1 – Ties are out. The men’s tie business must be dying a slow death. Of 13,000 people at the Congress and Expo, you might count the number wearing ties on one hand. OK, maybe on both hands. Business casual rules, no doubt. Many attendees are comfortable in jeans and sports shirt. You don’t see many suits at all. Mostly it is the speakers in suits. And certainly not all of them.

Here at the 2013 NSC Congress & Expo, an Egyptian surgeon, Alaa Zidan, who now works as a health and safety consultant in Bahrain, gave a presentation, “Positive Safety Culture and Emotional Intelligence,” that was probably unlike any safety presentation most in the audience had ever heard.

Spend a day talking to safety pros and safety product trainers, consultants and PPE vendors and one thing strikes you: a new vocabulary is emerging in safety circles. You hear little talk about OSHA or compliance.

Why are companies not known for selling safety products, such as Staples, Cintas, Caterpillar, Honeywell, and Kimberly-Clark all here at the 2013 NSC Congress & Expo -- a number of them with expansive floor space?

The results of the highly successful “ISHM Safety Management Professional of the Year” are in. ISHM is the Institute for Safety and Health Management, a certification organization focused on educating safety and health managers in executive-level skills and certifying their expertise in communicating with C-Suite personnel on critical safety issues.

DuPont was awarded Monday morning at the 2013 NSC Congress and Expo opening session for integrating environmental, health and safety management with business operations as a cornerstone of corporate financial prosperity.

The Campbell Institute – the National Safety Council’s center of excellence for environmental, health and safety management – has introduced a new white paper, “Transforming EHS Performance Measurement through Leading Indicators” at the 2013 NSC Congress & Expo.