New line of products from United Scientific

Just a brief post today as I'm heading to the Pacific Northwest to visit customers very soon! United Scientific is now offering a line of medical/research plasticware from Abdos. Cryo Vials, RIA vials, tube storage, Cryo Coders, and much more will be offered. Please contact me for additional information and pricing!

United Scientific and CAST 2012

I'm pleased to announce that United Scientific will once again be exhibiting at the CAST show in Corpus Christi on November 8-10. For those of you not familiar with this show, it is by far my favorite Science Education exhibition. This is the state science show for Texas and it is always full of teachers and the exhibition hall is almost as large as NSTA. Being that it is held in November, dealers have a great feel for which of their new products have "taken off" this year and there is some innovative and fantastic stuff on display.

I encourage all of my science education peers (both dealers and manufacturers) as well as Texas educators to attend. Learn more about this show on their website: http://www.statweb.org/cast

As we get closer, I'll fill you in as to which products United Scientific will be exhibiting as well as the Booth locations.

Have a great day!

John

NSTA 2012

This year NSTA was held in Indianapolis. I was fortunate enough to spend two days at the exhibition and I must say, it was an excellent show. Overall attendance was down just like virtually every show in recent history. 7K is the number I was hearing. Also, only three importers of lab supplies/teaching aids exhibited this year, which is down from years past.

While the traffic was down, I got a strong feeling from the exhibitors that the teachers that were there were very interested in learning about new products and spent quality time at their booths. Very heavy traffic as usual at the workshops.

One of our dealers hosted an "in booth workshop" of our new WormWatcher Kits. The product seems to be a big hit and we anticipate big things from it!

One of the best parts of the NSTA national show is that the dealers who are exhibiting virtually all feature their lead product managers and upper management in the booths. This is always a great chance for me to catch up with our customers and gather ideas as to which products they'd prefer us to present to them when we have our official visit later in the spring.

One improvement I'd like to see is a more focused integration of social media similar to the way Pittcon tried to use Twitter. This would be a great way to promote workshops and drive interest.

Usually, I find that CAST is the best science education show of the year for us, but this year, the bar was raised by NSTA and I can't wait until November to see what CAST has to offer. I hope to see you in Corpus Christi this fall or hopefully sooner!

Have a great day!

John

New Product! Worm Watcher Biome in a Box!

Introducing the WormWatcher^® - the only clear, indoor composter that is lockable and portable. Talk about trash, watersheds, sustainability, earth science and more as worms recycle food waste into healthy soil inside the classroom. Bury different items in each corner and compare results. Spark student curiosity with this hands-on tool! Perform experiments with the worms, worm castings (vermicast used as a soil supplement), and worm tea (liquid fertilizer). This easy-to-clean container with excellent drainage and air flow is a low-maintenance, odorless composter that requires no tumbling or turning! See fast results in days to weeks. It is easy to carry with handles in the base, so share it with other classrooms. The middle/high school kit includes a reading book, a teacher-ready workbook full of worksheets indexed by topic, a sample unit lesson plan from the National Science Teachers Association, the WormWatcher^®, DVD, directions, Vitamix, curtain, and landscape cloth. 60-day Warranty. Grades 6-12.

Contact me at JGura@fischertech.com if you'd like to offer this product on your website or have any questions.

Pittcon 2012 Review

It was very nice to have Pittcon back in Orlando. If I had to pick one place for this show to stay, it would be in Orlando! Weather was unseasonably warm to boot.

Walking the floor, I immediately noticed the impact that the economy is having in our industry as the show was significantly smaller again. I heard numbers in the "thousands" instead of "ten thousands" this year. Although, I will admit, I have not seen the final numbers.

New this year was a big screen in the middle of the show floor showing the live twitter feed from Pittcon. While this idea sounds "cool", I did not see one person looking at it and the few minutes I looked at it didn't really offer much value to me.

I'd love to see an app designed to help easily link manufacturer's with distributors. Specifically, I'm looking for a place where attendees and exhibitors can register what type of companies they are looking to meet and then have a way to connect with each other, perhaps even set an appointment. When I go to Pittcon, I have two purposes: 1. Visit my distributors and 2. Find new products to either introduce to the education market or into our network of laboratory distributors. Having an app with this type of technology would help me and many like me who are looking to find new business relationships.

I'm off to NSTA next week and look forward to seeing more of our distributors there! Have a great day everyone and to those of you in the midwest like me....enjoy the weather!

Trade Show Season starts

Just a quick FYI:

I will be at Pittcon in Orlando starting Sunday, March 11 through Wednesday March 14th. My calendar is quickly filling up, I still have a few slots left open if you'd like to meet with me.

I'll also be at NSTA in Indianapolis from March 29th through March 31st. I'm very excited to see many of my distributors to tell them about all of our fantastic new products for this catalog cycle!

United Scientific will also have a booth at CAST this November in Corpus Christi, TX. Start planning early as this is always one of the best science education shows in the country every year!

Safe travels!

John

Fearing Technology Means Missing Opportunities

I was speaking to a distributor of ours today and asked him how often he adds new products to his website. I was told, "We've never actively pushed our website and hardly ever add new products since we've put our product database on our website." I was floored. Then I began thinking back and recall the very same customer tell me that he "doesn't believe in texting". This was the very topic that was brought up in an excellent seminar I attended by Connie Podesta. (www.conniepodesta.com) I still laugh at her response to the same comment. She suggested we ask: "When you say you don't believe in it, do you mean you don't think it exists?"

When I first joined this industry 11 years ago, our company shared one email address, had no webpage, received some orders by snail mail and most by fax, and selling on the web meant Ebay. Now most of us have complicated mail servers, Youtube channels, automated PO systems, websites fully integrated with product spec sheets and videos, and use analytics to choose product placement on our websites and advertising on search engines. I have customers that can tell me within seconds which webpages led their customers to our products, which dollars were best spent on advertising, etc. I can go to google.com and search one of our products by item number and many of our vendors have coded our numbers in their system and show up on the results page.

What does all of this mean? Don't fear technology, embrace it and learn about it.

Do utilize text messaging to share information.
Do learn how to Skype.
Do keep your webpages updated.
Do show as much information as you can on your website.
Do research advertising on the internet.
Do consider tablets as opposed to laptops when travelling.
Do provide value added to your customers by showing the products being used, ideally in a video.
Do learn how to check your email from your mobile device when travelling or away from a computer.
Do understand that the role of a face to face meeting is not dead, but rather thriving with the integration of new technology.

Keep on learning!

John