In the wee hours of the morning after St. Patrick's Day, a group of about 40 met over breakfast to listen to a panel discussion about selling decorative concrete materials in stores. The Early Bird Distributor's Breakfast was part of the Concrete Decor Show & Decorative Concrete Spring Training.

Retail consultant Nicholas Cichielo of NRC Advisors LLC led the panel, which consisted of Bart Sacco of Decorative Concrete Tools & Supply, a Throop, Pa., store, Doug Bannister, decorative concrete veteran and founder of Oklahoma City's The Stamp Store, and consultant Jim Rohrer, of The Loyalty Partners.

Sacco and Bannister both emphasized the reality that decorative concrete is a unique skill set, unlike any other, and that both store owners and their customers have to grasp this concept to succeed.

Businesspeople coming out of a traditional concrete background or a retail background need to hook up with people experienced in the field of decorative concrete to make decorative concrete retailing work, Bannister said "It takes a number of different skill sets to succeed in this business."

"We get a number of suppliers who really don't understand the fundamentals of the products themselves," Sacco said.

The panel emphasized the importance of training staff. "We have our staff go through training, as many training programs as possible," Bannister said.

Sacco said store owners have to know enough about decorative concrete to tell professionals what they're doing wrong. He remembered a series of calls he had received over time about troubled jobs. Sacco traced the problems back to one employee who was taking bad form from one contractor to another. "He didn't understand the need to let concrete dry before applying something, and when he did apply, he would apply 100 times too thick," Sacco said. "I explained what the fellow was doing wrong to his current employer. We'll see where the future lies with that individual."

The other two panelists offered general retail advice. Cichielo said there were several things independent retailers could do to respond to what is traditionally considered their toughest competition, big chains. "You have to study the competition," he said. "You have to pay attention to so-called football items," flashy sale items that "make the whole store look different."

Rohrer listed three points that store owners in general could do to boost their position: be good at what you do, foster ongoing and effective communication with your customers, and be unique.

The Concrete Decor Show & Decorative Concrete Spring Training runs through Friday.

A panel discussion Wednesday morning at the Concrete Decor Show & Decorative Concrete Spring Training featured short presentations from several companies hoping to turn heads in the decorative concrete world with their products.

David Loe of Lyhic Solutions presented his company's densifier made with colloidal silica, a pure silica densifier that avoids many of the side effects of traditional densifiers.

Daniel Owen of Arizona Polymer Flooring presented his company's Cem-Rez decorative concrete materials, which include resurfacing, stone texture, smooth finish and spray texture systems, to name just four.

Dr. Edward P. Squiller of Bayer MaterialSciences offered an overview of what his company offers decorative concrete in terms of innovation - "technical drivers" for developing self-healing, antigraffiti, scratch-resistant, soft-feel, and better-looking and more durable coatings.

Ken Vallens of CTS Cement Manufactruing talked about his company's Rapid Set cement. The calcium sulfoaluminate cement is the largest specialty cement brand in the United States, he said, and is widely used in roads and other projects. But it also has applications for decorative concrete, he said, noting that its carbon footprint is 33 percent smaller than that of portland cement and that materials made with it last longer.

In a short discussion afterward, each panelist was invited to make predictions for the future of the decorative concrete industry. Vallens said he sees decorative concrete shifting away from being an artisan-centered industry toward prefabricated work. "It will technically go a little bit away from artisans and a little more mainstream in terms of production," he said.

Michael Chusid of marketing firm Chusid & Associates moderated the panel.

The Concrete Decor Show & Decorative Concrete Spring Training runs through Friday in Phoenix, Ariz.

The first day of the first annual Concrete Decor Show & Decorative Concrete Spring Training came to a close with an early-evening talk by Mike Miller, founder of The Concretist, a decorative concrete artisans' collective.

Miller, who is also a regular columnist in Concrete Decor magazine, was joined onstage by two of his colleagues: concrete and fabric artist Emily McClintick and real estate consultant Steve Crocker, who as a grocery store development manager has worked with Miller on several projects.

"We are an industry that attracts a lot of new people to it," Miller said. "A lot of people here in this room came to learn and see people learning. That's something we have in our favor."

Miller spent the bulk of his talk discussing his approach to decorative concrete. He called his work "sensory concrete," which he distinguished from "decorative concrete," which involves incorportaing decorative flourishes such as images of leaves, fish or grapes, and "architectural concrete," which involves using disciplined approaches to add color and patterns within set boundaries. It's this latter type of concrete that tends to invite raised expectations and court disappointment, he said.

"What I try to embrace is variegation and lack of control more than anything else," he said.

While some concrete specialists might see a crack as something to be controlled or justified, Miller described a crack as "God's idea of a control joint."

"I revel in the choreographed steps and serendipitous missteps of the placement process," he said.

Miller showed slides of many of his most creative projects, many of which he has described in columns for Concrete Decor, including work at a winery and several natural-food stores.

"Most people in this business are artists - they're just not quite ready to say that," he said. "You need to think of yourself as an artist."

He also discussed how his colleagues work with color, describing by way of example how a colorant-filled balloon disperses color like a little atom bomb when dropped onto a nail and exploding just above a surface. "We do things with ketchup bottles. We do things with barium cups, pouring them. We do things with balloons. we don things in other ways we can't tell you about."

Miller was introduced at the podium by Concrete Decor publisher and Show owner Bent Mikkelsen, who reflected on the commitment the audience was demonstrating by attending the event, as well as on his own struggle to get the first annual Show off the ground. "It was, it became, a desperate fight to make this event a reality in such a tough economic time, " he said.

Many contractors who would have liked to attend the talk were simply not able to afford it, Mikkelsen noted, and those who figured out how to make it should feel proud. "Give yourselves a pat on the back."

"I wish more people could be here," Miller said. "But I know, just as the quality of the magazine has risen and risen over the years, so will be true with this Show."

The Concrete Decor Show & Decorative Concrete Spring Training runs through Friday in Phoenix.

The 2010 Concrete Decor Show & Decorative Concrete Spring Training kicked off this morning in Phoenix, Ariz., with a breakfast reception and keynote address by award-winning designer Fu-Tung Cheng and renowned architect Will Bruder.

Attendees of the first annual show were treated to a unique look at Cheng's and Bruder's visions of concrete design, which ranged from details as small as a hand-designed mosaic for a kitchen backsplash to large-scale commercial and public projects.

"We hope this conversation we have encases the idea that it's the passion, the design that matters," said Cheng.

Cheng highlighted several of his residential projects during the course of his career, focusing on range of scale and sustainability. His career started with smaller items, such as sinks and hoods, which led to larger jobs such as remodeling rooms, then to designing entire homes.

However, the small-scale designs remain important. For example, Cheng designed an entire home, but also designed a small mosaic that is found in a kitchen backsplash. He also added that a current client saw one of his countertops, and he is now designing the largest project of his career.

Bruder, a Phoenix-based architect, focused on the power of concrete and its authenticity while keeping within the theme of scale.

"Concrete has the magic of its own soul," he said.

Bruder has designed many homes and commercial businesses with concrete, many in a nontraditional way. For example, he was inspired to build a wall of a building with cement blocks, but rather than line them up perfectly even, he had cement masons place them randomly to highlight shadows. He also has built walls for a home by cobbling together concrete scraps headed for the dump.

For Bruder, concrete is about authenticity. "Concrete, if nothing else, is an authentic material," he said. "Authenticity is what you should be pushing and selling to your clients."

Both men stressed the importance of pushing the creative envelope. "Concrete can be anything," Bruder says. Cheng mentioned how one of his first houses he designed didn't make him any money, but it taught him what could be done. "Experimenting with shape and form was very liberating for me."

When asked about the future of concrete, Cheng doesn't see new technology as the key, but that of the artist.

"It grows here, in the hearts and minds of all of you here," he said. "I see it as more of the growth and inspiration. The technology will grow ... What are you doing with that material? It's how you use it."

The Concrete Decor Show & Decorative Concrete Spring Training runs today through March 19 in Phoenix.

On April 17, The Stamp Store, located at 125 N.E. 40th St. in Oklahoma City, is offering a women's-only acid stain class on April 17.

Instructor Aylisa Marion has been involved in the concrete industry since 2000. Her skills were showcased at the 2009 World of Concrete, the industry's largest trade show, where she was one of 12 featured artists. She and her husband Mark own Concrete Perceptions, a decorative-concrete retail store in Ardmore, Okla.

Assisting her will be Dana Johnson, manager of The Stamp Store in Oklahoma City, who has been helping contractors nationwide for the past nine years. Women who attend will get plenty of hands-on experience, learning the techniques, products to use and steps necessary to insure a beautiful acid stain job.

The acid stain class will take place from 8-4:30 p.m. If you are a woman and you're interested, call (888) 848-0059. Dana Johnson can also be contacted at dana@thestampstore.com.

Following four years of in-field testing, Deco-Pour, of Snohomish, Wash., is introducing its field-tested water-based dyes for the polished concrete industry. The dyes address the inherent safety concerns of utilizing acetone on the job site, and they provide greater coverage without the concern of dye separation.

Deco-Pour's standard dye colors encompass the top-specified color choices of the past five years, along with the addition of a true warm grey. Their coverage rate averages 1,500 square feet per gallon for two applications.

In conjunction with the introduction of the dyes, Deco-Pour is introducing the Deco-Pour Tint Pack for adjusting standard dye colors to work with concrete slab color variations, as well as creating new customized dye colors. The Tint Pack includes black, red, white and yellow tints. According to Peter Wagner, Deco-Pour's director of sales and marketing, one frustration for applicators is having to defend themselves in a bid process after investing time and knowledge with an architect or client, only to have their competition be able to bid the exact same product, creating a "me too mentality." With the Tint Pack, the applicator can regain control of their bid process and their efforts.

Deco-Pour can be reached at (360) 668-2218 or at its Web site.

From Surface Gel Tek: Decorative Concrete Supply, Shawnee, Kan., is hosting a Flattoo workshop on March 26-27, 2010. Join Tamryn Doolan of Surface Gel Tek and Mike Murray of Decorative Concrete Supply for a full two-day, hands-on learning experience.

You will learn how to apply a multipiece Flattoo and how to use base and secondary colors to enhance any high-precision graphic in concrete.

Increase your earning potential without going to art school. Take the fear out of offering corporate logos & decorative graphics to your bids. Surface Gel Tek can be your art department!

Tamryn will show you how to install any graphic with confidence, increase your bottom line, decrease overhead, and make you feel like an artist.

If you're looking for the easiest and most cost-effective way to include graphics to your decorative concrete projects and increase your income, call (877) 924-4443 and ask for Mike or Denise.

See how other contractors are including Flattoos in their projects at the Web site of Surface Gel Tek.

Concrete Decor magazine is pleased to announce the winners of its 2010 Concrete Restoration Contest.

First Place, Exterior: Unique Concrete, West Milford, N.J.
Project: Pool restoration, Pompton Plains, N.J.
(973) 697-0659
www.uniqueconcretenj.com

First Place, Interior: Premier Veneers, Frankfort, Ill.
Project: Soccer Madness, Buffalo Grove, Ill.
www.concreteveneers.com

More about the Interior and Exterior winners in each artisan's own words ... with more pictures, of course ... can be found here and here. Runners-up are here.