This year’s FPDA / ISD Joint Industry Summit took place October 6-9 in Austin, Texas. Vice President of Sales Gordon Weiler and Southwest Account Manager Stevie Treece represented Daman and shared some of the highlights from the event.

This year’s theme was “No Limits,”and there were certainly no limits to the wealth of industry information available. With attendance up from last year, networking opportunities were greatly facilitated, and the strong panel of keynote and industry speakers allowed for maximal learning potential.

Opening keynote speaker Dr. Mary Kelly, a retired US Naval Commander, provided inspiring discussions about leadership with her presentation Why Leaders Fail and The 7 Prescriptions for Success. Drawing on insights from her years in both corporate and military leadership, Dr. Kelly explored the theme of leadership failure and success. Data and handouts allowed the audience a chance to reflect on their own leadership challenges and identify ways to improve in this domain.

In addition to leadership, innovation was another major theme at this year’s summit. ShelfAware CEO Andrew Johnson explored several entry-level innovations in process automation, the Internet of Things (IoT) and business optimization in his presentation A Practical Approach to Innovation—Theories into Reality. Audience members learned how to create their own value-added systems and how RFID stickers, which are now available for roughly four cents, can provide complete inventory usage automation.

Sticking to the topic of innovation was Mark Dancer’s presentation Facing the Forces of Change®: Can Distributors Innovate to Dominate? While there is no clear-cut answer, Dancer emphasized how distributors are far ahead of online suppliers such as Amazon when it comes to the industrial supply chain. In order to keep their spot at the top, distributors must continuously improve their innovation, something that Daman does quite well.

The summit ended with closing keynote speaker Mike Staver and his powerful presentation Wellness Isn’t for Cowards. Staver explored the idea of wellness as more than just a routine gym session but how humans respond to internal and external stimuli that affect our overall physical and mental well-being. These stimuli are collectively referred to as “noise” and have become our largest drain of energy. With external noise, the human brain does not know how to handle noise so it defaults to working overtime trying to analyze it. With internal noise, human nature forces us to overanalyze most situations expecting wholesale changes to happen. This creates frustration, tension and fatigue.

A key takeaway from Staver’s presentation was that our desire for comfort actually creates noise in our lives. It is only through embracing discomfort that we can eliminate this noise and allow for meaningful learning and growth. To learn more about Staver’s minimalist approach to eliminate the noise in our lives, check out one of his videos here.

In addition to the plentiful and powerful speakers, the 2019 FPDA / ISD Joint Industry Summit featured the Supplier Showcase, a Topgolf tournament, the Austin City Disco Fun Run 4K, Austin city tours, and of course the highly-anticipated Studio 54 Great Bingo Revival Party. With longer breaks between sessions and such a variety of activities to choose from, this year’s summit was a great experience to form lasting bonds with other members of the Fluid Power Distributor community.

For more information on the 2019 FPDA / ISD Joint Industry Summit as well as future summits and events, visit fpda.org.