It’s been a warm, bright, picturesque weekend out my way, nature at its finest, so naturally I spent the entire time indoors watching the NFL draft.

I was planning to kick off the “Editor’s Blog” with a short, snappy, give-you-pause-and-make-you-think kind of musing on something economic, given the times we’re living in. But what? 

Welcome to the ICS Editor’s Blog, where the ICS editorial staff notes, and readers comment, on the latest developments affecting professionals working in floor care and restoration.

So for all the classes and articles and seminars and conferences addressing technician appearance, hygiene, decorum, body language, etc., etc., there exists that little-discussed but monumentally important underpinning of the cleaner-client interaction: the creep factor.

The ICS Disaster Restoration & Remediation Market Study is an examination of the opinions and preferences of restoration and remediation professionals concerning their business.

To the cleaning professional, odor control means opportunity. To put not too fine a point on it, the same nose-wrinkling offensiveness driving homeowners to distraction carries the sweet smell of money for the professional technician, if he or she is savvy enough to catch the scent.

Welcome to ICS Cleaning Specialist magazine’s sixth commissioned market study designed to measure the opinions and preferences of floor care and restoration professionals as they pertain to the use of carpet-cleaning chemicals and equipment.

Hmm. Too much of a stretch? Perhaps: Peter O’Toole is nowhere to be seen. But you’ll never know how far you can go unless you try.

The 2007 NIRC Fall Conference, the leadoff event for the Restoration Industry Association’s Fall Conference Series, Oct. 23-27 at the Hyatt Regency Orange County Hotel in Garden Grove, Calif., successfully fought off poor IAQ and equipment glitches as the morning seminars commenced.

Nothing will stay with a client longer than the first glimpse of your truck, the first look she gets of you on the front steps, the first words out of your mouth. First impressions: they’re what’s for breakfast.