it’s really about how you respond to an unhappy customer or negative feedback and resolve the situation to everyone’s satisfaction. Ultimately, a negative review can result in a positive influence on your business.”

Absolutely true. And having somebody tweet about how great you are to all their friends (or posting a review so you can tweet it to all your friends) is fast, free publicity. A negative review is fast, free publicity also—and while you may respond very quickly to resolve the problem, there’s no guarantee that your response will get the same kind of online audience. Even in a daily newspaper, it’s the negative news that draws the readers. You may well have completely satisfied your customer (who could even have created an imaginary problem to begin with, hoping for free stuff), but he’s under no obligation to get back online and tweet about that.

The answer, at least for smaller businesses, seems to be in “creating a community” around yourself, which requires some sort of selection (and self-selection) process. Recent studies have shown that traditional marketing generates only about 18 percent return on investment, but that about 90 percent of consumers trust peer recommendations when buying a product or service. Generally, the first thing that consumers do when they hear about a product is to research it online—and then go and look for recommendations.

That’s where the importance of content comes in—and consumers need to know that what they’re reading is both accurate and verifiable, or find themselves in the alarming condition of Indiana Rep. Bob Morris, reported by the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, who told fellow Indiana House Republicans that he “did Web-based research and found allegations that the Girl Scouts were a tactical arm of Planned Parenthood, that they allow transgender females to join, ‘just like any real girl,’ and that they encourage sex.” (His sources for this information were not reported in the article, but I suspect that his methodology was too linear.)

As an editor, content has always been king for me, however it’s delivered. Social media have their strengths, but as part of an overall marketing strategy that focuses on trust and transparency. Given the barrage of electronic options we’re surrounded with, that strategy could well be best implemented with personal phone calls and written letters—once you know your audience. Or create your audience.

Tomorrow, I’m going to learn more about Facebook. Today, I’m mostly relying upon my rhinestone “TRUST ME” pin for results.

—Galynn Nordstrom, senior editor, Specialty Fabrics Review magazine

Consumers are slowly starting to buy again, perhaps because overall confidence in the economy is increasing incrementally, but also probably because some purchases can only be put off for so long. Some products, and some markets, are showing marked improvements. That’s true in the specialty fabrics industry as well. In this year’s State of the Industry report there’s a sidebar showing the growth rates (2011 vs. 2010) of 10 specialty fabrics market segments: two were flat, five showed growth, and three were down. Jeff Rasmussen, director of market research at IFAI, notes: “Specialty fabric organizations that have survived the economic turmoil over the past few years have made significant investments to improve efficiencies in their organizations, and many have instituted a culture in their businesses that emphasizes innovation in improving existing products and introducing new products.”

Because many end product manufacturers make more than one product, they’ve also had at least some protection from the economic vagaries of the past few years. I think there’s another reason as well: businesses in our industry tend to value their employees as their most important resource. In this month’s Perspective, Ken Robinson tell us: “Rather than trying to minimize your expenses, which are your people, what you really should be doing in maximizing the speed and flow of your projects as they move through the company.”

In the January issue, Kathy Schaefer, Glawe Awnings and Tents, says that communication, discussion and cross-training are key: “The more involved all employees are in the big picture, the more personal the projects and customers are.” In November 2011, Jim Miller of J. Miller Canvas says: “My employees often come up with very creative ways to solve problems that I may not think of—every one of them from cutters to sewers to installers.” Virtually every Perspective article we run includes this kind of insight, which would seem to bode well for much of our industry, and for the economy, since unemployed and underemployed people don’t spend much discretionary money. (And I only buy a new car every 16 years.)

In our March issue, the business column will focus on keys to workforce development, not only to improve personnel hiring and management, but to help prospective employees know what they need to learn. If consumer activity is the key to recovery from this recession, then let’s get to work.

—Galynn Nordstrom, senior editor, Specialty Fabrics Review magazine

For the last few years, it’s been all about medium, and the messages themselves have been blended and crushed and frappéd into inconsequential fragments and bounced around until the targeted recipients—if indeed there are any targets—just “unfriend” you and go back to watching reality TV. The tools of social media marketing have a lot of uses, but useful information isn’t always one of them. Now, “content marketing” is coming to the fore, and the message itself is once again garnering at least some of the attention that it used to get, and our webmistress can stop waving that shiny iPad at me and go back to marveling over the editorial content of Specialty Fabrics Review.

It’s time to stop being so entranced with the shovel and pay more attention to what we’re shoveling. A Jan. 11 article by Rick Allen on The Content Marketing Institute advises: “It takes a village to raise a content marketing strategy. Content marketing is only as effective as the internal community that supports it, and that community is bigger than just the marketing department. The most valuable marketing content often lives outside the marketing department, in the hands of content contributors and subject matter experts.”

Many small businesses don’t have marketing departments, or even marketing personnel; but every small business has people in production, in sales, in installation, in customer service or accounting that have a lot of experience with what customers are really interested in hearing about. If you focus your message on that, the media you choose for delivery (personal or electronic) will be markedly more successful. You’ll just need to convince your own villagers that they actually are content creators.

Come to think of it, back in the days when I worried about how people were spelling my first name, I also had a co-worker that used to say: “I don’t care what you say about me, as long as you include the word ‘behemoth.’” I may mark the beginning of content marketing from that period.

—Galynn Nordstrom, senior editor, Specialty Fabrics Review magazine

The 1920s also saw the relatively modest beginnings of synthetic fibers in the U.S., although it was not until the next decade that DuPont gave birth to the miracle fiber, nylon. 

The Review itself did not begin publishing until 1915, three years after the National Tent and Awning Association (now IFAI) was formed. But as I paged through back issues to produce “Beginnings,” what was especially fascinating was the social, historical, political and economic context surrounding the content—as well as the fact that despite the context, the content, at least in terms of business management discussions, has been remarkably consistent over the years. It was and still is important to:

Know your products. How are they made or how could they be made? Who buys them and why? 

Know your business. What do you really sell? Awnings Outdoor comfort? Energy efficiency? The real value of your business? The real costs of doing business? Why do people buy from you?

Know your employees. Why should people work for you? How do you help them? 

Know your markets. Who values your products and why? 

Know your competition. Is it other fabricators? Types of products? Other countries?

Know your industry. How does our history gives us direction for the future?

As we move into 2012, IFAI and the Review editorial team are working to ensure that we’re giving you the information needed to make better business decisions. At IFAI Expo Americas 2012 in Boston this November, we’ll celebrate a century of business—but we’ll be focusing on the next century as well.

Many of our members and readers have also seen 100 years and more in business. If you’d like to share your story with us, please visit www.ifai.com/forms/shareyourstory or contact me directly. I have my own direct contact with the 1920s; my house was built in 1926, and had accumulated considerable irregularities over the decades. When I conveyed concern about purchasing such an old house, a friend mentioned that it was very well built. I asked him how he knew, and he shrugged and replied: “Because it’s still standing.” 

Here’s to our good standing in our next century. 

—Galynn Nordstrom, senior editor, Specialty Fabrics Review magazine

At the same time, the challenges facing all associations, not just ours, have been unprecedented. For instance, time scarcity for members and volunteers has eroded the ability to participate. The two wage-earner household and the increasing number of hats worn by management have eaten away at time that was once available for attending seminars and meetings and working on committees and boards.

Consolidation has decreased the number of companies, and at the same time minimized overlapping interests as the remaining companies have specialized to differentiate. Globalization has changed the way we do business. Generational differences create varying expectations members have for their association. 

Technology has changed everything, making information, once the primary domain of your association, free and accessible to everyone and allowing for-profit competitors easy entry into delivering services that were once available exclusively from your association.

The good news is that we are not alone! I know that you are all facing many of these same challenges in your businesses. And that is precisely why I am optimistic about the future of IFAI. Helping members face new challenges in a changing business climate is exactly where an association excels.

In this issue of the magazine, you will be introduced to Kevin Yonce, the new chair of the IFAI board of directors. What I have learned about Kevin, in the short time we have been working together, is that he is passionate about industry and community involvement. In addition to chairing the IFAI board, he serves on four additional community and business association boards and many other volunteer committees. What he will tell you in his story on page 24 is that he believes in the power of the collective over the individual, and so do I.

I have had the privilege of working for IFAI for the past 23 years in a variety of roles. It is thrilling to see what individuals and companies can do when they share their experience and wisdom with each other to make the industry and their own businesses thrive. That’s the power of an association, and that’s why, despite the challenges that we are facing, I am excited about the future of IFAI.

This is your association. I hope that you are a dues-paying member, but even if you are not, this is the association that has represented your industry for the last 100 years. 

At IFAI Expo Americas 2012 in Boston next November, we will be celebrating the many members and volunteers who have given their time, effort and hearts to this organization since 1912. And now we have the opportunity to make it stronger, smarter and more nimble for the next 100 years. Join us in Boston to help us rejoice in our proud history and share in our future success.

—Mary Hennessy, IFAI executive vice president

Last Saturday, I visited a dealership that understood. The minute I walked into the showroom, wearing my leaf-raking clothes and my “give me 40 mpg or get out of my way” expression, a female salesperson came up and greeted me, asked if I would like something to drink (I didn’t ask for a wine list, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if she had handed me one, heavy on reds), and then brought me over to her desk to find out exactly what I was looking for. We didn’t even look at a car until she had determined what was important to me in terms of performance, aesthetics, efficiency and cost. She brought a car around, in a color I liked, and we went for a test drive. I picked the route. I asked questions during the drive, but mostly we simply chatted about Cars We Have Known.

Back in the dealership, she introduced me to a man who would take my Saturn out for a spin and give me a trade-in value, should I decide not to have the car frozen until it could heal itself. He asked if I was comfortable with him taking it out, and didn’t roll his eyes at my unprecedented “you break it, you bought it” riposte. While I waited, a salesman at the next desk again asked if I would like something to drink. The sales manager came over and introduced himself, and showed me online comparisons on some models I had been looking at. And while all of this was going on, I was listening to a sound track playing songs like Meatloaf’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.” (That was a great prom song! enthused another salesman.)

In short (if that’s possible by this point…), I had an experience that favorably reminded me of that defining moment when I first walked into the Saturn dealership in downtown Minneapolis in 1995. The salespeople had answers to every question I asked about mileage, performance, reliability, service, warranties, financing—all the issues I’d been researching for weeks—but they delivered it all in a way that emphasized their commitment to getting me exactly the car I wanted. And then—the sales manager came up, shook my hand, and asked me if there was something that was stopping me from driving off the lot with that new car. It wasn’t a high-pressure tactic, nor was it a jarring conclusion to nearly two hours of discussion and driving. It simply made me try to answer the question for myself—and ultimately I put a deposit down on a new car before I left.

“In the era of Facebook, Twitter and other social networking tools, we’ve lost the human touch we once had with our customers,” says “Intimate Marketing” author Gil Peretz. You may be able to sell thousands of “How many curmudgeonly editors does it take to change a light bulb?” T-shirts online easily enough, but if you’re not selling inexpensive commodities, ultimately you need face time, and you need to convince potential customers that you’re more interested in what they want than in what you want to sell.

I’m picking up the new car the day before Thanksgiving, so if you’re interested in that 1995 Saturn SL2—there’s not much time left to make an offer.

—Galynn Nordstrom, senior editor, Specialty Fabrics Review magazine

At the time, that seemed to be taking targeted marketing a bit too far, especially if you’re in the position of shaking hands a lot. Yesterday, I thought it had gone way too far, when I saw a headline about a new marketing book that read: “New book reveals ‘Kama Sutra’ concepts for marketing in novel form.” (And they’re complaining about airport scanners? I thought to myself. I’ve really got to get more involved with safety and protective fabrics.) It turns out, however, that the book “Intimate Marketing” is actually about how businesses have lost “the human touch” in marketing, sales and customer service, even as social media marketing makes customers easier to identify and contact.

I’ve had my own experiences with that human touch recently. My beloved 1995 Saturn SL2 is having transmission difficulties, after 16 years of stalwart service. I have toyed with the idea of cryomobilics (or whatever the automotive equivalent of cryogenics would be called), wondering if I could have the car frozen until its transmission could heal itself. After all, Saturn is no more. In a few years, the car could be worth millions, even with that scrape on the rear bumper. Right now, however, I have been visiting local auto dealerships to find a replacement that doesn’t completely outrage my rigorous sense of fiscal responsibility, and the differences in salesmanship have been marked.

Perhaps, as a woman consumed by the desire to own a new car before we’re knee-deep in snow, I have stalked into these showrooms and somehow managed to give the impression instead of a woman given to spending her lunch hours simply gazing dreamily at all the shiny new colors. It isn’t that the salespeople ignored me, but while they were certainly willing to show me cars, none of them really made an attempt to close a sale, and not one of them followed up with me after my initial visit to see if I had questions or was interested in a special they had coming up in a few weeks. They all good-naturedly tolerated my attachment to my Saturn, but seemed to regard it as a female thing, not as a loyal-Saturn-owner-seeking-a-new-dealer thing. Remember how Saturn started out as a “new kind of car company,” with no haggling, balloons and cheers when you drove your car off the lot, doughnuts in the service center, annual picnics, and special handshakes for owners? Why aren’t other automotive manufacturers trying to capture the allegiance of all these grieving Saturn owners as their cars get older and can’t be replaced?

Next week: The final dealer. Will the cry of the consumer be heard?

—Galynn Nordstrom, senior editor, Specialty Fabrics Review magazine

In preparation for special coverage of retractable and roll-up shade products in this issue, Specialty Fabrics Review conducted an informal survey of suppliers and end product manufacturers in the shade products market with the purpose of determining the issues we should address and the questions we should ask. We wanted to know more about how this business works in the U.S. and how industry participants perceive it. What we learned is what we suspected: it’s a unique market. 

For the most part, a company that is exclusively an end product manufacturer (EPM) selling directly to the consumer does not make retractables. According to one survey respondent, “it’s more economical for us to simply order the completed product in and then install it.” But the market is actually more fragmented than that. An EPM may order a completely custom product from a manufacturer, or order a frame but make the cover in-house, and/or order controls elsewhere, provide installation services for everything, or subcontract the installation. 

Regardless of the arrangement for the EPM, retractable products can potentially offer an additional product line—and source of income. So what is preventing more EPMs from carrying retractable products, and, more to the point, how can those barriers be overcome? Our survey provided some answers. 

Industry participants agree that a more robust economy would make all other efforts to improve the market far more effective, but the economy came in a close second behind the need to educate potential customers on the benefits of these products. According to one, “many people still are not aware of what they are and what they do.”

Professional Awning Manufacturers Association (PAMA) managing director Michelle Sahlin says the retractable awning market is complex and can be confusing for buyers. “There are so many products offered—some priced very low,” Sahlin says. “It becomes a challenge for the EPM and their retractable supplier to make their product stand out. It means time spent educating the local market so potential buyers know about them and want to buy from the local expert.” 

Pricing remains a barrier for some EPMs; one listed “better pricing, warranties and financing for consumers.” But others ask whether it’s price, or price perception that’s the issue for EPMs and consumers, too. 

Custom shops have to compete with large volume, lower quality imports that are not custom. Incentives and cooperative advertising and educational efforts from manufacturers could make the retractables market more attractive for these potential dealers. “It is a matter of selling value in the product and the services the EPM can provide before, during and after the sale,” says Sahlin. 

I’m just getting started, and I can’t cover any more in this editorial. You’re in luck, though, if you’re ready to learn more about retractables. Showroom, three features, and the Markets and World Views columns in this issue address aspects of the shade solutions market from a variety of vantage points, drawing on the expertise of many industry sources. If you don’t routinely do so, this could also be the issue you read cover to cover, and when you’re done, search “retractables survey” here on our website for a more complete report on the survey results. In the end, expansion into retractables could be in your future.

—Janet Preus, editor, Specialty Fabrics Review

Ethics in Business

One of the outstanding standards of ethics set out is that well-known and much talked about statement “Do unto others as ye would that men should do unto you,” termed in these modern times “the golden rule in business.”

But why so much discussion of this subject? There must be a reason. Either our business ideals are much higher than they were in years past or we have so lost sight of this “golden rule” idea that men dealing with each other have occupied their time and energy in efforts to accumulate wealth without regard to their human duty. I am inclined to the belief that the latter statement more nearly portrays the truth. Were this not true, the note of warning and the tremendous emphasis now being heralded from one end of the nation to the other by business men themselves, that, unless we reinstate high ethical standards in business and put them into practice, our whole social and economic structure will disintegrate and fall.

No business has a right to exist that is not a contributing factor to the advancement of the community from which it draws its support. The business organization which reaches out its hand to grasp the commerce of its territory with no thought of how, or by what methods, practices, conniving, using either fraud or deception or both, in order to gain a few or many more dollars, and gives no thought to the human element in this territory, is nothing more than a sucker on our economic structure and has no right to exist.

The “Golden Rule” does not infer that there shall be no profit in business. Every business which is performing a service to the community is entitled to the cost of its products, labor, supervision, overhead, a reserve for “rainy day” slumps and a fair interest on the investment. This is the least that can be expected for without this there can be no continuity of business, and, unless there be a profit in addition there will be no constructive building which will permit of still larger service.

Today’s attempt to establish for precept and practice, a high ethical code, based on the Golden Rule, in every line of business is a worthy effort and also an acknowledgement of failure in a large measure of the present system of business dealings and relations.

By all means let us have a code of correct practices for the canvas goods manufacturers and converters. –F.E. Kohler

With so many “Occupy Wall Street” protesters thronging so many city halls around the world, bringing up the moral and ethical failings of unfettered capitalism, this 87-year-old article made me start pondering, once again, the “Three Laws of Business” (adapting Isaac Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics”) that I proposed last year in a blog about corporate social responsibility:

First Law: A business may not injure a society, or, through inaction, allow a society to come to harm.

Second Law: A business must obey all the laws of a society, except where such laws would conflict with the First Law.

Third Law: A business must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

There’s room for lots of corollaries there, but certainly, things like “I will not foul the local drinking water” and “I will not set up a shell offshore so I can make billions and not pay any taxes” would be covered. If smaller businesses could adopt, and promote, and help to enforce, the Three Laws in their own protest movement, we might make a start on healing some of these economic fractures. Many, many specialty fabrics companies are leading by example in having mission statements that include social and environmental goals and guidelines. But keep in mind what they say about gravity: “It’s not just a good idea. It’s the law.”

If we start now, maybe we can have even more to celebrate next year in Boston. I’ll bring the champagne.

—Galynn Nordstrom, senior editor, Specialty Fabrics Review

For the past four years I’ve combed through decades of past issues to find enlivening pieces of fabric history for “Beginnings” each month (always opposite the inside back cover). Thinking about IFAI’s centennial (the Review will only be 97 next year) editorially, I started focusing on the number of companies in this industry—manufacturers and suppliers—that have also passed 100 years in business. 

The Apple II wasn’t around in 1912, so I can’t just comb through a computerized database and print out a list of those companies,  but I always come across several of them while researching each issue of this magazine. They make the newscasts, too, sometimes: just this month, we heard that the Faribault Woolen Mill, established in 1865 and out of business in 2009, has now been purchased and will begin operating again soon. Loane Brothers Inc., located in Baltimore, started business in 1815; the company’s website declares: “Loane Bros. Inc. has survived 184 years by making frequent adaptations, whether they be in making sails, Civil War military tents, or possibly the nation’s first awnings.”

In the recently released book “That Used To Be Us” by Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, Eastman Machine Company’s Robert L. Stevenson talks about what keeps his 123-year-old, fifth-generation, family-owned business successful: “Speed wins. It is not the biggest companies that always win, but the fastest. Adaptability and responsiveness to your customers and your employees will ultimately win the battles.”

The Boston Consulting Group issued a report in May entitled “Made in America, Again: Why Manufacturing Will Return to the U.S.,” which posits that global structural cost shifts are likely to lead to a “manufacturing renaissance” in the U.S., with companies re-examining the full costs of outsourcing production and the strategic advantages of making products closer to consumers. It’s tempting to theorize that over the next 100 years “globalization” will focus less on sourcing supplies and more on selling products, with production kept closer to home—and not just in the U.S. Not every specialty fabric manufacturer is in a position to be a vertical operation like Faribault Woolen Mill, but even in this month’s interview, Alain Perez says that “ … if we didn’t control the entire process ourselves we couldn’t excel. It’s the guarantee of the turnaround time that makes the difference for us. When you have an extended chain of vendors, you can’t guarantee that.”

With all the political, social and economic changes swirling around us, what keeps us in business? Even if you’re not 100 years old, I hope you’ll track me down at IFAI Expo and talk to me about our industry’s future, perhaps as determined by its past. See you in Baltimore!

—Galynn Nordstrom, senior editor, Specialty Fabrics Review

Not surprisingly, one of my co-editors (who shall remain nameless except to say that it was Chris Tschida) opened the discussion with a frank, innocently inquiring expression and the question: “So how did you celebrate YOUR 100th birthday, Galynn?” I gave this so-called sally [sál-ee; noun; a clever, witty or fanciful remark] the bare eye-roll it deserved, but now that I think on it, I wish that I’d replied with: “I put some new tires on my ’95 Saturn, drank some ’83 Bordeaux, and gracefully accepted the reading public’s gratitude for my having stayed on top of a century of change in the specialty fabrics industry. I put all my money into polyester back in the ’50s, and now I pretty much control the entire world’s bowling attire.”

(You never think of these things when you need them. I’m going to have to start writing these things down.)

Today’s headlines in MinnPost.com, however, brought us back on topic: at 1:00 p.m. today, Minnesota celebrated the grand (re)opening of the Faribault Woolen Mill factory, one of the state’s oldest manufacturers. The company began operating in 1865, and was closed in July, 2009. Workers at the mill will resume production of one of the state’s best-known products, “Faribo” woolen blankets and throws. According to MinnPost reporter Dave Beal, new CEO Chuck Mooty says the rebirth of the mill is representative of a trend to bring back to the U.S. work that has been outsourced in recent decades.

“We will focus on quality positioning and the relevance and support for domestic product. The environment has changed in the last two years, with consumers being more devoted to U.S. brands and product, and the cost of importation and the inconsistency of overseas supply play well for our cause,” said Mooty.

The Faribault factory is a vertically-integrated operation, controlling production from start to finish—a departure from most U.S. mills today. And amongst those tradition-laden products, the company will also produce blankets and throws made partly from Ingeo™ fiber, made from corn, produced by Cargill’s NatureWorks plant in Nebraska. It’s a mix of tradition and technology that I think characterizes many, if not most, readers of the Review and members of IFAI today—and that’s the kind of information I think we should be using as we plan our centennial celebration for 2012.

Henry Ford said, "If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse." I’m wondering if the business trends that have resulted in the rebirth of the Faribault Woolen Mill are generally applicable—or if there are as many routes to success as there are 100-year-old companies in the specialty fabrics industry? (If not 100-year-old senior editors.) If you have your own success story to tell, why not share it with a 100-year-old trade association?

—Galynn Nordstrom, senior editor, Specialty Fabrics Review

Mr. Hunnicutt spent some time demonstrating to us the new features and user interface of the software program Awning Composer Version 5 (in early release right now), which offers 3D graphics for a sense of perspective, more than 60 pre-built 3D models of awnings, signs, poles and other shapes, and more than 900 industry-standard fabrics. The idea, of course, is that fabricators can use this program to show potential buyers how these shade products and accessories will look on their own homes, adjusting styles, colors and frames until the perfect match is chosen.

For customers who might be hesitating for aesthetic reasons (or, as Hunnicutt noted, haven’t updated their mental image of an awning since the 1950s), it’s a powerful sales tool. For customers who might be hesitating for other reasons—especially cost—it would be nice to see a program address that issue directly, maybe ultimately in terms of adding value to their homes before a potential sale, but certainly in terms of energy savings and/or tax credits. IFAI’s Professional Awning Manufacturers Association (PAMA) is working with the National Fenestration Rating Council (NFRC) to create a process for rating awnings for energy savings. (The Department of Energy uses research to award products Energy Star ratings, which in turn qualify for energy tax credits.)

According to Michelle Sahlin, PAMA’s managing director, that process could take several years, but they are also looking at updating the Awning Energy Study that PAMA conducted through the University of Minnesota in 2007, which should provide awning manufacturers with a lot of valuable marketing intelligence—but it has to find its way to consumers in a compelling fashion.

The BuildFax Remodeling Index (BRFI) for June 2011 shows that even as the economy continues to struggle and new home sales sag, June shows the highest level of remodeling activity since the Index was introduced in 2004. How compelling would it be to a customer, watching his home graced with awnings on Awning Composer software, for example, to click a button on a new module that takes his local climate, style and size of house, number of windows, etc., calculates it against his local utility rates, and gives him a dollar amount of savings per bill, or per year, based upon the number and types of shade products (to keep heat out, and to keep it in during winter) chosen?

It’s a natural. Enough information like this, and people will start building homes from the awnings in.

—Galynn Nordstrom, senior editor, Specialty Fabrics Review

No reasonable outdoor temperature ever needs to exceed 70 degrees (F)—so, enraged, I turned to the national meteorologists, but they are unused to talking about Minnesota except in terms of its weird politics or how a glass of water flung into the air will freeze before it hits the ground. The best I could get was some guy who noted that, in fact, Minnesota’s climate does swing to both extremes throughout the year.

True enough; but the extremes are getting extremier. Given that, and steady increases in energy costs, I was surprised when not one of these meteorologists seemed to go beyond talking about staying cool when you’re outside to talking about staying cool when you’re inside, except to point out that people without air conditioning were likely to be very uncomfortable, and people with air conditioning were likely to suffer occasional power blackouts.

Maybe I should have called the station. But we are in the middle of doing some editorial research about usage and sales of retractable awnings, rolling shades and shutters for our November issue, so I took a brief tour around a few blocks of my north Minneapolis neighborhood to count single-family homes (174) that had any types of awnings (26) and that had lost mature shade trees from a couple of tornadoes in late May (48).

Given increasing heat and rising energy costs, products that can help keep a home more comfortable year-round would seem to be a natural investment. Combine that with fabrics that are more colorful, durable and versatile than ever before, and technologies that allow the products to virtually operate themselves, and you’d think that the U.S. should long since have started catching up to Europe in this respect. When I started at IFAI in 1999, “the coming boom in retractables” was a hot topic. If you read about “who’s winning the lateral arms race” from the February 1982 issue of the Review, you’ll see that the same expectations were being written about then.

Three years ago, an IFAI market snapshot projected that retractable awnings had captured only about 2.8 percent of the potential residential market, but with a predicted annual growth rate over five years of roughly 15-20 percent. Ninety percent of existing awnings in the U.S. deck and patio market were reported to be retractable, but 80 percent of the awnings in the residential window market were stationary.

So where is this market now and where is it going? There is a need for more information—and more useful information—and that’s what we’re working to provide for our readers and, ultimately, our readers’ customers.

—Galynn Nordstrom, senior editor, Specialty Fabrics Review

Social media isn’t even a distinct specialty any more. As the applications become more mainstream and widespread with consumers (of all ages), engaging consumers on these platforms will become more integrated with other creative tasks, especially marketing. In our August issue of Specialty Fabrics Review, we’re featuring an article entitled “Goosing email marketing with social media,” in which integration of the two styles can be easily accomplished with a number of software packages online. Marketing is becoming more and more personal. And personally, I haven’t decided whether that’s really such a positive thing. But if you’re actively engaged in social media, it’s hard to hide much about yourself these days. If you’re truly keen on retractable awnings, everyone’s going to find out.

However.

Some new research that I received yesterday takes the whole personal preference thing to an entirely new level. Diana Derval with market research firm DervalResearch (Chicago, Ill.) recently presented her findings on hormones and tactical perception at the 15th annual meeting of the Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology (SBN) in Mexico. Between April 2007 and February 2011, the firm studied 3,500 individuals from 25 different countries. Both men and women of various ethnicities and vocations were measured for their individual sensitivity to touch, and interviewed about which fabrics they preferred, and which ones they found irritating to the touch. Apparently, “estrogen-driven” women prefer animal fabrics such as wool, fur, leather and silk, while their “testosterone-driven” sisters go for vegetal materials such as cotton and linen.

For those of us who are female and grew up in the ’60s and aren’t too keen on being told that we’re controlled by our hormones, “this tactical segmentation is also valid for men,” says Professor Derval. She found that men on average are more sensitive than women to synthetic textiles such as nylon, but there were significant variations observed among age-matched men of the same ethnicity.

DervalResearch is part of a trend in “neuromarketing,” which combines cutting-edge neuroscience with marketing research. Prof. Derval’s findings also target hormonal influences on the other senses: vision, taste, smell, hearing and proprioception (the ability to sense our own movement and position). “We can identify the gender polymorphism, or what we call the Hormonal Quotient® (HQ), of an individual based on the gender, ethnicity and different biomarkers, including the digit ratio—the relative length of the index and ring fingers of the right hand,” she says.

Prof. Derval’s findings on sensory perception have been published in the book “The Right Sensory Mix,” which has just been nominated for the Berry-AMA (American Marketing Association) prize for Best Book in Marketing of 2011.

Back in my early days in publishing, when our magazines included “reader service” cards which were mailed back by readers to the publisher and then sorted and sent back out to the individual advertisers with the sales leads from that issue, we editors used to joke about making them “scratch and sniff” selections in order to increase reader response.

That may be just the beginning. But for now, I’m going to do my best to keep my HQ to myself.

—Galynn Nordstrom, senior editor, Specialty Fabrics Review

He also announced the launch of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, which aims to bring together the manufacturing industry, universities and the government. “It’s to renew the promise of American manufacturing,” said Obama, “to help make sure America remains in this century what we were in the last—a country that makes things.”

Making things—with a skilled, motivated staff and the equipment needed to produce products both effectively and efficiently—is the focus of the July issue of Specialty Fabrics Review. To capitalize on the trends in new products and new markets we’re hearing about from our readers, we decided to focus on the equipment needed to go after those markets, and devote three feature articles and several columns to the topic. “The right tools” offers a summary of previously published articles about how to run an efficient shop, while “Tools for setting up shop,” with manufacturers telling us what they need in terms of new equipment, and “The development of new and improved equipment,” with equipment suppliers describing the market trends that they see, the new equipment they’re bringing out to accommodate customer needs, and discussing their “perfect customer.”

“Affordable capital investments” discusses a variety of financial and tax strategies to keep equipment investments affordable, and this month’s market report presents the results of our editorial Equipment Purchasing Survey. Our respondents told us that they are mostly optimistic about their sales in 2011, and are (albeit cautiously) starting to invest in equipment again to make sure they can accommodate growing customer demands.

Given the seemingly sluggish nature of this economic recovery, is it too soon to devote so much of this issue to the prospects for growth in our industry? I don’t think so. I’ve felt for years that Mikael Blomkvist, the journalist in Steig Larsson’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” had extremely keen insights when he said: “You have to distinguish between two things—the Swedish economy and the Swedish stock market. The Swedish economy is the sum of all the goods and services that are produced in this country every day. There are telephones from Ericsson, cars from Volvo, chickens from Scan and shipments from Kiruna to SkÖvde. That’s the Swedish economy, and it’s just as strong or weak today as it was a week ago.

“The stock exchange is something very different. There is no economy and no production of goods or services. There are only fantasies in which people from one hour to the next decide that this or that company is worth so many millions, more or less. It doesn’t have a thing to do with reality or with the Swedish economy.”

It’s time to get back to work.

—Galynn Nordstrom, senior editor, Specialty Fabrics Review

In fact, there are so many examples of the transportable fabric structure concept that Fabric Architecture editor Bruce Wright just can’t stop talking about it. And showing me photos. Bruce’s desk is across from mine and when I need a break and want to see something really interesting, I can count on Bruce to be ready with new projects to show me. Amazing projects.

Like the temporary basketball arena for the 2012 London Olympics, “a fabric-clad and mobile (after the Games) venue designed by Wilkinson Eyre Architects with Sinclair Knight Merz and KSS. A rigid metal frame structure is covered by a translucent, minimal mass skin and is expected to provide a sustainable legacy for the London Games,” Bruce explains in his most recent blog.

And the design of two temporary and mutable structures: INFLATABLE, designed by Leon Lai and Eric Tan of PinkCloud.DK, Copenhagen, Denmark; and BMW_guggenheim lab, designed by Atelier bow-wow, Tokyo, Japan, “each exploiting the unique qualities of fabric-clad structures to create bold, inspiring buildings,” he says.

Project INFLATABLE is a plan that “re-energizes and completely revitalizes Miami, Florida’s Marine Stadium into a major venue for performances, while simultaneously creating one of Miami’s newest icons,” PinkCloud.DK’s website says. It’s an inflatable roof that creates an ampitheater setting by floating over a performance area on an island encircled by water. Just look it up. It’s a little hard to describe.

The Guggenheim Museum and Foundation and BMW North America LLC have announced that the BMW Guggenheim Lab will launch in New York City from Aug. 3–Oct. 16 and travel to Berlin in the spring and summer of 2012, and to a city in Asia to be announced later this year. Conceived as an urban think tank and mobile laboratory, the project was initiated to generate new ideas and designs for community spaces and urban living. Over the six-year migration of the BMW Guggenheim Lab, there will be three different themes and three distinct mobile structures, each designed by a different architect and each travelling to three cities around the world.

Designed by Atelier Bow-Wow, an architecture studio in Tokyo, the mobile structure, a compact temporary facility of approximately 2,500 square feet, will easily fit into densely built neighborhoods and be transported from city to city. In case you haven’t guessed by now, the Atelier Bow-Wow structure is fabric. I’m just going to take a wild guess and say that the other two will be using fabric as well.

But about this basketball arena. It was one of the fastest structures to be built for the games, ready an entire year in advance. (I’m not going to bold that. It should jump out at you all by itself.) The stadium will have its “15 minutes of fame” next summer, then be deconstructed and shipped elsewhere for use. I can’t resist: ready an entire year in advance.

An article on www.architizer.com says of the arena, “the decision to employ a temporary structure for the Olympics speaks truthfully to the nature of the games itself, but also negates the common perception that permanency of structure equals monumental architecture. (Imagine the bold-face type on that last phrase. Good editors are persnickety about bolding too much.)

“It also avoids the inevitable neglect and uncertainty that befalls the largest, most grandiose of Olympic stadia,” the article continues. Dennis Hone, chief executive of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) hopes that the temporary and shippable arena would serve as a model for future Olympic Games: “It makes a lot of sense, especially if you want to take the Games beyond the richest cities in the world. To do that, you’ve got to bring the costs down.”

What a concept! Bruce, you are so right! (er … Wright.) When you floated the idea for the new Minnesota Vikings stadium with the Metropolitan Sports Commission (and all the other mucky-mucks who make multi-million dollar decisions concerning sports arenas) it made the papers, but went no further. Send them this story, my friend! You are so ahead of the curve. Tell the world what we already know: fabric rules. And it’s transportable.

—Janet Preus, editor, Specialty Fabrics Review

Maybe we’re “not in canvas any more” (was it Dorothy or Toto that noted that?), but we’re still in awnings, canopies, tents and covers—just with a lot more options in fabrics, design, construction and performance.

Even as a lifelong science fiction fan, I’ve always had both an abiding faith in, and a slightly (?) paranoid mistrust of, the technological advances of the last 50 years. I may take some misplaced joy in mocking people who can’t figure out how to open my car windows (1995 Saturns have hand cranks), and being mocked in turn in our staff meetings when I insist that the world’s smartphones are going to coalesce into a malignant self-aware entity bent on the destruction of the human race (or at least our Dairy Queens); but ultimately, I’m aware that even if I’m a late adopter, I’m still an adopter.

Mr. Gates, who stated "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1000 MPG," also said: “But with time, people will come to accept their silicon masters.” Slightly paranoid or not, if I’d had a smartphone with me last Sunday when a tornado struck just six blocks from my house, I might not have been so dumbstruck that evening when the power came back on and I finally realized that I had come very, very close to being a woman with a basement. Just a basement.

If we can’t always control the technology that surrounds us, we can control, and adapt, the technologies that represent real advances in the products that we provide. In publishing, I’ve gone from handing paper galleys through the window of our typesetter’s green pickup to having an entire issue uploaded electronically—but in both cases, the stories still needed skilled writers.

Within the June issue, the blend of skill and technology is also evident throughout: Alayna Wool’s “Living History” project brings years of civil war to life on the wall of a cemetery in Guatemala, using a new graphic film that can be applied to textured surfaces. In Blaine Brownell’s article “More than shelter,” he talks about the advanced technologies that will make fabric structures even more versatile in the future: photovoltaic fabrics that harness power, textiles that generate their own light, structures that regulate their own temperatures, clean themselves and interact with their users.

The ‘traditional’ skills in this industry should have no problem incorporating these new fabric technologies into products with the added value that consumers now demand. And, if those smartphones do turn on us, we can use the power generated by our awnings to run our own ice cream makers.

—Galynn Nordstrom, senior editor, Specialty Fabrics Review

Social media are still media—that is, delivery mechanisms. When I write an article, I am creating content; whether it is then printed, or e-mailed, or blogged, or podcasted, or tweeted, or bubbletweeted, or sealed in a bottle and tossed into the ocean. Without wishing to disturb Mr. McCluhan’s rest, the medium is not the message. The medium can certainly change a message, however, especially when the medium is visual. It’s more true than ever that you can’t believe your eyes, thanks to digital manipulations. But it’s also true that this is hardly a recent phenomenon.

In the May 1958 edition of Canvas Products Review, the article “Bogus Spacemen Delight Texas Fabricator” gives a tongue-in-cheek rendition of the story of a portable fabric warehouse erected near Dallas by the Childres Canvas Products Company (now Childres Products Inc.), which created enough local interest that some reporters from the Dallas Times Herald came to visit on a rainy, foggy day—and ultimately came up with the idea of adding some astrology symbols to the exterior and donning some peculiar apparel, in order to give the appearance that they were trying to repair their flying saucer. A number of passing motorists called the sheriff to report their sightings, some saying that they had seen it fly along the ground.

One determined fellow came up to the nearby fence and hailed one of the reporters (who noted in his story that “Unaccustomed as I was to being extraterrestrial, I couldn’t think of anything to say, like ‘Take me to your leader,’ so he began the conversation”), and then got a number of ambiguous responses when he asked what the problem was. The reporter finally said, “We appear to be experiencing mechanical malfunctions of some sort. We cannot get off the ground,” which apparently elicited some suspiciously earth-like giggles from inside the structure. Nevertheless, he reported the incident to the sheriff as well. Many spectators were certain that the ship had taken off before the sheriff arrived.

The next day’s issue of the paper admitted the hoax and cleared up the mystery. That was the end of the story for the Dallas Times Herald, but the Childres Company added another chapter: they promptly capitalized on the publicity and set up the “flying saucer” in their warehouse, which apparently pulled in a lot of visitors—some of whom ended up purchasing the real products available from the company.

The message got there, eventually, but the medium had a lot of fun in the meantime.

I will probably have to invest in some sort of mobile device soon enough, before my regrettably analog existence is overwhelmed by the digital tide. Actually, one of the door prizes at yesterday’s conference was an iPad2, which would have made a nice (and inexpensive) beginning to the process—except that it was won by our Associate Web Content Developer, who probably already has six of them at home, in coordinating colors (and who may be doing unspeakable things to this blog before posting it).

There’s a message there somewhere.

*Yes, I made up that word. Let’s see an iPad do that.

—Galynn Nordstrom, senior editor, Specialty Fabrics Review

Hidden in this news, however, is a better story about specialty fabrics, a segment of the U.S. textile base that has not only survived but now actually thrives, both domestically and (increasingly) globally. It’s a story that offers hope for companies in many countries: the opportunity to seek out new global business relationships.

President Obama has called for the United States to double its exports over the next five years, an ambitious plan called the National Export Initiative (NEI). Only one in 100 small- and medium-sized U.S. manufacturers now engages in exporting. Of those, 58 percent sell only to one other nation—usually Mexico or Canada. Imagine how rapidly U.S. exports could grow if just five percent, rather than one percent, of typical U.S. manufacturers found customers beyond domestic borders.

The challenge for smaller companies is how to find international customers (and partners) and tap into distribution channels to ensure a reliable supply chain. That’s where trade associations such as IFAI, with assistance from programs like NEI, can kindle export expansion.

Last October, the U.S. Department of Commerce awarded IFAI a Market Development Cooperator Program (MDCP) grant. The funds were used to assist U.S. companies exhibiting in Singapore at IFAI Expo Asia 2011, as well as to attract influential buyers.

IFAI Expo Asia 2011 was held March 22–25. More than 1,400 people from 39 countries participated. Among the 90 exhibitors were 11 U.S. businesses. IFAI chairman of the board Peter McKernan, also president and CEO of Herculite Products Inc., an exhibitor at the show, commented: “I thought IFAI Expo Asia 2011 was the best first-time show we’ve ever participated in.”

IFAI Expo Asia 2011 wasn’t a U.S.-centric show, but the support of the Department of Commerce made it possible for U.S. companies to participate. The people from the Office of Textiles & Apparel (OTEXA) and the Commercial Service offices in countries like Singapore, Thailand, Japan and India worked enthusiastically and tirelessly to promote the U.S. industry’s participation.

We need to encourage more industry-government partnerships. In Singapore, U.S. companies took a risk and found success. They are developing new partnerships that may not have been possible without this face-to-face contact.

Planning is already underway for IFAI Expo Asia 2012. Large or small, there are business opportunities waiting for you in the global marketplace.

Stephen M. Warner is president and CEO of the Industrial Fabrics Association International (IFAI).

• Permanent structures aren’t really permanent, especially sports structures, always a moving target. How much energy and resources does it take to construct a building out of steel and concrete, and how much of it can be recycled? Lightweight, sustainable fabric structures require fewer resources and less energy.
• Transport, set-up and take-down of a portable stadium would provide hundreds of jobs that would last throughout each football season. The stadium could travel from one county fairground or college campus to another; those venues are already designed to handle large numbers of people, so few infrastructure changes would be required.
• The design is flexible, and can easily accommodate the most lavish fabric-clad high-end suites for the well-heeled, simply by bringing in a local rental firm/event supplier.
• Home games could be spread around the state, eliminating perennial grumbles about “the cities.”

Who knows? With enough design work, maybe the team can take the stadium along to all of its games around the country—if it’s an air-inflated venue already, why not make one that flies? If you check out the article, you’ll see a structural concept model from Various Architects, Oslo, Norway. The idea of a fabric stadium may be a little out there, but it is certainly not impossible. What does seem to be almost impossible is in getting people to stop reacting to the usual “if you don’t give us $500 million we’ll find a state that will” extortions and think about the problem from the ground up.

At our IFAI staff meeting last week, our CFO mentioned—to widespread applause—that they will be repaving our crumbling asphalt parking lot this summer. Bruce Wright then asked: “and will we be using geosynthetics to reinforce it?” We publish a magazine called Geosynthetics, yet until he asked that question, incorporating geosynthetic textiles into the project hadn’t been under consideration. Now, thanks to the intrepid editor in the next (fabric) cubicle, there’s a new design element under discussion.

In last week’s editorial (“People, planet, profits—and purpose”), I talked about full cost accounting and the need to have all the data before trying to approach that triple bottom line. Even if we don’t have all the data, we have enough to step away from these invidious “either-or” scenarios and come up with some creative alternatives. Will the Minnesota Legislature put aside its tiresome partisan sniping long enough to consider a different kind of solution to the stadium problem? Not likely, I suppose. But, unlike several posted “is this a joke?” responses to the MinnPost article, there was another reaction:

“This is no joke at all. A proposal like this represents the leading edge of thinking in the design disciplines about how to accommodate growing public needs at a time of shrinking public funding and growing environmental damage. 21st century architecture and design will have to become lighter, more nimble, and less costly than what we have built in the past, and Minnesota would greatly enhance its reputation as a design leader by putting up a rapidly deployable and reasonably affordable stadium like this.”

—Galynn Nordstrom, senior editor, Specialty Fabrics Review

“I don’t think that profitability is incompatible with shared values and shared responsibilities and shared capabilities,” says A & R Tarpaulins’ Bud Weisbart. “I think that’s really an unfortunate limitation we put on ourselves.” For those interviewed for the story, community (and industry) involvement is an investment, not an expense. But at present there are still few ways for a company to objectively evaluate its return on that investment.

The phrase “the triple bottom line” is usually attributed to John Elkington, founder of the British consultancy SustainAbility, and encompasses three different measures: people, planet and profits (not always in that order). Another popular term is “full cost accounting”: the process of collecting and presenting information that recognizes economic, environmental, social cost, health and other factors in making financial decisions. The goal is to measure the financial, social and environmental performance of a company over a period of time. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has several accredited standards that could be useful in full cost accounting, but there are few comprehensive models.

It’s clear that we do need to stop doing the same things and expecting different results. Apparently that was clear even in 1933—the editorial from the November 1933 issue of The National Canvas Goods Manufacturers Review says: “This country has recovered from hard times in the past without any program at all. But what did we recover? A false brand of prosperity containing within itself the seeds of another more disastrous depression. The remarkable feature of the New Deal is that it does not stop with having put out the fire. We are now going to make the house fireproof.”

The New Deal did not make the house fireproof. Our economic systems, some of them essentially unchanged in 78 years, have incredible inertia. But when I read about businesses that are trying to operate within the framework of that triple bottom line, I feel like that “idealist at heart” mentioned in a response to my August 24 blog: “When theories collide.” (Of course, the next response to that blog congratulated me on being somewhat excessively liberal, a characterization with which I must take issue; does that really apply to someone who feels that this country needs a Queen, not a Congress?)

My next assignment is an article on cost accounting for our June issue. We’ll focus on the real economic models and practices that our readers are using every day to do business. But if it turns out that there’s actually a software program for full cost accounting, there’s going to be at least one more blog on this subject.

—Galynn Nordstrom, senior editor, Specialty Fabrics Review

Recovery…

Expressions of dissatisfaction are not half so dangerous as reckless and premature statements that the battle against the depression has been triumphantly concluded. Over ten million people are still unemployed. The suffering of these men and women, disinherited by our economic system for the fourth consecutive year—and some for much longer—constitutes one of the profoundest tragedies in human history. The heroic patience and confidence in our institutions which they have displayed can not endure forever in the face of disaster. Their morale must be preserved. When history is written in years to come the patience and heroic endurance of the men and women during the times of this depression will become an epic of courage equal to any history written in eulogy of the Spartan Warrior of ancient history.

After the recent radio speech of Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, we are now certain that the Recovery Program is carrying us out of the depression into which we were plunged by the fatal policy of letting things alone. This country has recovered from hard times in the past without any program at all. But what did we recover? A false brand of prosperity containing within itself the seeds of another more disastrous depression. The remarkable feature of the New Deal is that it does not stop with having put out the fire. We are now going to make the house fireproof. We have now reached the reconstructive period and it is now necessary to ask ourselves “What are we trying to recover from? What evils are we trying to reform?”

The evils which we must remedy developed before the depression started. During the 1920’s we were clinging to dogmas which had become age-worn with the passing of the frontier and the development of modern history. The truths of one era are the fallacies of the next. Unregulated competition was wasting natural resources, ruining worthwhile business enterprise, and exploiting human labor. Ruthless individualism was running wild in an age when cooperation is the only thing that can save us from destruction by our own extraordinary power. We were so entranced by beautiful slogans that we did not see horrible actualities.

The events of the last four years have made us more realistic. Out of our sad experiences an economic program has been built suited to twentieth century life. We live in a highly integrated business civilization requiring a new set of industrial principles.

There is no need for discouragement if the people of this country will continue to support the NRA and President Roosevelt in his policies inaugurated to bring about a return of prosperity. It is the waiting for, and not working towards that creates lack of confidence in the great work and new thought he has brought to the nation. There are still so many groups of small-minded men who have never sacrificed a thing in their lives for a good cause and are not willing to do so now when the need demands it. They can be numbered amongst the slackers in America’s Great Call for Men of Vision and Love of Country.

Whether President Roosevelt will succeed depends upon whether the people of America will give him their ungrudging and enthusiastic support.

~Jas. E. McGregor, Manager-Editor, The National Canvas Goods Manufacturers Review, November 1933

Adopted with great fanfare in June, 1933, the National Industrial Recovery Act was in force for only two years, to increasingly widespread criticism. How different would “a new set of industrial principles” look today—and would they stand a better chance? For 78 years, “the fatal policy of letting things alone” seems to be the only constant.