Everything Dinosaur

To Manufacture or not to Manufacture – that is the question

Everything Dinosaur – Updates the Blog Site

Day 669 of Everything Dinosaur’s existence and like most people who run their own company there never seems to be enough time in the day to do everything we would like to do. We have lots of projects on the go at the moment, but we just can’t get round to them all. One of things that we at Everything Dinosaur find fascinating is that even when we work virtually every hour per day we don’t get everything completed as we would like. There is always more to do, whether its sorting out some dinosaur models for a customer, or putting more dinosaur toys into our warehouse.

Prior to setting up Everything Dinosaur, I used to work for someone else, (a proper job, you know one with a salary at the end of the month), I would be in work for around 8.30am and often wouldn’t leave until after 6pm so I am used to working long hours. Sue is also the sort of person who doesn’t shy away from work – good job really, as if we don’t do it for Everything Dinosaur nobody else will.

As our company is made up of teachers, parents and dinosaur experts we try to find products that have an educational value. We think there is nothing better for young people if they can learn through creative play. Trouble is with dinosaurs there is an awful lot of items out there that simply are not accurate or correct. For example, I have seen so called educational books entitled “Dinosaurs in the Sea”*, often we find posters and other items that have got facts confused, spelling mistakes or are simply wrong.

It makes me upset to think that parents are purchasing items to fuel their children’s fascination but some of the stuff they purchase is not educational at all and can be very misleading. A history buff friend of mine was telling me how upset she was when at an outdoor event she encountered a mock battle between Vikings and Romans. The organisers may have had the best of intentions but this sort of stuff is simply wrong and doesn’t help anyone.

We try our best to help and advise where we can. We know a little about dinosaurs, the Mesozoic and other prehistoric animals so we endeavour to make sure at least what we supply is reasonably accurate. The fact sheets we provide for example are researched and checked very carefully. Anyone can make a mistake but we pride ourselves in providing accurate and sensible information as well as educational prehistoric animal merchandise.

As Everything Dinosaur grows and evolves (well, we wouldn’t be scientists if we did not mention evolution), we receive feedback from many of our customers about products they would like us to supply. We can’t source from existing suppliers so we are thinking of manufacturing. This is a big step, as for most firms like us it would take a lot of money to do so and we would most likely have to manufacture overseas to get the best deal possible.

We have done some research into this and no doubt more work is required in this area. Trouble is, like most firms we are too busy doing our day-to-day jobs to focus on this important issue. Sometimes I feel like a juggler in a circus! So many balls in the air at once – must not drop any, after all, this is our company and if it all goes pear-shape then it is nobody’s fault but ours.

We will have to consider whether to manufacture or not very carefully..

Good news, I learn something new everyday – I think I have just set the “publish article” date and time to London GMT. Before, everything was being published using the default Pacific time. I know we work long hours but none of us were writing the blog at 3am in the morning. However, stranger things have happened and knowing how we work at Everything Dinosaur, it would not surprise me if we did end up writing the blog at 3am.

Maybe we would make more sense.

All in all not a bad day.

Dinosaurs in the Sea* – not a good title for an educational book on dinosaurs as to the best of existing palaeontological knowledge dinosaurs were very much terrestrial. Like most animals they could swim but none of them actually evolved into fully marine animals comparable with the pliosaurs, mosasaurs and such like. Dinosaurs were ideally suited to life on land with their erect posture just like mammals. This ability to walk rather than “sprawl” probably gave them an edge over other archosaurs, reptiles and para-mammals back in the Triassic. Lets hear it for the upward projection on the astragulus (an ankle bone) and the open displacement of the femur permitting an upright stance.

To visit Everything Dinosaur’s award-winning website: Everything Dinosaur.