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Doc Searls On Fixing Tradeshows
zachlipton writes "Almost everyone seems to have a love/hate relationship with tradeshows, the giant geek, suit, and vendor gatherings put on by a handfull of corperations. Doc Searls writes in this month's LinuxJournal on his suggestions for fixing tradeshows. The problem, as he puts it, is that traditional shows make two assumptions: 'what matters most is helping vendors sell stuff to customers' and 'knowledge flows top-down, from speakers to audiences.'"
And I eventually had to say "please don't send me!" I hate those shows.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
The biggest problem I have with trade shows is that they ask you to pay to be marketed at. Why aren't the booth holders and keynote speakers paying to have a captive audience? Oh, they are? Someone is getting rich off this scheme.
One of the most interesting things about these events is who pays and who doesn't, and how. With IEEE conferences pretty much everyone bar the chair pays, speakers included.
At most trade shows there are four groups of people
1) People who are "interesting" speakers so get in free
2) Vendor People who have paid for a booth and are damn well going to speak
3) People who the Vendors want to buy stuff, who get one or more of tickets, flights, hotels, food & booze paid for
4) People & companies who want to learn stuff so they pay to go.
Tradeshows are 100% about selling, without that bottom line the rest of it just wouldn't happen. You must realise that there are people who need to earn a living and its really the people in group 3 who matter at these events.
So your target is to get into group 3. There are various ways of doing this but the main ones are
1) Be an influencer within a large SI, this way the vendors get large bang per buck. An influencer (e.g. architect, account manager etc) can steer many projects your way
2) Have a decent sales ticket item that is coming up to tender (not out to tender or its a conflict)
3) Be a one vendor shop, standardise on a given vendor then screw them for freebies. You can also get great freebies from other vendors by pretending you are going to move.
These are the key ways to get in free. One thing to say about these tradeshows is to collect the business cards. If you have an issue with some software then its always great to be able to email someone senior in that organisation with the problem. Most of the time they just pass it on with the phrase "sort it" on. Which means you get the top man helping you out.
Tradeshows work, but they work in a commercial environment where vendors are looking at 6 and 7 figure deals... this is not about the cheap stuff.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
I've seen my share of different tradeshows. And by different I mean all possible (and unpossible) types of trade shows. I'm a magician with trade shows as my speciality. That means, I've made it my business to make entertainment suitable for the tradeshows. And, I have to say this, be it a geeky tradeshow about the newest gadgets or a lingerie show about sexy underwear, they all look alike . After a while, I never see the products (unless I'm at one of the two types mentioned above ;) - all I see is the same kind of booths - the same setup - the same people. I agree with the article that the general idea of trade shows needs to be upgraded to the new millenium. The only difference I see now and 10 years ago is, that the women hired as eye catchers are wearing lesser clothes. Other than that, it's status quo.
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