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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
Take a look at Slashdot some time and see how information drizzles down from those of us who are more knowledgeable about certain topics to those of you who are not as knowledgeable. This is the way education works, in fact. Either a person is taught something or discovers something themselves.
A group of ignorant blabbermouths take about the same amount of time to come to a coherent, correct conclusion as a group of elephants takes to swim across the Pacific ocean.
I have been pwned because my
would improve things for everyone. And some cute promotters too. It'll be fun, everyone purchasing like the world ends tomorrow, and a speaker with hicups! and half of the audience snoring.
Bill, you have to go to the RFID conference,...boss i still have a headache for the IT conference last week. Oh, ok ill go, party on!.
"The quality of life is inversely proportional to the number of keys on your keyring."
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.
the perlBOF was the best thing at the LinuxWorldExpo! waah and they didn't have one this year! knowledge was flowing all over the place and speak listen relationships were bijectional at the least
Remember presentation of Windows 98?
BSOD while presenting the new "features"?
Products speak for themselves, you don't need to talk about them, just let people have a "test drive" and it's enough to give them a clue. And vendors will learn ALL that is wrong if they just watch people on their "test drives".
(yep, one of parts of BOFH, plug-in the high-voltage laptop into SCSI port because the port supposedly is meant to withstand it and be capable to communicate this way. If you're down some $10.000 on demo equipment you will learn not to lie to customers next time.)
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
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 felt that the article was trying to turn comdex into a usenix conference. Totally different beasts and enjoy each for what they are or are not.
For those of us who consistently work 12-20 Hour days (including most weekends) it IS a perk. Especially if it's on the other end of the island so you have to be put in a hotel and your basic needs are covered (free food).
Even if you stay at an all inclusive it doesn't cost that much extra to take your girlfriend along.
Trade shows are in fact a substitute for vacation time if chosen carefully.
Note that no mention is made of new products or educational speeches. Relax and have fun if that means listening to Linus and ESR hurry through a Panel Discussion so they can get to Duns River Falls, cool. If it means going uh-ah-whoa over the same junk they showed last year. Irie. If it means grabbing free stuff from every booth in sight. Enjoy.
For me they are a "Perk". Even on the occasions where my company is presenting and I have to help set up the booth.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
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.
Underholdning.info
Amen to that! Why do you think places like Vegas, Miami and other touristy spots get chosen for big shows? Conferences are great because I get out of the office and talk to others on how they cope with their problems and when there's absolutely nothing going on at the conference that I like, I go to the beach or the casino. Best thing is I don't have a phone rininging off the hook unless it's REALLY a problem.
Gorkman
Fixing them?
I didn't even know you could bet on them!
*B-dum chhhh*
Scenario: you are an IT manager type. Your division is about to take on two new missions. You go to the trade show; in one place and in a relatively short amount of time - typically 2-5 days - you get to see the major players in relevant markets exhibiting their wares. You can compare features and prices and tinker with hardware, often speaking to marketing, sales, and even technical folks in the space of ten minutes. You can also make a ridiculous number of contacts. Yes, you are paying to receive marketing, but if you have the need (as in the scenario) you get at at least as much out of the exchange as you give.
That sounds like good bang-for-the-buck, yes?
PS Disclaimer-thingie: I generally think of the RSA Security Conference when I think of trade shows. YMMV with smaller expos.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
...I remember when I could actually learn things at trade shows. I could belly up to a booth and play with some software hands-on and learn its capabilities. The people in the booth actually knew the product. In some cases they were developers.
The turning point came circa 1987 or 1988 and I remember the instant it occurred. I was evaluating a word processor, and the person in the booth didn't know whether it could import files from some other word processor. I said, "Well, let's try," and pulled out a diskette containing some files. And she said, "I'm sorry, we've been instructed not to let anyone insert diskettes in the demo machine."
I used to walk up to booths that were demonstrating OCR equipment, which, of course, always worked perfectly on the particular sheets they were scanning for the test. I would ask a couple of questions about its ability to scan a wide range of material, to which the answer was always "yes." I would then pick up some of the booth literature describing the product and ask them to try scanning it. If they said, "Oh, that's glossy," I would look around for anything in my bag or lying around that was, say, an ordinary typed (remember this the eighties) document on bond paper, until I found something that the booth representative agreed was a fair "real-world" test. They'd put it in the stack and scan it. The results were very revealing.
Starting in the early nineties, I started to encounter booth people that would no depart from their memorized scripts, had know knowledge apart from their memorized scripts, and would not allow any hands-on interaction or requests to explore features more deeply ("OK... so could you show us what happens if you...").
At MacWorld, I'd always head for the booths that were farther from the entrance where you'd sometimes find little companies that were interested in showing you their wares, not giving you the hard-sell. And I used to love the funky little BCS "Mac Megameeting," a low-key trade-show-like event.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Trade shows are just flea markets with a homogenous clientell with a few perks like interesting speakers to teach you. Flea markets are all about selling stuff, meeting interesting people, and having a good time (I've been to some where a local band is actually performing). If you don't like them don't go, but the "problems" described in the summary (I'm not wasting time on the article) are not problems and any attempt to "fix" them will kill the show.
Where else will I be able to do the following all in one place:
Find cool products
Talk with knowledgeable sales reps
Be educated by a leader in the field
Network with other professionals
All of that for one low price!
If you don't like flea markets don't go, but don't try to kill the fun for the rest of us.
1. 'nother trade show boooooring, sore feet, idiots at the booth *grumble* *grumble*
2. nice. lucked out and got a cute girly girl in the booth next to me.. shes smart, too!
3. common ground: mutual boredom! start making fun of passersby
4. slight flirting, sweeping glances at each other
5. show's not that bad with good company, eh?
6. k, see you tommorrow for day 2, baby! ("baby" not said aloud)
7. back to hotel room, change out of zoot suit
8. room service food sucks, hit the hotel bar
9. look up from chicken tenders: whoa, hottie adjacent booth girl!
10. me: "come here often?" her: "tee hee hee!" yes! kitch rules!
11. beer me, slim, and one for the lady!
12. goto 11 while 1 == 1, break if currenttime > closingtime
13. stumble back to room with boothette
14. fall on bed
15. roll over close
16. tickle
17. peck
18. --silence--
19. hmmm.
20. slobber, clawing, heavy petting...
21. her: "wait. i don't know...", voice trails off
22. --silence--
23. "ah, fuck it"
24. cue porno music
25. GOD I LOVE BEING ON THE ROAD!!!!!
26. fade to black
27. time passes...
28. daylight through the blinds, clothes strewn about, girl not there
29. dammit gotta be on the floor in 10 minutes
30. blurry hygenic routine, head hurts
31. get to booth
32. booth girl not there, hope she's ok
33. idiots, all of them! yes, i've been drinking gasoline, *mother*
34. booth girl shows up, looks like how my head feels
35. both look towards floor
36. avoidance... hello idiot, i mean sir, can i show you what we have to offer?
37. crowd thins, running out of options!
38. initiate post-coital awkward conversation routine... engage!
39. time slows
40. please be 5 o'clock, please be 5 o'clock
41. ding ding!
42. run
43. while running, notice message board above enterence "see you tomorrow!"
44. GODDAMMIT ITS A 3 DAY SHOW
45. figure out if i can afford rent if i quit RIGHT NOW
the end.
oh...
46. Profit!!