News and Nuggets

We may be square in the “dog days” of summer but various news and happenings are always popping in our industry. This week a handful of things to rundown, but leading off with a long overdue Glass Magazine review.

This is the annual Top 50 Glaziers edition and a great one to get a feel for who’s making moves in our space. The Glass Magazine team did a great job not only breaking own the top 50 but adding a lot of color to the scene as well.  In addition, some strong articles were on hand including one on bird and animal friendly glass that has really been a growing angle in our world. Overall, a very strong issue and if you haven’t flipped through it, you can find it digitally here.

As always, I award the “ad of the month” and this competition is never easy as the various marketers who advertise seem to raise their game every single month. This time out, I’m giving the nod to Kuraray with what felt and looked like a 3D image of a person breaking through the glass. It seriously did make me stop, look, and read. So kudos to the team there who developed this ad, it worked nicely!  

Elsewhere…

Latest pod

In case you missed it, youth was served on my latest podcast and the energy of Ashley Klein and Evan Afenir could light up a continent. Great pair and each really delivered a lot of interesting angles. As I noted previously it makes me feel good when you see folks like this thriving, puts our industry in good hands going forward. Check out what they had to say! You can watch here, or listen here, as well as on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Next month is looking good too with a very well-known person and a person I seriously do not know at all and looking forward using this platform to learn more!

Podcast alum doing big things

Speaking of podcast guests, a few made big news this past week. First up the gang from Drafting Marketplace (Brandon and Tyler) announced the latest update to their awesome platform: the creation of the Engineering user type and functionality. Yes ENGINEERING TOO! From today forward, engineers will be able to sign up for a free account and bid on engineering projects in the same way drafters already have. Glazing contractors can post projects specific to either engineering or drafting, and interact with bids, users, and documents in the same way. 

Learn more here and kudos to the team there!

Next was the Architectural guru Vardhan Mehta. Vardhan joined me a few months back to talk about the fantastic Acelab platform that was built for architects by architects and is making connections for the manufacturer so much more available and seamless. Truly the innovation needed in that space. Anyway, Vardhan and team just secured a new founding round which will allow the site to grow and be much more prominent across the entire ecosystem.  For me I love that outside investors are interested in putting their funding into things like this. Very exciting and positive time moving forward.  And I am unabashed fan of Vardhan’s, so I’m thrilled for him for sure. Great things ahead.  

And last from my podcast past, Josh Burg of Glass Enterprises was one of my first guests way back in March of 2021 and he is always doing something good in our space. This past week he was at it again with a golf event to benefit The Salvation Army's local developmental disabilities program. It is great cause that I know Josh supports in many ways, and aside from being an awesome day and major win, it also got some local TV news coverage of it as well. That is cool. Nice work Josh and GEI team!  

Supply chain report

Last this week, the quarterly Gilbane supply chain report is out, and it is more in-depth than I have seen. It had a lot of insight on product costing and volatility in the economy but as always it had the lead-time rundown that I like bringing to all of you. The good news was that Gilbane sees our world in the “stabilizing” category and I think I can agree with that determination. In some spots things are slowing enough to worry but in others people are jumping. Lead times have held up ok but the worry once again is back to trucking and logistics as turmoil on that side of the ball has made a tough deal even tougher. In any case the overall feel is still positive when it comes to lead-times and supply but as we all know it can change quick.