The Power Gurve

Falling leaves, football and cooler weather all rernind us that fall is here. But autumn also brings a full round of industry meetings and with them an annual opportunity to enlarge our knowledge and expand our experience.

As never before, business survival depends upon being up to speed on the latest skinny. Indeed, business success increasingly is the province of those who manage to get ahead of the knowledge curve. To gain and retain that advantage is ever more important.

Whether you are attending your annual retail lumber dealer convention, gathering with other wholesalers or sitting in on a technical or marketing committee for your manufacturer employer, you have a solid shot at Learning with a capital L. One of America's greatest strengths is our free llow of information.

It's always disappointing to sit in on meetings and see the number of people whose eyes glaze over, their minds either idling or simply else- where. Having endured decades of boring meetings, we would be the first to admit that every meeting morsel is not going to be solid gold. In fact, some of the tripe we've heard barely qualifies as base metal. Yet often, just when it seems that tedium is about to overtake the human physique, someone will utter that bit of knowledge that makes the whole exercise worthwhile.

Sometimes it is a formal presentation that delivers a distillation of years of formal research. But an offlrand remark by someone whose experience exceeds your own can be just as rewarding. Suddenly, those mistakes that you might have had to make to get from A to B can be avoided. Now you've got the straight path to your destination. And all you did is sit there and listen.

As we leave the Industrial Age and are propelled into the Information Age it becomes increasingly clear that Sir Francis Bacon had it right when he said: Knowledge is Power.

Empower yourself.