Textile business and what the hell I’m doing here?!

In the last 3 years we have all experienced a massive boom of all kinds of social media. Everybody initially went gonzo with MySpace, Facebook, Bebo or Twitter, setting up accounts for themselves, their families and their dogs. At the same time few smart people realized that it also can be a great opportunity to promote their businesses and become much more vivid and popular, nearly free of charge. As a consequence, the ‘professional’ social networking madness have begun simultaneously. Yet again people have started investing a lot of time and efforts in creating their company’s profiles, also using all sorts of payable advertising available on these platforms. No surprise that shares of LinkedIn, today the biggest professional networking site in the ‘www’ world, nearly doubled on their market debut, rising from $45 a share to $87.70 in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange. And once big corporations had appropriate resources to continue with this trends, small businesses suddenly have started to ask themselves question: Now what? The fact of a matter is that they had no idea what they can communicate through these networks. To be honest, my company have not been much different. Of course you can involve your ‘followers’ in your daily office life, but do I as a customer really what to know that Jenny from logistics has a birthday today? No. I want to know how your company and your products can benefit my life. Period. 

So today we are on Blogger. Why? Because ‘it is a right thing to do?’ or ‘everybody is doing it?’. Well, good questions. Since the idea of writing blogs in my company has aroused, I knew that we cannot fall again to the same trap. Firstly, we must promptly understand what writing a blog really is, how it can benefit our business and why we professionals want to spend our time on doing it. Luckily, answers to my concerns were very simple. ‘We professionals’ - in other words individuals with individual opinions expressing our thought, yet still representing certain institution. Thus I believe that this is a true value of blog, because you my Dear Reader, by learning what I think about certain subjects, can figure out what philosophy is being spread across the corridors of my company. 

Ok, but probably you might wonder by now why the hell I’m writing here about social networks and not about ‘what the hell I’m doing in textile business?’. Right - much about Facebook and Twitter has been already written and my intention wasn’t here to add anything else, nor instruct anybody on how we should use these networks. There is a bunch of more qualified experts in this field and if you desire to learn something new, I can only encourage you to study their literature. I gave this title to my first blog because I would like to simply introduce myself to you and give you a small glimpse on what kind of professional and individual I am. 

If you told me 3 years ago, when I was about to graduate from my Masters in Management, that I will be working today with upholstery fabrics and drapes, I would seriously laugh at you. That career path has never cross my mind and I even if, I wouldn't know where to start. However life still likes to write different scenarios for us and only by fortunate coincidence (in not so fortunate times of economic crisis), I have been introduced by a friend to the company that is actively operating in textile business for more than 80 years. Well, I thought to myself - what the hell, better this than nothing! Therefore I quickly fulfilled Marketing Assistant position, spending most of my time in R&D room with scissors and overlock machines. Today I’m responsible for all strategy, branding, studio work, photography, website management, communication and, obviously - social networks. I divide my job on ‘why’ thinking, and ‘how’ creative. But, do I like textile business? No. Do I hate it? No. I try to stay natural and keep distance. On many industry trades I’ve seen people with real passion for textiles, which can touch and talk about them for hours. I don't. And I don’t think I will ever do. My passion is different - to promote it! This approach gives me really good ‘helicopter view’ on total industry and our competitors. Thanks to that I’m capable of effectively crossing many disciplines, which produce efficiency both of my department and my company. So today I don’t laugh anymore, I’m quite serious about what I’m doing (well, at least I’m trying). 

That’s briefly about me. I will show up here every second month, giving you my opinions and advices about textile business, my company, our competitors, and about my marketing department workflow. I will also share this space with my colleague Esther van Kemenade who will write (in Dutch) about our products and collections we are non-stop working on (she is the one with a real passion!). Your comments will be always more than welcome, since I believe that solid, critical discussion will benefit us all in a long term, indicating routes for future improvements.

Meanwhile thanks for reading and wish you all the best! Take care,

Peter