About Our Editorial Policy

By Mark Roberti

Nov. 15, 2010—I was speaking to an exhibitor at our recent RFID Journal LIVE! Europe 2010 conference and exhibition, which took place in Darmstadt, Germany, on Nov. 2-4. He made the comment that RFID Journal favors passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) systems over high-frequency (HF) technology.

Another provider of radio frequency identification systems submitted a comment in response to our recent survey to determine the topics we should cover at RFID Journal LIVE! 2011, to be held in Orlando, Fla., on Apr. 12-14. "Sessions should focus less on technology and more on business," this individual wrote. "Businesspeople need to learn how this technology can benefit their companies."

I've heard similar comments before, so I thought I would set the record straight. Let me address the latter issue first, as we are currently in the process of putting together the program for next year's LIVE! conference. Our events, like our Web site, are devoted to explaining and reporting on the business benefits that companies are achieving with RFID. In every article, we try to include the type of technology used, because this helps companies that might want to achieve the same benefits, and we also ask event speakers to include this information in their presentations. But first and foremost, we look for news stories and topic sessions at our events that explain the technology's business benefits.


If you consider the presenters we have recruited so far for LIVE! 2011 (here's a list), you'll see some speaker titles, such as CIO, director of IS operations, and chief of logistics technology integration division. But you'll see many more titles that have nothing to do with technology—CEO, director of supply chain operations, director of pharmacy, dynamic response manager, safety coordinator, facility manager and so forth. These are businesspeople discussing business benefits (the CIOs and technologists also talk about the benefits).

I'm not sure where vendors get the idea that we're focused on RFID technology. Our sessions all have titles such as "Using RFID to Improve Order Management and Inventory Accuracy," "How NASCAR Uses RFID to Authenticate Auto Parts" and "Improving Inventory Accuracy and Reducing Labor Costs With RFID." In other words, we're focused on the business benefits, not the technology. And most people who attend our events come from manufacturing, operations, supply chain and so forth, with only about 15 percent coming from the IT sector. (This is true of our print magazine and Web site readers as well—most are businesspeople, not technologists.)