A bounce back

摘要

I like to think of myself, and other journalists, as crafters of words. One hopes that the proper sentence, the correct phrase or the best-spun jargon can turn just another industry story into one that you pass on to a friend or colleague as a "you gotta read this" story. Words, especially those that appear in trade journals, are meant to begin a dialogue and can set the tone of an industry. I think the words that appear in these pages also possess a mirror-like quality, more of a reflection of a general industry feeling. Just 24 months ago, as predictions were being made for 2009, most of the trade journal columnists were writing about industry uncertainty and terms such as "idle capacity," "tight budgets," "prudent spending" and, my favorite, "calamitous," were being used to describe the economic situation we found ourselves in. These are heavy terms. There's no joy, no hope and definitely no cheer within those phrases.