I learned today the schedule and events of the Sylectus Annual Conference 2012. Learned by studying the flyer.
Diane and I woke up this morning in our Florida vacation house where we plan to stay until mid-February. Today was the same as most other days we have spent here.
I write occasional articles for an expediter magazine. The conference will be in a convention center near Orlando. Knowing that this conference would be held not far from our Florida house, I arranged to cover the event as a reporter. It is a convention for Sylectus members, most of which are small motor carriers. I’m not a member but am being allowed in as a reporter.
If you are an expediter and review the conference information, you will see why I am excited about immersing myself in this event. It is an opportunity to learn a great deal about a segment of the expediting industry that I now know little about.
Diane and I have only been in the business eight years and have leased our truck to two large carriers in that time. The Sylectus event is a gathering of small carriers and owner-operators who run under their own authority. At our first carrier we relied on dispatch to put good freight on our truck and keep us moving. Our present carrier’s dispatch system is decentralized and agency based but we still rely on the carrier for a great deal. Own-authority owner-operators live in a different world. I am looking forward to learning more about it and sharing with I learn with my readers.
As the event date draws near, I am spending time online to prepare. That includes reading the web sites and SMS reports of small carriers; catching up on the big news Bradley Jacobs made when he took over Express-1; reading about freight forwarders, freight brokers, 3PL’s, 4PL’s, load boards, and other entities that populate the mysterious, giant blob from which much of the freight that expediters haul originates; and thinking up the questions I will ask the people who will be there.
