Last issue, we promised you a redesigned Gear Technology—bigger, better and delivered more often than before. Well, here it is, the first of the eight completely redesigned issues we’ll be sending you in 2007.

Aside from the cosmetic changes—the new logo, typefaces, redesigned table of contents, and so forth—we had specific goals in mind. One of them was to expand on the educational focus that has made us the industry’s publication since 1984.

We’ve always published the highest quality technical articles, and we’ll continue to do so. But we also want to provide you with insight into the business, management and non-technical aspects of gear manufacturing. That’s why we’ve expanded our feature coverage and added a new department: Voices.

Voices helps us tap into the gear industry’s knowledge base, experience and insight. In Voices, you can read the opinions of your peers and even contribute opinions yourself. Your letters to the editor will appear in Voices, as will guest editorials and a new column called Q&A.

So when I say, “What do you think?” I’m not just asking for your opinions about our redesign. In fact, I’m more interested in your participation. For example, after you read this issue’s articles about finding skilled labor, tell us if you have a different opinion or if your company has implemented different solutions. Voices is your forum to share your thoughts and insights with the gear industry community. It’s your chance to interact with and learn from your peers.

Another goal of the redesign was to provide more integration between our printed magazine and websites. For example, the Voices department will have an online component at www.geartechnology.com where every month, we’ll post questions for our Q&A column and an online poll or survey. You can go online anytime to see the results and read the opinions of others in the gear industry. Of course, every issue, we’ll print some of the most interesting results in Voices as well.

The integration between print and online doesn’t stop with the Voices department, either. Throughout the magazine, we’ll give you additional information and resources online whenever appropriate.

Also, those of you who have given us permission to send you e-mails will soon begin receiving the geartechnology.com newsletter, which will provide you with updates about the latest content and features online.

Underneath all these new features, we are still dedicated to bringing you the very best gear-related technical articles available from experts around the world. We’re not changing anything there. After all, the technical articles are the reason many of you read—and save—this magazine.

We hope you’ll notice that this issue, at 80 pages, is a little bit heftier than has become typical for us. Part of this results from bringing you more high-quality articles, but part of it is also because increasing numbers of our advertisers are recognizing the importance of Gear Technology’s role in your success. They understand that you want practical, useful information, not advertorials.

We’re going to bring you Gear Technology—bigger, better and more often—throughout 2007. But in order to maintain this effort, we want and need your help. Our advertisers count on us to deliver the magazine to people who are interested in gears. That’s why we need you to continually update your information and renew your subscriptions by filling out the form attached to the cover or bound in each issue. So if you haven’t done it in awhile, or if you’re not sure, go online and renew today (www.geartechnology.com/subscribe.htm).Be sure to check “yes” to give us permission to send you e-mails.

When I asked “What do you think?” I had one other thing in mind. Perhaps most importantly, I want to know how we can help make you more successful with our information and products. Tell us what you want and need to meet your challenges more effectively. Tell us how we can better help you.

We are excited and enthusiastic about the changes we’ve made, and we hope you are, too. No matter what, though, what we’d like most of all is your participation in making Gear Technology as useful and practical to the industry as it can possibly be. We need your feedback, we need your input, we need your experience and expertise. So tell me, what do you think?

Michael Goldstein,
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief

P.S. We’d like to extend a special welcome to all of our Chinese friends who are reading this issue of the magazine, which was mailed to more than 1,000 individuals in China who work at gear manufacturing locations. We hope you enjoy Gear Technology. We’ll be mailing a similar bonus distribution to India in May.