Mucking About at Connections

Or, four days of good, clean fun with the cleaning industry...

[CRI's booth at Connections.]
Last week, I attended the Connections Technical Conference and Exhibition in Clearwater, Florida. Connections is primarily for practitioners and business owners in the cleaning, and restoration and recovery industries. To be in the cleaning business means your company services homes and/or businesses with carpet and upholstery cleaning, and perhaps janitorial services. Restoration and recovery generally involve extensive cleaning following some sort of natural or man-made disaster such as a fire or flood.

Connections is run by a consortium of 13 separate regional cleaning organizations. It was hard for a newcomer like me to keep track of all of the different groups, but it was easy to see that everyone at Connections had a vested interest in taking care of their customers, often during difficult situations and stressful times.

CRI's Werner Braun addressing the Connections audience.

CRI was one of the sponsors for this spring’s Connections program. Many of the attendees were CRI Seal of Approval Service Providers who use Seal of Approval cleaning solutions, systems, and/or extractors in their businesses.

CRI’s Seal of Approval program was the first to test and certify cleaning products and equipment to make sure they work without damaging the carpet. On the first day of the show, CRI technical manager and SOA coordinator Pat Jennings and I set up the CRI booth in the exhibit hall, along with many of the other sponsors and exhibitors – mostly manufacturers and distributors of cleaning products and equipment but there were also web developers, business management consultants, and investment counselors, among others. On display were enormous air-mover fans used to dry facilities after water damage, and huge truck-mounted carpet cleaning systems. I liked the thermal detection cameras that can “see” moisture that may be hidden beneath the surface of a structure, undetectable to the naked eye.

The traffic at the show was brisk, to say the least. For three days, Pat and I answered a steady stream of questions about CRI Seal of Approval products and equipment, and the SOA Service Provider program. We gave away hundreds of CRI’s Carpet Cleaning Tips for Dummies booklets, and the general consensus was that the CRI giveaway pen was best in show.

The Carpet and Rug Institute used the Connections meeting to announce some significant changes to the Seal of Approval Service Provider program. CRI president Werner Braun spoke to the group about the current state of the carpet industry, projections for future recovery, and issues facing CRI. Specifically, enhancements to the SOA Service Provider program were announced. The new SOA Service Provider Plus program includes a new code of conduct, and, for the first time, includes language “strongly recommending” that SOA Service Providers receive certification from the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification, or IICRC.

[Bethany and Pat Jennings.]
In spite of the daily thunderstorms, I managed to squeeze in a walk or two on the beautiful Clearwater beach, which made me happy.

The people I met at Connections were friendly, everyone seemed enthusiastic about being together, learning how to ply their trades and market their businesses better. And what more appropriate place to hold a convention for the cleaning industry than a town named Clearwater?

Maybe Hygiene, Colorado?

~ Bethany

Note: Photos courtesy of Clifford Grost.

Technorati Tags: CRI, Carpet and Rug Institute, Connections Technical conference, cleaning industry, carpet cleaning, SOA, seal of approval program Del.icio.us Tags: CRI, Carpet and Rug Institute, Connections Technical conference, cleaning industry, carpet cleaning, SOA, seal of approval program