Colleague Barbara Chance sent in this goodie:
Purdue Builds Winning Rube Goldberg Device
Engineering students from Purdue University won the 19th-Annual Rube Goldberg Machine contest by designing a contraption that takes 125 steps to change the batteries in a flashlight and turn the flashlight on. Purdue’s Goldberg device included vacuum tubes, boxing gloves and billiard balls, among other stuff. It was the third straight victory for Purdue, which also happens to host the contest, in honor of cartoonist Rube Goldberg, who designed hopelessly complex devices to perform simple tasks. In previous years, contestants have been asked to figure out byzantine ways to toast bread, make coffee and turn off an alarm clock.
Makes one wonder if the parking industry isn’t attempting to do the same. Our small, and lets face it we are small, industry has two national organizations, three magazines, three trade shows and national conferences, dozens of regional groups, state assocations, and the like. There are no standards, no benchmarking, no peer reviews, no technical body to assist vendors, no PR operation, and most importantly no single voice for the industry.
National groups wrangle over who should be the "leader." They have met for years to attempt some type of merger to no avail.
I’m not complaining but my guess if Rube Goldberg was to build an industry this would be it.
JVH
