During our first blog week devoted to industrial online communication I interviewed Joe Taylor, one of the pioneers in web sites and e-newsletters for process engineers and manufacturers of process equipment.
In discussing how his web sites have helped form a sense of community among his regular visitors, I asked him if any of his regulars had sought to further the community spirit. He replied:
"Some of the regulars have suggested that we should build a tree house or start a club. There is a feeling among process engineers dealing with bulk solids that they don't have a way to congregate with their peers. There is no professional society focused on their field. Who knows, maybe a blog could help serve that end."
The idea took hold, and Joe continued to call to talk about it from time to time. Finally, a couple months ago Joe said he was going to build that tree house and asked if I would help. The PowderandBulk.com blog
Joe wanted to host the blog on his own server. He chose Movable Type from six apart because he wanted to buy a commercial package that offered support. We've found the software reasonably easy to setup, and except for the lack of a rich text editor, the user interface is friendly and intuitive. Joe found a great rich text editor plug in at FCKeditor, an open source HTML editor that offers the most editing features I've ever seen in one of these tools.
Joe has just begun furnishing his new tree house. He's in the process of recruiting contributors, which I know from experience here at IAOC takes some persistent missionary work.
In IAOC's first industry blog week, Todd Van Hoosear noted that blogging has been slow to develop among engineers, with the exception of software engineering.
In our second industry blog week, Paul Gerbino, publisher of ThomasNet Industrial Newsroom and the Industrial Market Trends blog asked the question, are blogs and wikis viable industrial business models or simply light conversation over drinks at a social gathering?
Paul proceeded to demonstrate over the week how blogs and wikis are already serious tools for serious players.
