Back in kindergarten, we got our first lessons on socialization. Mostly, they revolved around sharing, being respectful and working together. And in the beginning, that largely was the idea around social media.
We’re a long way from kindergarten, of course, when it comes to socialization, let along social media. But if the primary benefits for social media have been lost in a sea of clickbait and misinformation, there will be at least one oasis of civility and cooperation in the online desert:
Hydraulics & Pneumatics has recharged its presence on LinkedIn this month, starting with continuing coverage of the IPFE Conference in Las Vegas. The H&P LinkedIn page will be a source not just for ongoing website content, but also for commentary, a look back into the H&P archives for popular online stories and a place for quick polls and other ways to engage our audience.
But this isn’t our page; the Hydraulics & Pneumatics LinkedIn page really belongs to the practitioners in our community. It’s a marketplace of ideas—a place to share best practices, to seek out the best advice of fellow professionals and to provide on-the-ground insight.
The basic rules we learned in kindergarten still apply to our LinkedIn group: share, be respectful and work together. This is a community, and it is made stronger when each member of that community has a voice and gains value from the voices of others.
It’s a challenging and pivotal time in communications. The written word is delivered across oceans in an instant, and hits people in so many different formats—print, newsletters, webcasts and via social media channels. The key element in any media transaction is trust, and that too has suffered a grisly fate in recent years. In a world where opinion is taken as fact and fact is discarded as biased, the value of a trusted source is even greater than ever.
In more than 70 years, Hydraulics & Pneumatics has worked to earn a trusted place in the industry. The method of communication—indeed, the method of creating the communications—has been dramatically altered. The value of the content has not diminished at all. In many ways, information about the fluid power industry has become more valuable than ever. Standards and regulations continue to evolve, and new technologies continue to refine the way we approach our development and management of systems.
The fundamentals of fluid power have gone largely unchanged. The underlying technology is the same—adapted and improved over those 70-plus years, but operating under the same essential laws of physics. The transmission of energy and force at the core of hydraulics and pneumatics are well understood. The application of this power is what drives our innovative spirit.
It’s also what drives us to make this channel of information as valuable as possible. You’ll be seeing more of our LinkedIn efforts spread across a variety of other communication portals—in the print and digital editions, in our newsletters and as part of our continuing efforts in the industry. We’ll work to engage not just our existing community, but industry experts from around the world to offer their insights, ideas and opinions. The real value of social media (and its most overlooked asset) is the ability to bring people from every corner of this planet together to share those things which are common to everyone.
So I see social media in general and our LinkedIn page in particular as a place to begin conversations of all kinds. We can share ideas, help one other troubleshoot problems and stay abreast of the key issues facing our industry. I invite you to join us in that conversation. We need all voices and all ideas to power our industry.
