| Last week’s Posidonia was filled to the brim with shipowners, suppliers, trade media and more setting new records for attendance and expanded opportunities to hear the industry identify challenges and opportunities. But despite the platform for viewing new technologies, there is still a large element of denial that the industry needs to make changes not only for regulatory reasons, but to also accelerate into the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”. Despite the moans and groans over the recent MEPC meeting about GHG reduction by 2050, and the ongoing malaise about the global Sulphur cap in 2020, these actions MUST happen if we don’t want society forcing these actions upon us. With the EU “Sword of Damocles” hanging over our heads, we MUST participate in the global effort to reduce emissions. We must also accelerate our adoption of the digital wave. This is a prime example of “Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way”. There are going to be some companies that adopt digitalization and benefit from the operational efficiencies baked into these platforms. The companies that don’t will find themselves at a competitive disadvantage. I’m also concerned about the brokerage community who haven’t evidenced any concern about new technologies—such as blockchain—threatening their way of doing business. Even an event hosted by the Baltic Exchange last week dismissed blockchain as a factor in their business. One broker actually claimed that digitalization wouldn’t affect shipping because “each ship has individual characteristics and only a broker could keep track of them”. Hmmmm…. ever hear of databases???? Let’s hope they decide to climb aboard the Digitalization Bullet Train! These discussions and more will be at SHIPPINGInsight October 16-18th. Let’s plan to be there and share insights on the way forward. Nobody wants to be a Dodo bird!! Keep optimizing, Carleen | 
