(Thanks to Sarah from Let’s Talk Supply Chain for prompting this post.)

In the supply chain industry, we love numbers. We’re completely enamored with them. Statistics, metrics, KPIs… we can’t get enough. We fill our conference slides with data, graphs, and percentage improvements.

When it comes to the human side of our business, we’re a lot less likely to talk. It’s a rare conference that has any time set aside to talk about employee engagement. Rarer still are C-Level executives talking on stages about stress management or the emotional toll of leadership. We don’t acknowledge that burnout is a real thing at all levels of this business.

Welcome to Episode 3 of Profiles, a podcast centered around supply chain conversations hosted by Brian Glick, founder and CEO of Chain.io.

Our guest this week is Bryan Eichenberg of FreightSnap. FreightSnap is a really interesting company that has developed a modern cost effective device for measuring freight, all the way from individual cartons to full sized pallets and irregular shaped products. These devices and apps are all cloud connected and they make freight operations way more efficient with a really fast ROI. As part of the Chain.io network, we can connect FreightSnap's devices directly to your TMS or ERP for a seamless dimensioning experience. One of the things that we found really interesting in this conversation is how Bryan and his family found themselves in the logistics business. So many of us come up directly through operations and it's great to have a fresh outside perspective on the industry.

2018 was a banner year for logistics technology. Whether we were wrangling with the buzz around blockchain, figuring out how we're going to leverage the power of AI, or marveling at the influx of money into tech, everyone in the industry could feel the increased momentum.

I personally haven't seen this much excitement since the first wave of web portals launched almost two decades ago. Like the heady times of the dot-com boom, there are a lo

t of great things being built, and they're surrounded by a lot of meaningless noise.

Here's a list of some of the biggest trends and technologies in the space with some highly subjective commentary on each one.

Welcome to Episode 2 of Profiles, a podcast centered around supply chain conversations hosted by Brian Glick, founder and CEO of Chain.io.

Our guest this week is Catherine Cooper. Educated as an engineer, Catherine has dedicated her career to the logistics industry with the last 18 years in top leadership positions (CIO of a $1 Billion global logistics service provider and president of two successful consulting firms). She founded World Connections in 2006 where she works with senior executives from Fortune 500 companies, private equity firms, and global logistics service providers who partner with Catherine to develop innovative solutions at the intersection of technology and people. Recent clients include QVC, Coca-Cola Enterprises, and Gap Inc.

Presenting episode 1 of our new podcast, Profiles by Chain.io.  On each episode, we'll interview individuals from the Chain.io partner ecosystem focusing on the human stories of our extended supply chain family.

For our inaugural guest, we have Scott Case, the founder and chief storyteller at Position Global. Scott has been in transportation his whole life, literally. His father worked for a major Japanese freight forwarder before Scott was born, and Scott grew up in customs brokerage and freight forwarding. After graduating from Northwestern University, Scott earned his customs broker's license and as handled air and ocean import and export for his entire life. He served on the NCBFA Board of Directors for Chicago and a number of their committees focusing on air freight, carrier relationships, and freight forwarding.

Originally published September 10, 2018

Sometimes I feel like I’m living in two worlds.

In one world, I go to conferences. I hear about how digitization is going to change everything. Forwarders are being disrupted (and destroyed). Shipments move step by step along a blockchain absent the slightest human intervention. Traceability is perfect. AI predicts and resolves every disruption before it happens.

In the other world, I visit our customers. A Fortune 10 company can’t pay invoices without correlating three PDFs with a printed spreadsheet. A major retailer can’t agree on what constitutes a purchase order number across six divisions. A global freight forwarder emails arrival notices to their own overseas offices.

Originally published August 20, 2018

Never, ever allow your customer to be surprised.

If your project manager is going to send a revised date, give the sponsor a heads up.

If you sales team is going to a new project’s pricing, make a quick call first.

Originally published July 22, 2018

6 hard earned tips on building a B2B blockchain application.

We started developing Vault by Chain.io last December.

At the time, I may have been caught saying, “Let’s see what we can build on the blockchain. It should only take a few days.” By the time we launched in May, my illusions about what it was going to take to be on the bleeding edge were completely shattered.

Originally published June 29, 2018

This is a great marketing article on product messaging.

I think it misses one dynamic though. It misses the situation where everybody already has bought a solution. The market isn’t traditionally "hot" since it’s saturated and wins mean displacing an incumbent. You’re competing to bring a better solution. You’re back to the differentiation approach.