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Articles by Michael A. Martin
Albany Builder Mike Martin Urges Homeowners to Prioritize Quality and Skilled Trades
Local Construction Leader Featured in Spotlight Interview, Shares Insights on Craftsmanship and Community Responsibility ALBANY, NY / ACCESS Newswire / August 14, 2025 / Local construction business owner and community leader Mike Martin Albany is calling on homeowners and aspiring builders alike to rethink how they approach home projects and careers in the trades.
Wood Cuts: Why hardwood floors can be an excellent choice for kitchens - November 2024
Home News Wood Cuts: Why hardwood floors can be an excellent choice for kitchens – November 2024 By Michael Martin As industry professionals, whether you’re a sales representative, flooring contractor or interior designer, providing informed guidance on flooring choices is crucial. The kitchen, often considered the heart of the home, demands a flooring solution that balances aesthetics, functionality and longevity.
Eco-Friendly Design for Consumer Electronics
With 25+ years in embedded systems and electrical design, Dhananjay Patil explains how engineers are rethinking circuit design to reduce e-waste and power a more sustainable electronics future. By Michael Martin Many large corporations have declared carbon-neutral goals, but attaining those goals relies on implementation and innovative design.
What’s on the Horizon for Traders and Brokerages in 2025?
By Michael Martin, Vice President of Market Strategy, TradingBlock In 2025, traders and the online brokerages they leverage can expect major shifts that will bring both challenges and opportunities. These changes could be driven by rapid advancements in technology, shifting investor expectations, evolving regulations, AI’s growing influence and a new administration in the White House. Navigating the year ahead will require adaptability and an understanding of emerging trends.
Final Coat: Engage to Market
The phrase “you get out of it what you put into it” certainly applies to marketing efforts. While this issue of Hardwood Floors has shared plenty of ways to think through your marketing strategy for the year ahead, another consideration I would like to highlight is how getting engaged with the National Wood Flooring Association (NWFA) as well as your community can build on the other components of your marketing plan.
Final Coat: Flooring Futures Initiative
Reading about the achievements the individuals on Hardwood Floors magazine’s 40 Under 40 list have made already in their careers is a reminder that there are plenty of up-and-comers who are ready to take the industry to the next level. There is one particular challenge that will take all of us – industry veterans and newcomers alike – to solve, though.
Back in 2019, leaders in the hardwood industry decided it was time to stop talking about the threat of look-alike wood products and to actively do something about it. They tasked the associations they belonged to – local, regional, and national – with collaborating to combine resources and finances to create awareness about the benefits and uses of real wood products. From this vision, the Real American Hardwood Coalition was formed.
Final Coat: Selling Hardwood Flooring: The Sustainable Choice
For the last decade, consumer research has placed sustainability as a “nice to have” wood flooring attribute, falling behind the top qualities of beauty, durability, ease-of-maintenance, and price. Today, however, the next generation of consumers is far more interested in sustainability as a driver, as the world and its governments focus on capturing carbon and lessening the overuse of our natural resources.
Final Coat: Science Sets Wood Apart for Good
NWFA leaders have participated in many industry meetings so far this year, including our own Expo, the Hardwood Federation Fly-In, the Decorative Hardwood Association’s (DHA) annual meeting, a new meeting of forestry organizations hosted by the National Hardwood Lumber Association (NHLA), Hardwood Manufacturers Association (HMA), Real American Hardwood Coalition (RAHC), the Federation of European Parquetry (FEP), and a meeting with NWFA members, architects, and designers in New York City set...
Head to Head, The Winner is Wood | Columnist | Floor Covering Weekly
Ever since carpet went wall to wall, and perhaps even before, it seems that some other floor covering has always been determined to sweep wood under the rug. But, in reality, the consumer’s love affair with wood flooring is evergreen — it’s been covered up and rediscovered for centuries and remains the consumer’s top choice in study after study. As long as wood floors remain the consumer’s choice, some other floor covering will always market against it, imitate it and even pretend to be it.
Head to Head, The Winner is Wood | Features | Floor Covering Weekly
Ever since carpet went wall to wall, and perhaps even before, it seems that some other floor covering has always been determined to sweep wood under the rug. But, in reality, the consumer’s love affair with wood flooring is evergreen — it’s been covered up and rediscovered for centuries and remains the consumer’s top choice in study after study. As long as wood floors remain the consumer’s choice, some other floor covering will always market against it, imitate it and even pretend to be it.
Wood Cuts: Consumers are owed honesty and clarity as they purchase flooring - Oct 2023
Home News Wood Cuts: Consumers are owed honesty and clarity as they purchase flooring – Oct 2023 By Michael Martin Over the last few years, many makers of wood look-alike products have created confusion in the minds of consumers by naming their products with a wood moniker or words that imply that their product is real wood, when it isn’t. How long will the public allow itself to be misled by false claims and tolerate confusion?
Final Coat: 10 Tips for Growing Business in Slower Times
All indications are that we are going to have a slower summer than the last few. With pandemic level big spending becoming a memory, a new, slower normal seems to be coming into play. It is also typical in uncertain presidential election years to see the economy slow in the weeks leading up to November’s voting action. That said, everyone waits for a slower time to build business. And if you haven’t had to do so in a while, here’s a handful of ideas to keep the cash flow coming steadily.
Wood Cuts: The hardwood industry is investing in a consumer-facing marketing campaign to reverse share loss - July 2023
Home News Wood Cuts: The hardwood industry is investing in a consumer-facing marketing campaign to reverse share loss – July 2023 By Michael Martin For more than two decades, wood flooring has been losing marketshare to wood-look products. It is something I heard when I first joined the National Wood Flooring Association (NWFA) as its CEO more than a decade ago, and it is still true today. What I did not know then that I do now is how bad that loss has been.
Final Coat: NWFA Education & Research Foundation Advances the Industry
Throughout the pages of the February/March issue of Hardwood Floors magazine, you’ve read about how to build a foundation for a successful career in the wood flooring industry. Now, I would like to share some of the ways you can make a difference in your career or someone else’s career via the National Wood Flooring Association (NWFA) Education & Research Foundation (NERF). NERF exists to further the growth and development of the hardwood flooring industry through research and education.
Final Coat: Selling Against Wood Floor Look-Alikes
In this year’s industry outlook survey, close to 70 percent of NWFA members reported negative impacts from wood-look products such as LVT, WPC, and laminate. That number is up from the prior year. It’s clear the wood flooring industry continues to face stiff competition from synthetic products that have gained market share, while attempting to replicate the look and feel of natural wood.
Final Coat: A ‘World’ of a Message
The wood flooring industry is embracing the ways that technology and innovation can help boost our industry’s products and services. Our cover story mentioned how the use of buzzwords such as “waterproof” and claiming to be “maintenance-free” guided homeowners toward fake wood products instead of the real thing. This led to wood flooring manufacturers coming up with innovative ways to ensure their products could compete with the imposters.
Come Home to Hardwood | Features | Floor Covering Weekly
Features Monday, July 17, 2023 By Michael Martin Biophilic trends, carbon capture & ROI are keys to selling hardwood If you don’t already have succulents or moss growing on the walls of your showroom, you soon will. The hottest new trend for homeowners and designers is incorporating natural elements into living spaces for better health, a connection to life and an overall feeling of freedom that only being with nature provides.
Wood Cuts: Conveying the benefits of real wood flooring - April 2023
Home News Wood Cuts: Conveying the benefits of real wood flooring - April 2023 By Michael Martin For years, flooring manufacturers of all categories have marketed their products as being environmentally friendly, but there has been little concrete data to support these claims. The recent publication of two environmental product declarations (EPDs) for real wood floors now provides scientific data to prove that real wood floors contribute to the overall health of our planet.
Final Coat: Facts Over Fake
We have been touting the benefits of real wood flooring over highly processed, wood-look alternatives for years. In some ways, it has been “preaching to the choir,” but the efforts of the National Wood Flooring Association (NWFA) and its members to bring the message that wood is good to the consumer is making progress. Biophilic design trends and the desire to be surrounded by nature even when we are inside have helped wood’s charm resonate even more with homeowners the last few years.
Final Coat: Education Enhancements
Education is an important way to grow your knowledge, skills, and even your bottom line. The NWFA Wood Flooring Expo, May 2-4, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, will feature more than 20 education sessions. As you read this issue of Hardwood Floors, those sessions are bringing technical knowledge from industry experts, business best practices, and the latest trends to you all in one place. I hope that you will join us there to experience it for yourself.
Is your organization ready for new human capital technology?
When speaking with HR leaders, advisors and technology vendors across markets, we consistently hear that organizations are focused on growth and innovation as priorities and are working to identify the culture, organizational capabilities and employee experience required to achieve these goals. CHROs in particular understand that the employee experience can make or break the culture of any organization — and it’s never been more important than it is now.
Majority of Households in the Island Areas Own a Computer and Have Broadband Internet
2020 IACs computer and internet use questions were updated to align with changes made to the 2016 American Community Survey (Figure 2). In 2020, households could report owning one or more types of computing devices from four possible categories: desktop or laptop computer, smartphone, tablet or another portable device or some other type of computing device.
How Brands Will Harness IoT and Mobile Apps to Create More Connected User Experiences in 2022
Internet of Things (IoT) technology and devices have been changing the nature of user experience for some time, as consumers gradually adopt mobile app-controlled technology like smart lighting, connected thermostats, home security systems and doorbell alerts.
The Continuation of Remote Working: How Utilizing Public Wi-Fi is a Danger to Cyber Security — CyberIQs
Written by Michael Martin With the continuation of remote working and the losslosing of COVID restrictions, many people are venturing out to work in public. All of this is made easier due to the increase in the availability of public Wi-Fi at a number of businesses.
Star Trek eBook Deals $0.99
In this Star Trek novel, the first Starfleet mission of Will Riker is juxtaposed against the dangerous ordeal of his estranged, fugitive father, Kyle Riker. Father and son work different sides of the same crisis: to unlock the truth behind the conspiracy that targeted Kyle Riker for assassination.
Within-host <em class="">Mycobacterium tuberculosis</em> diversity and its utility for inferences of transmission
Whole genome sequencing in conjunction with traditional epidemiology has been used to reconstruct transmission networks of Mycobacterium tuberculosis during outbreaks. Given its low mutation rate, genetic diversity within M. tuberculosis outbreaks can be extremely limited – making it difficult to determine precisely who transmitted to whom. In addition to consensus SNPs (cSNPs), examining heterogeneous alleles (hSNPs) has been proposed to improve resolution.
Can banks go boldly into the IoT?
It’s not likely the Internet of Things (IoT) is top of mind when you walk into a bank branch, unless you’re a very forward-thinking retail banker. There are substantive reasons – good and bad – why that’s so. As Aman Narain, global head of digital banking at Standard Chartered writes in Banking Technology, “Historically, banks have been some of the richest repositories of data – but also the least likely to do something innovative with it.
Improving Sales Force Performance with MBO-Based Pay
There are two sure things about compensation plans based on management by objectives (MBOs): not everyone likes them, but almost everyone will have to consider using them at some point. A sales compensation plan should motivate the entire sales force, retain top performers and pinpoint weak salespeople. But companies might have difficulty motivating and evaluating the sales force with a "traditional" plan because they lack proper data to measure sales.
Spider-Man | Creators, Stories, & Films
Spider-Man in film and onstage The momentum that Spidey gained in the comics pages was also reflected in Hollywood. After resolving a host of legal issues that had previously prevented its production, Sony brought Spider-Man to the big screen in May 2002. Critics adored the film, and it eventually earned more than $800 million worldwide. Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007) proved equally successful. Director Sam Raimi, who helmed the trilogy, bowed out after the third film.
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