There’s a new baby in the house, and I must admit to feeling as jittery and quietly proud about this development as any new father.

The new baby is our latest online venture: Transportation Matters, which we aim to build into a dynamic, informative and entertaining Web tv show designed to examine the issues, trends and people behind today’s transportation and logistics headlines.

The program is available monthly, and eventually twice monthly on our Web site, www.trucknews.com, and will put viewers face-to-face with today’s newsmakers.

The 10-minute show will include up to three distinct segments. We will have a segment dedicated to industry issues featuring interviews with some of the industry’s leading players: carriers, shippers, owner/operators, technology and equipment providers, government officials, consultants and academics; they’ll all eventually be on our show. For our inaugural program I travelled to Ottawa to speak with the head of the Canadian Trucking Human Resources Council, Linda Gauthier, about their latest research and what it reveals regarding the driver shortage. For the next show we travelled further afield to Belgium to discover what will fuel the CO2-free truck of the future. We also included reports from a variety of industry events.

Future shows will include leading shippers and carriers debating key industry issues.

Another segment, called “Inside the Numbers”, reports on and analyzes transportation industry statistics. The first two shows were dedicated to understanding the motivations behind modal shifts.

Taking on the regular production of a tv show is a daunting task, as we quickly found in the initial months of preparation this summer. Writing for a magazine and standing in front of a camera to talk about an important issue are much more different than one would think. And investing in the necessary equipment – high definition cameras, editing suites, lights, backgrounds, and a whole host of other gadgets I still haven’t quite figured out, is a considerable undertaking.

But we’ve got a lot of help because we’ve hired a professional who knows how to properly take care of this baby. So I’m pleased to announce Brad Ling as the newest member of our staff. Brad, who comes to us with a film background, is responsible for directing and producing the show.

You’ll notice some more new faces watching our show. I’m also happy to announce the appointment of Adam Ledlow as our Web editor and managing editor. Adam is an award-winning journalist that already understands transportation issues after spending two years writing for sister publications Truck News and Truck West. Adam takes on the managing editor duties from long-time staffer Julia Kuzeljevich, who is now back from maternity leave in a part-time capacity as our features editor.

Expect also to see the face of James Menzies in the show. James, of course, is the executive editor of Truck News and Truck West, holds a Class 8 license and travels extensively across Canada, the US and sometimes abroad in search of the latest equipment trends.

What I haven’t explained yet is why we are launching a Web tv show. Why we thought the publications, Web sites, e-mail newsletters, directories, research projects and speaking tours were not a large enough family and decided to add yet one more member. I can probably explain that best by relating an experience I had a few years ago. I had just read Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point and Blink. They were both great reads and I thought I learned quite a bit from them. But then I had an opportunity to hear Malcolm Gladwell speak in person. His speech basically covered the material I had read in his books yet I came away with some additional perspectives. A few months later I had a chance to watch an interview with Gladwell. Once again the interview basically touched on the major issues in his books yet once again I came away with some additional perspectives. The inescapable lesson was that each different method of learning helped me learn something different, all of which contributed to a far more comprehensive understanding of the subject matter.

Our mandate is to help transportation professionals better understand the complex issues and challenges that shape their decisions. And so we launch yet another tool to help us meet that mandate. We hope you’ll find Transportation Matters television worth watching, and, as always, we welcome your feedback.mt

WORTH REPEATING

“Logistics is the strategic glue that binds all functions of a company together.”

– Kelly Winters, general manager, Alliance Shippers