The Mheda Journal

During my extended Thanksgiving weekend, I went to a local theater to see “The Social Network,” a.k.a., the Facebook movie. I wasn’t sure what to expect, as, frankly, I didn’t find the previews to be all that compelling, but I’m glad to report that I was pleasantly surprised. It’s a very well-written script and performed well by the actors, and it gets into a lot of the positive and negative history of the company that I don’t think is common knowledge. I’d give it a thumbs-up.

You’re probably saying, “Why should I care?” Good question. The easy answer is to say that when you’re studying a company that was recently valuated at $25 billion, we all should care. But the real answer is that there are enough business themes in there to make it worth a screening for a business owner. For instance, whether or not Mark Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook or not (the central theme of the movie), his formula for building the company would translate to any business. Good Idea + Good Timing + Lots of Hours + Networking = Billions of Dollars. Granted, there’s never been a company like Facebook before, and that formula might not work quite to the extent it’s worked out for Zuckerberg, but you get the point.

One of the parts of the movie I found most interesting was how they decided to raise money for the company. It started with a little seed money from a friend’s family but eventually Zuckerberg and another partner were able to secure venture capital to support the burgeoning company. A key was moving the company from Cambridge, Massachusetts (where Harvard is) to California (where the VCs are). So lesson #2 might be to “follow the money.” It turns out to be a major plot line of the movie, so I won’t ruin for you here, but they do talk quite a bit about the business side, beyond the programming.

Finally, the film gives good insight to what the consumer of the future will look like. Many people, and in some cases rightly so, still dismiss social media like Facebook as gimmicks or trends. They’re not. They are here to stay. The rapidity with which things spread over Facebook (or Twitter or LinkedIn) can make it and its brethren a valuable tool if used properly. I know I’ve said it before, but now you don’t have to take it from me. Check out “The Social Network” and see for yourself.

Photo is from the official movie site at 500millionfriends.com.

I know there’s a lot of sports fans out there, so I thought I’d take this Friday afternoon to share an article my colleague Steve Guglielmo came across while searching for today’s wikiMHEDA headlines.

Apparently, the Ralph Engelstad Arena on the campus of the University of North Dakota has a busy week of concerts and sporting events, hosting a total of 12 events in 10 days. The Grand Forks Herald wrote a story profiling the facilities staff’s travails in transforming the arena to handle the different events. Needless to say, the material handling is playing a role in helping the staff complete its busy week of conversions. (The article features a nice picture of a Hyster forklift with a suction cup attachment being used to put the glass protectors back around the hockey rink.)

It’s another example of how the material handling industry is all around us. I know I’ve talked about this theme before, but as a sports junkie, I’m hearing a lot about this type of stadium conversion lately. Army and Notre Dame played a game on a modified Yankee Stadium field a couple weeks ago, and the Stadium will also host a bowl game next month. Wrigley Field is hosting its first college football game in several decades. Here in Syracuse, the Carrier Dome often goes through several transitions from football field to basketball court and vice versa at this time of year. Surely, forklifts, pallet jacks, carts and other material handling equipment play a part in those moves.

So as you’re watching your favorite college or pro team this weekend, keep in mind that your industry helped get them ready to play.

Yet another low-budget (and I’m guessing low-quality) reality television show has turned to the material handling industry for help. On the heels of last January’s “Conveyor Belt of Love,” an ABC show that featured single ladies trying to pick a date from the men moving by on a conveyor belt, comes the newest dreadful combination of material handling and reality TV.

The new show, “Downfall,” premeired on June 22. It’s a trivia show and the contestants must answer the questions correctly and quickly enough to keep their possessions, which are scrolling by on a conveyor belt, from being dropped on to the ground below. Here’s a preview.

One reviewer said that ABC must have seen that old Conveyor Belt of Love lying around and decided they may as well use it. I did not watch the show, but I did read several reviews. It doesn’t sound like I missed much. The good news for material handlers who want to see the big belt in action: Downfall has several more episodes scheduled to air, whereas Conveyor Belt of Love only made one appearance. Check your local listings.

I was on vacation for a few days last week and spent some time cruising around Southern California. I had been there before but always had a destination and a reason in mind, and never really took any time to explore beyond my immediate destination.

This time, though, I had some free time to relax and soak it all in. Looking back on it, it’s amazing how much material handling I saw, really in every way. Traveling around Long Beach, i saw the port filled with huge barges loaded with hundreds of shipping containers. I saw cranes and hoists being used to unload those ships.

I saw forklifts in action, at every size business, from a tattoo parlor in Venice Beach using a truck to unload what looked to be large ink canisters, to the Hollywood Walk of Fame using one to haul some new granite for a new sidewalk star (I think it was Russell Crowe’s), to a shipyard in San Diego.

I saw industrial storage rack in the place where we picked up our rental car, and I saw conveyors both at the airport and at a cruise ship boarding station we rode our bikes past.

Most people don’t know it, but material handling is everywhere! Making that awareness more prevalent is the purpose of MHEDA’s Industry Advocacy committee, and the good news is, they have a lot of material to work with. Even on vacation, I can’t escape it!

Today is the first official day of March Madness, the annual three-week period when the NCAA crowns its men’s basketball national champion. It’s one of my favorite times of year, as office pools (if those were legal) come into vogue for the next few days and people talk about their brackets.

One of the things that gets the casual fan, not just the rabid college basketball follower, involved in March Madness is the expectation of “upsets” by the smaller, lesser-known schools and embracing the upheaval caused when these upsets occur.

For instance, already today, in the first four games of this year’s tournament, the underdog won two games, and the other two games went to overtime before the favored team won. You never know what to expect.

In some ways, “You never know what to expect” has been the prevailing attitude in the business world for the last 18-24 months. Since the recession started back in 2008, what used to be commonplace is no longer, and vice versa. Customers that have been counted on for years may now be closing their doors. “Madness” has not only been a figurative turn of phrase for some people during the last several months, unfortunately.

The good news is, the upheaval in March Madness is usually short-lived. Eventually, many of the teams that are expected to be around at the end will survive to make it there. Let’s hope the same holds true for those in the material handling industry in particular, and the business world in general. Let’s hope those who struggled to survive the early rounds of this recession are still around at the end.

To those of us who spent last night watching TCU play Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl, we made the wrong decision. Airing at the same time on ABC was a new reality show, Conveyor Belt of Love. Think of it as speed dating meets material handling.

A series of single men rode a conveyor belt to the middle of a stage, where their dating worthiness was judged by five single ladies. The women could ask questions of the men and elect to go on a date or let them pass on the conveyor and out of the way forever.

Had I known about this sooner, there is no doubt that I would have penciled this in as must-see tv and definitely would have alerted you to it in this space. As it is, we’ll each have to settle for this clip.

I’m not much for “reality” shows, particularly reality dating shows, and my official review of this one is that it’s about as good as you’d expect. But, hey, whatever gets material handling out into the mainstream, right?

For now, this was a one-time special show made to conicide with the premiere of the new season of The Bachelor. That’s probably enough.

A press release from The Raymond Corporation says that Raymond lift trucks will be featured in episodes of a new Discovery Channel series, “Motor City Motors.” The show features two brothers in Detroit who custom-engineer vehicles, and the forklifts are used to help maneuver parts and components for assembly.

MHEDA member distributor Andersen & Associates (Wixom, MI) provided the show with five trucks, including one walkie reach truck, two walkie pallet trucks and two hand pallet trucks. “We are pleased that our lift trucks can play a part in a series designed to spotlight manufacturing ingenuity,” Andersen & Associates Principal Thomas Campau Jr. says in the release.

“Motor City Motors” is scheduled to premiere on December 28, 2009, on the Discovery Channel.

Here it is, courtesy of Joe O’Connor at Wynright Corporation, video of the NFL on Fox promos featuring really great footage of material handling equipment in use. The conveyor is what caught my eye initially, but this time through I also noticed the lift truck and dock equipment. Nice job by Fox to get some awareness of the material handing industry out there every Sunday.   (Note: this is from a few weeks ago, but I believe the same type of promo is running each week.)

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O’Connor says, “The conveyor clips Fox has been using to promote its Fox NFL Sunday program features conveyor manufactured by Automotion, Inc., A Wynright Company. Wynright was the designer and integrator of the system.” Thanks for the info, Joe!

Click here for more information on this topic.

Al from Lakeshore Learning in Carson, CA, writes to inform me that the FOX Sunday NFL promo commercial featuring conveyor was filmed at their distribution center facility in Carson. It is Automotion conveyor. We’re still trying to track down some video.

Thanks for the info, Al, and thanks for reading!

For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, read my September 14 and October 5 blog posts.

Sorry to stay on the sports theme, but that is my background after all. There was an interesting story this week in The New York Times about converting the Metrodome back and forth for football and baseball use.

For those who don’t know, the Metrodome in Minneapolis is the home stadium for both Major League Baseball’s Minnesota Twins and the National Football League’s Minnesota Vikings. Earlier this week, workers there were put to the test when the Twins played a home game on Sunday, the Vikings had a home game Monday night and then the Twins hosted a one-game playoff on Tuesday.

It’s a lot of work to transform one field and back again, more than 12 hours, according to the article. Apparently a forklift is used to uproot and carry the pitcher’s mound to a place where it can be stored. Interesting, right? I thought it was just a pile of dirt but evidently not.  

The issue may come up again if the Twins continue to advance in the playoffs. They play the New York Yankees in the first round (and lost game 1 last night). I guess the material handling industry should be rooting for the Twins, if for no other reason than to keep the forklifts in the news!