When Quarterly Forum Dreams Come True

There are times when everything aligns for the good. The Quarterly Forum for Electronics Manufacturing Outsourcing and Supply Chain is entering its tenth year. Although it has exceeded my wildest dreams and has been an undeniable success, I have been exploring ways to take it to the next level.

Dream #1: More Multi-national As valuable as the Forum is to our North America members, I want the community and venues to become far more multi-national. Although nearly 15 percent of our members are based in Asia and Europe, we have held only 6 Forums outside the US — one in Germany, two in Canada, and three in Mexico. We need a broader international scope to reflect the global electronics industry.

Dream #2: More Industries Although the electronics industry has always been my focus, I want Forum members to benefit from best practices in other successful industries. While it is true we have touched on inter-industry benchmarking in previous Forums (in the apparel and chemistry industries), we can deliver far more thought leadership by pointing members to innovative and applicable practices outside electronics.

Dream #3: Grow Quarterly Forum Membership We have an amazing list of member companies, representing all nodes in the supply chain and leaders from every segment. Expanding on that list will provide the opportunity for more insights and opens the potential for segmented Forums based on member preferences.

Dream #4 – Grow TFI Environment Many of you know that TFI’s environmental consulting practice has skyrocketed in recent years. My dream of late has been to focus my creativity and energy on continuing to grow TFI Environment while keeping our outsourcing and supply-chain consulting strong.

I am pleased to announce that all these dreams are about to come true. The Forum now has new co-leaders: Kathleen Geraghty and Douglas Kent. Kathleen and Douglas are founders of eKNOWtion, a supply-chain education and consulting firm. I have known them both for a long time and they have consulted on numerous TFI projects. They understand our industry from within and have worked with an extensive cross section of companies globally. Their team and network provide broad industry reach in supply-chain and outsourcing strategies. Kathleen is based in North America and Douglas is based in Europe with resources to support the Forum’s growth globally.

When Bruce Rayner leads the July 31st web-based Forum in Boston, Douglas and Kathleen will be there to share their vision for making the Forum program the best ever. Douglas, Kathleen, and I will lead the October 22-23 Forum in San Jose. In addition, I will be involved in the Forum to support our members as part of your Leadership Team.

Thanks to Eric Miscoll, Bruce Rayner, and our full consulting team, we’ve done amazing things with the Forum so far. And I know it is only going to get better.

Kathleen and Douglas welcome emails (write to QuarterlyForum@TechForecasters.com) about your dreams for the Quarterly Forum. I am looking forward to seeing you at the October 22-23rd Forum, if not before.

Posted by Pamela J. Gordon, July 3rd, 2008