That is what my mom told me anyway. However, the rule of business is different. It is one of competition. It is a fixed market, a zero sum game, where you can only win by taking business away from your competitors. Who is right?
I am fortunate not to have competitors. When Tim Walker, www.tjwa.com, hung out his shingle some years ago, I, Dr. David Roisum, www.roisum.com welcomed him, tried to give him some friendly business advice, listed him as a web handling expert resource when I gave my WEB101 schools, and even referred business his way when I was too busy to respond quickly. In other words, I did everything reasonable to help him succeed. I thought the web handling industries would benefit from having more than a single vocal viewpoint. I thought I would benefit by not sitting on my laurels, or whatever, knowing that I now had ‘competition.’ Most importantly, I thought Tim had earned the right to call himself a web handling expert.
Tim has more than two decades of web handling experience. He cut his teeth in 3M’s web handling group, he was active at the Web Handling Research Center at Oklahoma State University and has been a successful independent consultant in web handling since 1999. He has recently done some truly marvelous and practical research on roller scratching and nip impressions as a consultant. It is a bit rare and a credit to Tim to be able to do any pioneering research while still putting bread on the table as a consultant. Tim is my “coopertition.”
When AIMCAL decided to host the first Applied Web Handling Conference, the Web Handling Research Center initially took some offense. Perhaps it was because they had for two decades held a monopoly on the high end of web handling. Perhaps it was because they thought the word “applied” implied the opposite, that “research” was theoretical and non-applied. Tim Walker wrote a nice piece in effect saying that AWEB is not competing but rather complementing IWEB. http://www.convertingblog.com/archives/000098.html. In any case, even before the wildly successful first conference, the WHRC http://www.engext.okstate.edu/info/WWW-WHRC.htm held out an olive branch of peace and we will now have an AWEB conference sponsored on even years and IWEB conference sponsored by WHRC on odd years http://www.webhandlingblog.com/blog/2006/05/aweb06_a_wow_.html. IWEB is AWEB’s “coopertition”.
When AIMCAL started this blog, http://www.webhandlingblog.com/, it considered the MAXCESS blog, http://convertingblog.com/ as a competitor. However, now the computer gurus consider this view short sighted. It turns out that both blogs benefit from links to the other because it raises the ranking in the search engines. Thus, if we http://www.google.com anything related to web handling and converting, these blogs will more likely float right to the top. Convertingblog is Webhandlingblog’s “coopertition.”
So my mother was right after all. There is enough web handling to go around. Sharing is good for everyone.
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