Dear business, industry and community friends, welcome to our November 2017 Thanksgiving edition of BIC Magazine -- your Business and Industry Connection, where our mission is to connect folks in business, industry, and community with each other and our BIC Alliance marketing partners for the betterment of all.
As our regular readers of BIC Magazine know, my partner and son-in-law Thomas Brinsko, the president and COO of BIC Alliance, and I have been rotating writing our "From The Publisher" column for about a decade. Thomas, who is also my partner in IVS Investment Banking, and John Zapalac, who is our other IVS partner, also rotate writing the IVS column between them. As for me, the other column I help write along with Senior Editor Andrew White is our BIC Media Solutions update and our Energy & Media column, which this month features our friend and BIC contributing writer Shawn Galloway, the president of ProAct Safety, and how he is using social media and video as part of his marketing and training effort.
Following my regular practice of 34 years as a publisher of BIC Magazine, I pray that each issue of BIC Magazine and the articles I and others write will help enhance the lives of our readers and help each of you develop better relationships through our publication. I have also been saying the same prayer every time we have hosted an event or made a speaking presentation and since we began publishing books in 2005 and our films in 2014.
After much thought and prayer, I decided to write about the importance of continuous learning in my "From The Publisher" this issue and share a few tips I have been blessed to learn over the years. Among these is a habit I have developed over the years that I also encourage you to adopt: to review previous issues of BIC Magazine when looking for a particular topic or information about a specific individual or company. Now, with our new technology, we have archived our past issues since 2014, and you can easily access them at BICMagazine.com.
Since this is our November Thanksgiving edition, I decided to share with you a few topics we discussed in the past three November issues of BIC, because many of these topics are still important today and reinforce my suggestion about using past issues of BIC and other resources from the past as part of our continuous learning.
One thing I found interesting is for the past six years, our front cover sponsor has been Veolia North America, and many of our prime positions have been the same for a number of years as well, which is a great indication others find value in BIC not only for content but as a valued tool for sharing their marketing message with the key decision makers who are also loyal and longtime readers of BIC.
In 2014, my "From The Publisher" was titled "Why business, industry and community must connect globally." We talked about the importance of networking and how some individuals were funding films like "Promised Land" and "Gasland" and were more interested in eliminating fossil fuels than in helping America become less dependent on foreign oil and finding a rational middle. We discussed our expansion into more digital and social media, sponsoring the screening of "FrackNation," and BIC Media Solutions expanding into doing more feature films with the release of "A Gift Horse" and industry-related videos.
In our November 2015 issue, our topic was "Introducing Energy Marketing 101 and the blessings of experience," and in 2016, our topic was "Leadership and the importance of gratitude." Also in 2016, we talked about the flooding in Louisiana that affected 145,000 homes and over 12,000 businesses. We also introduced our film "Rock Bottom and Back" and how we were using the film to help give the flood victims and others facing adversity greater hope and as a fundraiser for flood victims.
Now, as we introduce our November 2017 issue, we are stressing continuous learning and helping those affected by the hurricanes in Texas, Louisiana, Florida and the Caribbean. As always in November, we are stressing the importance of being thankful and helping others less fortunate.
In this issue, we feature excellent articles and interviews that can help us with continuous learning, including insight from Robert Gelinas, plant manager for BioLab Inc.'s Lake Charles, Louisiana, site; Tony Radoszewski, CAE, president of the Plastics Pipe Institute; Kris Westbrook, CEO of Revenew International LLC; Dale Barnard, North American vice president of Stork, A Fluor Company; and David Clover, senior product/application specialist for ERIKS North America.
We also keep you up to date on topics important to industry, including petrochemical growth, workplace safety, improvement, industry regulations, preparation, reliability and more.
Lastly, I will share a tip I learned recently from an article by Rizwan Aseem on 10 life lessons we need to master. Among his tips is the 20-minute morning and night rule and why we should spend 20 minutes each morning and night learning. According to Aseem, "Whatever you want to learn, practice it 20 minutes in the morning right after you wake up and another 20 minutes before you go to sleep. By spending the 20 minutes after you wake up, your brain will be at its freshest and will be able to incorporate the lesson quickly. The 20 minutes that you practice at night is more important, since sleep is when the brain combines everything that you've learned in the day."
Please join us in sharing BIC Magazine with others in your company and using it, along with our books and films, in your continuous learning. One of those videos I encourage everyone to view is "Energy Marketing 101," which explains the relationship among the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors. You can watch it at BICMagazine.com under "Resources" and "Videos." If you would like to share your learning tips, we would love to hear from you. You can email me at earlheard@bicalliance.com. As always, blessings from our BIC family to yours.
