February 2008 Edition

EDITOR'S CORNER

The Human Condition

A rule of thumb in the Web 1.0 Age was that if you wanted a lot of traffic on a website, the site had to change pretty much daily. Go too long without changing the site and the readers perceived the site as static and viewership dropped.

The business-to-business publication model has both similarities and differences. Obviously, with each issue of the magazine, the content has to change. Printing the same thing each month isn't even considered. However, we do rely on a basic framework: editorial, columns, feature articles, spotlighted topics, and new products. There's a comfortable familiarity to the structure. But, as the aphorism goes, familiarity breeds contempt. Not that I'd expect any MAN readers to view us with contempt, but, as with websites, we have to vary the mix to keep things interesting. So, we're mixing things up a little with this issue.

Farewell Norman, Welcome Randy

Norman Bleier, our stalwart "Controlling Interest" columnist has moved on to other duties at Siemens and has passed the torch to Randy Pearson. Pearson, like Bleier, is a hands-on person who will produce a column with practical application.

Ahead Toward the Past

Another change in this issue is one that harkens back to before MAN was even around. We'll begin including selected reprints of "The Bull of the Woods;" shop cartoons first created and presented to the public in 1921 by J.R. Williams. The single-panel cartoons aren't so much gags as they are observational humor about the human condition in a machine shop in the first half of the 20th Century.

The series was named after a shop superintendent nicknamed The Bull of the Woods, a term transferred from logging, which meant "the boss."

Williams knew his topic, having worked in machine shops and manufacturing facilities. The cartoons took place long before OSHA, or even such rudimentary safety precautions as safety glasses and tool enclosures. Background characters often have bandages around fingers or sport eye patches. Being a machinist from the '20s into the years during World War II was a lot more dangerous and a lot dirtier.

Even work clothing was different. Many of the machinists in the cartoons sport neckties and hats. It's probably impossible to find a necktie in a shop today, even at the managerial level. Things are a lot more casual now, and probably a lot safer.

Yet, even though some of the cartoons are more than 85 years old, they still address many of the same topics faced by 21st Century shops: increasing machine speeds, machine breakdowns, and ruined workpieces.

I have to thank a reader, John Telford, for suggesting the cartoon be resurrected. I must also thank Algrove Publishing [www.leevalley.com], the current copyright owner of "The Bull of the Woods," for its kind permission for MAN to re-run selected panels.

It was no easy task to winnow through more than 800 cartoons to find candidates for the next 12 issues. Not that it was hard to find appropriate cartoons. No, the problem was an embarrassment of riches. There were just too many from which to choose. I've picked a field of candidates that still speak to the shop as it exists today. Enjoy.