Positive Surprises This Year and Next

I’ve been looking back over the content Modern Machine Shop produced in 2015. A few thoughts related to surprises within this work:

1. I worked with "The Edge Factor" to produce two videos involving music-industry manufacturers in southern California. This video at DW Drums went as planned, and I thought a lot of good information came out in the talk. Meanwhile, this video at Taylor Guitars did not go as planned, because (for a couple of reasons) I changed my mind about what I wanted us to film, and changed our plans the evening before filming. Because I was close enough to both projects to know which one proceeded calmly and which one was more seat-of-the-pants, I felt better about the DW Drums film. What I did not anticipate is what actually happened, which is that the Taylor video elicited just as much positive response, and in fact probably garnered the more positive response of the two in the initial days just after these videos were posted.
    
2. To me, perhaps the most interesting article we published this year is this short item by Mark Albert speculating on the ways that the experience of production might change as people and pieces of equipment all become more digitally interconnected. Mark anticipates the surprises we might see. A capacity he has, and one we all should cultivate, is the ability to step outside the moment in order to imagine where this moment might take us.
    
3. The biggest surprise of all for me in 2015 was the spinning off of Additive Manufacturing into its own full-size magazine. When the year began, we did not know we would be doing this. And when we created the new AM website, I would not have guessed that we would find so much to report on related to this topic that we would end up posting new content every working day from the launch of the site through the end of the year.

My wish for you in the coming year is all of the above. That is: Wishing you the chance to change up something you’ve planned in order to set it free it into something better, wishing you insights that transport you beyond the moment you find yourself in, and hoping also that the coming year includes a large positive surprise for you that opens up a healthy new avenue to explore.