AAP Network Blog

The U.S. and the 'Region'

February 10, 2010

 I would like you to read the following comments regarding the US response to Haiti:

.....Prior to the devastating January 12th earthquake, apparel manufacturing was one of Haiti's most important industries, employing some 25,000 workers and accounting for more than three-quarters of the nation's export earnings, with 82 percent of the exports going to the United States.

....industries "play a responsible and proactive role in Haiti's overall recovery."... infrastructure problems, factory capacity levels, workforce training and sourcing patterns.

....the U.S. apparel industry has a long partnership with Haiti and is "ready to be a cornerstone of Haiti reconstruction." .... making sure growth is sustainable and continues into the future."

.... By renewing pro-Haitian provisions in U.S. trade law, streamlining Customs processes and opening up avenues for foreign investment, the U.S. can have a significant impact on this fragile economy and restore a much-needed sense of normalcy."

.... It is more important than ever that this two-way relationship be continued and expanded. The legislation will put Haitians back to work at a crucial time, and will help provide long-term markets for their products that will help build the foundation for economic prosperity and political stability.

This is all good. It is the right thing to do. But, why did it take an earthquake? This response of Haiti is what these very same people should have been having about the entire region all along – that it is strategically vital both ways, to provide stability, to ensure security, to create wealth, to sustain jobs, to recognize the tightly wound cultures of this hemisphere, to see this region as a ‘flat world’ when it really has always BEEN a flat world in our own time zone. Why did it take an earthquake?

How do you define ‘social responsibility’? If you define it as being responsible for societies, then this new focus on Haiti by US brands and retailers is the ultimate in social responsibility. But why wait for the next earthquake?

Everywhere you listen in our country, you will hear Spanish spoken. If in Florida, throw in some Creole. We are what we are. Our cultures, our supply chains, our commerce, our destiny in this hemisphere is very tightly wound together. To illustrate this took a devastating earthquake. But an even stronger force threatening it is ignorance of the importance of the responsibility we all have to proactively, “play a responsible and proactive role in (the region’s) overall recovery” and to build “long partnerships” and to exercise balanced “sourcing patterns” in this hemisphere and to “make sure growth is sustainable and continues into the future" and to “have a significant impact on (these) fragile economies” and to be sure “(these) two-way relationship be continued and expanded” and to “provide long-term markets for their products that will help build the foundation for economic prosperity and political stability”.

Haiti, The Dominican Republic, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru and above all else, the United States. This is a supply chain region, and within it AAPN members are its spinal cord, directly connecting brands and retailers to factories and their suppliers. It doesn’t take earthquakes. It just takes stakeholders. This kind of reaction to crises needs to be ongoing acceptance of responsibility before they occur. And we do that.

Join this effort. Commit to this commerce. As we see first hand, nothing stops poverty like a job. And with company jobs comes country and regional “economic prosperity and political stability”. It took an earthquake to highlight in Haiti. We hope this email highlights the actual and true big picture responsibility we all have for this entire region.

Mike

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AAPN Tactical Network responds to Haiti

January 13, 2010

At 10:30 AM this morning, I activated the AAPN Tactical Network in response to news from Haiti by sending a high priority broadcast to our over 600 people in AAPN. My question was simple – did anyone know how Jean-Paul Faubert, Alain Villard, Marie-Louise Baker, and Joe Stephenson, who we assumed were in Port au Prince yesterday when the 7.0 Earthquake hit, were doing.

By 2 PM today, we knew about each of these 4 people, in detail. They are fine and they are busting their butts exactly like leaders do when caught in the cross hairs of an emergency. In fact, Jean-Paul - jpfaubert@palmapparelgroup.com - wrote us saying, “Alain, myself and our families are ok. We are assessing the material damage and helping others that are not as fortunate! It is bad. I am not sure what you can do to help. Right now we need doctors, hospitals, medicine and the us army corps of engineers with lots of equipment to take out the few remaining survivors from under the rumble! JP”

The AAPN Tactical Network generated over 80 email responses back to us, each of them starting a thread from our member to their own respective web of relationships, eventually reaching these 4 people, and who knows how many hundreds of others too.

Being a retired Air Force telecommunications officer, I know how we used to respond to emergencies like this, with plane loads of air traffic control, voice and data systems and the skills to operate them. We were known as the “FILO Force” – first in, last out.

Today, that role has been perfected in our country, and I mean PERFECTED, by Walmart.

But, this is Haiti. There is no Walmart in Haiti. Have you ever been there? We have. When you went, did you stay at the luxurious and distinctive Hotel Montana? Its gone. Repair their infrastructure? They never had an infrastructure.

This will be a time that tests our souls on a personal level. I have gotten notes from people willing to leave work right now for Haiti and go wherever their church sends them.

On a professional level, the merits of strategically balanced sourcing will become REAL important to some brands I know quite well because there is going to be a disruption to production in Haiti and they will not be excused for being late by their customers.

Know this - Jean-Paul Faubert, Alain Villard, Marie-Louise Baker, and Joe Stephenson are four of the smartest, kindest, most successful and charismatic people I have ever met. They’re one-in-a-million. When they tell us what they need, you will be the first to know.

Thank God for this practical and proven network of you people, for your instant response to this emergency and for the chance to do the right thing.

Wow.

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Day 1 4:55pm I thought we had hit some potholes that we might not have seen. But as we kept moving slowly with no potholes in front of us, the shaking of the SUV continued and worsened. The car in front was wobbling as well and at that point I knew something was amiss. Looking down the road and along the sides I began to see what looked like objects falling from the sky, blocks from building walls and wooden beams, with dust filling the air. We stopped in our tracks, trying to hold onto the doors and the seat to keep from being thrown from side to side or front to back, as well as up and down. The shaking of the car was as much as two feet from side to side and front to back, while at the same time bouncing up and down. I heard a thud. The concrete block wall lining part of the street to our side had fallen a foot from the passenger side of the car where I was sitting. I pushed myself to the center of the seats, extending my head as far back and away from any windows as possible, but trying to maintain sight of what was happening outside, hoping as well that nothing would fall on our roof. Didn’t know if it was best to stay in the car or get out, but we stayed in. It felt like a Disney World ride, but one that wasn’t engineered, and not knowing if and when there was an end. It wasn’t staged. No one was at the controls. People from one end of the street were running downhill while those downhill were running uphill, both groups thinking there was safety at the other end of the street. That is, those could walk or run during the tremble. Most people were first falling down only to try to get back up and falling once again. Some people stood mesmerized in a panic turning in circles. Others were crying over someone that had been injured or even killed, crushed by something falling. Women and men holding young injured children were running down the street, looking for a place that could somehow miraculously help heal them. It lasted about 15-20 seconds, but seemed like it would never end. The shaking slowed down and finally stopped. A man came running up to the side of my door, knelt down and threw aside three, still joined, concrete blocks and picked up a little girl about 4 years old from underneath to take her to shelter. She wasn’t visible from inside the car, lying inches from the bottom of my door. She was bloodied and I felt somewhat of a guilt not having spotted her sooner than he did, considering I was inches away. My escort was a policeman during this particular ride so I felt safe among all the turmoil now going on, as least as far as anyone deciding to rob the only foreigner on the street. I stepped out of the car to see if there was anyone else that was in possible need of help that was nearby, not that there was really any assistance we could provide except for comfort or to remove someone from under rubble. I felt for a short while that I couldn’t stand up myself without holding on to the car, still feeling a wobbly effect, whether imagined, something still in my body as an after affect, or if it was still trembling a little bit. A man half walking and half running with blood running down from his skull grabbed my hand. I pulled away as there was really nothing I could do for him. He turned away and just stood looking down the street. With people lining the streets it was impossible to move the car for the moment. People were screaming. Some were shouting prayers, others screaming in fear, while others screaming over a lost or injured loved one. We waited a few more minutes before turning around to head home. As we rode down the street we saw more people carrying children trying to crowd into the public transport pick-ups, in Haiti called “tap taps”. It happened a few minutes before 5pm so it was now beginning to get dark outside. We had been in route to the downtown area, which ran through one of the poorest sectors of town. Incredibly, most of the home made buildings by the natives were still standing, but as we got back on the main streets we saw that the commercial banks and other large buildings were collapsed. There was no cell service. I was unable to call anyone else to see if they were ok or not. I would just have to wait to get back, a long 20 minute ride. Once I got back I found that our group was safe, but without the phone service as well as internet, there was no way to inform our families that we had survived, and as I write there is still neither. I got back to the house at the same time the rest of my group was arriving, they having walked from the factory. We found the house intact with little damage. The pool was missing water, my boss (Joe Stephenson), who I had dropped off at the house before leaving for downtown said the waves in the pool were responsible for the foot of water missing. We checked our generator for electricity as city power was out and we expected it to be for some time. We were all anxious about this particular machine. It provided us with our water flow to the house, the ability to cook, as well as giving us the fans in the heat of the day. It will later serve us to communicate with our internet when that signal resumes. The first thing we saw when we checked it was the gas tank over on its side, off the stand it needed to be on, but still full. 5 of the guys managed to lift it back onto the stand. It didn’t look damaged. First good sign. We then checked around the generator to see if anything else appeared to have damage. Aside from the exhaust pipe leaning to the side it looked like it was in good shape. We decided to give it a try. Our prayers for the moment were answered as it started up and the house came to life with lights. Our water line was broken and we managed to fix that. It had been crushed by the wall at the back of the house falling over. I found my bedroom a mess with the armoire fallen and most of the items on my desk and dresser on the floor or close to being so. All the furniture was rearranged. We ate a quick dinner, most of us with very little appetite. We went to the hotel 3 blocks away that had remained intact as well, hoping to find someone with an international phone or possibly internet service, neither of which we found existed at the moment. But we found lounge chairs around the pool which would serve as our beds for the night, since they were outside and safer than indoors. The aftershocks were trembling about every half hour. The pool at the hotel was somehow leaking as we saw the water level diminishing and was already half empty. One person in our group was a guest at this hotel so we got the sheets out of his room to use as covers and protection from the mosquitoes that are common in Haiti, while others had brought some type of blanket to use. I covered myself from head to toe as did the others, and tried to sleep, while at the same time trying to stay alert to any tremors that could be another quake instead. Day 2 I managed to get a call out to the US this morning, finding a scarce signal that has yet to return, to inform that I was ok as well as the others in my group, but it was the only call that any of us were able to connect with. We rode to the factory to see the extent of damage. We were fortunate there as well having had some people with only minor injuries and no deaths. Rubble was on the ground. Pieces of the walls were gone. The stairwell to the upstairs was cracked with pieces of blocks from the walls on the stairway. The wall at the halfway turn of the stairwell to the outside of the building was gone, which was also used by some of our employees as they jumped out to safety, not wanting to wait to get out with those in front of them. People were scrambling to get out with only themselves in mind. The support pillars had cracks and shifts in them. Machines were moved. Rolls of fabric were on the floor. Cartons of finished work had fallen off the prepared pallets. Dust, powder, and debris were rampant. Lights hung suspended only by the electrical wires attached to them. Other factories were not as fortunate as one had a complete wall fall and killed 3 of the workers. What we can be thankful for from the factory is that the diesel tank is still standing and will provide us with diesel for the home generator for the next couple weeks until things take some kind of order and the fact that we just had a fresh supply of purified bottled water delivered to the plant that will provide us with what is normally taken for granted. Our pickup was low on gas. A few of the guys went to find some gas, afraid it was going to be impossible. Luckily they took two containers and found a gas station with gas. With too many people gathered around the station they were forced to fill the containers over and over and take them to the truck to put in the tank. But they managed to fill the tank as well as the two containers for a little extra later. We left to see if we could find a supermarket open to stock up on food. The usual grocery store we shop in no longer exists, while all the others were closed. On the way we passed close to the epicenter of the quake, about 2 miles from where I was at where it happened. One large building after another was either collapsed or partially so with the remaining portion tilted, or with large sections of walls fallen out. The two major hotels that house most of the business travelers further up the mountain no longer exist, both having collapsed in the same manner as the twin towers. Workers are digging out people. Parking garages are one solid mass of concrete now with no space between floors. Dead people lie covered in the streets, unfortunate victims, some abandoned while others with people around them crying and praying. Everyone is on the streets, afraid to go into a building for fear that the building would collapse on its own or an aftershock would arrive and cause it to collapse. We have had numerous aftershocks, but none that caused much more damage. Day 3 I finally got some much needed rest last night. The aftershocks appeared to stop around 7pm last night and around 10pm I slept inside, having moved from upstairs to downstairs with better access to the exits. Joe accepted a ride to Dominican Republic, the other half of the island, and promised he would write and call our families. There’s nothing more we can do for the moment except wait for the infrastructure to at least get the basics working again. The United Nations, already with a presence here on the island is out and working, both in rescue efforts and repairs. I heard rumors that the chief of the United Nations was in the country during the quake and was one of the victims at the major hotel that collapsed. The airport does not have departing flights. I visited the hotel nearby again an hour ago to check on phone service as well as internet. What I learned was that they have the internet tower that supplies the signal to the area, but that it is down. They are waiting for Hainet, the internet company, to come put it back up, but don’t know exactly when they will arrive. They have satellite TV, so there was a weak signal with CNN. I watched for a short while seeing the reporting on Haiti, learning aid was on the way, and knowing the world knew what had happened. What I didn’t see reported was the lack of phone or internet service, which would explain our lack of communication. I saw that Obama said that Haiti would not be forgotten, but that message would not reach the population here now as no one has cable service without the satellite. 4pm I’m shaking again, the same as I do each time after feeling an aftershock and running outside to be sure it’s not going to be major again. The sounds of helicopters overhead are increasing with time. 5pm We went to the free zone to the factory to pick up refills on diesel and water. The free zone, which is where all the sewing factories are located, is also the home base for the UN. Today we found the street lined with mobile trailers that had arrived from the Social Assistance Department of Dominican Republic. The trailers were portable kitchens and were being prepared to hit the streets to provide some food for all those in need. After making our stop at the factory we rode out a ways to see if we could find a signal for phone service, but no luck. On the way we saw the first two portable kitchens out with two lines of people a block long and more running to the back of the line as word spread that food was available. Each person was pegged to the next in order to prevent anyone from slipping into line while the UN force watched for the same and tried to maintain an organized and calm procedure. Haiti, which was starting to show a little progress in rebuilding the country with efforts to put people back to work in the sewing industry, with investors from other countries, with increases in the minimum wage, a HOPE program by the U.S., and clients in the sewing industry starting to see benefits of coming to Haiti, will be devastated again with all that at a standstill. Those two hotels that collapsed housed 90 percent of the business travelers. Factories are damaged and will take months to make the necessary repairs or to make moves to new facilities. What was once a bad infrastructure is now worse, and I feel for the people of Haiti. Our workers have been dropping by our house, some telling us their families are ok, while others tell us how many they have lost. Day 4 Friday 5am. I woke up hearing a ticking sound which was my table rattling, and felt my bed shaking. Grabbed my shoes and computer bag, my only future means of communication besides the phone, and ran outside again. Not the most pleasant way to wake up. We waited outside for a while to make sure all was ok again, while in the meantime I turned on my cell phone to again check for a signal, but to no avail. After 15 minutes I heard the sound from my phone indicating a change in signal. I immediately started dialing until finally got a connection with home. Spoke to my wife and assured her we were fine, at least with water, electricity, and food. I then dialed out for each of the others on my team so they could do the same, as my phone was the only one with some minutes available. I felt a sense of a relief knowing I was able to assure them we were alive and well. We’re still waiting for internet service. With each tremor we check the cracks in the walls on the house to be sure there are no new ones or that any have not changed for the worse. We can only wait until there are services so that we can find a way out and home. In the meantime I have by essentials for survival in my briefcase and a small bag, both of which I grab and run with from the house at the slightest tremor. I guess I’ll go shower, something I don’t relish since it’s cold water, while I also rush to be sure there’s no tremor while I am doing so. 9pm Got internet service and able to communicate with everyone, as well as see the US news reports. In some ways I didn’t realize just how bad it was out there since we have stayed close to home since it occurred. I wrote this account to keep me busy during the past few days and thought I would share it with you. Wayne Cooperman
 
Wayne Cooperman, QRM S.A. 12:04PM 01/16/10

The Top 10 MUST-DO Apparel Marketing Tips for 2010

December 22, 2009

 Well, its that time again, New Year’s Resolutions. This year, far too many companies did the exact opposite of marketing, they pulled the plug on all of it, thereby dropping off the radar, sending the market the signal they were in crisis. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste and many did. So, for 2010, we scoured the files and the feedback to produce this short list of things you can do to get seen, found, understood and reached because what you are trying to sell is exactly what someone is trying to buy.

1. Define Yourself, your Expertise – use all the words, the internet does: its all about you. Its a what-have-you-done-for-me-today world. Like Norm said on CHEERS, “it’s a dog eat dog world and I’m wearing Milkbone underwear”. Show what you know. Be the go-to person. Stand out from the crowd. Have you solved a customer or technical problem? Share your experience. Customers will love the extra information. Prospects will have reasons to choose you. Create content on one of the busiest websites in the industry, aapnetwork.net. What are the issues? What are you doing? Display your passion for all to see, and update it constantly.

2. Control Your Content, Counter the Bad Data – Blog, Video, Articles, Press Releases, Slide Shows: you would be amazed the amount, the volume and the detail available on you right now either free (and growing) on the internet or through expert services like Panjiva. Shipping data, with exact volumes; who your customers are, with exact volumes; annual sales; your credit score; officers; issues and much more. There is no-one to call to fix it. But you CAN counter it with content that is under your control, the ‘good news’ about your company and someone to call to help you – us at AAPN and aapnetwork.net online.

3. Catch the Wave, Which Right Now its Sustainability: sustainability is the new status symbol, except this one isn’t a fad, its a commitment, its taking responsibility, its the right thing to do. But what are its elements? We think there are three – the environment obviously, the water, air, land; the people, society, the community, a living wage, a higher standard of living; and finally the company, the country, the economy, making a profit to fund sustainability, creating wealth. At AAPN, we believe ‘nothing stops a bullet like a job’ so our focus is ‘people’ and the helping the ‘company’ make a profit. Jobs are the easiest measurement we can track over time, it tells you how a company is doing, countries too. Our annual meeting May 2-4, 2010 on Sustainability is your time to take ownership of jobs.

4. Question Trade Shows, Ads, Meetings, Travel and all ‘Claims’: hey, its the old 40/40/20 Rule of Marketing - 40% of Marketing is the List (the tighter the target, the better pre-qualified); 40% of Marketing is the Offer (always nice to solve a problem prospects agree they actually have); and 20% is what you spend all the Money on. This is the year to market smart and direct. The big supply chain that is our membership runs up and down this hemisphere and is the spinal cord of the industry connecting factories to brands and retailers. A good network saves money, reduces travel, speeds up information, makes introductions and puts you 1 or 2 phone calls away from anyone you want to meet.

5. Show Up; Be Seen; Get Known; Stay Safe: 80% of success in life comes from just showing up. Belonging to AAPN or any other organization asks you to give what you have the least of, your time. The one thing you can give and still keep is your word. Just as eventually all great ideas degenerate into real work, great relationships start from showing up, doing face-to-face networking. That’s why we always open our meetings by SLOWLY introducing everyone so networking starts by design up front instead of by accident, if at all. AAPN is about creating relationships that buffer the shock of change, before the change hits you and its too late. We have your back.

6. Sponsor Something, Be a Benefactor, a Stakeholder: 7 years ago, Sue Strickland had the radical idea to create a special Reception for Sourcing Managers at Material World the night before the show opened. It was going to cost $10,000. Suzy Ganz of Lion Brothers made it easy for us by donating half. Her investment in us will live forever. She showed the industry she cared enough about factories, suppliers, members and prospective ones to sponsor an event that quickly grew to 350 people at Versace’s on Miami and put AAPN on the map!

7. Blame Nobody, Expect Nothing, Do Something: the industry does not change because “something needs to be done” but because individuals say “I need to do something”. The aggressive agenda for our annual meeting in May is riding on the backs of over a dozen of our members. It has to be a killer event. It has to be an event where people go back and do something that needs to be done. We hear it more and more, “we are doing this because it is the right thing to do”. Doing something that is right, and still business, is a double whammy.

8. Use it or lose it (not that it cost anything anyway): this year, more original work was published and posted on the internet than was written in all the books ever written in our entire history! The power of the internet, the channel accessed by the mobile device in your hand, the amount of information being organized in the ‘cloud’, the speed of innovation and that most of the tools being used for all of this are “freeware” means use it, because someone in Asia is!! The world is what it is. The most common language spoken worldwide is bad English. If you can speak it, you can talk to anyone. And now you can do this anytime, from anywhere, to anyone.

9. Leverage the Supply Chain: all companies compete as supply chains, period, statement of fact. Take sustainability. Consumers literally believe that their brands and retailers are taking care of all the risks and wrongs of the world on their behalf. So, whether you own the factory or know who made the zipper, in the end, in the court of public opinion, its your fault. That’s why we believe you must ‘sell as a team’ with your suppliers and why we work to help customers ‘buy as teams’. Eight of ‘us’ met with 12 of ‘them’ earlier this year and it worked. Now we’re working on how to keep score of all of this.

10. Meet your Customer’s Customers’ Customer: and you’ll learn something. Just because we have a network of world class suppliers as members does not mean we have a world class supply chain in AAPN, but we’re REAL close. A meeting where you’re at one end of the chain hearing someone from the other end read you the riot act about why Asia is so much better than you is uncomfortable, to put it mildly. That’s why meetings like ours, of a supply chain, where each person is outside the comfort of their own industry silo, is tough. Nobody gets away with playing anybody. And nothing beats watching a brand meet a factory, a mill, a trim maker and shipping company to put together a sourcing deal over a drink. We know. We bought the round.

So, there you have it. What are your ideas? Do you have tips you can share with us and about 600 others out there waiting?

And in the spirit of the season, another of my favorite Norm exchanges on CHEERS goes:
Bartender: "Hey Norm, Jack Frost nipping at your nose?"
Norm: "Yep, now let's get Joe Beer nipping at my liver, huh?"

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Retailers Scrambling for Inventory

November 06, 2009

Question? When a retailer ‘scrambles’ to chase fast selling apparel where does she scramble to? This is the greatest opportunity for ‘proximity’ apparel factories in recent decades. Its like they say, three things can happen when you pass a football and two of them are bad. Same in retail when you put inventory on the sales room floor. You can sell it at full profit; you can sell out of it and miss that revenue completely (stockout); or you can not give it away and you make nothing (markdown). Now, the problem is stockouts. Factory-direct replenishment fixes that.

If you are a serious, super-compliant, short run, fast turn apparel factory anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, how are ‘retailers’, whoever they are, going to find you? Make no mistake, this is the most serious issue the American apparel industry faces. It is just as hard to find a good factory as it has ever been (unless they are logging onto aapnetwork.net of course) because most factories don’t market, don’t join, don’t show up, don’t create content about themselves, don’t even know how to define their competitive edge or real value.

Well, we’re working on fixing this on a far more global scale. We’ve exchanged emails with our Board of Directors madly all week. We just hung up with Panjiva. And the best thing, we’re meeting in an invitation-only, retail/brand-only, Senior Sourcing-only roomful of executives November 17 in NY to learn from them what they need to know to get to work with you, our members. And then we start a countdown to our annual meeting May 2-4 in Miami which is going to have the most important and definitive agenda in the US apparel industry next year – defining, integrating, setting standards and centralizing information on balanced sourcing; risk assessment; social responsibility; factory selection; strategic sourcing; and best practices from the leading factories of the Western Hemisphere.

This isn’t a meeting for hand wringers and do gooders and students and start ups and lobbies and resisters to change. This isn’t about having good laws, its about making money. This is proactive, serious Top 100, Corporate strategic thinking because sourcing has reached its time and we can help.

Who else is doing this? Nobody. We do this because our motto here is “blame nobody, expect nothing, do something.” It segues perfectly to another saying a member sent me yesterday morning, “'I must do something' always solves more problems than 'Something must be done'.”

We must do something...........its about jobs up and down the chain, here in the US and in the hemisphere, that give us safety and security, creates wealth, raises the standard of living, and stops despots from selling their countries out to the ‘Left.’ We found a great saying that says it all, “nothing stops a bullet like a job.” Take your pick – bullets or jobs. THAT is social responsibility on steroids and brands/retailers are big enough to take responsibility for the choice, with a spectacular direct impact on the societies of every one of us. Its time to show the industry how to do this.

Its time for each of us to come together and do this, because its really something our future depends upon.........

Tags: retail , inventory

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Urban Expositions Cancels Material World Shows

November 03, 2009

Thanks to those of you sending us this just-announced news of the closing of Material World. Actually, we were trusted with this news several weeks ago. It was not a hasty decision by Tim von Gal and his amazing team at Urban Expositions.


In truth, thinking of Tim here, he owns a number of other non-apparel-industry trade shows – and (MY opinion only) none of them featured the political intrigue, challenged margins, reluctant attendance and inexplicable royalties of this particular show. All of his other skillfully managed shows are highly attended, fun, focused, profitable, stress-free and highlights of the year for their respective target markets.

Tim has been a trusted friend, a valued advisor and a rock of calm and insight since we were the first apparel industry organization to endorse Material World, attending our first show September 11, 2001. You can guess how THAT trip turned out – just like yours wherever you were.

We are delighted to announce we signed a contract today for a luxurious hotel at negotiated low rates for our AAPN Annual Meeting May 2-4, 2010.........in Miami Beach. That’s what we’re going to do – fill the Miami date so many of us have to come to expect with a new format and mission-critical content, such as the outcome of our ‘risk assessment’ sourcing executive roundtable in two weeks in New York.

Carlos Arias of Denimatrix put it best when he wrote us recently, “Actually, for me the attraction (of Material World) was the AAPN Reception.........let's go back to basics, to the roots of AAPN, an annual meeting of the core members of AAPN plus special guests. Those initial meetings of the AAPN created lasting friendships that continue to this day.”

That’s it then. Back to basics, back to business and back to Miami Beach.

Tags: trade show , material world , Miami , networking

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I totally agree with Carlos, I think fewer people would have attended Material World if it was not for the fact that they were going to the AAPN reception. AAPN offers a realistic service......Networking. The Annual Meeting has all the posibilities of another stella networking event, increase in attendance and hopefully increase in membership.
 
Peter J. Hegarty 10:51AM 11/03/09

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