Online Valve Communities—
Something for Everyone
BY JIM CAHILL
In earlier columns, I highlighted the value of online communities and their
ability to connect people with similar
expertise. The successful communities
typically grow into the thousands and
have many people actively participating
by asking questions, providing answers
and linking to interesting information
available on the Web.
LinkedIn is a vibrant place for many
of the professional groups, including
those that deal with automation, which
is one of the discussion areas that is a
good source for Emerson Process
Experts blog posts.
A quick check to see how many
valve-related LinkedIn groups were
active revealed a long list. At the time
this article was written, the top five
were Valve World Group with 3,052
members, Valve Network with 2,615
members, Valve Sales with 1,262 mem-
bers, Valve Solutions with 995 mem-
bers, and Valve Actuation Group with
759 members (see listings for these at
the end of this column).
As columnist Jim Cahill has noted, many in the industry are aware that the Valve
Manufacturers Association has a website— www.VMA.org—that contains much
useful information and resources. The same can be said of Valve Magazine’s
website, www.ValveMagazine.com, in which we post Web-exclusive articles, new
products, frequent news updates about valve manufacturing, end-user news and
more.
We’d also like to remind readers that we have been posting digital editions of
the magazine online since 2008 ( www.ValveMagazine-digital.com). This can be a
great way to find articles that include information you are seeking, using a key-
word search.
Finally, we have plans to start our own group in LinkedIn, which will be active
by the end of the year. Our focus will be on connecting U.S. and Canadian valve,
actuator and control manufacturers with those who specify, purchase, maintain,
operate, distribute and use these products.
group owners the choice whether to
have open groups or not. If open, anyone can view information about the
group, but not participate unless he or
she is a member. If the goal of these
groups is to be broad based and easily
findable through search queries, administrators are well served to open up
their groups.
Each of the five groups mentioned
above has a description that may help in
deciding if they are valuable. For exam-
ple, Valve Network is described as, “...a
global networking platform for market-
ing, sales, development, design and
manufacturing professionals dealing
with valves and control valves.”
Valve Sales describes its purpose as,
“...for sales professionals within the
valve industry, to network and job
search.” The Valve Solutions group
shares its mission as, “...to offer a plat-
form where piping & design engineers,
flow professionals, process & operations
personnel from various upstream &
downstream manufacturing plants can
interact with each other and seek flow
solutions to various process applica-
tions.” Finally, the Valve Actuation
Group, “...is for actuator, valve, control
valve, instrumentation and automation
experts in the global process industries.
Through the group, members can devel-
op their professional networks, transfer
knowledge and share experiences.”
In just this small sampling of
LinkedIn groups, you can see the focused
communities for valve manufacturers,
valve sales professionals, and project and
plant engineers. If you are in one of these
groups, it may be worth a look to join the
community—it costs nothing except your
time. You can configure your group set-
