Community activism or tribalism for automation industry?

Automation professionals used to behave as a community. End users, technology providers and systems integrators would convene at industry-wide events, much like county fairs, to share ideas, best practices and lessons-learned.

These events were orchestrated by officers or committees chosen through some democratic process or by relatively neutral third parties who benefited by encouraging diversity. Competing vendors would come together at one time and place to display their products and discuss ways that standards could be applied to simplify design and application. Technicians, engineers, managers and academicians would be exposed to each-other's concerns and points of view. Customers would evaluate how the products that they were buying compared to the products that their peers were buying. Leaders would step forward to take on and solve challenging issues that may have been identified by some particular segment of the industry. Young practitioners had the opportunity to be mentored by the more experienced and to test their leadership wings outside the direct spotlight of their employer. Everyone behaved as might be expected in any community where people of diverse age, gender, origin, religion, politics and status represent and promote competing interests while exercising due regard for the common good.

Today it seems that we behave more like members of competing tribes. Each tribe holds its own event, more akin to a campaign rally, where the free exchange of ideas and diversity are not the goals.

These events are orchestrated to ensure that each attendee receives the stream of propaganda best suited to insure his or her loyalty to the tribe chieftain and his allies. The tribal council, drawn from the warrior marketing class, sets and communicates the agenda. Users are carefully screened and given participative roles where the marketing message will be enhanced. Guests at these events become enamored by the personal attention and endless hospitality that they are afforded. Attendees are comforted by having to hear only one consistent and fine-tuned message, by having to interact only with like-minded people, and by having their own experiences reinforced as best. This sense of comfort dulls the mind and hides the reality of the many different ideas and solution-styles that actually exist in the world. These professionally orchestrated events present such a seemingly complete and total solution that the need for volunteer leaders, new standards and organizing committees are never even considered.

The huge ISA conference and exhibit of years gone by, the Autofact Conference, and similar third-party events each had their issues. Today's single-party events by Siemens, Rockwell, ABB and other tribes have their issues too. One third-party event that still has a solid following, ARC's Automation Conference, suffers a rapidly graying audience. The invitation to this event does not even suggest that younger practicing automation engineers should attend.

Engineers and technicians, young and old, are foregoing the industry-wide fairs to attend the single-party rallies. I doubt that too many of these folks are afforded the time to attend events by more than one sponsor. If this trend continues, the transition from community activism to tribalism will be complete for the automation industry.

Like other users of automation systems, packaging machinery manufacturers will need to accept what the tribal leaders bring to them and will need to form alliances with multiple competing tribes in order to satisfy customers aligned with one tribe or the other. Fortunately, PackExpo and other packaging events continue to draw large crowds to industry-wide events.

I would prefer the older sense of community that once existed within the automation industry. I would encourage all of us to support efforts by ISA and others to bring competitors together with users at world-class events on a level playing field where exchange of ideas is free and open. Volunteers will be needed.

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