Regular readers may have noticed a cast in my most recent reporting - a good deal of it is about a single day this summer: July 18.

That's when the day-long Woodworking Network Leadership Forum will take place, at the Las Vegas Convention Center - the same place the AWFS Fair takes place in four days that follow. While the show has plenty of compelling attractions for any woodworking business, there was no forum to look at what lies ahead in business, and how it will look when we get there.

I have been working on just such a program that will distill some of the most interesting trends happening in the wood manufacturing industries - trends in technology, business management, and materials. Designed as a TEDx-style program, this  for the wood manufacturing industry, this top-level conference is aimed at executives from North America’s 300 largest woodworking companies, the Leadership Forum will examine business, technology, and material trends that will impact the design and production of cabinetry, furniture and interior millwork over the next decade.

How do we know these are interesting trends? Because they are based on the site traffic at Woodworking Network.com. On any given day thousands of visitors swarm through the articles at the website, drawn by bookmarks, driven by the Daly Brief newsletter, or guided by links found in online - mostly Google - searches. 

So in putting together a conference program that would would be most interesting, we built the proceedings with a strong dose of information hat has been proven popular online. This includes:

1. Getting people to work in wood manufacturing

2. Making those workers more productive

3. Creating solution-specific new technology 

4. Digitally imaged panel and Flame-finished lumber

5. Integrated, modular room manufacture and Wooden Skyscrapers