A few years ago Timbmet launched a really good new product; an oak laminated stair string with some very clever engineered veneer work on the faces to give the impression of a fourteen foot, clear board.  Development of the product took a lot of local market knowledge combined with much globe trotting to find three specialist suppliers; one for the core, one for the veneers and one for the assembly.
 
Initially the market reception was luke warm but, backed by some expensive marketing, a lot of energy and crucially a very good design, the product found a market and began to sell well.  Not very many months later competitors brought out their own cheaper imitations and even though the quality never quite matched ours in no time at all the product was being traded as a commodity.  We never did make good money on our strings which by the way we still sell.
 
I was reminded of the story as I strolled around the Ecobuild exhibition yesterday.  In my mind I was comparing the incredible innovation I saw in certain product sectors with the frankly rather stale offerings of the hardwood sector.  Is this because timber has little to offer?  Not likely, as we all keep reminding the market it's the most environmentally friendly product one can use and incredibly diverse in its properties.
 
Why then the lack of good designs?  Credit crunch aside one can only conclude that the topic we have mastered least as an industry is how to protect a good idea. We seem to have made an art form of copying (undermining?) innovation but we don't seem to know how to combine the crafts of creating a new product with the challenge of protecting it from the ravages of a free market. 
 
The impact is a double whammy.  As someone who loves innovation it dawned on me that my stairy tale has made me very cautious of investing, which is a great shame because I know of lots of great ideas for superior forest products that desperately need to be marketed.  If only we could protect the designs more effectively we could make these products viable.
 
The good news is that even if we have become somewhat risk averse we continue to experiment with new ideas.  I suppose the ultimate challenge is to develop products that are so clever it takes a lot more time and energy to copy them. 
 

I had the privilege last week of being invited to attend a student organised 'Sustainability Question Time' at Oxford Brookes University.  What a great night out!   Lively discussion and challenging questions.  The final panelist fairly casually concluded that the world as we know it has probably already passed the "tipping point" and is likely to collapse. 

No matter, that aside the evening proved how refreshing it can be to listen to the views of society's emerging leaders who don't have the vested interests and commitments that burden most people of my age.  Down with cars...we don't need 'em.  Turn your home heating down and wear a sweater.  Never, never, never board an airplane and always eat seasonal veg.

Whether doing all or even one of these things will make the slightest difference to the fate of the human race is a moot point but the sincerity and passion of the participants was a tonic to any person who, like me, is eternally optimistic that things always turn out well in the end.  My theory goes that if so many architecture students are so passionate about the world it must by definition be a good place.

Inevitably one comes away from such an event questioning one’s own values and lifestyle.  Whatever the issue there is surely always more one can attempt to do.  Ultimately, we can only ever be our own judge.  Few commentators will ever agree on what is the perfect solution(s) so one would hope that good will come from many small gestures combining together  into one large paradigm shift. 

 

I wasn't sure if there was still life left in the economy so in the last few weeks I decided to go and find out for myself.  I presented myself to some of our esteemed customers; the good news is that the economy is still alive, albeit a bit wheezy.

   I asked joinery manufacturers if they were busy, and many said they are. I visited builders’ merchants and asked if they were still selling wood, and the answer was yes.
   I even found a very well known luxury boat manufacturer who still has a twelve month order book.  Oh yes, and I also tried to buy my wife a second hand estate car and found every one I enquired about was already sold.

   Why is it then that I can hardly watch the BBC news any more because it is so gloomy? It seems the editors must be on downers to promote depression.  Last week one headline alarmingly sounded out that, in amongst all the falling indexes, inflation was down to 3.1%!  Are we now being fed the line that lower inflation is bad news even though the rate is still well over the government's 2% target?

  The notion of context couldn't be in the syllabus when they train journalists who apparently all seem to believe that a 1% fall in any statistic is an unmitigated disaster, signaling the end of the world as we know it.  There seems to be an obsession with how bad can we make the news sound.  Newsreaders vie with one another to see who can put on the most somber tone.  Surely soon they will have to take to openly weeping as they report the economic statistics.

  Honestly, life is still going on.  The phones still ring every day with orders and even if the numbers are lower there is work to be done.  Most importantly, economic fortunes are not the only issues, and I for one prefer not to be incessantly bombarded with bad economic news all the time as though the very existence of life on earth as we know it is under threat.  We need to celebrate the good things as well, but patently the media is not interested in that message.

   Take my word for it...the economy is still alive.

 

Modified timber featured a great deal in my diary last week.  It is probably more than just a coincidence that this complex subject somehow cropped up on my agenda just about every day. 

What is modified timber then?  Well, it seems that by either heating it or altering it with chemicals timber can be made more stable, durable and resistant to decay.  The science is not new by any means but it has come on at a pace in the past few years.  Combined with timber engineering, modified timbers can be applied in all sorts of previously unthought-of timber applications, such as, windows made from beech, cladding from whitewood, decking from ash.  The list is along as your imagination will stretch.

Although the products can have downsides - cost, waste disposal, strength and colour can all weaken the offering - rapid scientific development is beating away the critics.  For many applications it's only a matter of time before modified timbers will take hold.  Especially for the hardwood market this promises to be a development of internet scale proportions that will reshape the industry.

While there will always be a market for top quality hardwoods, there are sectors of the industry that are ripe for change, especially outdoor hardwood joinery, which is still far too attached to often dubious tropical species that it would be better to avoid.

I think the most interesting technologies are the heat treated products.  Baking timber at 190° Celsius does remarkable things to it.   Timbmet will soon be introducing several modified products to market that take the breath away.  There is a little further to go on the testing and performance verification front but it's only a question of time. 
But don't just take my word for it.  Take a look at the pre finished, modified beech windows that are now a regular feature in the Dutch market.  There, see, I told you.  My advice: don't worry about it, join it!

 

Business just seems to be getting harder at the moment.  In addition to a shocking industrial downturn our latest blight is the exchange rate.  Over the years we have gotten used to calm and stability where the pound sterling is concerned.  When movements have come they have been relatively gentle and manageable. 

Not now they ain’t!  Over the past few weeks we have watched the pound yoyo, not just against the headline grabbing American dollar, but against a host of other timber trading currencies as well.  Over a few weeks the fluctuations have been greater than some of our bulk trading margins.  It's a nightmare for a stock carrying importer, with prices having to be adjusted literally daily.

For slow moving stocks like hardwoods the maths becomes impossible with new stock bought when the pound was down being mixed with old stock bought spending higher value pounds.  When the variation pings by 20% what does one do?  Today we decided to just give up being scientific about it and just price as competitively as we can for the current market – not the most profitable way to run a business perhaps but better for our customers and less of a headache for us.

Customers are calling me up asking me what I think of the current situation.  Not good I suppose, but hey, we are still here.  I don't like to complain because on the whole I have been dealt good cards.  Times like this are a challenge to all of us and with a bit of luck, and a surge of hard work, one just has to fathom out the new rules for the trade and apply them as best as one can.  Not for the faint hearted.

 

Just back from a business trip to America.  There, one is treated to Wall St to Wall St coverage of stock market crash news.  Most news bulletins beam live coverage of the opening of trading every morning at 09.30.  The market indexes are broadcast in a continuous box on the TV screens, and average Americans speculate, often with almost hourly trades, as though they were betting on the horses at Newmarket.

I was attending a convention for senior figures from the US hardwood industry.  If you think we have a recession here in the UK then there needs to be a new word invented for what most of them are going through.  Considering that the output of hardwoods has halved in three years and there is an equity crash one would expect an atmosphere of utter gloom. 

Even though they are all watching a daily massacre of their personal pension plans they all remained remarkably buoyant.  I can only put that down to the old maxim that you should never gamble more than you can afford to lose.  If my American friends are sticking to that then considering some of the sums people admitted to me that were down they must be remarkably rich to start with.

With similar economic gloom almost bound to follow here in the UK what should one do to remain happy?  Count our blessings is my recommendation.  One needs to look at what one has, not at what one has lost.  On that score I am a lucky man and I hope I never fail to remember that fact when I am tempted to have a moan about the state of my company/ finances/pension plan or expenses. 

There are so many people in the world that have little or nothing to begin with.  Remarkably, many individuals I have met in the developing world have given me inspiration by maintaining their health and happiness regardless of continuous economic woes. 

 

 In the early 90's I started a small furniture business in rural Northern Israel.  After a couple of years of hard graft things seemed to be on the up; the order book was healthy and I was employing several guys.  Then Saddam Hussein decided to launch his Scud attacks and unwittingly I found myself in the midst of the first Gulf war.   With the first rocket strikes, overnight, business completely dried up.  Orders were cancelled, customers disappeared off to the military and only creditors phoned (they never go away).  I had no income whatsoever.   Something not dissimilar is happening in the housing industry right now.  Mortgage lending in August was down a staggering 70%! Builders, large and small alike, are petrified both physically and mentally.  New houses stand empty and buyers have all but disappeared. Back in Israel in the early 90's the incredible thing was that as quickly as things stopped they started again when the crisis passed.  Within months the business was back up and running and we survived, admittedly a little worse for debt but happy to get back to normal. Nobody but nobody knows what lies in store after this credit crunch crisis passes.  Commentators failed to see it coming, and anyone who tells you it’s over is just guessing.  It's already caused a lot of stress and anxiety, and it continues.   The reason for my little story is simply to illustrate that sudden stop/start cycles may be very unpleasant but they are not necessarily terminal.  Buyers do re-emerge, houses will be built again and we can all trust in the adaptability of the economy to recover.  That is small comfort to those already out of work - I fear there are many - but the situation remains eminently recoverable.   

I went to a sort of focus group session last week between senior representatives of the timber trade and executives representing large building contractors.  The idea was to investigate what more could be done by our industry to promote the use of timber in building.  It went something like this;

We could write more technical manuals about timber frame.

Naa, simplify environmental certification

We could create a technical helpline to guide customers on selection of the right species

Naa, improve your environmental performance

We could sell our timber cheap and offer free chocolate bars with every order

Naa, really we love timber (and chocolate) but can you guarantee to keep green protestors off our projects?

And so it went on...and on...and on.  Every discussion came back to environmental issues.  One has to ask, as a trade, are we stumped? If it isn't enough to try and explain the very complex point that deforestation and usage of timber are not necessarily linked it is almost impossible to navigate busy people, with better things to do, through the quagmire of competing certification schemes that are supposed to offer the solution.

It would be helpful if environmental campaigners could just stop for a moment and target other rival building materials.  Fat chance!  Timber, the only genuinely renewable building material, is a sitting duck, especially hardwoods. 

The only way forward for the timber industry is to promote itself with professional marketing efforts - like Wood for Good (www.woodforgood.com) - that can effectively counter these very negative impressions.  Without a large budget WFG has little chance.  In these tough economic times it takes some courage to sponsor grand scale marketing but that is what we must do if we are ever to move on from meetings like last week.    If you run any kind of timber related business and you want to honestly promote the only truly sustainable building material you had better get your cheque book out!

Once again it’s timber industry award time.  I am not the Oscar type so I never attend but it's always nice to hear of a win.  I have rarely been left disappointed.  It was especially rewarding a couple of years ago when government trade minister and former head of the CBI, Baron Jones of Birmingham (better known as Digby Jones) suggested that the industry had much to learn from Timbmet.

When ones peers and competitors acknowledge that one is doing well it feels good but does it actually change anything commercially?  Trust me; the answer is not that obvious.  Importing forest products is complex and challenging but my feeling is that it's a backroom service; essential but largely hidden.  Rewarding excellence to timber importers is on a par with say 'Power Generator of the Year' or 'Top Refuse Collector'...who really cares unless the lights go off or the garbage piles up in the street?

For a timber industry award ceremony of real meaning look to the Wood Awards.  When the creative manufacturing genius of some of our customers is combined with fantastic design and the natural beauty of wood then we have something to shout from the rooftops about.  The Wood Awards showcases the best in timber.  With some good marketing for the winners (and some of the other fantastic entries) it opens the eyes of the whole population to the timeless splendors of wood. 

It always tickles me that amongst those who get credited for these amazing creations are the timber importers...as though they/we created the wood!  Best, I think, to credit Mother Nature and confine the suppliers to their own award ceremony, which outside the timber industry raises precious few eyebrows. 

 

I'm told its bad PR to admit that the hardwood market is down, so let's just say it's changing.  This is quite a good way of putting it actually.  I so often hear the question "when do you think there will be a recovery?"  My answer...never.  In my experience markets do not recover, they change. 

In an economic downturn even robust markets like those for hardwoods will drop off.  Stakeholders have a choice; they can either sit back and wait for the recovery or they can search for new opportunities.  In a traditional industry there is always a belief that it's only a matter of time.  Optimists sit back, waiting on the return of the good old days.  The brave go for a more adventurous strategy and stand or fall on the outcome.

To me, survival in business is all about adaptation.  As I say, markets don't recover, they change.  What emerges after a downturn is a new business environment and it's never the same as it once was.  Markets are forever in a state of flux with new products, trends, fashions and technology changing the shape of trade for ever more.  If you wait for the recovery you miss the boat even if the market for your product does pick back up a little.  I say it will never recover - not to previous levels anyhow.

The greatest trading companies change with the times.  Even their core products can gradually fade away to be replaced by new ranges, that themselves will possibly only last until the next great downturn.  The secret is to discover the right blend and keep your business vibrant and adaptive.  This does not necessarily spell the end for traditional markets, like those for hardwoods, but it does position them firmly in the descent mode.