Ready, set, start

It caught your eye, didn't it? That picture of me, the bald guy down a few lines from here. I look pretty darn happy. What's he smiling about, you might be asking yourself right about now.

I know I would be wondering about that, flipping idly through this month's issue of Playthings, were I some toy industry insider—retailer, manufacturer, rep, other—settling down to some quiet time, finally, now that the annual traffic jam of holiday shoppers, shipping deadlines and other seasonal challenges has once again dwindled to a comparative trickle.

These days, if you're a retailer I'd imagine business has boiled down to something like this: morning coffee, recheck the receipts from the day before, chauffeur some 9-year-old with a pocket full of gift cards around the arts and crafts aisle, maybe a little sudoku with lunch, and while away the last few hours before closing in small talk with that woman who always buys 10 things and returns nine of them. At The Average Toy Co. (yes, names have been changed to protect the innocent), you're in the conference room again discussing whether this year's trade show booth should have the maroon backdrop or the navy, white wire shelving or wood. At the rep firm the day's debate is over who gives the best shoe shine: the guy outside the bank or the one in the train station.

As for me, I'm smiling because it's January and that might just be the best time of all to be in the toy industry. Why's that, you're probably asking, with smirk (or scowl if you're reading this en-route to Hong Kong once again) planted firmly on face. It's because January is just so full of potential.

It's the New Year not only on that calendar of famous golf courses your son or daughter gave you for Christmas, but it's also another new year for the toy industry. Reset the odometer to zero because it's time to start fresh. This time of year, life is a just-minted penny (fiscal year permitting).

No matter how well you did (or didn't) during this past fourth quarter, a new beginning is something to be glad about. Glad because it moves minds away from sales and strategy and all of the other many business concerns that have nothing to do uniquely with the toy industry and instead brings us back, for at least a few weeks, or a few days, or maybe just a meeting or two, to the truly satisfying part of the toy industry, namely, the toys.

I was reminded of that satisfaction recently on a trip to the National Toy Hall of Fame at Strong Museum. It was my first week back in the toy industry proper after five years overseeing online initiatives for Playthings and several other trade magazines here at Reed Business Information. Walking through the museum's row upon row of vintage and/or culturally significant toys, I was struck by how much I enjoy that moment when you see a toy for the first time and you know someplace deep inside that if you were still a kid, you'd have loved to have had it.

It was there that I also realized how much I enjoy interacting with the people who make their living thinking of new and better ways to make children happy. And how much I enjoy this particular time of year, busy at it is, when all of the work that goes into making this year's products comes to a head—last year's ideas become this year's reality—and knowing that the shows in Hong Kong, Nuremberg, New York and elsewhere are those products' moments to shine. My wish is that there's a similar anticipation in everyone involved in the toy supply chain; the kind of anticipation that children have when opening the box of a brand new toy.