UP FRONT

By Richard Mandel
Editor in Chief

Drawing a Lion in the Sand

Let’s see…March comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion. If that’s so, then doesn’t that lion pose a threat to all those people on the Mayflower that April showers bring? No, that’s not right…Actually, here in Cleveland, OH, March is pretty much like the current incarnation of Browns football — depressingly predictable, with a few small surprises.

Despite hundreds of years of evolution and development, we are still applying our best guess. The tales of the weather report, the poker table and the stock market are all presented by soothsayers with roots back to ancient Egyptian marketplaces, making a few coins out of your hopes that things will get better. May the gods smile on you, too, but it’s still a guess. You might as well stop railing at the golden-haired vacuous stare on your TV screen. 

So it was with caution that I approached companies at this year’s National Manufacturing Week with the politesse oblige, “How’s business?” The response, usually made after surreptitious glances in all directions and a lowering of the voice, was often a cautious, “Actually, our sales have been up lately.” I offer this news to you, again, cautiously, as good news. We have already spent several months imminently going to war in the mid-East — and if there’s no combat by time you read this, then I suspect there are a lot of frayed nerves in your office. The financial wizards of Wall Street are certainly oscillating at high frequency over the undeclared war, plus the prospect of proposed tax cuts, so the whole process of casting the bones over stock futures is a bit upset. This situation has been why I avoid the prognostication business in this column — most forecasts are as fragile as drawings rendered at the beach during low tide. Twelve hours later, everything’s changed.

The show occupied less floor space than in previous years. For an array of reasons, many companies chose not to exhibit at this show. There were also fewer attendees, no doubt due, in part, to the dynamics of weather systems — a major snowstorm hit the East Coast a day before the show began, keeping some companies from even appearing. Despite these setbacks, by the end of Tuesday many companies were commenting that they were receiving excellent leads. Apparently, adverse conditions kept out all but the hardy and determined. The tourists and the riff-raff (other than media types like myself, of course) were thereby reduced to a minimum.

Generally, then, it was a satisfactory show. Several companies — Caterpillar, Ford and Boeing — were on hand to talk about their ability to develop new technologies, a turn-around from their roles as assemblers of apparatus developed by suppliers and other sub-tier sources. There was plenty of flash and food on the fly, and products and stories were found to grace our pages over the next several months.

As of this writing, I noticed this morning that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has inducted AC/DC. It seems appropriate, as today’s music so heavily relies on electrical power for amplifiers, reproduction equipment and wireless microphones. Perhaps sometime there will be appropriate recognition of the inventors of these devices. Until then, rock on.