The Big Picture - June/July 2013 - (Page 4)

insight by Gregory Sharpless www.bigpicture.net EDITORIAL Gregory Sharpless Editor-in-Chief gregory.sharpless@stmediagroup.com Adrienne Palmer Assistant Editor adrienne.palmer@stmediagroup.com Fire is a Big Deal Earlier this year, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported on the 23 words that are the oldest words in the human repertoire. The words are (in no particular order): “thou,” “I,” “not,” “that,” “we,” “to give,” “who,” “this,” “what,” “man/male,” “ye,” “old,” “mother,” “to hear,” “hand,” “ﬁre,” “to pull,” “black,” “to ﬂow,” “bark,” “ashes,” “to spit,” and “worm.” So, let’s say you decide this weekend that, instead of cutting your grass, you’re going to transport yourself back in time, perhaps 200,000 years ago or so. If the Academy is correct, you could still have some interesting conversations with your ancestors – as long as you keep to the word list above. And subject matter might be important, too; as a writer on Discovery.com noted, “You can tell that ﬁre was a big deal back in the day.” Now, jump forward in time to the present day and your own company. How do you communicate with your employees? Do you know their most important topics? What’s the modern-day equivalent of “ﬁre” to them? And how are you going about communicating with them on a daily basis – about these most-important subjects as well as others? Let’s face it: For many managers, one of the tasks that comes least natural to them is communicating. We’ve all had managers who fall into one of two very distinct categories: Either they barely communicate with their staﬀs, or they over-communicate. In the case of the former type of manager, the staﬀ is usually left to translate whatever miniscule information can be grabbed, often piecemeal. For whatever reason, the manager simply doesn’t like sharing information, or perhaps doesn’t feel comfortable with his or her staﬀ (the latter is often evidence of inexperienced managers who might feel threatened by veteran employees). All the staﬀ can eke out about ﬁre, for instance, is its color; but they’re never provided the more critical details: that ﬁre is hot, that it can cook food, that it can burn things down, and so on. When it comes to over-communicating managers, the staﬀ is often provided with so much information that they have to determine how to ﬁ lter out the information that has little or nothing to do with the task at hand. To continue with the ﬁre example, the manager not only tells the staﬀ everything about ﬁre, but also then gives them a history of ﬁre through the ages, with some anecdotal family ﬁre stories thrown in. In both of these extremes, the staﬀ doesn’t ever quite get the information it needs and, as a result, there’s a real possibility that the shop can suﬀer. Before your next staﬀ meeting, evaluate what type of communicator you are and ask your staﬀ how you can do better at providing them with the information they require. Do so and you’ll be able to put out those ﬁres much more quickly. Laura Mohr Art Director laura.mohr@stmediagroup.com Marty McGhie, Craig Miller, Jared Smith Columnists Rick Bachelder, Kathy Boydstun, Terry Corman, Scott Crosby, Brandon Gabriel, Michael Garcia, Kirk Green, Robert Kissel, Tina McLaughlin, Craig Miller, Carmen Rad, Greg Root, Jared Smith, Mark Taylor Editorial Advisory Board SALES Murray Kasmenn Senior VP/Group Publisher 770/578-2577 murray.kasmenn@stmediagroup.com Lou Arneberg Business Development Manager East and Midwest US, E Canada 800/654-5169 lou.arneberg@stmediagroup.com Ben Stauss Business Development Manager West and South US, W Canada, Europe, Asia 513/263-9363 ben.stauss@stmediagroup.com Linda Volz Production Supervisor linda.volz@stmediagroup.com Tedd Swormstedt President Steve Duccilli Senior VP of Content Christine Baloga Audience Development Director Kari Freudenberger Director, Online Media Subscription Services/ Copies/Back Issues (847) 763-4938 tbp@halldata.com bigpicture.net/subscribe bigpicture.net/renew THE BIG PICTURE (ISSN 1082-9660) is published 9 times annually (Jan/Feb, March, April, May, June/July, August, September, October, Nov/Dec) by ST Media Group International Inc., 11262 Cornell Park Dr., Cincinnati, OH 45242-1812. Telephone: (513) 421-2050, Fax: (513) 362-0317. No charge for subscriptions to qualiﬁed individuals. Annual rate for subscriptions to non-qualiﬁed individuals in the U.S.A.: $42 USD. Annual rate for subscriptions in Canada: $70 USD (includes GST & postage); all other countries: $92 (Int’l mail) payable in U.S. funds. Printed in the U.S.A. Copyright 2013, by ST Media Group International Inc. All rights reserved. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the consent of the publisher. The publisher is not responsible for product claims and representations. Periodicals Postage Paid at Cincinnati, OH and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Big Picture, P.O. Box 1060, Skokie, IL 60076. Change of address: Send old address label along with new address to The Big Picture, P.O. Box 1060, Skokie, IL 60076. 4 THE BIG PICTURE JUNE/JULY 2013 11262 Cornell Park Drive Cincinnati, OH 45242 tel (513) 421-2050 fax (513) 421-5144 http://www.bigpicture.net http://www.Discovery.com http://www.bigpicture.net/subscribe http://www.bigpicture.net/renew

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Big Picture - June/July 2013

The Big Picture - June/July 2013
Contents
InSight
Up Front
Inside Output
Flatbeds & Hybrids 2013 Report
Establishing a ‘Green’ Identity
Give Your Shop an Edge with Cutters & Routers
Technology Spotlight: ISA Expo
Explorer

The Big Picture - June/July 2013