Business of Welding: Time for change

For the past couple of years the CWB Group has been running Canada’s only welding focused conference—CanWeld—with a fair bit of success I must add. This yearly event has turned out to be a destination for some in the industry and those looking to make connections within it.

Traditionally, the conference has been hosted in a new location each year, giving everyone an equal opportunity to attend and contribute. By all accounts 2014’s conference in Vancouver, held right on the edge of Stanley Park, was a high water mark with lots of great sessions, contacts, scenery and even some “at-conference” business deals.

This year we find ourselves on the extreme other coast—with equally high expectations. Having now held the conference in several cities across the country, we are now preparing for a major change.

Change can be tricky and one could argue the benefits of making any kind of change if what you are doing is already working. That said, leaving things as-is does not address the reality that everything has its best before date. You see, we have big plans to support what has become a fairly well organized industry in Canada. For example, the Canadian Welding Association has over 59,000 members; the Canadian Welding Bureau has over 7,000 clients, who employ tens of thousands of welding professionals. Then there are the 38,000 or so welding inspectors and supervisors, plus thousands of schools, instructors and students who interact with the CWA Foundations. All are right here in Canada, all deserving of an event that includes them.

So, our goal is now to reinvent our conference so that it retains all of its value, but greatly expand the kind of sessions we offer to appeal to a broader range of attendees. If you want PhD dissertations, we will have them; if you want practical applied research, that will still be there too. Plus, we will add sessions around practical applications like applying best business practices to the shop floor, implementing quality systems for welding, training and recruiting staff, financing for growth, and how to become a better supervisor.

We also understand that a conference is more than just the sessions, so we are testing some ideas at this year’s conference such as a daily connect zone (for networking), industry and education nights, round table sessions, media events and off-site excursions and rolling them into the mix. But even with all this we know there’s something missing—and it’s a big void—a trade show component.

Clearly, even with several conferences under our belt, the trade show portion presents another level of complexity. So, we’ve brought in a partner to help. For the 2016 conference (and many years to follow) we have partnered with dmg events to help on the show side. You may know them from events like the Global Petroleum Show. They know large events and how to run a good show.

If you want to network with the broader welding and fabrication industry in Canada, you now have a brand new option—one that has all the benefits of a proper full-featured conference tied to a major national trade show. The goal is that the activities at the conference and show floor are related in a way that provides real value. So, you get to learn about something new at the conference and then get to meet the related vendors on the show floor.

This is all about making sure that everyone who attends, whether for the day or the entire event, goes away knowing more than they did when they walked through the door. It’s all about upping our game and waving the Canadian flag—keeping our industry connected. Will it succeed? That’s up to you.

Ian Campbell is director of marketing and new product development with CWB.