This blog: ProcessingTalk

Nick Denbow

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This is the Process Control and Industrial Automation blog from Nick Denbow, the original editor of the ProcessingTalk website – which ran from 2003 through to 2009. Following that Nick edited the Industrial Automation Insider newsletter until 2015, which gave a regular business review of the process industry, discussing instrumentation equipment and systems. Some of these articles are published here, but after retiring from full time activity in 2017, this is an occasional series of articles that provoke my interest.

The articles are about – and offer analyses of – the marketing activities of the major process instrumentation, measurement, control and automation suppliers, written from the point of view of an ex-Marketing Manager of an instrumentation supplier. Most of my career pre-2000 was in Marketing roles dealing with novel techniques for liquid level and flow measurement instrumentation, also developing specialisms in ultrasonics, electrostatics, VA flowmeters, water industry and nuclear applications – and then the Flowbits catalogue sales operation. After being made redundant when the Platon Flowbits company was acquired, this necessitated a change of career, leading to 7 years as a PR writer (primarily for one of the major suppliers) and then a website publisher, Editor, and newsletter producer. The articles on this blog cover nearly 15 years, and  look at the major growth markets and business sectors served by the major I&C suppliers, and comment on topics on which automation marketing and business managers should be informed.

Work on the INSIDER, the restricted circulation newsletter sold on annual contracts, started in 2010 when I took over the editing role for the Industrial Automation + Process Control INSIDER newsletter from Andrew Bond, who had run the newsletter for about 15 years. While the newsletter was circulated on a subscription basis to marketing and business managers in the industry, this blog freely featured topical news items that arose in between the monthly INSIDER newsletter issues, and other articles where space in the newsletter could not be justified.

Plus some selected analytical articles were published on this website a few months after their first restricted circulation appearance in the newsletter. All the articles here are selected as of potential interest and relevance to the process and automation engineer, or marketing professional. 

The INSIDER History 1994 – 2016

Nick Denbow was Publisher and Editor of the INSIDER Newsletter from September 2010 through to March 2014. The publication had started originally in around 1994, and between 1994 and 2010 had been written and published by Andrew Bond. In March 2014, publication responsibility for the INSIDER passed from Nick Denbow to Spitzer and Boyes LLC of the USA, and the role of lead Editor and Publisher passed to Walt Boyes, previously Editor of Control magazine in the USA.

From March 2014, Nick Denbow still worked as the European correspondent for the INSIDER, submitting copy for the continuing monthly pdf newsletter. This reduced workload was felt necessary as various eye problems made the mechanics of newsletter creation more difficult.

The Processingtalk.com history 2003-2010

The Processingtalk.com website was a brilliant first generation internet based website publishing news releases relevant to the process instrumentation and automation industry. As always happens, the success of the group of sites known as the ProTalk sites led to the sale of the business to a publishing house, who promptly killed them off, as they knew better, they were magazine publishers. Fortunately, this blog carries a collection of the editorial articles, newsletters and reviews published by Nick Denbow, originally as editor of the Processingtalk, published during its lifetime between 2002 and 2010. As such a retrospective, the entries carry a date  that shows the original publication date.

Since some of the older reports in this blog relate to the Processingtalk.com website, many of these old weblinks will take you to that website, but in current times these stories are no longer supported by the new owners. The good accessibility to process automation news created by the old Processingtalk.com website is now lost, the unique catalogue of product information collected has been discarded! Such is progress.

The simple address of this blog is the website address http://www.nickdenbow.com, and it is written, edited and published by Nick Denbow. The Twitter address is @ProcessingTalk.

The more interesting company press releases are published without re-writing, and these are always tagged as “Company press releases”, so you know!

If you have something relevant to process automation developments that you consider I should read and consider mentioning in this blog, send the information! My news email address is NewProcessingTalk@gmail.com.