Bookmark Kunststoffe international 2020/10

© Hanser/Streifinger

At the end of this year, is “Hurray, we’re still alive!” all we have to say? In the shadow of the Corona pandemic, 2020 was certainly a year that concentrated our attention on what is really urgent, what will bring companies through an economically difficult time and into a future that is still uncertain. The complete cancellation not only of important spring events, but of the plastics industry’s fall exhibition program doesn’t make the change of course any easier. But despite this, many companies are thinking about what they can still do thanks to digitalization and are moving their trade show presences into the Internet. You can find examples on page 23. In mid-November, Carl Hanser Verlag, too, launched a joint platform for this with its D-Expo Kunststoffe. Thanks to a background program supported by numerous partners, it still managed to tempt over 600 visitors in just two days.

The SKZ also achieved an impressive feat, drumming up 165 persons for an extremely compact format. In an approximately one-hour “coffee break,” they were not only able to hear talks by the organizer and sponsors via video, but, in a number of matchmaking rounds, also to make direct contact with other visitors who had entered compatible or complementary interests in their profiles. Not all virtual visitors coped with the technical hurdles of logging on to this kind of speed dating, and switching to the assigned partner in time – but who hasn’t lost their way in a real trade show? At any rate, the participants’ enthusiasm showed how strong the desire for interaction is in this time of contact starvation.

After five years in which I have followed developing upheavals in the plastics industry as editor in chief of Kunststoffe and Kunst‧stoffe international, I want to wish you health and all the best for the coming year on behalf of the entire team, and also introduce my successor, Susanne Schröder, with whom, from January 2021, Kunststoffe and Kunststoffe international will continue their journey into a decade that will certainly continue to be challenging.

Dr. Karlhorst Klotz

karlhorst.klotz <AT> hanser.de