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WINTER 2018

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  • Fastener
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Distributor's Link Magazine Winter Issue 2018 / Vol 41 No1

32 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S

32 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINK FCH SOURCING NETWORK Sourcing Network for the Fastener Industry TEL 1-877-332-7836 EMAIL eric@fastenersclearinghouse.com WEB www.fastenersclearinghouse.com DO YOU SCREWGLE? by Eric Dudas Search engines have revolutionized business, even in the slow moving fastener industry. It sometimes seems quite unremarkable that just about any information you need is accessible with a few keystrokes and from almost anywhere. In today’s world, whether you’re wondering about Skidmore-Wilhelm bolt tension measuring, or the effects of the Milankovitch cycles on global climate shifts, the go to fountain of wisdom is an online search engine or database that supplies a dizzying array of information on just about any subject in mere moments. Today, most of us take Google and similar websites, along with their underlying technologies, for granted. This is natural. We don’t think about the functions of the internal combustion engine each time we hop into the car either. Yet, like the automobile, the Internet has revolutionized the world, and the fastener industry along with it. At the FCH Sourcing Network, we’ve been thinking about the development of the web as it pertains to sourcing and selling fasteners for over ten years, about the same amount of time Facebook has been a major force, if you can believe it. And we’ve seen lots of changes during this time. Industry veterans and newcomers alike have been using the Internet to perform their duties in a growing variety of ways for years. But today, a significant and growing segment of purchasing and sales people within the fastener industry do not know a time when Internet data-mining was not available to do their jobs. Add to that the dynamic of mobile technology, and we have an industry today that conducts its business in a very new way. Although the topic could be fodder for spirited conversations during the next Young Fastener Professionals event, it’s widely opined that, generally speaking, today’s newer fastener professionals do not have the same depth of product knowledge as their forebears. And why should they? The universe of fastener wisdom is available at their fingertips, 24/7, from their desktop or smart device. Einstein is reputed to have said, “Never memorize what you can look up in a book.” I used to love to throw this quote out to my physics professor (He didn’t buy it.), and Einstein never had the Net, but you get the idea. For better or for worse, what today’s rookies may lack in fastener knowledge, they are offsetting with ubiquitous data access and technical know-how. THE POWER OF SCREWGLE: FCH PREFERRED SEARCH RESULT PLACEMENT PROGRAM ALLOWS LISTING MEMBERS TO SHOW THEIR FASTENERS AT THE TOP OF SEARCH RESULTS, ALONG WITH THEIR BANNER ADVERTISING. BUSINESS FOCUS ARTICLE CONTINUED ON PAGE 112

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