October 6, 2009
88 pages. That was the size of the September issue of the INSPECT last year. About one third more pages than offered by the September issue of 2009. You surely already noticed that trade journals are significantly thinner this year and that they show a frightening tendency towards anorexia the further the year progresses. Why is that so anyway?
A trade journal is a product, as much as a consumer magazine is, or a book. This product needs to generate an income. That is exactly the same as it is with the products produced by your own company. For a trade journal the main source of income is advertisement, placed by companies who have an interest to communicate with you, the reader of the journal. The amount of advertisement continuously decreases since the beginning of this year and subsequently the income of trade journals abates. Now, one could argue splendidly if it is wise and well to save on market communication especially in economical difficult times, or if it were not even more important now to show a high visibility. On the other hand, one may not be mistaken that for many a company it is no longer a choice where to save.
As a consequence, cost saving has to be done by the publisher of trade journals as well. The first publishing houses announce significant economical imbalance and fight for survival. Others meet the market situation with magazines that rather remind you of a student´s notebook in size and haptics.
Not only in light of this comparison, the 54 pages of the September INSPECT are really good.
Is there no need to save costs for INSPECT as well, you might ask yourself now.
Yes of course there is, but we are lucky to have a very sound basis in more than one aspect: The companies that place their ads in the INSPECT know that in doing so they reach their customers of today and of tomorrow in an optimal way and our readers confirm for them that this choice is the right choice.
Take a close look at the advertisements on the 54 pages of INSPECT 8-9: for those companies it is a priority to be noticed by our readers and to communicate with them. This also shows economical strength, strategic sustainability and faith in their own future. Suddenly these ads have a whole new meaning in addition to featuring a product.
For us they provide the possibility to present with each issue a versatile, comprehensive and independent information package. In German and in English language. In each issue. This is complemented with our online presentation at www.inspect-online.com, taking up the topics from the printed issues and enriching them with up-to-date news on a daily basis, again in German and English language. During the summer our portal was given a facelift, that is – as with cars – a technical and optical makeover. Especially the interactive and the multimedia aspects, naturally rather out of reach for a print product, are offered by the website: search engines, webcasts, Buyers Guide database, job search, online polls, to mention but a few. But not only that: also the printed edition features some new components with which we hope to generate value and deliver delight.
Gabriele Jansen
Publishing Director INSPECT
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Posted by gabrielejansen
December 3, 2008
One of the trend topics during the recent Vision trade show in Stuttgart has been standardization. Boring, yawn, unsexy – one might think. But wait a second ! Standardization of the main parts of a machine vision system, is just the opposite: a highly attractive topic. And this is so for all parties involved. Customers and users of machine vision profit by standards due to the increased transparency of the decision relevant criteria, the improved possibility to integrate different modules with each other, the avoidance of interface problems and the resulting cost eficiency as well as significantly higher security of their investments. The supplier of the machine vision product gains from the subsequent increase of the product´s usage, owing to the fact that technical and economical barriers on the user side are reduced. It is also to their benefit, of course, that at least for the standardized aspects of their product range they do not have to re-invent the wheel over and over again and thus can direct their development resources to areas where significant competetive advantages can be won.
Before either one of both sides can leverage these advantages, however, much time, effort and a good measure of enthusiasm has to be invested. A successful industry standard naturally requires that the technical details are worked out by the industry itself and that the result is accepted and put into action by at least the major part of this industry. For Machine Vision, this work is executed today in standardization working groups surpassing the barriers of companies, countries and languages, supported by the three major Machine Vision associations: EMVA; AIA and JIIA. The current status of the standards has been presented during the Vision trade show with lectures as part of the Industrial Vision Days but also at the special exhibition „Vision Standards“. Organized by the EMVA and the trade show all three associations presented here the standards they host: GigE Vision, CameraLink, GenICam, EMVA 1288 and Lens Mount. This exhibition has been highly informative, well presented – one could even say sexy.
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Posted by gabrielejansen
August 20, 2008
Just imagine the possibilities: doing business globally without having to travel at all. No more wasting of hours getting to your destination, no more “you are selected for special screening” harassment on US airports, no more bad air, bad food and cramped legs with 14 hours hops to Asia, no more traffic jams, no more missed connections, …. Instead only warm and comfy sitting in front of your notebook, a cup of coffee next to you and the worlds biggest market place just one keystroke away.
Today you can already virtually test-drive your new Beemer or buy a pair of sport shoes (virtual and real) in Second Life. Maybe tomorrow you will be able to visit a trade show there. The products will be shown in 3D animation, including all the technical specs and the pricing that applies to your company. The salesperson has enough time for all your questions and enough expertise to answer them as well. There is no need to walk endless halls to get to the couple of vendors you want to see, there is also no need for stale coffee and standardized trade show cookies to get you through the day. In minimal time you are perfectly informed about the new products of your vendors, about some interesting new players on the market and you chatted amicably with your favourite suppliers as well as with a couple of business partners also visiting the show. – That is your avatar chatted with their avatar, which is even better since you did not shave this morning.
Nice scenario, very effective, very cost saving for your company, might be even healthy for yourself, compared.
For the vendor: even better. Just imagine being able to be present at virtually all interesting trade shows worldwide, without the hassle of shipping material and people all over the world, building costly booths and getting your equipment running without electricity in – say – Mumbai. Your products are represented always in the new version, information updated immediately, your sales force reaches spectacular peaks of efficiency and after you had issued the companywide rules of conduct for your employees in the Internet, your CI is transported flawlessly.
It is remarkable anyway how much, in general, the avatar today resembles the actual person as opposed to being some sort of fantasy superhuman. Admittedly, there might be a tad fuller hair or a wee bit less tummy, but all in all there is a tendency to design the electronic image as a match for the physical appearance of its owner. This shows that the virtual reality is on a clear path to being used as a means of transportation more than as a fantasy game place. Still short of “Beam me up, Scotty”, there is no faster way to travel than the Internet. Maybe Second Life in its form today is not yet the pinnacle of an electronic market place ready for capital goods, but the need is clearly there. This is also very visible with the increasing popularity of Internet business networks (did you know that there is an INSPECT community at http://network.inspect-online.com/ ?).
So are we already on the verge of a new way to do business or is the physical personal contact irreplaceable in the foreseeable future ?
Gabriele Jansen
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Posted by gabrielejansen
