We're launching a composites podcast

Print is dead. Readership of printed newspapers and printed magazines is in a death spiral. Traditional media and traditional journalism are disappearing. Everyone gets their news and information online.

I wouldn’t blame you if you thought each of the above statements was true; they have been repeated so often over the past decade that they have established, through repetition, status as assumed fact. Reality, however, is a bit more complex, and it depends entirely on where in the media landscape you are standing.

Take, for instance, these words you are reading right now. If you are in North America, the odds are very good that you are reading them on paper in a printed magazine that you are holding in your hands. If you are in Europe or Asia, however, the odds are even better that you are reading these words on a PDF via a computer or phone, mainly because the high cost of mailing printed copies of CW outside of North America forced us to shift to a digital-only delivery platform for those continents.

In each instance, however, whether physical or digital, you are consuming CW in a traditional magazine format, comprised of editorial content surrounded by paid advertisements. And each month we deliver about 27,000 printed copies of CW to subscribers in North America, and another 5,000 digital copies to subscribers outside of North America. Indeed, although print publishers in the consumer world might be struggling, trade publishers (like CW), and their readers, remain healthy and vibrant.

This is not to say the CW audience is unchanging. Although the printed magazine remains the core of our journalism, we have, like many publishers, developed many ancillary products as well, including two e-newsletters (CW EXTRA and CW Weekly), the CW Blog and the CW website. In addition, we have a strong presence on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook. The latter is our most active and dynamic social media outlet.

In short, our job is to deliver technical information to composites professionals about the design and manufacture of composite parts and structures. Doing so requires that we put that information where and when you want it. So, if you like to read the printed magazine at your desk, we can do that. If you like to read it on your phone, we can do that, too.

Starting this month, we are adding another communications arrow to our quiver with the launch of CW Talks: The Composites Podcast, a biweekly podcast that will highlight the people and technologies that are shaping the world of composites.

The premise of CW Talks is simple: the composites industry is full of smart and interesting people whose knowledge of composites,
we believe, should be shared in their own words. So, each episode 
of CW Talks will feature a person (or persons) who has expertise
 and insight about where composites have been and where they are headed. We will talk to them about their history and experience with composite materials, what they know, what they have learned and what technologies they see in the near future. The first episode of CW Talks is a conversation with Arnt Offringa, head of aerostructures R&T at Fokker Aerostructures, GKN Aerospace’s Fokker business unit in Hoogeveen, The Netherlands. He will be followed by Brian Dods, CEO of the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI, Knoxville, TN, US) and Tom Haulik, sales director, carbon fiber at Hexcel (Stamford, CT, US).

You can find CW Talks on our website, on iTunes or Google Play. Take a listen and let me know what you think. Also, let me know if you have an idea for CW Talks — person or subject. This is 
a young and dynamic product, and as such, it can be molded and adapted to suit our audience. As I said, we are in the business of serving your composites information needs, and we are ready and willing to make it happen. Contact me at jeff@compositesworld.com with your suggestions.