Worldwide collaboration

Renee Robbins, Editorial Director -- Control Engineering, 9/1/2006

Attention North American engineers: If you've not yet had the pleasure of 10 p.m. conferences calls to India, multi-leg travels to obscure Chinese provinces or months of Internet-based collaboration with Eastern European counterparts, you're in the minority. It may be just a matter of time before a perfect storm of technology, market needs, and global resources makes your work life even more interesting.

One question in a recent Control Engineering survey revealed that more than 80% of you have jobs that require collaboration with regions outside North America. We will be conducting a more detailed survey on the topic, but I'd love for you to write me and tell me what that collaboration looks like for you today. What are the biggest benefits and barriers you see to having coworkers in multiple countries?

In the meantime, I can give you a sense of your peers' activities: 28% are collaborating with counterparts in China, and another 34% in other Asian countries. The U.K., Germany and Italy top the list of Western European countries worked with (27%, 26% and 17%, respectively), while 34% report collaborating with “other European countries.” Seventeen percent work with countries in South or Central America, 6% with Russia, 2% with Poland, 2% with Hungary and 5% with the Czech Republic.

You may not be aware of it, but Control Engineering has been in these regions right along with you for years. Our European edition, run by former North American editor-in-chief Michael Babb, started in 2000 from the Control Engineering International edition (launched in 1994). In September 2003, we began presenting automation information in simplified Chinese to an audience of 15,000 in the industrialized regions of China. That publication continues, and has since been joined by an English-language, pan-Asian edition, Control Engineering Asia.

Publications for the fast-developing industrialized economies in the Central and Eastern European automation markets are starting up as well. Control Engineering Poland and Russia have been available since early 2005, and we are launching Control Engineering for the Czech Republic/Slovakia this month. With distribution of the Russian edition expanding into in the Ukraine this fall, Control Engineering will soon be offering the entire region its unique local and international perspectives on automation trends and technological developments.

Facilitating collaboration is what we do, so drop me note about how Control Engineering North America may be able to help you work smarter globally.

renee.robbins@reedbusiness.com

EXTRA LINKS
For links to other milestones in Control Engineering growth, read:

• Control Engineering Online celebrates 10 years
• Control Engineering links to 50th anniversary coverage
• Control Engineering Russia begins publication
• Control Engineering China to start publication
• Control Engineering Polska launches in September
• Enhanced online features save time for readers (e-mail newsletters)
• Welcome to Control Engineering Europe!
• Control Engineering launches in Czech Republic, Slovakia