The Measurement Control & Automation Association (MCAA) is having their annual Industry Forum this week in Tempe, Arizona. The session is filled with instrumentation and automation suppliers from large companies and small.
The two day conference shares updates in global economic outlooks and trends, moving from product selling to solutions selling, developing economic models to improve performance, business strategy, channel communications, and social media. I’ll be sharing my thoughts in a presentation, Social Media—Perspectives from the Trenches. Writing these blog posts over the past half decade provides some stories to share with attendees.
It’s great to see the continued elevation of the importance of social media along with the other business topics. There are benefits for process automation professionals as well as automation suppliers. Far too much of the wisdom required to safely and productively operate our plants and mills is buried in email inboxes. Social media lifts these problem-solving exchanges out to online communities, blogs, LinkedIn groups, Facebook fan pages, etc. where they can be discovered by others in searches.
The way automation suppliers and process manufacturers interact has really changed. Information is quickly accessible in online searches. Interactions are changing more to focus on problem solving specific to problems process manufacturers face rather than sharing product or service specifications and information.
If you’re interested in peeking in on some of the ideas being shared here, see the Twitter hashtag, #MCAA.
