The Window Industries Top 30 Most Influential is a list that really is about as old fashioned and stale as the industry magazines themselves.

This years list contains many of the same names as the previous year, the year before that and so on. Are the people behind this list really telling us that there are only these select few over the last few that have actually done something to influence our industry over the last few years? Just these people? Nobody else?

It’s a terrible list. If this list is representative, then it’s as representative as North Korea is a perfect example of democracy! It’s totally dominated by PVCu systems companies. Though I am a champion of PVC, our industry is far more diverse than this one material alone. There needs to be a much better representation of all materials. There’s no dedicated aluminium names in there, or timber for that matter. And steel windows have been forgotten about. If this list is about what is influential, how can Crittal, probably the biggest and best name in steel windows in this country not have a name in this list? Then there is the online side of our industry. There are sites/companies making big waves in our industry. Take Insight Index for example. Our biggest industry directory, run by the very nice man that is Andrew Scott. I know he knows many of you out there, yet is never mentioned. Then there’s Lee who runs MyTradeTV and Nick Dardalis who runs the successful Aluminium Trade Supply blog. There are so many facets to our industry, yet only one seems to be covered year after year.

The perception of the project is that it is a list compiled by the same bunch of people, patting the same larger bunch of people on the back. To me, it’s just a yearly support group for the same people that sit on boards who don’t come up with the sparkling new ideas or fresh thinking that they pay others to do. If a PR company is going to spend time doing a list, then it should go round the industry, face to face, asking people who they really think should be included. What I would like to see is some new names, some fresh faces nobody has ever seen before. The people that sit down at their desks on a night slaving away at a brand new product they thought up and have brought to market. It’s the forward thinkers that need to be rewarded on this list. It’s just a list of the most valuable people.

Alternatively, the ‘secret’ people who compile this list should probably give up now and stop wasting their time. It stopped being something people looked forward to a couple of years ago. Window Industries, like all the other magazines, should be focusing on how to rescue what is a dire magazine sector.