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Welcome to another episode of Heat Treat Radio, a periodic podcast where Heat Treat Radio host, Doug Glenn, discusses cutting-edge topics with industry-leading personalities. Below, you can either listen to the podcast by clicking on the audio play button, or you can read an edited version of the transcript. To see a complete list of other Heat Treat Radio episodes, click here.

In this conversation, Heat Treat Radio host, Doug Glenn, interviews Tom Morrison, CEO of the Metal Treating Institute (MTI) to reveal the new look of Furnaces North America (FNA) 2020. The engaging online platform will allow heat treaters and suppliers to network, share information, "shake hands," and more virtually. Additionally, Tom will talk about how heat treaters can attend technical talks at the FNA 2020 Virtual.

Click the play button below to listen.

The following transcript has been edited for your reading enjoyment.

DG:  We want to talk about Furnaces North America which obviously in these COVID days has taken a little bit of a turn, right or left depending on how you want to look at it.  My understanding is that Furnaces North America is moving from a live face to face event to a virtual event.  Tell us why.

TM:  For months we have been tracking the status and trends.  Our executive team has been meeting every single week for months and really watching the trends and developments of COVID-19 and its impact on meetings.  I'm a part of a number of forums and I'm connected with hundreds, if not thousands of associations, and everybody is canceling their meetings.  So there is too much liability and risk and we don't want to our attendees and exhibitors in that moment with COVID-19 and just the dangers and stuff that are associated with it.  There came a moment when we decided: “You know what? The timing is right for us to do this.”  So we went virtual.  Typically, about 1% of the industry attends a heat treat show.   What we're very excited about is that we're going to be able to bring all that energy and excitement, that you'd experience live, into a virtual event, right to the front doorstep and computer screens of every captive and commercial heat treater, as well as suppliers in the marketplace. It is just an incredible and unique opportunity as we go into this digital age of training and trade shows in the future.

DG:  Is it still going to be September 30 through October 2, but not full days, correct?

TM:  That is correct.  We've learned in watching other trade shows out there, and conferences that go virtual, that people don't sit on the computer for eight hours, but they can take breaks at their leisure and also you can watch at a pace you want.  It's going to be September 30^th through October 2^nd   You can actually go onto www.furnacesnorthamerica.com and click 'schedule' at the top, but it's going to from 11:00 in the morning until 5:00 in the afternoon.

DG:  And just to be clear, that's going to be east coast time?

TM:  Yes.  That's kind of a funny story, Doug: When we were looking at the times, I said, yes, we can start at 9:00 in the morning.  Because when you go to a live show, everybody is in the city under that time zone.  But one of my very perceptive staff said, “Tom, if we do it at 9:00, the people on the west coast are going to be getting up and getting in there at 6:00 a.m.”  So yes, it's going to be at 11:00 EST which will then make it 8:00 a.m. on the west coast.

DG:  Tell me why else your team, yourself and some of the exhibitors you've talked to so far are excited about this new virtual event.

TM:  The sponsors have stepped up.  We had a webcast with over 100 exhibitors telling them about the transition and we had to transition our sponsorships from the live show to this show, and I think about the caliber of sponsor that came to the table within that first day selling out.  We've got ECM USA, Gasbarre Furnace, Thermal Processing Systems, McLaughlin Furnaces, Super Systems, Surface Combustion, Honeywell in the burner market, RoMan Manufacturing in the power market.  And think of vacuum technologies.  Eight companies that jumped right out of the gate and said, “We believe in this and we think this is the future and we want to be a part of it and in the building of it.”  That's where some of the excitement is coming from.

But the biggest excitement to me personally, and my staff and the leadership that are putting this on, is virtual meetings are never going to do away with live meetings.  Live meetings, as soon as there's a vaccine, or we see it go away and people are comfortable getting back together, live meetings are going to come back to everywhere.  It's just a matter of when.  But while we're waiting for that to happen, the digital marketplace is going to grow like never before.  I've had so many sales agents say that they have sold more furnace equipment in the past three or four months than they have in the previous 6 months, and they haven't seen a single customer.  So I think there's a market for that.  And so we're excited.  This is a stepping stone into that marketplace and taking our furnace show to the 99% of the people that don't typically attend the show.  Most people can't bring their seven furnace operators to a Furnaces North America, but now they can take the content and the trade show right to their computer screen which is really exciting.

DG:  I want to ask you two questions, first about exhibitors and then about attendees.  Let's knock it down to the very basics.  Why should an exhibitor get involved?

TM:  Exhibitors should get involved because this is an opportune step into the digital mode.  Our booth fee for the exhibit show is only $1500 compared to if you came to the live show, the smallest you're going to pay is $5000 for everything, including travel up to 50 – 60K if you're one of the bigger companies.  This gives any heat treat supplier an opportunity to get involved.  If you consider that between industrial heating magazine as our media partner, we're going to have a $200,000 valued marketing campaign with direct mail, email, social media going for the next two and a half months until the show happens.  There's going to be a lot of activity.  We expect that we're going to have

great attendance.  So, an exhibitor that doesn't get involved in this is going to lose out on the one opportunity in the next 12 months to get new customers.  That's what this show is about – connecting them to leads.  Our platform, if they go onto www.furnacesnorthamerica.com and click on exhibitors, they can see a webcast of 38 minutes where we actually unveil the digital platform where they're going to be able to connect them with customers to build their digital exhibitor booth.  I know that most exhibitors out there are used to that live handshake format, and some ask, “How do we shake hands through the computer?”  Well, you're going to see how you do that if you go watch that video.  Exhibitors should do it for one reason:  leads, leads, leads.  If you're not in the show, you're going to miss out on the opportunity to get access to leads that carry you into 2021.

[blocktext align="right"]"Exhibitors should do it for one reason:  leads, leads, leads..."[/blocktext]DG:  So I understand that every exhibitor will get a complete list of attendees at the conclusion of the show, but not with email addresses. Can you elaborate on what exhibitors have to do to capture email addresses?

TM:  There is a box in your exhibit booth where it says contact needs more information and it gives you the ability to click on what you want to see more of from that exhibitor.  When you click that, it's just like being in the live show – remember how they scan you badge?  Well, it's like a badge scan.  But here's the cool thing:  On the day of the show, the exhibitors are watching their exhibit dashboard and anybody that is looking at your screen on their computer, you can see how many are looking at it.  But if they click on anything in your booth, their demographic data and contact data go right into your real-time exhibit lead dashboard.  And you can download those leads at any time.  You get everything but the email.  Now if they click on the 'contact me for more information', that's like scanning a badge and you get their email address at that very moment.  At the end of the show, you're going to be able to download a list of the entire database of attendees to your computer right after the show so you can then reach out to them and contact them for sales.  We're trying to make this very content rich and very data-driven rich and giving the exhibitors the information in real-time so they can follow up on it.

DG:  Why should manufacturers with their own in-house heat treat be coming to the event?

TM:  The cool thing about attendees is that in every shop, everybody has three or four people that really 'get' everything they need to know about being an effective employee.  And then there are about four or five others that are always saying, “I wish I could be like them.”  And the difference in those two employees traditionally is training knowledge.  So the ability to bring the latest trends, technology to their computer screen and have them watch that, they're going to be a better employee because they're going to know more.  One key thing that's going to be really cool about this show for attendees, is that we've made it affordable for everybody to be involved.  Just like our live show, you can log in and register just to go look at the booths and the trade show.  And that's very powerful.  But here's what's going to happen.  There's a space on the exhibit booth where you can watch product demonstrations and we're encouraging every exhibitor to do a 7 – 10 minutes product demonstration video and upload it to their booth.  Let's say there are 100 exhibitors, your furnace operator, or your manager for that matter, can go in and watch every one of those product demonstrations on everything that you can imagine heat treat, that's going to be highly educational.  And that is free.  That is just if they go in and look at the booths.  On an upgrade, you can upgrade to the conference session, in which there are 35 conference sessions and four live sessions, that when they happen, they're going to be recorded live and then they're going to be made available immediately after that.

DG:  Tell us about the highly informative and cutting edge content that will be covered in the technical sessions at Furnaces North America 2020 virtual event.

TM:  Let me share with you what some of the sessions are.  In the live format, we're going to be talking about the seven questions someone should always ask before buying heat treat equipment, the key behind managing and controlling distortion (that's a big issue and one of the most read things in your publication and Industrial Heating magazine), and the aerospace, automotive and agriculture.  What's next for that?  In the world of 3D printing technology, processes and materials that could impact more heat treating or less heat treating in a particular product.  When you've got the coming economic boon, reshoring with all of this COVID-19, things happening in China and other countries, how many companies are going to reshore their products back to America?  What does that mean for manufacturing, which can boost heat treating and the level that it is done in the states?  That's the four live sessions.  Then if we look at the technical track, there are four or five technical tracks that are going to be highly informative.  We've got furnace equipment and controls, processes and quality, emerging technologies, furnace maintenance and operations and productivity; all key things to any captive and/or commercial heat treater in operating a productive business that maximizes through-put.  Everything that we're doing this year is focused on helping a commercial or a captive to be very efficient.  Here's what's happened.  COVID has ransacked employeeship.  People have had to let people go and they're operating on minimal staff in a lot of cases.  So it's imperative that both captive and commercials learn how to operate with 20-30% staff, and you can only do that if your people know what they need to do knowledge-wise in order to that.

DG:  Somebody potentially wanting to attend, let's say some captive heat treater or even a commercial heat treater, they can go on the website, I assume, and look now at what the topics are going to be, correct? They can see what the technical sessions will be.

TM:  The entire Furnaces North America website has been transformed into our virtual show information.  You can go there right now and look at everything – the schedule, if you want to exhibit, you can hover over exhibitor and click exhibit information and it gives you all the details, and then a place to click to sign up your exhibit booth and we'll get that set up for you.  Registration is going to open August 1 for everyone.

[blocktext align="left"]"In the live format, we're going to be talking about the seven questions someone should always ask before buying heat treat equipment, the key behind managing and controlling distortion..."[/blocktext]I don't want to go too far without mentioning the pricing.  We are so determined to get people that never attend a live event to get involved in the show, here's the special offer we're making.  The first two people that register with any show (and you have to register at the same time) is only $199 and you get everything.  You get the trade show, you get the live session, you get the 35 technical sessions.  Everybody that registers after that for that show is only $49.  Literally, for $500, a captive or commercial could register up to six people into the show.  That is going to have a proton impact on that operation because that's six people that are more educated on what heat treating is about than they were before the show.

DG:  So that's $199 per person for the first two, and then $49/person after that.

TM:  That's correct.  That way you can get it down to the furnace operators.  Most people bring their managers, but if you could put your two managers in there and then get your six furnace operators in there, that's a really good deal.

DG:  The show covers September 30, October 1 and 2; I assume $49 or $199 gets you into all three days, correct?

TM:  That is correct.  Once you're signed in, you'll have logged in for the entire show, all three days, all six hours each day, to do whatever you'd like to do.

DG:  So, I'm a captive heat treater, I come to the show, I want to walk the exhibit hall.  How do I do it?

TM:  You're going to log in, and as soon as you log in, at the bottom you're going to see a place where you can go to the online networking lounge where you can actually meet people online.  You can click on exhibit hall where when you click on the exhibitor, the exhibitor will pop up.  You can look for them by category.  There are 15 categories.  There are air atmosphere furnaces, vacuum furnaces, control sensors, etc.  Pick what you want and all the exhibitors will pop up.  You can then go in and out of the booths from left to right.  And here's the powerful thing about the system: there's a search engine that you can type in calibration, every discussion, every session and every exhibitor that is involved with calibration and have it in their description is going to pop up for you.  We're making this really easy for you to get to the information, the sessions and/or the exhibitors that you want.

Here is the cool feature that is going to make this dynamic.  When we were building out the system, we were wanting to make the online experience as close to the live experience as possible.  So when you're looking at an exhibitor, and you like what they have to say and you want to speak to someone, you can click exhibit booth contact and that will pop up 6 people, or however many they have in the booth at that time. And when you click on one of them, clicking video call, just like you would a zoom or a skype and they're going to get a request.  They're going to then click yes, and you're going to be talking to someone right on your screen live like you would a zoom call.  You can see them, you can talk, you can virtual handshake if you want.  But here's the other cool factor: If you want to see a presentation they have, they can share their screen with you and you can walk through a short little power point presentation.

Our goal is give attendees the opportunity to see the data that they need to make purchases that they're looking to make over the next 12 months or so.

DG:  Let's wrap up with the details then.  Let's say I want to be an exhibitor.  Where do I need to go?  When do I need to do it?

TM:  Right now, you can go to www.furnacesnorthamerica.com, click on exhibitors and you'll see a space there where you can watch a video to tell you a little bit more about exhibiting at the show, or you can click down at the bottom where it says 'click here to get our booth', fill that out, and we will get your booth set up.  On August 1^st, the exhibit hall is going to open for the exhibitors to go out and get their digital booth customized.  They get to pick colors.  They can link up their videos and documents so you can see those.

DG:  And if I'm thinking about attending, bringing my heat treat department, when and where?

TM:  Same thing.  August 1^st, go to www.furnacesnorthamerica.com, click on attendees and click on register and then follow the prompts to register your team.

To find other Heat Treat Radio episodes, go to www.heattreattoday.com/radio and look in the list of Heat Treat Radio episodes listed.