Wake up and smell the latte!
Maria Weiskott -- Playthings, 1/1/2004
Being a "veteran" journalist has its advantages, most of them having to do with hindsight.
Before joining PLAYTHINGS, I was chief editor for several years of a weekly b-to-b that covered the international trade and transportation industry.
During my tenure, the entire industry went through a gut-wrenching upheaval that saw the likes of ocean-freight carrier icons like United States Lines, SeaLand Service and American President Lines fade into history. In fact, the U.S. Merchant Fleet was decimated.
The period also saw merger of giant railways and the disappearance of others like Conrail.
Thrown into the mix were free-trade agreements that rewrote the rules of trade, disrupting the freight-forwarding and custom-brokering niches of the industry.
Shipping and logistics professionals watched in awe as transportation hubs moved to the West Coast from the East Coast, rearranging historic trade routes, ports-of-call schedules and leaving unused piers on waters from Boston to Philadelphia to grow barnacles.
Add to that, enforcement of the Paperwork Reduction Act (seriously, there is such an Act) and the norm became chaos for several years as professionals became acclimated to new technology and paperless trade.
Prior to international trade and transportation, I was editor of a b-to-b metals publication that covered every metal from gold, silver and platinum to copper, aluminum and steel.
Steel.
Need we say any more?
The current tumultuous toy business environment has a familiar ring to it, indeed. At least, for this journalist.
Although we are talking about implements of play—which we associate with childhood, and only about 8 to 10 years of it at that—the toy industry itself, nevertheless, is a mature one. It is susceptible to the same ailments as any other mature industry; and one of those is change driven by outside forces, in this case the market.
And when a market demands change, it will get change with or without us. It's the "without us" part that makes us wince.
Survival, though, can be within our power. To do so, we must evolve.
Remember those freight forwarders and customs brokers mentioned earlier? Their professional association—which might be akin to, say, our TIA or ASTRA—produced T-shirts for its members as a souvenir of the difficult period.
Emblazoned on the shirts was the phrase: Evolve or Perish.
Let's evolve. It's the only reasonable option.
Just ask T-rex.
