DC Velocity - February 2012

bigpicture

Peter Bradley
Editorial Director
peter@dcvelocity.com
Karen Bachrach
Executive Editor
karen@dcvelocity.com
Toby Gooley
Managing Editor
tgooley@dcvelocity.com
David Maloney
Senior Editor, Special Projects & eContent
dmaloney@dcvelocity.com
Mark Solomon
Senior Editor
mark@dcvelocity.com
Susan Lacefield
Associate Managing Editor
slacefield@dcvelocity.com
James Cooke
Editor at Large
jcooke@dcvelocity.com
Steve Geary
Editor at Large
sgeary@dcvelocity.com
George Weimer
Editor at Large
gweimer@dcvelocity.com
Erica E. Mac Donald
Assistant Editor
Sean Maloney
Assistant Editor
Keisha Capitola
Director of Creative Services
keisha@dcvelocity.com
Jeff Thacker
Director of eMedia
jeff@dcvelocity.com
Columnists:
Clifford F. Lynch
Don Jacobson
Shelly Safian
Kenneth B. Ackerman
Art Van Bodegraven
Barry Brandman

Telling the logistics story
Gary Master
Publisher
gmaster@dcvelocity.com
Mitch Mac Donald
Group Editorial Director
mitch@dcvelocity.com
Jim Indelicato
Group Publisher
jindelicato@dcvelocity.com
EDITORIAL OFFICE
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I DON’T KNOW HOW OFTEN I’VE HAD CONVERSATIONS WITH folks in the logistics and supply chain professions who’ve related some version of what I call the “cocktail party exchange.” Amid the usual small talk, someone asks what you do for a living, and you mention logistics or material handling or transportation or supply chains, and the response is a puzzled look and a follow-up question on what exactly that’s all about.

The short answer might be to invite your interlocutor to look around— note the tables and chairs in the room, the glass in hand and the beverage it contains, the very clothes on his or her back—and ask how it is each of those things arrived in the home or on the store shelves. That nicely sets up a brief exposition on not only what our trade is all about, but just how important it is to keeping our economy running smoothly.

Now, in our latest endeavor to help spread the word about the role of logistics, we have launched what we consider one of the most exciting and ambitious extensions of our business in our brief history.

In February, AGiLE TV Productions, a subsidiary of the parent company of DC VELOCITY, will premiere Move it!, a Web-based TV series that explores the art and science of logistics operations.

Move it! tells the story behind how the products we use every day get to where they need to be—something that readers of this magazine understand well but that remains a mystery to the general public. Each half-hour episode will take viewers inside the operations of leading companies and introduce them to the people, technologies, and strategies that help keep our home and work lives running smoothly. The pilot episode features tours of the logistics nerve centers of consumer products distributor Amway, the Port of Virginia, leading less-than-truckload carrier Old Dominion Freight Line Inc., and online natural health products distributor iHerb.

Hosted by well-known TV personality Steve Thomas, formerly of PBS’s “This Old House,” and co-produced by DC VELOCITY’S David Maloney, Move it! marries the high production and entertainment values of television with the flexibility and easy access of current digital technologies and consumer devices. Viewers will be able to watch Move it! via any device capable of streaming video—from smart phones, to tablet devices, to computer screens and Web-enabled televisions.

Our hope is that Move it! will bring the crucial role of logistics in our economy to far greater public attention. Perhaps, then, at a future cocktail party, when you answer “logistics” to the question of what you do, the response will be, “Wow, yes, I saw that on Move it!”