What’s new for 2024?

The new year is already off and running. January always feels like a bit of a buffer month between the old and new year, but now it’s February, and we have started to settle in for the ride. For CW, this looks like preparation for industry events, facility visits and networking opportunities.  

With the new year comes plenty of change. In December, Sue Kraus, CW’s graphic designer of more than 20 years, retired. Sue made many behind-the-scene contributions to CW every month, including the illustrations for our popular Focus On Design (FOD) features. Sue will be greatly missed, but for every door that closes, a new one opens. This year, we’ve welcomed CW’s new graphic designer, Claudean Wheeler, who comes to us with several years’ experience working on sister brands at Gardner Business Media (GBM). Claudean brings a fresh set of eyes to the brand; and as you look through our latest issue, you may notice some new design elements that give the magazine a more cohesive feel and refresh its visual look for readers.

Speaking of redesigns, you may have noticed a new look for CW’s website. In an effort to streamline navigation, as well as provide a more ergonomic and updated look, CW has launched a new website designed to provide easier access to specific end markets, industry topics, recent content and much more. We encourage you to explore it at your discretion.

In addition, CW’s long-running CW Extra newsletter has also been reimagined. After taking a closer look at the bimonthly e-newsletter, and what makes it different from CW Today, our regular roundup of the latest composites industry news and product announcements, CW Extra has been renamed to CW Spotlight. The new name is meant to better express what the newsletter is designed to do: dig deeper into the industry through the featuring of technical articles, online features and insights from industry experts that explore technologies, processes, and the latest trends and innovations in composites. We hope you enjoy this refocus of our “extra” newsletter as we shine a light on what’s happening in the industry.

Overall, much has been happening behind the scenes at GBM. Over the past year, editorial leaders for all of Gardner’s brands have been discussing ways we can further collaborate to tell broader and more encompassing stories about the applications that our various brands explore. This kind of work is filled with potential, and it’s exciting. Moving outside of our industry “silos” will enable us to see and create important connections between our areas of focus and the larger world. That kind of thinking is where the big ideas lie.

As we look at the year ahead and weigh the opportunities for trade shows, conferences, webinars, and educational and networking events that are on the horizon, I find myself thinking increasingly about the things on the periphery of composites use — for example, area to explore new and emerging applications that can benefit from composite materials, or development of enabling technologies or processes that could transform your business. I’m not suggesting anyone should become a jack of all trades — trying to specialize in too many things can cause you to lose focus. Yet, devoting more energy to exploring the trends in sectors that touch your immediate business can help you find new opportunities. And, the key to those opportunities lies in collaboration — in recognizing your strengths and weaknesses and finding the right partner who can make you stronger in the areas you want to explore for your business.

To that end, you can expect to see more collaborations with editors from GBM’s other brands that explore areas where additive manufacturing and composites fabrication intersect, processes for improving surface finishing and adhesion, automation and machine learning solutions, and much more. It’s a long, but rewarding road ahead. We’ll see you out there.