Metal Building Article: 24 Hours at Metalcon International 2000

Over the last few weeks, I’ve spoken with (e-mailed) many of you who weren’t going to Metalcon, had never been there and/or weren’t even sure what it was. I dedicate this report of my first 24 hours to you.

MONDAY NIGHT I arrive at Atlanta airport in the official airline and take a cab to the hotel. Brief ride, friendly cab driver – no sweat. $20. I check into The Westin Peachtree Plaza Atlanta, because it is the official METALCON International 2000 Headquarters Hotel, and I’ve done everything else by the book so far.

Wow, the view is spectacular. They call this place the tallest hotel in the Americas, and it sure looks like it. From my room I overlook the new Phillips Arena were the Hawks play, the home of the Braves, Georgia Tech University, the Georgia World Congress Center (where Metalcon will be held) and a lot of other stuff I can’t name. I’m on the 50th floor (to where I relocated from the 61st to get high speed internet access) with windows from floor to ceiling on the exterior wall. Day or night, the view is worth at least part of the price of admission. Time for bed – I had a late flight.

TUESDAY MORNING I’m up at 6 AM because I’m going to the eBusiness is Your Business seminar by Paul Doherty of the digit group in Germantown, Tennessee. I grabbed my free breakfast at the hotel (anything cold in the buffet including juice plus some oatmeal) and started my 6 block walk to the Georgia World Congress Center. The weather is sunny and warm – I’m comfortable in my long sleeve shirt. I go in the doors and look for registration. It’s not readily apparent where I should go. I watch people go down the escalator. I follow. At the bottom, I walk about a city block and go down another escalator. Hmmm. Where to go. I wander to the right to look at a lunch bar and manage to miss the sign on the left that tells me registration is ahead and down the next escalator. I find my way without the sign. I get to the bottom of the third escalator and can’t miss registration. Straight ahead. I get in line. I’m not sure why I’m in line because I’m pre-registered, but it seems like the thing to do. It turns out that I’m in line to get a little holder for my nametag that I received in the mail and had with me. On to my class!

There was nowhere to go but back up the escalator. I walk past windows that give me a nice view of the floor displays and snap a few pictures. Where to go… The hand guide tells me that my conference is in A3. While wandering around I see little signs in front of various rooms with even smaller names, like A3. The signs are mid-tone green and the letters/numbers are small and black – I had to walk right up to each one to read it, which meant I scoured the next 2 floors to find my room. It was right across from the door where I entered the building to begin with. Naturally.

Of 29 people in this seminar, 9 arrived late. Maybe I wasn’t the only one having a hard time finding my way around this morning. It would be a disservice to Mr. Doherty to boil his words down to one sentence or topic, but hey, here goes anyway. According to Paul, probably the next biggest and best way that all this tech and internet stuff can help you (not counting MetalBuilding.com, of course) will be when you can take it all into the field to help expedite the work. Think hand-helds (like Palm Pilots). Digital cameras. Cell phones. Video cameras. E-mail. Web browser. All in one unit, maybe 2. Then give it loads of bandwidth.

He’s probably right, but it’s going to take a while yet, especially for it to filter down to the smaller contractors and erectors. A workable system would have voice recognition – you can’t expect these guys to type (I’ve yet to read a review of this type of software that got me excited about it for a desktop, let alone a handheld). The delicate maneuverings necessary to successfully navigate a tiny handheld would prove very frustrating to most field men that I know.

It would have digital camera and video capabilities – OK, we’ve got that now, but the storage capacity and streaming abilities need to vastly improve for the video portion to be practical. And it’s still too big to have clipped to your belt and mostly too complicated for practical field use. The device(s) would have to connect to the internet – OK, the Palm VII’s do now, but not with nearly the bandwidth necessary for streaming video or video-conferencing. It would have to be tough. Like a stainless steel coffee thermos. Drop it, pick it up and pour some coffee, right? Think NASA meets Little Tykes.

Why all this stuff? Who needs it? Well, most of us will eventually. Imagine sitting in your office while your superintendent beams you live video of a problem in the field – this video just saved you a 2 hour round trip. Or you send him a punch list the minute it arrives in your e-mail. Maybe he turns in the time sheets by handheld, thumbs through the project website, reads over specifications, the list goes on. Eventually, everybody will be doing it. You’ll save time, but you’ll need to. The time you save, you’ll need to save just to keep up. The pace accelerates for everybody. Does anybody get to kick back and relax for a day because they saved time with a fax machine? Could you operate your business without a fax? Do you expect this to be any different? Sigh... I would imagine large, well-financed operations doing multiple projects for a tech-minded owner are busy tinkering with pieces and parts already. I know I’ve already set up a laptop at a jobsite with a remote camera to capture pictures for website monitoring and photo archives. I’d be interested in hearing stories about some of your high-tech experiences on the jobsite.

TUESDAY AFTERNOON Now I head back to the hotel to check and answer e-mail, call the office and eat lunch. My route back takes me along a large, open esplanade dotted with fountains. The one to my right has a series of dozens of water jets that are choreographed to music emanating from points unknown. It seems to be a crowd pleaser – 15 to 20 people are gathered around to enjoy the show. I find a deli around the corner and down the stairs from the hotel manned by an old woman in a wheel chair. Lunch is cheap, tasty and unique. Ah, Atlanta. I head back to view the exhibits.

There are over 600 booths shown in the guide, and today I’m just walking around to get a feel for the show. I pass out business cards – since MetalBuilding.com just soft-opened 1 month ago, many of these people don’t yet know us. That’s part of why I’m here. People are generally very friendly with one notable exception. I give my card to a funny little guy selling small power tools. He eyes me suspiciously as I tell him he can list his stuff in our Classifieds for free. He looks at my card and then glares at me as he thrusts it back at me, explaining that he only sells his stuff at tradeshows. I’d tell you his name, but then you might try to get in touch with him and buy something and we all know what kind of trouble and strife that would cause.

I met with a few people I had contacted before the show and even bagged an invitation to the Metalmag.com party next door. Do the Whirlwind people just happen to have several attractive, young, blonde women working in the office, or do they hire them especially for this show? If it’s the latter, I can’t wait to see what they do in Vegas next year! I close the show and head to the Metalmag.com party. Food, drink and live music. Nice people. The magazine even fits in my briefcase and there’s a crossword puzzle! I’ll be doing a review of it in another article, so I won’t go into details here.

TUESDAY EVENING - HALLOWEEN! I head back to the hotel. It’s around 7:30 now. I’m intercepted by a scalper looking to sell me a Hawks ticket. I’m a Magic season ticket holder and was disappointed to miss opening night – what a break. I haggle with 3 different ‘entrepreneurs’ before settling on a $50 seat for $20. Hey, the Hawks hardly ever sell out and it was 5 minutes past tipoff – a buyer’s market.

The Phillips Center is a few blocks away and it’s Halloween. Many in the crowd are dressed for the occasion and the arena is bloated with high-tech goodies, food and spirits of all kinds. What fun. The Hawks get pounded from the start, fight back, then get KO’d long before the final horn sounds. I leave before the finish and end up dropping a buck to one of Atlanta’s homeless on the way back to the hotel. They apparently like this area – I’m to meet several more before the week’s end.

So why go to Metalcon? You can go to http://www.metalcon.com to read more about what they have to offer. I don’t know where else you can go to meet and deal with this many people in one place who know so much about the metal building industry. It also gives you an excuse to spend some of that money you’re making (you are making money, aren’t you?) for business purposes. Everything ends at 6 PM, so you have the evenings free and hey, next year it’s in Vegas! Oh yeah. And where else can you find the funny little man with the power tools?