Well, a successful Emerson Users Exchange is in the books (I’m working on all the news, but am taking a few days of vacation with my wife’s family before my next trip). I’m on a 6:15 am flight Monday for Houston for the ISA Expo. Seems like no one I talked with the past couple of weeks has high expectations for the show. I’ve received tons of press conference invitations, but it doesn’t sound like that will translate to tons of new product announcements. I changed flights to make a hastily called press event from Honeywell. It wants to show off a working example of ISA100.11a technology. That will be interesting. I’ve asked the supplier of the key technology foundation of the standard if it’s available for sale, yet. Sounds like a simple yes/no question to me, but no reply yet. We’ll see.
Meanwhile, Jon DiPietro, ISA member and entrepreneur, has written this blog post challenging ISA leadership to rethink the organization. ISA has been floundering for years. Leadership has become enamored with political lobbying recently, and it seems to love sending press releases about meeting with Congresspeople. Personally, I don’t think that really does much for its current members (of which, I am one). Check out Jon’s blog and send him your ideas. I like them. Ideas such as these could help reinvigorate some member energy.
I’ll be at ISA Tuesday and Wednesday (maybe a short time Thursday morning). If you want to meet, tweet me at www.twitter.com/garymintchell or @garymintchell. I have a bunch of appointments, but I can stop and chat.
