New Year, New Changes

A new year always brings change, and this year will bring several important changes to SSGM.

This year readers will see a newly redesigned SSGM Web site. The site’s design will be cleaner with easier access to the current issue of SSGM Magazine and its Web and Digital Editions. As well, readers will find a more extensive archive of previous issues going back several years, including digital editions of those issues. If you are still bookmarking www.autoserviceworld.com you will need to change it to www.ssgm.com so you can be taken directly to our site. Over time, new features will be added to the Web site so we can bring readers the latest news, features and aftermarket industry information.

SSGM for some time has been producing videos and posting them online, many featuring Jim Anderton road-testing new tires or showcasing a vehicle repair. This year we will be launching SSGMtelevision. This YouTube channel will feature many technical and repair videos Jim Anderton and I will produce, shoot and edit, as well as coverage of industry events and news. These same videos will be on our Web site as well. For those who follow blogs, I will be producing “Shifting Gears” ( http://www.ssgmshiftinggears.blogspot.com), where I will follow and comment on industry news and the North American auto industry. I won’t subject you to the daily ramblings about my day just to fill the blog. (Trust me, my life is not that exciting and what free time I have I spend reading Finnegans Wake and listening to Anthony Braxton and Ornette Coleman). I promise it will be material you will want to read and comment upon.

So why these changes? SSGM is the best source in Canada for aftermarket news. The Web site, blog and YouTube channel will be the best forums in the aftermarket for shop owners and technicians to communicate with each other and find information more quickly on how to successfully navigate the changes happening in the automotive landscape. More importantly, we at SSGM want to be able to communicate with our readers in a variety of ways, from traditional print to online sources and video. As well, each of these new ventures allows us to add significantly more information than we can provide in the magazine, information that is both informative and fun.

Take the videos, for instance. Jim Anderton is a wonderful presenter and I have a great time planning, shooting and editing the videos. We know they are watched by a great many technicians who appreciate how Jim handles tricky repairs. Certainly there is a lot you can say in a traditional magazine format, but a video just adds a bit more to the mix.

These projects will be ongoing, starting off slowly at first as we find out what works and build upon it from there. I am excited and I hope you will be too.