Editorial — Denise L. Rondini

Denise Untitled 1Redefining Our Relationship

I’m old school. I will readily admit it. I graduated from college without ever using a computer. Worked four years at my first “big girl” job without one, too. I started with Truck Parts & Service on a typewriter although we soon switched to a computer — if you can call a Wang with a CPU that came up to my waist a computer.

And while I could not be called tech savvy, I am no technophobe. After all I was the one who dragged TPS kicking and screaming into the world of desktop publishing and got the entire office on Macs.

After just two days of training I was able to design an issue of TPS on the computer using design software called QuarkXpress. That was back in the days when in addition to being editor I was production manager.

But times have changed. Now someone does the design work and I merely supply the words. However, the way you choose to read those words is changing. While we continue to publish a print version of TPS since it is what many of you prefer, we also offer the magazine in a digital format for those who want it electronically.

I am looking forward to building Truck Parts & Service’s Facebook presence and continuing our place as the aftermarket authority.

We also started an email newsletter several years ago that was published weekly, and it has morphed into a daily under the care of Associate Editor Lucas Deal.

We did it because you wanted information from us on a more frequent basis, and throughout its long history TPS has tried to be responsive to our readers.

In that vein, Lucas and I are embarking on the next wave of technology: we are setting up a Truck Parts & Service Facebook page.

I know some distributors, repair garages and dealers already have taken that plunge, and we believe it is time to do the same.

Lucas and I are hoping the TPS Facebook page will allow us to bring you information faster, give you a sneak peek at upcoming articles we are working on, and allow you a chance to communicate with us and with other distributors, dealers and repair garage owners about issues affecting you and your businesses.

We want to make sure we do this right. After all, what we really want is for this to be the aftermarket’s Facebook page. In order to do that, we could use a little help from you. Lucas and I are neophytes at this.

If those of you who already have Facebook pages would like to share some of your successes and failures with us, we’d greatly appreciate it.

It would be a big boost for us to know what works and what has had less than satisfactory results.

For those of you who don’t have a Facebook page, what would get you to ours? What would you want to see in an aftermarket Facebook page? Please share that with us.

While I am old school, I am not old fashioned. I am looking forward to building Truck Parts & Service’s Facebook presence and continuing our place as the aftermarket authority.

And more importantly, I am looking forward to reading your reactions to what we post on our Facebook page, even though it won’t be quite the same as seeing you in person and sharing a cold beverage at some industry event.

And while a virtual friendship will never replace the real thing, it will allow us to hang out more often. And that will be my pleasure.

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