History of Expediting Project, Update 001

ATeam

Senior Member
Retired Expediter
As Open Forum readers know, a history of expediting book project has been launched, with me as the editor and project leader. Below is a letter I am sending to people who have volunteered to help.

I share it here as a way of recruiting additional volunteers and to inform interested readers about the project's scope and methods. From time to time, I'll provide updates here in the Open Forum. To make it easy for readers to find these updates, the subject line is formatted as shown above. If printed, this is a four-page post.

Thank you for your interest in the ExpeditersOnline History of Expediting project. I'm very pleased with the volunteer response to date. A handful of people have offered to help, just the right number to get started and field test the online tools we'll be using.

If you would like to join the history of expediting team, Please contact me by private e-mail.

Phil Madsen

============================

Welcome to the ExpeditersOnline History of Expediting Team. If we do it right, the book, "A History of Expediting," will be an informative and useful resource for expediters and others who are interested in the field.

However limited or extensive your involvement may be, your suggestions and volunteer-labor are welcome. I sincerely hope that when the book is published, you will stand proud of the contribution you made to the expediting industry and proud of the book you helped create.

Writing a book of any kind is hard work. Writing a history book is harder still. We have over 25 years of expediting history to cover including several major trends; background information on the economy and the transportation industry (especially trucking); numerous expediting industry developments; over a dozen company histories; a number of driver, vendor, and carrier personnel profiles; and much more.

Without a way to organize the facts and stories we collect, we'd become quickly overwhelmed, often distracted, and unhappy in our work. With a way to organize the facts and stories, we can easily match project tasks to team member interests and availability. In other words, each team member can contribute time and talent as he or she is able, and we can all have fun!

Below is a list of what I think the book should include. The list will be revised several times as the project proceeds. At this early stage, your input is especially important. Your views will help shape the project and its outcomes.

Before you review the list, I request that you get something in your head that will help all team members think together and communicate about the history of expediting. I call it the history of expediting matrix.

This is important. Team members need shared reference points so we do not talk past each other or in circles. The matrix provides the reference points. Every team member task, large and small, will be defined by the matrix. Every piece of information we collect will find a home in and relate to all other information pieces via the matrix.

While it is easy to do, it is also essential that each team member masters the matrix concept. Please take a few minutes right now to do so.

Envision a spreadsheet with dates running down the left-hand column (Jan 04, Feb 04, etc.). Start with 1980, the year Roberts Express emerged, and continue to the present day. That's about 300 months; thus, 300 rows.

Across the top of the spreadsheet, the columns are titled with each topic that rises from our research. As the number of topics expands, so will the number of columns. We'll have a column for each carrier, one for general economic conditions, one for fuel prices, one for technology developments, one for each notable driver, and many more.

The spreadsheet will grow rapidly as information comes in. If it was printed, it would be a wall chart. When completed, the chart could easily be twenty feet wide. That's because every topic, no matter how small or large receives its own column.

We will not write about everything in the matrix. But we will use it to organize all the information we collect, and then consider each piece against all others in the matrix for historic relevance and inclusion in the book.

Viewing the wall chart, you could pick a date in the left hand column and follow that row to the right to obtain an industry snapshot for that month and year.

For example, in (month, year), the economy was coming out of a recession, carrier A's fleet was 50 trucks larger than a year ago, a new no-name carrier emerged (to become a major player in later years, as the chart shows further down), carrier C changed its dispatch procedures, FMCSA announced a new regulation, expediters were then buying truck type X in large numbers, driver A entered the business, veteran driver B sustained an injury that took him off the road, and driver D had no clue that expediting even existed because her career change is two years in the future, and that is significant because she is the first-known female solo expediter.

If you run your finger down one year on the chart, you could again follow the row to the right to see if carrier C's fleet size increased or decreased after changing its dispatch procedures. You could also check on driver B to see if he recovered and got back on the road. Going down two years, you could see what was going on in the world of expediting when historically-significant driver D hauled her first load.

Using the history of expediting matrix as our common resource, it's easy to begin our work as a team. We'll simply pull together as much information as we can and sort it into the matrix.

As the matrix fills, research tasks and book topics will naturally suggest themselves. For example, if we learn that carrier X was founded by Mr. Z, two columns will be created, one for the carrier and one for the founder. The tasks will then be to write the history of carrier X, and write or acquire a biography of Mr. Z.

History team members can volunteer to take responsibility for a particular portion of the matrix (a spreadsheet address range). For example, a team member may volunteer to dig up monthly fuel prices from 1980 to 1990, or the number of commercial vehicles licensed in the same period (relates to general trucking industry conditions).

History team members can populate the matrix in other ways too. For example, one task will be to read every article Jeff Jensen has ever written for EO and other publications. A team member may take responsibility for say one year of Jensen's work, read the articles, extract industry facts from them, and plug them into the matrix (noting the source so the contributed information will survive fact checking).

First-person accounts are especially welcome in the matrix; e.g. "On (date), I, drove a (truck type) off (vendor's name) lot. I believe this was the first-ever custom-built sleeper put on an an expediter truck." or "My truck, DRXXXX, was the first reefer truck in the FedEx fleet."

Each contribution to the matrix will help build the foundation on which the book will then be based. If an important topic needs to be addressed or task arises, but no one volunteers to do it, I'll do it myself. While I have no idea how long it will take to complete the book, I'm personally committed to see it through.

We'll begin by doing research to populate the matrix. Concurrent with that, team members will chat on an ongoing basis to decide what the history of expediting is and how to best tell the story. As the matrix grows, we'll discern the trends, identify historically-significant events, develop time-line milestones, and decide which stories best illustrate the expediting events and people of the day.

Depending on our needs and project status, we'll use certain tools to converse and coordinate our work. These tools may include web pages, an online forum, a message board, a blog or blogs, an e-mail reflector, conference calls, and/or face-to-face meetings (probably at truck shows, perhaps other times and places). The matrix will be posted and frequently updated on a web page that team members can access. In addition to remote conversations, team members are encouraged to meet face-to-face as often as they can, to mix thoughts and compare notes.

History team communications tools will be available only to history team members. Our work will be done mostly in private so each team member can have the freedom to share and discuss ideas without being distracted by the pot shots and heckling that occur in public space. The matrix is private so we can add questionable or controversial information to it now, to organize our research tasks, and later fact check the information to ensure a high-quality book.

This does not mean you cannot discuss the project with non-team members. On the contrary, the very nature of our work requires us to talk to a large number of people and develop new contacts on an ongoing basis. However, information will find its way into the matrix that would be inappropriate to publicly discuss or publish. To honor driver privacy requests, earn and retain the trust of carriers that are providing information, and to maintain professional and dignified working relationships, our work will be done mostly in private.

As a history team member, you serve as a volunteer and at the pleasure of the editor (that's me). You can be involved as much or little as you wish, provided you complete the work you agree to do.

It might be something simple like digging up a fuel price list, or something more ambitious like outlining or even writing the history of a carrier. It might be something you can do at home, or it may mean a plane trip at your expense from your layover city to a carrier headquarters so you can interview an executive on the day and time you previously arranged.

Whatever you volunteer to do, DO NOT volunteer to do something you are not sure you can complete. I want you to have fun in this project and do your best work ... so don't get in over your head.

If you wish to help but don't know what you'd like to do, don't worry. Numerous tasks, large and small, will emerge. We'll post them on a list and you can have your pick. Some tasks will require a team effort. You could take on a task alone, volunteer to work with others on a larger task, or do both.

Writing a history of expediting is a big project. It's fun too. Let's get to work!

Phil Madsen

(Preliminary book contents list will be sent soon to history team members)
 
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