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What Do You Want to Read About?

Posted May 21, 2015 12:00 AM

IHS will soon be featuring sponsored blog posts from suppliers on CR4. Don't worry! CR4 won't be overrun with sponsored content. There will be a maximum of just a couple of these posts per week. This will be in addition to the few ads that already exist on CR4.

I'm sharing this with you not only to let you know what's headed your way, but to provide you with an opportunity for suggestions.

What type of content you would like to read? Behind the scenes, latest updates, products in the news, or something else? The author will likely return to the blog post to answer your questions, so these posts are also an opportunity to communicate directly with a company.

Let me know what you'd like to learn about. I'll pass this information on to the companies who choose to post sponsored content.

The satisfaction of the CR4 community is important to me. Please take a moment to let me know what would help these posts to be successful.

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#1

Re: What Do You Want to Read About?

05/21/2015 11:13 AM

"Please take a moment to let me know what would help these posts to be successful."

Tell them to dress in their toughest 'Rhino Hide'. Were a grumpy bunch of curmudgeons.

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#2
In reply to #1

Re: What Do You Want to Read About?

05/21/2015 1:50 PM

That's why I'm asking what type of stuff you'd like to see from them. If you enjoy it, maybe you won't be inclined to "attack."

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#6
In reply to #1

Re: What Do You Want to Read About?

05/22/2015 5:36 AM

Good point.

I dislike plain adverts, but if a CR4/IHS partners seek opinion on a new product or service it could be interesting. You're quite right that they need a tough hide, but feedback from here could help them a great deal. Better to get some critical comment here before launching on a mass scale. As long as whatever companies give feedback they could benefit hugely - CR4 is a reasonably representative bunch. If they can take the rough with the smooth, then everybody wins.

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#3

Re: What Do You Want to Read About?

05/21/2015 8:01 PM

Considering how diverse we are, I might suggest a different approach... Have the prospective bloggers reach out to their own engineers and shop personnel and ask them what excites/interests them about their own product that they design/make... odds are if it interests them, it will probably interest us.

Also a tip, but from the flip side... something I would rather not see... regardless of subject topic: Marketing lingo... In other words, if the adjective is not quantifiable, don't use it. If the blog is written to sell rather than inform - it will turn me off.

Otherwise, I like "behind the scenes." Reason is I can find all the other stuff out doing some research but behind the scenes type stuff has to be purposefully created and, if done well, can be quite informative, educational, and entertaining.

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#4

Re: What Do You Want to Read About?

05/21/2015 9:25 PM

More interested in what they are working on than what they have....what problems are associated with their products and why....what they see a need for in the future for skill set in their respective field...where and how their products are produced and why...

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#5

Re: What Do You Want to Read About?

05/21/2015 11:45 PM

" From suppliers on cr4 " Does that mean that the stories that will be told and the reading that will be done will only be provided by the advertising sponsors of IHS Global 360 ? And how will it be addressed the storytelling by those that are not on the vendor list ?

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#8
In reply to #5

Re: What Do You Want to Read About?

05/22/2015 8:23 AM

I don't think I'm understanding your question fully, but I'll try to answer. If this doesn't answer your question, please rephrase it for me.

IHS Engineering360 (formerly known as GlobalSpec) advertisers will NOT be the only source of blog posts on CR4. There may be a few posts from advertisers each week.

We will still continue to provide posts from all of our other bloggers, and maybe even some new bloggers, in the future.

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#7

Re: What Do You Want to Read About?

05/22/2015 8:19 AM

Go right ahead, if we survived Baba Ji, we can survive anything. S.M.

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#11
In reply to #7

Re: What Do You Want to Read About?

05/23/2015 12:11 AM
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#9

Re: What Do You Want to Read About?

05/22/2015 9:15 AM

One discussion that I enjoyed very much was the thread about the clear plastic food cans being a viable replacement (companion - alternative?) of the common metal end-consumer sized food cans:

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/97034

The several different perspective is what made it so interesting: Nutritional conservation, recyclability, economics, consumer attitude/acceptance, packaging, labeling... and a little bit of snarking to spice the discussion.

I still don't see the problem with canned peas .

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#12
In reply to #9

Re: What Do You Want to Read About?

05/23/2015 7:26 AM

Canned peas still has me splarfing .

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#10

Re: What Do You Want to Read About?

05/22/2015 5:01 PM

If they were willing to offer quotes without the need to sign-up, register or submit a form; and not having to await the answer until they guess you're desperate enough, it'd be not a bad idea.

Requesting a price list by P.M. would be a plus.

I don't understand why the companies would rather show their undies than their prices (I consider the first more embarrassing).

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#13

Re: What Do You Want to Read About?

05/23/2015 3:59 PM

What about a post on multiple levels at different times for novice and professionals to read. Maybe with a different title color to distinguish between the two so each level can discriminate what to read without opening every item.

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#14

Re: What Do You Want to Read About?

05/25/2015 8:29 AM

I insist on the pricing information as a decision maker in big part.

Not all of us are allowed to place orders directly in our respective companies, many of us have to depend on the MRO purchasing department, and it can take them quite a while just to get us a quotation.

If we were able to attain a prompt response with a quote it would save us precious time, we could finish and place the request a lot earlier.

Most of us have a pretty good knowledege of the advertised products (better than advertisers and sales Reps.), we don't need more of what we already know, so the question is:

HOW MUCH ?.

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#15

Re: What Do You Want to Read About?

05/25/2015 8:46 AM

If you want to team up with your sponsors, you should take advantage of the general reluctance to show prices, it would make this site a must see for engineers.

One of the main reasons why we surf the web in search of something, is that we want to know right away how much is going to cost.

It would be great to have a reliable source of information along with pricing.

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