You don’t think about it, but you’d sure notice if it were missing. Grocery stores would be empty, there would be no new clothes hanging from the racks at your favorite department store. Supplies for new buildings and construction projects? Nope. Those would be gone too.

The management of moving goods – also known as logistics – happens all around us, and typically without Americans realizing that it’s occurring. While you might not notice every semi-trailer on the road or plane overhead, as soon as you didn’t have the goods you wanted, the lack of those things would be much more obvious.

So, to shine some light on and celebrate the logistics, transportation and distribution industries, the Indiana Logistics Summit will take place October 12-13 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS). 

Co-hosted by Purdue University and the Ports of Indiana, the summit is bringing together 20 top logistics experts and CEOs to discuss how logistics, distribution and transportation affect the country and Indiana.

The event will also highlight the 100th anniversary of the first Indianapolis 500, as well as the 50th anniversary of the Ports of Indiana, with special events occurring throughout the two-day summit to honor those anniversaries.

Event highlights include:

• Hall of Fame Museum reception with bus tours around the IMS track, and a special presentation by Speedway historian Donald Davidson 
• Keynote addresses by Gary LaGrange, president of the Port of New Orleans, and Derek J. Leathers, president of Werner Enterprises 
• A major clean energy announcement about the sixth largest United States truck fleet, Republic Services;
• A presentation by John Vickerman on the state of logistics in America
• A Super Bowl update from Super Bowl Committee Vice Chair Cathy Langham.

Learn more online.

It’s hard to believe it’s been a decade since the world as we knew it – one in which terrorism was scarcely given much thought – was turned upside down.

A native Hoosier, I had moved to Connecticut three years prior to the attacks and commuted daily to my job in New York City. These are my personal recollections from that day.

… Many of us went to the windows that pointed south toward the World Trade Center. It was one thing seeing it on TV, but to look out and see firsthand the large plumes of smoke was completely surreal.

Unease was officially setting in throughout the office. 

My mind was playing what-ifs and drifting to my two recent visits to the Twin Towers complex in as many weeks: One for pleasure – shopping at the vast underground center – and the other a breakfast business meeting at the Marriott hotel, which sat between both towers and was connected to them….

Full story here.

Tornadoes and flooding seem to comprise most of the Mother Nature-related threats here in Indiana. But, as we’ve been reminded too often, hurricanes are the focus for many in the eastern and southern portions of the country.

A few facts as the hurricane season continues through November 30:

• 36.8 million Americans live near the coast in the states stretching from North Carolina to Texas. That’s 12% of the U.S. total, but an area that has experienced 163% growth between 1960 and 2010.
• There were 12 hurricanes last year, but no major ones made landfall in the U.S.
• That was not the case in 2005, the busiest hurricane season on record. There were 28 named storms, 15 hurricanes (four reaching Category 5 status).
• The Weather Bureau began naming hurricanes in 1950. Five names have been retired by the World Meteorlogical Organization due to the extensive damage caused by those storms. They are Dennis, Katrina, Rita, Stan and Wilma.

If you’re a character in the “Harry Potter” series, one of the most dreaded phrases spoken is “Voldemort.” If you’re the parent of a teen, you may be tempted to give a kidney if it would mean your child never uttered, “Whatever” again.

I can tell you as a journalist, one of the phrases that strikes frustration into the hearts of reporters everywhere is “off the record.” It makes our jobs more difficult and brings up ethical dilemmas, including deciphering what we can and cannot use for our stories.

Most of us were taught in journalism school that “off the record” is a term that means none of the material can be published (with attribution or anonymously) or shared with another source.

Be warned, however, that as a PR professional or business source speaking to reporters – depending on the circumstances and the particular reporter you’re working with – simply saying “this is off the record” doesn’t necessarily mean that your words will be saved from print or broadcast. A recent Ragan.com article quotes Johna Burke, senior vice president at BurellesLuce, on the “mythical creature” that is “off the record.”

The very idea of confidentiality has changed over the past few years, Burke said. Things employees used to talk to their friends and families about now gets shared on social media sites. Voicemails and emails make their way to the press.

“Everything is public record,” she said.

Christine Perkett of Perkett PR agrees, “From executive internal memos to ‘private’ DMs on Twitter, to emails, anything that can be shared – and if it benefits someone – probably will be,” she says. …

Be transparent with your message and communicate it well, Burke advised. She said, “I’d hate to think we need to be guarded” with information, though she did say it’s a good policy to keep a tight circle around communications you don’t want going out into the public sphere.

Perkett puts it this way: “A good mind frame is simply, zip the lip.”

(Gil) Rudawsky (senior director of communications at Ground Floor Media) doesn’t expressly prohibit going off the record, but he says to be very careful about it.

“The only way I’d recommend sharing off-the-record information is with reporters who you have a good preexisting relationship with, but even then it is with reservations,” he says. “Otherwise, assume that everything you say will show up in their stories.”

However, as I said earlier, depending on the circumstances and the reporter involved, the phrase still holds water. When I was a beat reporter at a small newspaper, my concern was developing trust with – not burning – my very valuable sources. So, even though hearing the phrase pained me, I would respect the source’s wishes and seek out someone else who could give me the information I needed for the story. Many reporters – but not all – follow a similar code. 

When you know you’re going to be interviewed, at least have a conversation with the reporter prior to the interview regarding information that should stay off the record. And, if there’s something you really don’t want to have published, you’re probably better off just keeping it to yourself.

Of course, as a journalist at heart, that last sentence cuts me pretty deep.

Acronyms stink! Yes, they’re necessary at times, but the reliance on them also handcuffs communicators and certainly baffles readers.

I’m sure our friends at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (yes, IPFW is better in most cases) won’t take it personally when we use this recent example from their campus. In fact, the communicators in Fort Wayne do an excellent job overall with their "key info" section at the top of news releases particularly helpful.

But then there was this headline and lead:

IPFW ORES Becomes RESP to Respond to Community Engagement

Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne’s (IPFW’s) Office of Academic Affairs (OAA) is pleased to announce the Office of Research and External Support (ORES) is now the Office of Research, Engagement, and Sponsored Programs (RESP).

Do I have a better alternative? Not off the top of my head. There’s not much one can do when confronted with a series of phrases/names that require the obligatory capital letter shortcuts. The above is an eyeful and mouthful with or without the acronyms, but I’ll still blame them for making a tough message to communicate even more difficult. 

Make of this what you will, but a recent analysis from National Journal conveys coverage of the nation’s unemployment crisis has waned, while a focus on the deficit has increased. The author of this article concludes it means conservatives are winning the message war, but perhaps other factors are at play. What do you think?

Major U.S. newspapers have increasingly shifted their attention away from coverage of unemployment in recent months while greatly intensifying their focus on the deficit, a National Journal analysis shows.

The analysis — based on a measure of how often the words "unemployment" and "deficit" appear in major publications — portrays a dramatically shifting landscape of coverage over the past two years, as the debate over how to fix the federal deficit has risen to prominence and the question of how to handle still-high unemployment has faded from the media’s consciousness.

National Journal compiled counts of articles that mention one of the words in their headline or first sentences in the five largest newspapers in the country by print circulation — a group that consists of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post. The data was taken over a period of roughly two years from April 15, 2009, to May 15, 2011, using LexisNexis, a news information service. The numbers exclude mentions that also used the words Europe(an) and Greece or Greek in an effort to focus solely on the domestic debate, though even with those included, the trend was not materially different.

Mentions of unemployment have been dwindling since they spiked to 154 in the month ending August 15, 2010; over the month ending Sunday, there were 63. Deficit mentions, meanwhile, surged up to 261 in the month ending December 15, 2010, when the leaders of President Obama’s deficit commission released their final report. Mentions of the deficit remained higher after the commission’s work wrapped up and as House Republicans and then the White House unveiled dueling proposals. In the month ending Sunday, there were 201 mentions.

To be sure, the decline in unemployment articles coincided with a one-half-percentage-point decrease in the headline unemployment rate as well as materially better payroll job growth, but the labor market remains fragile and the pace of its recovery far from sufficient.

More likely, the broadening gap demonstrates just how effective conservatives have been at changing the narrative of economic policy from one dominated by talk of fiscal stimulus to one now in lockstep with notions of fiscal austerity.

That major newspapers and other media outlets have covered the deficit with greater intensity in recent months should come as no surprise given the focus of the politicians and policymakers they cover. The declining mentions of unemployment are perhaps more surprising, as the issue remains salient for millions of Americans.

In a recent Indiana Vision 2025 planning meeting, our Indiana Chamber task force heard about regional water shortages, potential droughts and more. The point was that we can’t take water supplies for granted — and that it’s really a business development issue. (The 2025 effort, by the way, is the Chamber — for the second time — going beyond the short term and crafting a long-range economic plan for the state; you’ll hear plenty more about this as work continues on the project).

Two water industry groups, however, are ignoring supplies and focusing on battling each other while supposedly celebrating National Drinking Water Week. It started with this press release from the National Association of Water Companies:

"Alarmingly, 85% of plastic bottles end up in landfills. And every day, high-quality tap water is delivered straight to the homes of millions of customers without the use of a single plastic bottle," said NAWC executive director Michael Deane. "NAWC’s member companies treat and deliver tap water for a fraction of a penny per gallon, and that tap water is subject to quality standards that often exceed those of bottled water. Our members know that only tap water truly delivers sustainable value to consumers."

The full NAWC release.

The International Bottled Water Association responded this way:

This week, the National Association of Water Companies (NAWC) issued a press release that contains several false claims about bottled water. NAWC’s unfounded, unnecessary and tangential attack on bottled water products is contrary to the important goals of National Drinking Water Week, and appear to be an attempt to deflect public and media focus from the very real problems facing many municipal water systems today. Provided below are the facts:

NAWC’s claim that tap water standards “often exceed” bottled water standards are without foundation. 

According to the NAWC press release, "85 percent’ of plastic bottles end up in landfills,” but that’s flat-out wrong. The recycling rate for PET bottles is a record-high 31% and growing every year.

The lengthy IBWA release.

Who knew water could generate such a bitter battle?