Welcome To The Web

I’ve been looking forward to writing this column for weeks.

After months of planning and work, we’ve unveiled our completely updated Web site at GreenhouseGrower.com. The capabilities it provides give us a whole new way to get information to you. The new site is a lot prettier, more modern and we hope it will make searching for crop production information faster than ever. It is also equipped with features that will make it easier to share the information you find there.

Go to page 63 for the details on our new online features, including full article archive, comment functions and easy-to-find coverage of our special reports, like the Top 100 Growers report, our Growing Green series and the sustainability trend and Greenhouse Grower’s Grower Of The Year. Check in today for our full coverage of OFA Short Course.

The Internet Is Making Us Smarter

I love the Web, and I hate when people dismiss it as a time waster, an impersonal form of communication or irrelevant to business.

A recent cover story in Atlantic Monthly was titled, “Is Google Making Us Stoopid?” It infuriated me. There’s been no better learning tool than the Internet – maybe only the computer itself. Google can help you find and learn anything, where in the past you needed to take a class, hunt down a book from a library
or call an expert to get an answer to a question. We hope that GreenhouseGrower.com will become your Google for floriculture.

Think of how much you learn from networking at conferences and trade shows. Now think of networking like that every day from your desk. I think the most important new feature on the site is its interaction, where you can post your thoughts or questions, and maybe even help out other growers with their questions. Learning doesn’t just come from books or experts anymore. It comes from all of us.

The Web Also Brings Us Together

And the way the Web works makes us more engaged in the industry than ever before. Just like you work in your business to build strong teams, building strong personal bonds between people in floriculture only makes the industry stronger as a whole.

The new site is just a first step for us. We have a lot more up our sleeve, so stay tuned. Whatever you need in the greenhouse, we hope you start your search at GreenhouseGrower.com.