Why associations? EDITORIAL GLASS CANADA June 2011 Volume 23 • Number 3 Annex Publishing & Printing Inc. P.O. Box 530, Simcoe, Ontario N3Y 4N5 Look at the photo from OGMA’s Race Nite on page 7. People are enjoying themselves. Whatever else was accomplished that night, it made people smile. People are fascinated with people. When I was starting out in maga-zines, my editor gave me a simple tip for taking a photo: always have a person in it. He illustrated his point by asking me to imagine a beautiful landscape shot of a mountain. Lovely, certainly, and worthy of a look. Then he asked me to imagine there is a tiny person way down in one corner of the picture. Instantly, the viewer’s attention is riveted to the solitary person, despite him being only a minor detail in a huge shot full of detail. Who is he? What is he doing there? Is he climbing the mountain? Is he lost? In my subsequent career I have found this principle to be correct over and over again. People just naturally focus on other people. And why not? We are social creatures. People in groups are relatively happy and productive. People alone tend to be miserable and desperate. Our brains have parts dedicated only to NEXT ISSUE recognizing faces. All this suggests we not only prefer to • Equipment for associate with others, but we actually need to. I think this bigger point has a more specific applica-your shop tion in the case of trade associations. There are a lot of • Laminated good, practical business reasons for supporting industry glass associations and remaining active in them. Frank Fulton hits on one in his regular column on page 26, and deliv-ers a sharp kick in the glass to apathetic glaziers at the same time. So I want to talk about the less-discussed reason for participating in an industry association: the fun and satisfaction of interacting with your peers. You probably don’t need an association event to get together and have some laughs with friends, but then again maybe you do. It can be lonely at the top of a company when you are The Boss to everyone around you. Few of us have much spare time for social activity after hours. Associa-tion events are a chance to meet and interact with other people who are in exactly the same circumstances as you, with all the same joys and frustra-tions. Sometimes it just does the heart good to shoot the breeze with some-one who gets it. Is there ever such a thing as having too many friends? There are the reasons for doing things that people talk about, then there are the real reasons they do them, and sometimes the two are not the same. My experience has been that, apart from all the good, logical reasons for supporting an association, people do it because they like it, and because they meet their friends there. • EDITOR | Patrick FLANNERY pflannery@annexweb.com 226.931.0545 SALES MANAGER | Kory PEARN kpearn@annexweb.com 519.902.8574 SALES DIRECTOR | Martin MCANULTY mmcanulty@annexweb.com 519.429.5178 SALES ASSISTANT | Pauline O’NEILL poneill@annexweb.com 519.429.5183 | 888.599.2228 ext. 219 PRODUCTION ARTIST | Kelli KRAMER GROUP PUBLISHER | Martin MCANULTY mmcanulty@annexweb.com Publication Mail Agreement #40065710. RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESS TO CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT, P.O. BOX 530, SIMCOE, ON N3Y 4N5 e-mail: ncuerrier@annexweb.com Printed in Canada, All rights reserved. Editorial material is copyrighted. Permission to reprint may be granted on request. ISSN 0843-7041 CIRCULATION e-mail: ncuerrier@annexweb.com Tel: 866.790.6070 ext. 208 Fax: 877.624.1940 Mail: P.O. Box 530, Simcoe, ON N3Y 4N5 SUBSCRIPTION RATES Canada -1 Year $36.75 (includes GST) $39.55 includes HST/QST U.S.A. -1 Year $50.00 (in US dollars) Occasionally, Glass Canada will mail informa-tion on behalf of industry-related groups whose products and services we believe may be of interest to you. If you prefer not to receive this information, please contact our circulation department in any of the four ways listed above. www.glasscanadamag.com 4 JUNE 2011 | GLASS CANADA
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