Please excuse me for a moment if I find myself reflecting back to five years ago this very week, when the world was thrown into the most extreme and foreboding uncertainty it had faced across all facets of life in generations.
Has it really been five years?
Nobody saw it coming. Nobody knew where it would lead. Nobody knew when it would end.
By the end, despite a wake of unimaginable tragedy, unbreakable resolve prevailed against all the uncertainty.
It was an agonizingly uncertain time for me and my colleagues at HomeWorld Business magazine, long a leading U.S. housewares trade publication. Nobody outside a very tight inner circle of senior management led by owners Dave Palcek and Cyndi Evans knew the publication at the time was on course to be retired a couple of months after the conclusion of what was scheduled to be the newly renamed Inspired Home Show in March of 2020. Little did anyone know then that the 2019 International Home + Housewares Show, by its previous name, would turn out to be the last such show covered by HomeWorld Business.
News of the cancellation of The Inspired Home Show 2020 was earth-shattering across the global housewares landscape, so inconceivable yet suddenly so very real as a reflection of the unnerving and fast-escalating circumstances confronted by the tens of thousands who make a living in this business.
Then, just as suddenly, there was a moment of clarity in all the uncertainty. This would not be, could not be, the time for HomeWorld Business to step aside. During the three decades of the publication, there was never a more urgent need for frequent updates and in-depth reporting on the daily-changing developments reshaping the housewares industry. This was further evident as the housewares business quickly became one of the most essential of all non-essential businesses as locked-down days, weeks and months progressed.
HomeWorld Business, dedicated and indebted to an entire industry, stayed open from the very first day of lockdowns to a time nearly a year later, when the industry, despite persistent uncertainty and pain engulfing society, had found its footing in a marketplace that had settled into a new homebound normalcy.
The International Housewares Association, undeterred by what would eventually be three years between its trade shows, saw and seized the opportunity to lay the foundation in December 2020, when HomeWorld announced it was winding down, for what by July 13, 2021, would launch as HomePage News. The new digital publication would play a central role in keeping the home and housewares industry informed at a time when unpredictable, rapid change mandated such up-to-the-moment information.
I am grateful to the home and housewares industry for its staunch newsmaking support during my 35 years of covering it; to my former partners and colleagues at HomeWorld Business for their commitment to news-publishing excellence rooted in strong relationships; and to the International Housewares Association and its president and CEO, Derek Miller, for the vision to build a new platform to chronicle a business that never stops making headlines. That mission remains as vigorous as ever.
Almost five years to the day since everything changed in a blink, adapting and pivoting in the face of unprecedented uncertainty has become table stakes in all facets of life, particularly business.
The IHA’s Inspired Home Show recently concluded its fourth annual edition since returning from that unforeseeable three-year absence. A reflection of an industry that proves its innovative resilience and high worth year in and year out, the 125th such show since 1939, having adapted with new layouts, timing, aligned categories and more, played to enthusiastic suppliers, retailers and affiliates of all types and sizes determined to take on and overcome what by now must seem to be just the latest iteration of routine uncertainty.
I found myself reflecting during the show about a time really not so long ago when people genuinely believed we would forever stop greeting others with a handshake, a hug or a kiss. Yet there we were in Chicago, five years after thinking previously unthinkable thoughts, shaking hands and exchanging friendly hugs and kisses.
Has it really been five years?
Uncertainty is a relentless challenge. I want to believe the resolve of this industry can continue to prevail.
