FloorBoss

Springtime in the Flooring Business

2011-05-05T17:49:00.000-07:00

The National Wood Flooring Association (NWFA) convention was held last week in San Diego. The U.S. government made decisions about the imposition of anti-dumping duties on Chinese flooring. The business climate is... improving? I'll have more to say on all these subjects today.

The NWFA meeting was in one of America's most beautiful cities, San Diego. The weather was extraordinarily nice - warm sun in cool air, my favorite. I know this city well, since both my sons graduated from college here. We have visited many times, waving goodbye to all that tuition money. Plus, one of boys still works occasionally in San Diego, for the San Diego Padres baseball team.

So, I need very little encouragement to head off to San Diego! But, interestingly, judging from the apparent attendance, my enthusism was not shared by many others. The convention itself was held in the SD Convention Center, a huge complex; and being there was like being "a BB in a boxcar." The steady NWFA stalwarts had their exhibit booths, but there were precious few of them. The entire show floor could be easily traversed in a half day - no need for a three day hotel room unless you were tied to the organizer's schedule of events on various different days.

Even worse, the show attendee ranks were very thin! The numbers reported from the floor were all over the map. Officially, according to the NWFA, attendance was 1900. Boothed vendors I talked with had heard numbers from 700 to 7000, but many concluded that however many there were, they were all somewhere else!

But, wait, it's not all bad. As an attendee myself (one of the official 1900), I enjoyed the show a lot. There were so few attendees in the aisles, I got to chat with virtually everyone, for extended periods if I wanted. I ran across friends in the aisles that hailed me, or me them, for catchup conversations. This never happens at bigger shows, where the aisles are stuffed, and you never see anyone you know without an appointment.

I have learned in the past several years how to decode the official and unofficial commentary on tradeshows, depending on who's talking. My favorite is the comment that, "while attendance was low, enthusiastic vendors exclaimed that the attendees were serious about business!" I have learned this is code for "how do I explain to my boss that we spent all this money, only to generate this lousy number of business leads?"

I also heard the opinion that the sturdy exhibitors must be the long-suffering survivors of the last several years of lousy business, and therefore they must be the most important companies. There's probably truth there, but not necessarily the obvious truth. More than one long-term "survivor" vendor told me they were there as a last-ditch effort to wring some value from the trade show strategy; and if it didn't work again this time, they were signing off of trade shows forever.

That attitude doesn't sound much like the execution of a clever long-term marketing strategy, but rather marketing exhaustion at the end of the game. I have a hunch the trade show industry at large is in for tough times ahead.

Unlike at the Surfaces show in February, the Chinese contingent at NWFA was largely gone. They appear to have awakened to the fact that their business model of cheap imported flooring in massive volume is under severe attack, and the expense of the NFWA trade show was good money after bad. Several American friends exhibiting Chinese product allowed as how they were all set up now in other, non-Chinese production venues, and ready to fill the supply vacuum created by the U.S. government. Furthermore, many have now confirmed to me that the government action left the window of opportunity open for them and everyone like them (see my previous blog on this very subject) to "beat the tax," and that the stateside inventory of Chinese-produced flooring is now absolutely huge. I'm told literally thousands of containers of flooring have been imported in the past couple of months, and the coastal storage facilities are so full of Chinese flooring that stocks are being temporarily stored in the Midwest!

So, perhaps the backers of the duty action will have a new, different, and maybe worse problem - an anticipated disappearance of cheap Chinese flooring may become a deluge of even cheaper Chinese flooring, as massive inventories in all the wrong storage places get liquidated. The best laid plans...

Still, one has to shake his head at the unintended consequences of virtually any action with scale. The looming prohibition of Chinese flooring production for the U.S. begs the question of where to find equivalent production capability, both in required quantity, quality, and low cost? These are not easy tasks, or they would have already been accomplished. The leading candidates are Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Indonesia. Each has its own problems, ranging from cultural mindsets that misunderstand quality issues, to lack of proper infrastructure, to "official" preferences for higher levels of product manufacturing like semi-conductors, to significantly higher costs of labor.

The odds-on favorite would appear to be Indonesia, where the drawbacks are fewer and less severe, and where a wood-based economy has thrived for years as the foremost world producer of hardwood plywood. Ironically, the Japanese earthquake has pressured the world production capacity for plywood to the extent that excess capacity to make wood flooring may be unavailable for many months or perhaps years to come.

If Indonesia is realistically out of the picture, then the second or third choices will either raise costs considerably, or lower quality considerably, or both. Yes, Anderson Flooring and the gang may get some more business, and I hope so, because that will favorably impact our company Plantation too. But I suspect the importers, overseas producers, and mostly consumers are unlikely to roll over quite so quickly. They will continue to buy low price - and be unaware of the tsunami of bad quality flooring likely to soon be coming ashore.

My final topic today is business conditions...improving? It seems so - the inquiry rate has been prodigious, and the closing rate is on a steep vertical climb. I assume others in our industry are like us - we've been working six days/week, and ten hours/day, just to get the orders out. We're the guys frustrating President Obama - we have the work, but we refuse to hire new people for fear we'll have to lay them off suddenly. We, like others, simply don't trust our eyes and ears. We can remember very well when we thought things were running along great, and then they weren't!

But we're getting close to hiring again. All I need is for the order book to lengthen a bit more, and we'll be forced to get more production capacity. Interestingly, the growth is not residential, where I thought it would be. It's commercial. Our line of boutique commercial wood flooring we introduced last year is getting legs. The product is unique in that we'll design and make it to the project spec, rather than throw out numerous SKU's hoping to hit a market. Our biggest challenge is informing the A&D community that this customization can be reliably done at all, and at a cost their projects can afford!

So, as we sit today, business has been improving for several months. At least in our industry, we seem to be at the tipping point, where further improvement will create conditions that must be addressed for expanding through hiring and additional investment. Is it real? Will it hold up?

Sure hope so!

Post-"Surfaces" Commentary

2011-02-02T10:29:00.000-08:00

The annual floor covering trade extravaganza, Surfaces, convened once again in Las Vegas last week. We at Plantation opted out of the opportunity to spend vast amounts of money reserving exhibit space, then building, shipping, assembling, staffing, tearing down, and shipping again the typical Surfaces exhibit booth, all for the purpose of visiting with uncertain foot traffic of existing and potential new customers for custom-made wood flooring. The return on investment in such an undertaking has proven over several shows to be miserable.

Instead, we visited all our friends who did have exhibit booths! And, plenty of others with whom we made appointments to meet for meals, get-togethers, visits to hospitality suites, and similar experiences. We even tried to make it to a seminar or two (but failed). To me, it felt like we were in much better control of our agenda at the show, because we were highly proactive with our activities, rather than passively waiting in our booth for our appointments to show up (or not), and being ready for random visitors to slow down to see our goods.

We probably missed seeing some people that we would like to have seen. But we were busy the entire show, and accomplished a great deal. Could this be the true answer to how to maximize the trade show experience as a manufacturer?

People have asked me in the aftermath, "How was the show?" My impression of the show is that it was smaller (less square footage of exhibits) than ever before, in spite of being combined with an entire separate industry of stone flooring. But, almost everyone I asked for an appointment was in fact planning to be at the show, so, although hard to really know, the attendance was probably pretty good.

I don't know if my reaction and thinking is typical of anyone else like us, but I observed the noticeable absence on the show floor of some major players. Probably most striking was the absence of the mega-booth annually constructed by Shaw's Anderson Floors. I shudder to imagine how much money those guys have spent on those bygone exhibits that look like an indoor city. I also wonder what thinking led them to change their strategy this year? Mannington had an entire presence outside the show itself, off the show lobby. It had high walls with an entrance, and to me, seemed like a daunting gauntlet to run through unless you had specific business with Mannington.

On the other hand, the Chinese presence was once again large, with larger booths, and more personnel. I was somewhat amazed by this fact, since the threat of anti-dumping action against their displayed products hung heavily in the air. It is almost like they didn't get the memo that the U.S. government was far advanced in putting them out of business!

To be fair, several people at the show do not believe that anything will actually happen. They believe that the threatened duties is a large head-fake, and that punitive duties will never be implemented. Some expressed the opinion that the U.S. is so heavily dependent on Chinese financing of U.S. government debt that it would never dare to follow through. People with these opinions seemingly were heavily invested in the China-made business model, as importers or distributors of cheap Chinese flooring. They were, as we used to say in the trading business, "talking their book." Oddly, there were even a few who seemed to be unaware that anything at all was happening!

I am glad not to be an investor today in a China-focused wood flooring enterprise, because those guys are betting the ranch against U.S. action, and the wind seems to be blowing the wrong way for them at the moment.

The new site of the Mandalay Bay Convention Center seemed fine for the purpose, although the location is at the far south end of the strip, and thus not so well located for other visitor activities. I spoke with several folks who claimed they hadn't even left the hotel property at all! That's probably music to the ears of the Mandalay Bay! The restaurants on site were fine, if a little crowded. Over the space of a few days, the variety of on-site eating opportunities became a bit thin, but not a big deal.

All-in-all, we had a good, and informative experience, but only because we did it differently than in past years. We met with, and strategized with, a lot of people important to our business. And, let's be honest, business is so much better this year than the previous few years, it's not so surprising that we feel better about it all.

Now, what to do about all the other upcoming 2011 shows?

Happy New Year?

2010-12-31T11:24:00.000-08:00

Here's a wish to you for a Happy New Year!

Wait, you say... what makes anybody think it'll be happy, at least for those of us in the wood flooring business? The pundits and corporate leaders in the trade have declared uniformly that 2011 will be a sluggish year for flooring of all kinds (see Floor Covering News dated December 6/13 - http://www.fcnews.net/ ). No particular joy there.

But did you see the copper close today? Copper prices are up 33% for 2010. Other metals prices have been strong too. But copper takes the cake.

So what?, you say. Floors aren't made of copper...

As a former professional trader, I know a few things about copper, and copper trading. Did you know that copper has always been referred to as "the metal with a PhD?" Yes, historically, copper is considered to be the vehicle for the "smart money" forecasts about industrial activity in the coming months. And copper closed the year up 33%!

This is meaningful. Oil closed up as well, gold and silver, other commodities too. But those contracts only have undergraduate degrees. Not copper. Copper has a PhD. Copper knows something.

Maybe copper simply knows that the Chinese are going bonkers industrially. But, everyone knows that! Maybe copper knows that the Chinese industrial juggernaut is going to rub off on the entire world in 2011?

I have another indicator too, a personal one. From many years of supplying and servicing the industrial wood flooring markets (trucks, trains), I have observed that the industrial flooring market turns, up or down, about six months before the general US economy. It's been like clockwork for twenty-five years, through five economic expansions and contractions. And guess what...

That market turned up last August, 2010.

Our commercial and residential wood flooring business turned upward in late November and December, 2010. That other market, the industrial market, is still screaming hot in December, 2010.

Copper, and industrial flooring, and Plantation Hardwood Floors are all shouting, "Happy New Year!"

The Christmas Miracle

2010-12-23T10:18:00.000-08:00

Much has been written about the Christmas Miracle, that being the birth of the baby Jesus, and related subjects. This is not about THAT Christmas Miracle.

This is about the fact that most of my friends and acquaintances in the wood flooring business are BUSY! The orders are flowing, the factory is humming! Christmas vacations here have been cancelled, or postponed, so we can get the orders out!

We're calling it the Christmas Miracle.

We at Plantation Hardwood Floors hope you're enjoying your own Christmas Miracle, whatever and wherever that may be.

Import Duties - Who Forgot to Close the Back Door?

2010-12-13T09:08:00.000-08:00

The Federal Trade Commission, or whatever alphabet soup agency is driving this bus, proceeded to authorize the formal investigation and imposition of two kinds of import duties on Chinese engineered wood flooring. If the intent was to stop the importation of subsidized flooring, it looks to be a failure already.

If I understand this situation properly - and who knows if anyone understands this situation properly? - imports from China after February or March, the date being not specific, will carry the import duties. Imports prior to that date come in at current rates (that is, duty-free).

So, importers and Chinese manufacturers defending their massive market share in the U.S. have until February or March to do whatever they're going to do. And what would that be? BUILD INVENTORY, of course! This office hears talk of hundreds, if not thousands, of containers of Chinese engineered flooring being prepared for shipment to North America, immediately. The thinking goes, so I'm told, that one year's worth of inventory stashed in the U.S. will protect the business while alternate factories are being set up in Vietnam, Malaysia, and/or Indonesia. These alternate countries already have flooring production infrastructure, and are not threatened with U.S. import duties.

So what's been accomplished? Besides severely annoying the Chinese govenment and some large American enterprises, it's probably not hard to conclude that cheap flooring not only has not been eliminated, but is probably here to stay, from many now-diversified Asian sources. Good news for many, including for Indochina and Southeast Asia producers, and for low-priced, deal-seeking American property owners; not so good news for the coalition of companies that brought the action to begin with, and all other domestic parties facing international competition for the scarce wood flooring buyer.

Well then, how about some more positive, and somewhat related news? We closed a deal to provide U.S.-produced custom wood flooring to a project in China... too bad it's not thousands of containers, or else we could claim to have single-handedly offset the apparent bungling of this trade action.

At least, we've deposited some yuan in our account at Bank of America...and we appreciate the business!

Anti-dumping?

2010-11-15T13:54:00.000-08:00

Here's an update on the anti-dumping action against Chinese engineered flooring, posted today, November 15, 2010.

Follow this link: http://ia.ita.doc.gov/download/factsheets/factsheet-prc-mlwf-init-20101112.pdf

Still Mired in the Sludge of the 2010 Economy

2010-11-13T18:54:00.000-08:00

Time is getting away from me again! But maybe it's because my life is full. Full of mostly great things. The family is doing well. One son about to graduate from film school with his Masters degree, another recently engaged to be married to a great young woman whom his mother and I really like. How good is that!

The high-end wood flooring business remains mired in the sludge of the 2010 economy. Meanwhile, I've been thinking about and looking around, sort of, for a fresh banking relationship. The prospective new bankers ask me the oddest questions now (not like the old days, when a decent credit score and a signature delivered the keys to the kingdom!). These bankers want to know what industry we're in! When they discover we're in the building industry, the light goes out of their eyes. I never thought I would encounter a banker with an "industry filter" in place.

But, it's okay. We don't really need a banker anyway. And I'll confess I'm bemused by the situation in banking nowadays. The Obama administration's Treasury department is shoveling liquidity into the economy, with plaintive statements about funding small businesses to get some job growth. But who do they shovel the funding to? They shovel it to the collection of entities that expressly will not fund small businesses...the banks!

If you ask a banker about this, he will protest loudly that his bank wants to lend. Just not to you.

Is anyone following the current sleeper activity in Washington, DC about indicting Chinese engineered wood flooring manufacturers and importers with dumping product into the U.S. at below cost, or with Chinese government subsidies? Yes, this is happening right now. And while Plantation has no Chinese products, it potentially affects us, and everybody in our business, one way or another.

Most people I speak with in this business are simply unaware of this potentially major disruptive influence on our business. The bigger boys in the wood flooring business (Armstrong, Anderson, Nydree, etc.) have filed an anti-dumping complaint with the FTC. My understanding is that the complaint has been accepted, is being validated, and a decision as to whether to investigate formally is due very soon, as in early December.

The potential here is that Chinese wood flooring imports may soon be dutied at levels that bring their costing way, way up! This of course, would be bad news for the general American consumer, who has been trained to believe that wood flooring is always cheap, really cheap. But it would be absolutely devastating news for importers and companies who are completely dependent on imported Chinese flooring at rock bottom pricing (can you say, Lumber Liquidators?).

The additional interesting news is that, if I have this right, any duties eventually levied will be retroactive to the formal investigation date. Think about that. The Feds may eventually decide on a duty rate, say, eighteen months from now, and announce it at that time. All imports since December, 2010 would be levied at that rate! That means all importers would owe the government massive amounts of money, covering their imports from the retroactive date.

Another complication: if the Feds decide to formalize this action, importers will be required to post a bond that guarantees they will pay whatever duties they owe, in whatever amount they owe, which they don't know and cannot know. Try writing and pricing that bond.

For a businessman, all this presents a big-time problem. What to do? Nothing? Everything?

I may be overthinking this subject, but I see this as a potential sea change in the wood flooring business. The NWFA has all the info. Plus, if you care to pursue it, there is a website link: http://www.usfloorparity.org/ Stay tuned.

Oh, by the way. We have an FSC-certified manufacturing facility with a California, USA address. Anybody need some local manufacturing to defend your brand while the Feds take their sweet time ruining your business, and while you're busy visiting new flooring mills in Vietnam? We'll be happy to take your call.

While we're waiting for the flood of calls from importers needing contract manufacturing, we'll be pursuing our newest initiative: custom finishing. The idea itself isn't new... but it is new to us. We have exceptional finishing capability and know-how, and have been using those assets in our own branded products. Now, we're willing to spread the wealth, and the orders are starting to flow in. We have perhaps the only flat line UV roll coat finishing machine "for hire" on the U.S. West Coast. Our finishing machine is set up in such a way that we can and will do short-runs, meaning low or no-minimum lots. This is important, since it means we will take your 2000sf order at a reasonable price, rather than insisting on a minimum 20,000sf order just to flip the switch.

At Plantation, there are several other initiatives too - ranging from a new specialty product utilizing some amazing technology, to new pathways to reaching and informing customers about the joys of customized wood flooring. More, later.

Summer Movie Fare: "Dinner for Schmucks"

2010-08-02T10:17:00.000-07:00

We saw the Paramount movie "Dinner for Schmucks" over the past weekend. The movie’s actually not bad, even given the title. (Interestingly, the word “schmucks” was not spoken in the movie itself.) Steve Carell and the other actors are very good, and the dialogue is pretty funny. The concept is a little warped, but hey... it's Hollywood.

You may recall from earlier blogging that we were commissioned by Paramount to produce an intricate parquet floor for the set of this film. Naturally, then, you can expect we hooped and hollered over our "Hollywood" parquet floor The parquet floor filmed very well, and is quite visible during many of the dining room scenes, which take place in the second half of the movie.

I had a particularly good time because I was on the set for the filming of several of the scenes in the show, and recognized all the setups and action. Even though the movie gives the sense that action is going on all the time, and that there are relatively few people in each scene, the fact is that the set is jammed with people and equipment just outside the view of the cameras. The actors spend a little time acting, and then much of their on-set time standing around chatting with each other, getting something to eat (I met Carell at the snacks table), taking a nap, or going over lines. But not actually acting in a scene.

When scenes are being shot, the individual takes don't last very long; and they get done over and over. For example, one scene about one-half second long in the movie shows a mouse being dropped into a bucket - if you see the film, you'll recognize this scene. The actual shooting of that mouse being dropped into a bucket involved two cameras, an intricate lighting setup, a half-dozen people looking down into the bucket, and was acted out three or four different times, just during the time I was watching.

Pretty interesting stuff - that would give an efficiency expert nightmares.

Paramount has called us on two additional projects. We'll keep you posted on this "glamour" side of our business!

Something New, Something Old

2010-07-26T08:22:00.000-07:00

It's July already. I guess we stay busy, and the time flies by. In that flying-by time, there's always something new. And everytime there's something new, something else turns old.

New: a week spent on the East Coast earlier this month - New York, and Boston. New York was again fun in the summertime, although I got to suffer along with the entire Eastern seaboard in the well-reported heat wave. I of course was traveling on business, and the business side of New York for us was suffering from stormy weather also. Certain things I thought were true were in fact not true, and certain things were said that revealed that untruth. But these are issues that arise in every business, including ours.

I proceeded to Boston, where the treading was much, much easier. We were privileged to be invited to participate in the annual "post-NeoCon" Boston party sponsored by Jim Burke's Allegheny Flooring - targeted to those professionals in the flooring trade that opted out of traveling to Chicago for the real NeoCon show. "Those professionals" are further described as about 400 architects and interior designers in the New England area, attending this Thursday afternoon and evening extravaganza. Plantation had a modest display of flooring for the troops, and happily met what seemed like all 400 of those professionals!

New things push previous new things into the now-old things category.

One old thing is the maturation of the subject I wrote about here many months ago - the making of hardwood flooring by prison labor. My thesis has been that the state and federal govenments should not be supporting manufacturing in prisons of products that compete with products produced in the private sector by tax-paying, mortgage-paying, family-supporting citizens. It is galling to think that I cannot hire additional workers, or worse, that I have to lay off my workers, while prisoners supported by the state do the same work in their prison workplaces, subsidized by you and me.

Anyway, while I was all exercised over this subject, I did what all red-blooded Americans are advised to do: I wrote to my Senators! My Senators are the California Senators, namely Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein. And guess what! They answered me!

Barbara Boxer's office sent a letter that said "Dear Citizen..." and proceeded to tell me how much she appreciated my letter, went on to mention all the things she is doing to help me, the poor, put-upon citizen suffering from the policies of George Bush; and of yes, how she is fighting for the environment. Not a hint of response to my specific concern - just a form letter. Pretty much a joke, and I hate to say it - pretty much what I expected.

"DiFi," on the other hand, wrote me a real letter, signed by the Senator herself. Turns out the prison labor situation is the focus of one of her committee assignments in the Senate, and she promised in her letter to remember my concern the next time the committee met. A real response - what a concept! Thank you for listening, DiFi.

Why am I rehashing this subject now? Two things happened recently to bring my thoughts about competing against prison labor back to the forefront of my mind. One was a piece in the Wall Street Journal about prisoners being "laid off" from their "jobs," due to a retraction in demand for the products they make. The accompanying sentiment was sympathy at this unfortunate development, and likened these layoffs to those of the private sector. Of course, we all know it's not the same. Prisoner layoffs don't result in failure to pay the rent, or tightening the food budget, or telling the kids no vacation this year.

But laying off prisoners does have an affect, according to the WSJ article. Prisoners don't like to have nothing to do all day, so the level of prisoner unrest is rising. Prisoners are acting out against their "layoffs." Guards are endangered, lockdowns are more frequent.

Give me a break.

The other event that happened to focus me on this topic is a conversation I had at a recent trade show with an industry executive whose well-known flooring company supports in this prison labor scheme. After I expressed my views on this subject, this executive explained about the marvelous benefits being generated by his company by making their flooring in the prison system; about the monies being sent home to families of the incarcerated, about the funds paid in being used to offset the state costs for maintaining the prisoners, about the restitutions being made to the prisoners' victims, about the savings accounts being established in the prisoners' names for use at the time of their eventual release.

But, significantly, this executive confided the real reason they go to prisons for labor: the fact that the flooring company can find no one outside the prison system who will do the work. That is, the effort needed to make handscraped wood floors is too hard, too much work for too little pay for the good folks in the neighborhood. Prison labor, according to this executive, is their only recourse.

I said instantly, send your work to us in California, and my crews will work night and day to get your jobs done. They need and want the work. Unlike prisoners, they have rent to pay, groceries to buy. They pay taxes, they raise their families.

And they didn't steal your car.

Where've I Been?

2010-05-16T16:27:00.000-07:00

I checked the date of my most recent post. December?! That's a long time. You may ask, where've I been since December?

Many places, both literally, and figuratively.

Literally, I've been to Las Vegas for the International Builders Show in January. Then back to Las Vegas in February for the Surfaces trade show. Later, off to Dallas for a round of hospitality designer visits. Back and forth to jobsites and customers in San Francisco. And, during it all, the steady drumbeat of commuting between the factory and offices in Oxnard, and my home in the Bay Area.

Figuratively, though, I've been to even more places since December. First, we tried to create something different, and I thought pretty much fun, at Surfaces. Normally, we would have had the pleasure of paying through the nose for a booth in a dark and remote corner of the convention hall, because after all, we haven't been displaying for two lifetimes, and accordingly, we have poor space selection options. Instead, we decided to set up camp across the strip at the Mirage Resort. We took a suite on the penthouse floor, and stocked the place with food, drink, and product displays and literature. We invited suppliers, old friends, and some of the people we hoped will become new friends. Instead of standing for eight hours in an exhibit booth, we sat on couches. We snacked, sipped, and chatted - a lot - and until the wee hours. It was great! We'll do it again.

Another figurative place I've been was the experience of collaborating with the design community in Dallas. Some of our new designs are meeting enthusiastic professional acceptance. I was delighted to learn we have earned a business place at the table in the buzzing Dubai/Abu Dhabi arena, with the help of our friends immersed in the design business there. We also have been awarded a Caribbean foothold, which should lead to many more overseas resort-style projects in the coming years. Plus, we've just entered the production phase of a Dallas-designed wood floor for a nameplate hotel project.

As stimulating as these experiences have been, I'm most pleased about something else: the new and energetic expansion we have taken on for the whole company.

Strategically-speaking, Plantation is a "product-driven" enterprise. We aim to design and manufacture the best wood floor available anywhere on the planet, and sell it to whomever wants one, anywhere. Our strategy is not about certain customer groups, or certain technologies, or certain distribution channels. We're all about the Plantation product - the best wood floor we can possibly make!

And we've done pretty well at that. Our plank floor, with its high quality and fully-customizable woods, colors, and finishes, is well-received by the high-end design and contracting communities. Our handmade and prefinished parquet floor designs are popular with designers, builders, and consumers alike.

But the requirement for our company to remain relevant is tied up in innovation. Accordingly, we are engaged daily in product innovation - new colors, new finishes, new shapes, and new design ideas in wood flooring, and all under one roof. One of the joys of owning our factory is the ability to put new ideas into motion under our own strict control and timing. When we, or our customers, want to know what's going on, we simply walk around the premises, and we can see exactly what's going on.

But in additon to product innovation, we are also involved in process innovation. We are testing, upgrading, and modifying the way we produce our customized floors. We are already the specialists in making short production runs - creating for our customers the ultimate in flexibility of choice and timing for their orders.

But during our process innovation, we have discovered something more. Our acts of process innovation are leading to additional, and unexpected, product innovations. For example, one of the floor finishes we developed has led to a product innovation for commercial applications that we didn't have before. Another process innovation is reducing lead times for our customized products by half! And, a killer side-effect: a lower cost of production for these new products! When you are a product-driven company, as we are, this is truly exciting stuff!

Now, what to do about it all? Well, this is where the new and energetic expansion of the company comes in. We have developed two entire new wood floor product lines! And we have a new national sales manager, coming to us from a large and well-known national flooring company. He is busily recruiting and training our national sales force, and we're plotting thirty new markets for new products. Our first big foray into this new marketing rollout is the HD Expo in Las Vegas starting May 19. All our friends will be there, and we can't wait to show off!

So - you may ask, where have I been since December? Now you know!

The Things We Do, the People We Meet

2009-12-22T14:47:00.000-08:00

One year ago, I got a call. It was the President of an architectural firm in San Francisco saying one of the samples I had sent to their office was causing a ripple. It seems the EVP was building a new house in Marin County, and the handscraped walnut floor was perfectly in line with his vision for his home. Would I please follow up with him?

Today, a year later, that new home is finished. Along the way, we also produced a dark walnut staircase of the architect's own design, to match the dark walnut floor. The owners have moved in, the project looks fantastic, and the owners are very vocal in their delight for their new home, and their new custom-made Plantation product.

This is no ordinary home. It was designed from the ground up to be LEED certified at the platinum level - the ultimate "green" accomplishment in residential building. We just submitted our finalized list of LEED-compliant credentials relating to the hardwood floors and stairs. The home is scheduled to be the subject of a Sunset Magazine photoshoot, with other publications in the wings.

We at Plantation had the great opportunity to work with some very nice and very talented people: Erin and Robin at Erin Martin Design of St. Helena; Mike MacDonald and Mike Dwyer of MacDonald Construction and Development of Oakland, the residential LEED kings!; and Bruce Brudvig of First, Last, and Always Flooring in San Francisco, a highly competent flooring contracting firm for the installation of our floor and stairs.

And of course the owners, Scott and Tracy Lee, are not only practicing professionals in the design field, but are delightful people as well.

******

Another project is also completed: the custom-designed parquet floor for Paramount. I attended a closed set filming last week to see the floor in action. The commentary from all and sundry is that the floor is well received, beautiful, and, as solid wood, probably the only "real" item on the entire set! Everything else is styrofoam, or plastic, or some mystery material that the set constructors use. Very interesting.

And of course, very entertaining. All the players were in action: the actors that everyone recognizes, the director, the cinematographer, all the assistants. I'd guess fifty people were on this large set, applying makeup, running back and forth, and, many of them, just waiting around for the next thing to happen. And the equipment! From huge cameras, to major lighting contraptions, to gizmos that I haven't a clue the use for.

When I arrived in my car, the parking lot was almost full. Mercedes and Jaguars everywhere - at the curb, in the stalls, double-parked. The parking attendant told me two shows were filming simultaneously: "Dinner with Schmucks" (my movie), and the TV series Glee.

Being inside the gates "on business" at a movie studio such as Paramount is an experience I, and most people, don't have an opportunity to do often, if ever. The surroundings are as one would imagine, right down to the guy walking around with the Viking helmet. The cooks were cooking a cafeteria-style meal in the rain, the golf carts were whizzing by, the wardrobe people were seeking shelter for the racks of clothes. The little "streets" between the huge sound studios are narrow, and filled with stars' trailers and equipment trucks. There is seemingly constant motion on all sides.

But the real action, of course, is inside the sound stages. One can't get in there without an escort, although once in, I was welcomed to stay as long as I wanted. There was plenty to see for the uninitiated like me, but everyone else was just working another workday. Too bad I was limited for time, or I would have stayed all day.

******

I was a long way from Hollywood the week before. I was happy to get a chance to pay a year-end visit with the hidden power behind our company, then spend two days presenting the products and services of Plantation to some serious hitters in the hospitality design business in Dallas. I was surprised that so much is going on in Dallas in the global hotel and restaurant arena. Most design firms I've visited in recent months resemble ghost towns, at least compared to their formal glories. Not these people. They're on the move, and pressed for time. They've got projects down the street and around the world. All very energizing, and hopeful for the survival of this genre worldwide.

I had with me my usual complement of high-end wood flooring and parquet samples. All the designers were polite to me, and admired my goods. But when I got to our specialty floors, the copyrighted ones, the designers were gasping, and calling in their colleagues. I haven't had so much fun in quite a while. The planned thirty minute meetings became unplanned ninety minute meetings. If the comments are accurate, we'll be in big business in places I didn't even know about before now. Invigorating.

******

My son Michael is a graphic- and web designer, and commented to me recently that he was making some web designs without having a commission for them, because he thinks some people don't know what they want until they see it.

This idea of people not knowing is not new, but still it's very perceptive. How many times have we asked for an idea from a client - the "what are you looking for?" question. Often, there's no good answer, or it's the "I'll know it when I see it" answer.

In this spirit, we recently made a new parquet panel design in black walnut and red leather, just because we could. Somebody said, "That looks like the Wynn in Las Vegas." So I called our rep in Las Vegas, and sent the email photo. She thinks it will sell, so now we're pitching Wynn for their next remodel.

A tip of the hat to son Michael for reminding the old man about some of the truisms of dealing in creative but abstract ideas with people.

I've told everyone who will listen that Plantation isn't just about making and selling flooring. Plantation is about being the "go-to" company for collaborating on great flooring ideas. We like to dream up new things, and we have the factory that can make those new ideas become real. What a concept! I want for Plantation to be that company that every creative designer wants to call when they're dreaming up something new. They will find fertile ground here.

Opposite Ends of the World

2009-11-08T14:52:00.000-08:00

I have a lot of fun in my job.

Most people know that the fall season in New England is beautiful. This is equally true in New York, and especially Long Island. I was there on business in October, and it was delightful in every way - the weather, the scenery, the food, the people. I'm ready to go back as soon as possible.

Now, I have just returned from another business trip, this time to Hawaii - the opposite end of the world. It is the same story - delightful in every way. Good weather, good scenery of course, great people.

Like I said, I have fun in my job.

New York was buzzing as usual. The overall national economy remains fairly rotten, but something's always going on in New York! Our group of architects and interior designers are not as busy as in years past, but they're uniformly still in the game. It's good to see existing friends, and to be introduced personally and professionally to new ones. I especially enjoyed meeting our new friends at Martha Stewart Omnimedia - a truly amazing enterprise when viewed from the inside.

Out in the Hamptons, houses were visibly being packed up for the winter. Yet at the same time, we discovered lots of planning being done for remodeling and sprucing up during the imminent unattended winter season. The concept of the Plantation customized prefinished high-end wood floor is not commonplace, and even somewhat counter-intuitive, so we have informing and educating to do about the advantages we bring.

Hawaii, at the opposite end of the world, is simply the scene of interrupted progress. Large commercial projects sit idle, from steel skeletons to "see through" buildings. There are tourists, of course. I'm convinced half of Japan was in attendance in Honolulu. But the fully-funded project under active construction in Hawaii is a rarity at the moment.

I again enjoyed seeing existing friends, and making new ones. Our exhibit at the Group 70 Sustainable Materials showroom in Honolulu was one of my first stops, since I had not actually seen it in person since it was established earlier this year. I was happy to have the opportunity to address the entire management and staff of Group 70's architects and designers - this firm Group 70 is a very prominent and progressive firm in the green building space.

In addition, I established some new venues for prospective customers to see our products on display in Honolulu. Details of the locations of these showrooms will appear on our website (www.plantationhardwood.com) in short order.

My good friend and our representative in Hawaii, Conrad Parducci (Parducci Hardwood Floors) and I took a wrong turn walking in downtown Honolulu, and ended up in the middle of the filming of a scene for the TV series "Lost." Look for us in an episode depicting a snowy street scene in, supposedly, New York City. If we survive the cutting room floor, that is. (Conrad's a good-looking guy, and we're thinking maybe he's been "discovered.")

I have a lot of fun in my job.

The neighbor islands in Hawaii have a different tempo and a different flavor than Honolulu and Oahu, and I'm more optimistic about business out there. Some of our long-suffering bids are coming to fruition now, and the area of heavy money real estate investing is starting to rumble again in Maui, Kauai, and the Big Island. I believe Hawaii will be a good market again, and sooner rather than later.

Back home in Los Angeles, we were invited to propose (successfully, it turned out) a flooring design for a movie set currently in production. Look for our intricate custom parquet floors in the interior mansion scenes of the upcoming film starring Steve Carell entitled "Dinner with Schmucks," in theaters later in 2010. My visit to the Paramount Studios lot for this project was complete with approval meetings with Oscar-level movie professionals, and of course, the attendant star-sightings.

I have a LOT of fun in my job.

Getting Out and About

2009-09-20T17:18:00.000-07:00

I had a chance to get out and about last week.

The nominal reason was attendance at the annual Hospitality Design Boutique Show in Miami, as a walker, rather than our more normal role as an exhibitor. Trade show participation is expensive, and I'm sure I have plenty of company these days in evaluating where to spend the promotional bucks.

So what did I think of HD Boutique? I was able to have some meetings at the small show, so that means some key people were there. I also missed some meetings (for "nobody's fault" reasons), and couldn't reschedule due to travel plans. So that means some key people were there, but not for long - maybe one day, or even just a few hours. The show is small, and can be navigated in one day or less.

Not one wood flooring company was exhibiting. Our major competitors apparently stayed away in droves. Perhaps that tells a story in itself.

I spent another couple of days in South Florida, looking for signs of commercial life. I didn't find much, at least not at the high-end, where we live. Some large projects are under construction up the coast, but are rumored to be high-priced housing with low-priced components, such as cheapie commodity wood flooring or low-end tile. What consumer would knowing buy into that?

I visited a project using our Plantation custom teak plank and parquet floors, and I got some photos of the installation under way. They're posted on our website in the Gallery.

Even though Florida seems dull (unless we're missing it), other geographies around the nation are more productive. Indeed, our Oxnard factory is now running full blast again - to the point where we needed more skilled folks making our custom floors, and weekly overtime, just to meet our promised lead times!

Imagine that... carefully calculating lead times! And overtime! And hiring! Must say I'm pleasantly surprised, and of course very excited.

I have long predicted that any recovery in flooring orders will exchange one set of problems for another set. My projection has been that raw materials will suddenly get scarce in any recovery scenario, particularly if the pent-up demand we have been expecting manifests itself in orders requiring immediate delivery!

And that is exactly what is happening... many of our new orders are actually old projects now getting funded and transacted. The demand frequently now is that we make custom floors fast! We ourselves can do that, because we own and operate the California factory, rather than outsource our production to China, Europe, or even down the street.

But no manufacturer, including us, controls the stream of manufacturing inputs such as lumber, finish, and add-on machinery. That pipeline of materials is predictably drier than most people expected. Fortunately, we have some defensive wood inventory, and several of our selected suppliers are well-stocked as well. The likely outcome of this situation is that orders will get made from existing raw materials inventories, then will get delayed as the raw materials disappear.

This scenario of depleted raw material pipelines suggests the wisdom of buying now rather than later. Again, I say...

Imagine that!

On a More Personal Note...

2009-08-14T15:31:00.000-07:00

I have two things on my mind today. Two things that are personal, not business.

First, I opened the mail one day last week at home in San Francisco, and found a bill. Not just a bill, but a traffic ticket. A traffic ticket fine worth $125, for failure to stop at a stop sign in a municipal park in Los Angeles.

It unnerved me. I was totally blanked out on being stopped by a policeman and being given a citation. I simply could not in my mind conjure up this scene. Had I spent some "blackout" time? Do I have a mental thing going on? Are all the synapses not firing?

Actually, turns out I'm fine. There was no policeman, there was no traffic stop. Just a ticket in the mail for $125. And a link to a video.

I ran to my computer, accessed the link, and watched a short video of a car with my license plate fail to make a dead stop at a corner stop sign, then turn right. A short video taken by a fixed-in-place video camera, mounted somewhere near an intersection in a municipal park in Los Angeles, that I happened to drive through on my way to somewhere else.

The mailed citation was signed by a park ranger (a park ranger!), attesting to the fact that he had viewed the video, and deemed it an accurate portrayal of me committing a moving violation. And thus the citation, totally impersonal, in the mail.

Am I guilty? Apparently I am! It's on video!

But this bothers me - a lot. It's way too sneaky. Way too "Big Brother is watching." If I am to be arrested, I want to be arrested in person, by a real law enforcement officer. An officer who is charged with public safety, and who has observed me recklessly endangering public safety, and who is justified in arresting me. Not by a park ranger sitting in a darkened, windowless room watching videos of cars going around a corner and cranking out $125 demand letters.

Creepy.

What's even more creepy is that this citation is not an infraction of Santa Monica statute, or California law, but rather is just between me and the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority. No record will be sent to the California DMV, or my insurance company. Seemingly, my fine derives from my infraction of a private traffic law.

Should I pay this? Looks official. But the fine print makes it seem off-the-books. Hmmm...

By the way, the monitored address is 15601 Sunset Blvd., in Temescal Canyon Park. Watch out, all you citizen suspects. There's a park ranger's video camera watching you drive by, every day, hoping to collect another $125 by demonstrating that you eased around that corner!

Just creepy.

........

Item Two:

Our son Colby, 25, was recently accepted into the graduate Master of Fine Arts program at the American Film Institute Conservatory in Los Angeles, in the discipline of cinematography. The Conservatory accepts each year 28 new fellows worldwide in each of a handful of disciplines(producing, directing, set design, etc.). The Institute sponsors the well-known AFI annual achievement awards in filmmaking, and boasts all the Hollywood names you ever heard of.

Colby's Conservatory program is the filmmaker's equivalent of, in my world, Harvard Business School on steroids. We have many friends in and around the movie business, and they say this acceptance is HUGE! Congratulations to Colby, who did this without insider connections, or committing to building a new wing; he did it on raw and unadulterated talent, coupled with his fierce determination to succeed.

I and his mother are simply falling-down proud of our son.

What the Heck is Going On Over There?

2009-08-03T10:34:00.000-07:00

My prime business associate in Malaysia recently asked me the pertinent business questions to which everyone in the world wants to know the answers: What the Heck is Going On Over There?

Here's what I told him:

Hello Chew,

The questions you ask about the US economy are difficult to answer clearly. The missing buyer demand is not returning quickly, so business cannot grow until the demand increases.

The companies that make consumable products, or that make the goods that carry and package the consumable products, have been liquidating their raw stock inventory for many months whenever any buyer appears. The liquidated raw inventories are not being replaced with new raw inventory, so the demand for industrial goods has been missing also.

This cycle of liquidation is nearly ended, as manufacturers' inventories are very low now, and any new demand cannot be met from inventory - but will require new investment.

Will substantial new demand reappear? This is the major question of 2009 and 2010.

There are two types of US demand - private consumers, and government ("public") demand. Examples of public demand are military orders (guns), public works orders (highways), and public construction orders (courthouse buildings). Private consumer demand covers every conceivable product used by people, and is potentially much larger than government demand. Statistically, consumer demand makes up about 70% of US economic activity.

Government demand would seem to be more secure and predictable, but in fact is the opposite. Regardless of published intent to spend, government contracting is slow, and often payments for goods and services is even slower. Even now, last year's highly publicized government emergency economic support for "shovel-ready" contracts are mostly still tangled up in government bureaucracy.

Consumer demand is different, and better. We have a well-founded belief that the US consumers have lots of pent-up demand, because we see the singular success of the new US government program for trading old cars for new ones with a sizeable government rebate (the program called "cash for clunkers" - funny name, eh?). For the first time since the recession began, the US government has put significant sums of money directly available to consumer buyers - and the consumers have spent the money immediately. The car industry is suddenly very busy, and very happy.

In contrast, the US government program for putting monies into banks to give them lendable funds has been almost totally unsuccessful, because the banks are simply keeping the money in the vaults, and not lending it to the consumers who will buy the goods that run the factories, truckers, packagers, and retailers. One could argue that the banks are the wrong parties to recapitalize the economy because the banks are now overly risk-averse, when the economy needs some element of risk-taking to return to overall health.

So, the current state of the US economy seems to be
- slowing or stopped inventory liquidation
- cautious but still interested consumers
- widespread pent-up demand by consumers
- lack of urgency to buy (prices aren't going up, and might still go down)
- lack of confidence by buyers to make large financial commitments
- unwillingness of the prime sources of consumer liquidity, the banks, to participate in recovery

The return of consumer demand will be influenced heavily by the length of time that goes by while no new economic shocks hit the fragile consumer. Barring any such new economic shocks, we think consumers will come out of their bunkers with purses and wallets open within a matter of three-six months.

When the consumers return, they will discover an inventory outage, with resulting longer wait times than expected. This outage won't last long, as the capacity to fill the inventory pipeline is waiting in the wings to swing into action. One interesting side effect is likely to be the resurgence of domestic US production, rather than overseas production, due to the need for very fast turnaround of orders.

The requirement for producers and their suppliers, then, is to hang on for another six months while demand builds. The requirements for economic facilitators, like banks and government entities, is to keep a steady hand on the wheel - no changing the rules in the middle of the game - in order to inspire a growing confidence in all parties.

The bottom line is that the future must be a foreseeable future, and not simply a throw of the dice. We're getting there, slowly. This is what the stock market tells us by bouncing nicely from the lows of this year to today's much improved values.

Regards/Jim

Gulag Flooring

2009-07-22T11:06:00.000-07:00

I sent a letter to my two California Senators a few months ago. Of course, those two Senators have bigger fish to fry than my concerns; bigger fish such as how to keep the seventh largest economy in the world, California, from becoming insolvent. I presume that's why I haven't yet received my response from them, some five months later.

Here's the letter:

I listened on television to President Obama's speech to Congress last night, and can draw inspiration from his words. But there is a problem in my industry that dilutes the potential effectiveness of this national economic recovery program.

I am the CEO of a private corporation in California manufacturing hardwood flooring. I am concerned that during these times of shrinking economic opportunities that our private sector manufacturing company, and our tax-paying citizen-employees must compete directly in the national marketplace not only with foreign imports, but also with U.S. and state-owned or
-sponsored prison enterprises.

Yes, incredible as it may seem, we face in the marketplace every day competition from wood flooring products made in prisons by low-paid prisoners in Tennessee and South Carolina, and maybe other state prisons I don't know about. Large flooring corporations like Armstrong Industries and other smaller competitors capitalize on this source of captive prison labor (pun intended). As a specific example, one of our prominent California manufacturing competitors recently laid off their 75 local taxpaying employees, and sent the work away to, not China, not Vietnam, but to the prison labor force of the Tennessee prison system. When our company loses business transactions, and we've lost plenty of them in recent months, our employees face layoffs, and the resulting loss of their abilities to pay their rent or mortgages, and the loss of their wages being recycled through the economy. When the prison industry managers lose business transactions, the prisoners simply go back to their taxpayer-supplied rooms and wait for their dinners.

When times are good, this prison industry issue is a minor irritation and routinely overlooked. Nowadays, when things are not so good, it's becoming a big deal. It's obviously unfair to private enterprise, struggling or not, even on the face of it. Surely, the original intent of the prison industry was to provide other state-owned purchasing requirements, such as furniture for schools.

This inequity should be simple to fix. I ask you to introduce clarifying federal legislation requiring prison industries to sell prison-produced products only to public entities such as schools. Prison labor should never, especially now, be placed in competition with private sector labor.

Sincerely,

James P. Oliver, CEO
Plantation Hardwood Floors
Oxnard, CA 93030
www.plantationhardwood.com

How 'bout Them Finances!

2009-07-16T16:50:00.000-07:00

I was chatting on the phone with an industry colleague the other day. We two are in different aspects of the flooring business - he is a flooring installation contractor, I am a flooring manufacturer.

Beyond dark-humored comments like, "Write if you get work...," the subject turned to the obscure but ever-lurking danger of working, really extending oneself, for a general contractor, a homeowner, or another flooring contractor, and then not getting paid.

In these trying times, we know some commercial firms will disappear into insolvency. Or not disappear - I know a company that is currently severely insolvent, but still lives, zombie-like, from job deposit to job deposit. If the acquisition of job deposits slows or stops, that final deposit from an innocent and trusting client will be forfeited.

If we stay on top of the commercial insolvents' credit reports, we'll presumably know in time to take evasive action. On the other hand, private homeowners tend not to go broke, but sometimes find excuses, usually irrelevant, to withhold payment for work done.

But my colleague and I were thinking of the client who decides, for no apparent reason, simply not to pay his bill. The proferred hypothetical situation is the client who, unknown to anyone, is down to his final project, has no new projects in the pipeline, has spent all the end-users' deposit- and progress payment monies, and has nothing left to pay us with. The financial damage to us could be upwards of 50% of the contract value, or more.

The question then hanging in the air: what can we do to prevent this from happening?

There are several approaches. The favorite: in California, we file preliminary liens against the owners' properties. But what if your state will not allow this?

Then you have to get creative. Some ideas:

Contract for a payment bond on the suspect client. Offer to pay for the premium, usually about 5% or so. You may find out right then that the client is not bondable, and thus not financially reliable.
Contract for payment up front, or at least sizeable deposit upfront with balance due before delivery of the goods.
Contract for interim payments to minimize the outstanding balances due under the contract, and stop work if the interims are not paid.
Bypass the suspect contract party, and make your deal with the end-user directly. In this scenario, make sure the suspect contract party can reliably be paid his customary and expected project margin - either by the end-user, as is traditional, or by you.

The ultimate answer may be some combination of the above. But the real solution is to know with certainty the financial status and capabilities of your business counter-parties. This admonition applies equally to suppliers, as it applies to clients. A broke supplier has probably mis-spent your deposit money, or fails to deliver against your time-sensitive obligation to your own client. A broke supplier also lacks the capability to respond to a legitimate complaint about quality or performance, or to spend the money to fix a problem.

In these days, if you don't know the financial status of your counter-parties, you can easily come to understand the awful meanings of "uncollectible account receivable," or "inability to timely deliver."

Chill out! It's a Holiday!

2009-07-03T15:03:00.000-07:00

I think I need an attitude adjustment.

I call trucking people to discuss picking up a load of flooring...and have to leave a message. I call the raw flooring mill to discuss an order...and have to leave a message. I check my email...it's mostly spam (no, not you Conrad and not you, Sunny). I check my voice messages. All quiet.

Oh yeah. It's a holiday.

Holidays always throw me for a loop. Shouldn't be this way. Holidays are always forecast. Holidays are always on the calendar - in different colors, to boot. Holidays are eagerly anticipated by the vast majority of people, working or not. Holidays mean good things: good food, family around, places to go have fun, time to do nothing. To relax.

Holidays also mean that shipments won't be finished in time. A project will fall behind. Paperwork will accumulate faster than it can be processed. (There's a rule: it takes five full workdays to recover the output missed in one non-work holiday.)

Did someone say, "workaholic?"

I'd hate to think so. But the workload mountain looms all the time - and I cannot see over it. I hear the wolf scratching at the door. I can't look back - because something's gaining on me!

I'd prefer to say "entrepreneur." Doesn't sound so pathological.

Have a happy holiday... (I'll be here chillin' when you all get back to work.)

Ah, weekends...

2009-06-28T14:12:00.000-07:00

On this Sunday morning, the muse is gently whispering in my ear. I dare not ignore her (she doesn't like that...). She says quietly that it doesn't matter that probably nobody cares what's on my mind. She says it is more important to write it than evaluate it.

This is the weekend. Weekend days dish up precious time to me. Weekend days are no longer about kids' activities - the kids are grown up now. It's not about camping, or mini-vacations. Weekend days are about the opportunity to turn down the weekday volume. And, amazingly, when the day-to-day volume is turned down, I find there are other tunes playing under there.

How to turn down the volume? For me, it's reading - books, local newspapers, the business press, trade journals, the cereal box. Like cable TV, a mind has multiple channels - and I discovered reading doesn't take up all my channels. Those channels unused in reading are active in their own right. They are carrying the tunes playing beneath the surface.

It's funny. I'll be cruising along on something I want to read, and suddenly, I have the answer to a lingering question or stubborn problem that I wasn't thinking about -I was just reading the newspaper! This backchannel, subsurface thinking is how, for me, problems get solved, situations get analyzed, business ideas are born.

Today, this morning, it was the Wall Street Journal. The backchannel idea? How to develop a flooring product that incorporates a special "green" technology that everybody wants, but nobody provides.

Sorry, that's all you get.

But you can be sure I'll renew my Wall Street Journal subscription. Maybe I'll head down to the library for a new book, so I can get some more great flooring ideas.

Something's Happening Here...What It Is Ain't Exactly Clear...

2009-06-23T09:14:00.000-07:00

Yes, something's happening here...in the construction world, and the flooring world. Those of us of a certain vintage remember that Vietnam-era song, mostly addressing the paranoia of the times.

Our little flooring business has gotten busy! And it all happened at once, it seems. Every corner of our national market has perked up, with one exception. Almost as if the logjam broke in all minds at the same time.

Of course, we're thrilled. We are back to making floors and parquets as fast as the lumber and blanks can be trucked in, unloaded, and queued up. Our factory force is back at full strength, and we're carefully calculating lead times in our quotes again. This is exhilarating, and we TRUST it will continue for awhile.

The one exception is Las Vegas. That town is a construction disaster area, after having once been anticipated as the saving grace for commercial construction. Many hotel projects in Las Vegas are nearly finished; and the big one, City Center, seemingly has the financing actually to be completed. But many others, although nearly complete, are shut down for lack of the financial wherewithall to go forward to completion. Strange. To think of all that sunk cost, now inches from the finish line, and someone somehow can't close out the deal.

So, remodelers and new constructors, residentials and commercials, congratulations on getting the resources together to get those projects back off the drawing board and into action. Our architect and designer friends aren't far behind, although those projects take longer to cycle through. Still, our work tables are covered with plans and drawings, construction budgets are being drawn up again, and a cautious enthusiasm is in the air.

Do you feel it too? Give us a shout - what's going on where you are?

The Opening Gambit

2009-06-07T10:32:00.000-07:00

Writing a blog will be new to me. Reading a blog may not be new to you. If this blog becomes boring or seems one-dimensional, forgive me. I'll get better at it.

Why engage in this quasi-conversation called "blogging?" Well, for starters, for all the publicized reasons: getting and staying in touch with interested parties in this business enterprise that seems to consume our professional lives; promoting glimpses of new things we're dreaming up; and providing a forum for comments from our customers, resellers, sales reps, company friends, personal acquaintances, old buddies, and (gasp!) competitors.

But there is another reason to engage in this blogging. It's a chance to have a real dialogue with interested and interestING people on the business subjects we attend to every day. Ideas and commentary about matters, large and small, of life in business flow through my brain in what seems like a steady and endless stream. What good is that, really, if it is inadequately shared? So, the experiences of my own decades-long love affair with global business are begging to pour forth here - many experiences in the wood business, including our Plantation custom-made floors, but also many from my years of international business travel, global adventure, and my ongoing looks at our larger world with wide-eyed fascination.

Undoubtedly we'll also spend a lot of blog time on more immediate, day-to-day subjects about hardwood flooring. What goes into making a reasonable flooring buying decision? What are the technical differences between "commodity" flooring, and "good" flooring? How can some flooring cost so little, and other flooring cost so much? I do hope there will be many other questions and answers that you, our gentle readers, will inspire.

Finally, for today, starting up this blog contemplates responses from the people who read it. If you read this thing, please respond. I expect it'll be fun, and we'll all have a good time.