Industrial Vehicle Technology - June 2020
FOREWORD
Tom Stone 2020-07-11 05:28:35
As a new world unfolds before our very eyes, changed in almost every way by the risks posed to health by Covid-19, my mind goes back to a chance meeting in the halls of Bauma Munich, just over a year ago. The engineer whom I spoke to (unfortunately I didn’t get his card and don’t remember his name) mused to me about the long-term viability of gigantic expos, asking, “I wonder if this could be the last Bauma Munich”. Standing there in the middle of the largest trade show anywhere in the world – one that attracted over 600,000 visitors over the course of one week – his pessimism seemed somewhat fanciful. Yes, I could see his point that the carbon footprint of such gargantuan international events was clearly eye-watering, and that with rapidly advancing digital conferencing and VR technology so much business could now be done instead in a virtual space, but would the entire industry be willing to change? Could such huge events be brushed aside, or at least transformed into virtual equivalents in the space of a few short years? At the time I doubted it. But now, just a year later, it seems almost as if this anonymous engineer was a time traveller from the future. Perhaps that’s why he didn’t give me his card…
But, even without the benefit of a time machine, the clues as to the direction of the expo industry have been there to read. For example, when iVT attended ConExpo in Last Vegas in March (an event that has now gone down in off-highway history as the last big pre-Covid gathering, sneaked in, as it was, just before almost the entire Western world went into lockdown) a new vehicle was presented in virtual reality. You can read about our VR walkaround of the Manitowoc Grove GMK6400-1 along with four other vehicle highlights from the Vegas event on page 10. Perhaps VR headsets will be an important part of the ‘new normal’ we are now looking to define.
Away from show floors, webinars and podcasts had been gaining in popularity across all industries before Covid-19 hit. But now, of course, they’re not just an added extra, they’re an essential way to remain connected to the industry. iVT began offering both earlier this year. You can hear the latest episode of our podcast and browse the archive at www.ivtinternational.com/podcast and you can book a webinar by emailing kevin.barrett@markallengroup.com – plus, watch this space for more on an exciting new webinar series, coming soon.
Of course, we all hope and anticipate that eventually we’ll get back to a place where international events will take place again. We can’t possibly say exactly how they will change and evolve, but we can start the conversation and be involved in the recovery efforts right across our industry, which have already begun, as you can read on page 16. And while specific predictions may be tricky, if we read the signs carefully, perhaps we can drop in briefly on the future, even without a time machine…
Tom Stone, editor
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FOREWORD
https://ivt.mydigitalpublication.co.uk/articles/foreword?article_id=3717094&i=666576