There are many ways to confidently choose the equipment, suppliers, and staff you will work with. Increasingly, monitoring equipment combined with software and management practices that allow you to track the performance of a crane or operator can offer empirical evidence of reliability. But still, personal experience, based on years of working relationships, remains a vital tool. Direct connections allow you to assess if an operator is reliable, or if a sales manager’s assurances can be trusted.

Here at Cranes Today we pride ourselves on being the original independent magazine of the lifting industry. Our practices as journalists aim to combine hard evidence with trust relationships based on in person meetings with our contacts and readers. We can’t do that based purely on telephone and email interviews. Over the the three year trade show cycle, we aim to travel out to every major crane market in the world. Last year, we met with our industry contacts in France, Brazil, Russia, China, India, Australia, and the USA. This year, we’ve gone back to many of those countries, and added New Zealand, Germany and South Africa to the list. Next year we’ll be back in the USA for ConExpo, and visiting Japan for the first time in many years, as well as returning to Russia, China, Italy, and Australia.

From all of these trips, our aim is to get a direct account of the state of the market in the region, and the issues and challenges crane owners face, based on extensive in person interviews with as wide a range of contacts as possible.

At the same time, we’re working to develop other ways to build relationships with our readers and contacts. Over recent months, I’ve highlighted the work we’ve done to develop our social media network on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Flickr. That has already paid dividends: over recent months, members of our LinkedIn group have helped suggest new directions for our lead features, and to arrange meetings as we travel the world. We’ve received the first entries to our photo prize this month, and have been able to reach a wider audience on Twitter and Facebook.

I hope that your experience of reading the magazine, combined with your meetings, conversations, and online interactions with us, and the empirical evidence of our sector leading circulation, allow us to trust us in the same way you do your staff, suppliers, and customers.

Will North Editor
wnorth@cranestodaymagazine.com