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Recent Blog Posts

Check Out MOJO, the manufacturing blog on MFG.com

Many of you are familiar with, or subscribe to MFG.com, the online manufacturing community where Buyers (purchasing and sourcing professionals, engineers, etc.) and Suppliers (contract manufacturers, factories, distributors, job shops, etc.) connect, exchange information and do business. As one of the services to to our community, MFG.com maintains a manufacturing blog, MOJO, where opinions and comments about manufacturing are flowing. Recently, MOJO’s blogger, AJ, came across Graphicast and explored our social media strategy. He felt our use of Social Media could be a model for other manufacturers to follow, as he concluded (and I paraphrase), “Graphicast is a small manufacturer that gets the Web & Social Media. You don’t see that everyday.” Thanks for the review, AJ!

The Mid-Year Economic Assessment – Positive Around the Country

We’re closing in on the end of our fiscal year. This year was about the same as last year from a sales volume standpoint. However, the level of activity and optimism we’re seeing indicates that we should be off to a good start for fiscal year 2011. Here’s a snapshot of views from our sales reps around the country:

“Business is good now. Economy is good and seeing a lot of projects to bid.
I know already that I’m losing some business, so I need to replace that with new business.”

“The pipeline for next year is getting filled with five new die castings, three permanent mold jobs, six new sand castings, and three new powdered metal parts all so far this year. All this work should get me back to fiscal 2008 level. It’s been a roller coaster couple of years but it looks like a nice upswing right now.”

“Customers seem to have a more positive outlook than in the past year and we are seeing orders from customers that have been quiet for some time. It appears that they are willing to consider new ideas and ways to manufacture parts but we are also seeing orders for parts that have been basically stagnant for a long time.”

So there you have it. Real news from real people. I hope the rest of you are seeing similar optimism.

DESIGN2PART SHOW

Graphicast will be participating in the D2P show June 15-16, 2010 at the St. Charles Convention Center in St. Charles, MO. If you attend, please stop by our booth #216 to see the latest custom graphite mold castings.

Get Your Kids Interested in Manufacturing

The Manchester (NH) School of Technology is running a summer day camp for 8th grade students interested in manufacturing and design careers. The camp will be held from Aug 16 – Aug 20, 9AM to 3 PM daily. The tuition is only $45!! Tuition includes lunch and transportation from sites around the city. MST was featured on CNN as a model for schools that really engage their students in pursuing interesting careers. This is great deal at a great school. Call Linda Zapora at 603-624-6490, ext 210 for more information.

Looking Back on Almost One Year of Social Media at Graphicast

Graphicast began its social media journey almost one year ago. My personal journey began about a year earlier, but I was a passive participant in the process, looking in and observing from the outside. Although I was somewhat skeptical when I attended a business oriented social media overview given by Kelley-Sue LeBlanc of Aleuromedia, I was very excited by the end of the hour long session, as I saw a great opportunity for Graphicast to expand its message and its influence in our markets via social media. A few weeks later, we hired Kelley-Sue to help us on our journey.

To me, the key to success in using social media is making the leap of faith that sharing information increases your influence and the interest in buying from you. It also, as some fear, reveals information about you to your competitors.  So what? They can get this if they want to anyhow, and this downside is a small price to pay for the upside. This is a variation on the same message I have been telling people who work for me. Many of them think that  hoarding the knowledge they possess is their key to job security. If they keep it to themselves, their indispensability is preserved. I have tried, with varying degrees of success, to convince them that their indispensability is preserved by sharing their information with the rest of the company. By sharing, they become the “go to” people, the people of influence and the people with the highest value to the company. The others, the hoarders, usually don’t last.

Sharing within the company is one thing. Sharing with the entire world can be a scary thought. However, through the analysis and preparation we did for our social media programs, I recognized that there was much more to gain than to lose. The only way to create influence and become more than the four walls of the building is to try to become a “go to” company to the world. We’re trying. From the activity and comments we’re seeing, I think it’s beginning to happen.

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