Guy's 'What's Coming Up'
A bi-monthly(ish) lighthearted insight into the world of PII's publisher Guy Ullmann's latest going's on, together with updates about PII and details of ‘What's coming up‘ in each issue
Hello and welcome to my November 2022 WCU
I hope you are well and starting to prepare for the chaotic last remaining weeks of the year.
I’m dedicating this issue to a good friend of mine who sadly passed away last month. He was one of my ‘go-to’ buddies for business and marketing ideas, always bouncing things off each other and interested in what each other were up to.
He was starting to make a good name for himself in the E-commerce world, having recently appeared as a guest speaker at an online event which also featured Neil Patel.
A sharp reminder to live life to its fullest.
R.I.P. Stefano, miss you mate 🙁
It’s been a pretty busy couple of months, trying to squeeze as much of summer out as I could, and the small matter of Robi’s birthday at the end of October…
Whilst playing at a beach tennis tournament, I was lucky enough to watch Alex Yee and Georgia Taylor-Brown win their respective races at the World Triathlon Championship Series and even more lucky (or geeky enough!) to hang around and meet both Alex & Jonny Brownlee, super nice gents and great to meet some guys with skinnier legs than me!
It was so bad, it was funny!
Just for giggles, I had to share this…
Robi, bless her cotton socks, booked a 5 course tasting event at a local vineyard.
I have to say the wine was incredible, however the food didn’t quite live up to expectations…
I shit you not, this was the main course and to rub salt in the wound, Robi’s was given to her by hand without even a serviette, the look on her (slightly OCD) face was a picture.
Important lesson to learn here – Manage client expectations from the outset!!!
For Robi’s birthday I treated us to a luxury spa weekend away, not really my cup of tea, but a good excuse for a short break away – as you can see I think the heat got to me!
The spa included a Hydrotherapic Path which went from hot, to mild, to bloody freezing whilst walking along on a stoney surface, it was at this point I remembered why Spa's were really not my thing!
However, the pool, food, accommodation and a very happy lady more than made up for it 🙂
As I mentioned in my previous WCU I attended my cousin’s stag party, the proceeding wedding was absolutely fantastic, held at a stunning venue in Ashford, Surrey.
Not that his head could get any bigger (literally!), but Noah did look rather dapper!
My other cousin and I were on Usher duty, which was a pleasure for my giant younger cousin!
The next day we visited Windsor Great Park, where the full array of autumn colours were on show, is there a more beautiful sight? Although rather worryingly my mother still has flowers in full bloom in her garden – climate change? What climate change? Pffffffff
We also celebrated 2 years of these little guys, they’ve certainly grown since the video I shared!
Ich rarely leaves my side, he now has his own cushion on my desk!
Two years on and Nusa still looks up at me every evening in the same wishful way.
Future concepts
I love seeing future concept ideas and this totally bonkers and highly unlikely one certainly caught my eye recently;
The nuclear powered sky hotel includes a 360 degree viewing hall, a central entertainment area which has a shopping mall, sports centres, swimming pools, restaurants, bars, theatres, cinemas, kids play areas and even wedding halls – not sure I'd fancy having my wedding in the sky though! It is totally unrealistic for many reasons – taking off for starters…!
But it got me thinking… Future concept ideas are not something we see often in the industry and I'm sure it would be interesting for you to think up some of these, the more extravagant the better – if anything it's sure to attract a lot of attention, this video has received almost 2.5M views!
So, why not give your engineers & designers a free pass to put their creative skills to the test and ask them to create futuristic concepts, making sure to send them through to Phil! (philblack@piimag.com)
Not so Eco-minded
Whilst on my travels I stumbled across something that really irked me…
In a Lidl, loose pears were on sale for €2.99 per kg, or the exact same pears in a plastic container for €1.99 per kg – 30% cheaper than those WITHOUT the plastic box!
In a world where we're all supposed to be more conscious of our environmental impact, surely for the consumer, it has to start with supermarkets, however where is the incentive for this with this kind of promotion?
I would really like to understand the logic behind this – I welcome your insight….
In a Lidl, loose pears were on sale for €2.99 per kg, or the exact same pears in a plastic container for €1.99 per kg – 30% cheaper than those WITHOUT the plastic box!
In a world where we're all supposed to be more conscious of our environmental impact, surely for the consumer, it has to start with supermarkets, however where is the incentive for this with this kind of promotion?
I would really like to understand the logic behind this – I welcome your insight….
What's Coming Up in our November issue of PII...
Our final issue of the year is here, hurrah!
We have a busy final issue of the year, which also includes our Winter Solids Handling & Processing Supplement – full schedule below:
- – The importance of accurate safety studies to allow for more efficient safety report production in COMAH facilities
- – Compressed air; The fourth utility
- – The golden rules of getting top performance from your pressure transmitter
- – Top tips for improving the lifespan of servo motors
- – Energy, Sustainability, Innovation – tackling the big 3 challenges with machine learning
- – The calculation of the probability of failure according to the international standard IEC 61508
- – Dairy wastewater treatment and wastewater treatment for milk processing companies in combination with sludge treatment
- – Manufacturing Execution Systems
- – Are Process Plant Designers Really that Sadistic?
- Solids Handling & Processing Supplement
- – Mixers & Blending
- – Professor Don McGlinchey, Head of the Centre for Industrial Bulk Solids Handling at GCU
Columnists
– Sean Moran
– Gavin Smith
If you missed our Sept/Oct issue, you can flick through below (click the square in the bottom right to open full screen)
Book in
I course would love to hear from you for any enquiries, please drop me a line for advertorial/advertising via the form opposite or email me on: guyullmann@piimag.com
Final booking date: November 18th
And finally....
A refreshing cock-up!
As you may have read this morning, Elon Musk has quickly dumped one of his new tweaks for Twitter, where in response to a Tweet from a pretty famous YouTuber, Marques Brownlee, Musk simply replied:
“I just killed it“
which was pretty cool of him to say & do, but then he continued with:
“Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months. We will keep what works & change what doesn’t,”
which I simply love!
Tech is all about trial and error, of course when you have the budget Musk has the error's are slightly more forgiving, but nonetheless it's nice for someone to actually come out and say it.
I think I can learn a lot from this, I always look for perfection before releasing things, when in reality it's probably better to launch at 60-70% and gauge user feedback .
Hmmmmmm…..
Thanks for reading, I hope it gave you an interesting 5 minutes away from your workload and of course would welcome enquiries for booking into our final issue of 2022.
All the best,
Guy
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