TSMI's Trade Show Marketing Report

The Best List of Social Media How-Tos and Whys

In preparing for speaking at NACS next month, I wanted to make sure that I'm prepared for questions on all things regarding my topic - using social media to add value to your event. 

As more of my daily use of social media tools is for our coffeehouse and local networking and not specifically for conferences, I felt the need for a quick refresher on the broader picture of application usage beyond what I typically use them for.

And there was Chris Brogan anticipating my very need.  The best list of "how-tos and whys" that  I've ever seen.  Saved me a ton of hunting and gathering.  If you're looking for a primer on all things social media, I can't think of a better post to start with.  And even if you're an experienced user, it's a worthwhile refresher to ensure you're covering all your bases.

Chris is the catalyst behind PodCamps.  I've been fortunate enough to speak at and attend a couple in Pittsburgh and found Chris to be a totally down-to-earth guy who (unlike some) can relate to non-techhies.  If there's a PodCamp in your area, get to one - you'll learn a bunch and meet a lot of interesting folks.

Specialty Coffee Association Conference - Coming Around to the Benefits of Social Networking

Some new posts are forthcoming...

I was at the SCAA convention in Minneapolis last week as both a technical judge for the barista competition and a trade show attendee.  But as good as attending both events were, the thing that blew me away most about being there was sitting in the lobby during the barista competitions.

The reason was that there was live video blogging of the competitions.  With a real-time chat screen.  This was the first time either was attempted at this event (last year's even had some time delayed video, but no interaction).  The live video/chat enabled family, friends, colleagues, fellow baristas and coffee growers whose beans were being represented from around the globe as well as curious folks like me to witness the competition with close up camera work while engaging in ongoing conversation as it was happening. 

In many ways watching the competition remotely was preferable to taking a seat in the bleachers and watching in person (very little talking inside (kinda rude to do so), poor sight lines,  hard to see the details that mattered for scoring).

There was also a conference blog that included video interviews from the show floor, some session reviews and even some light entertainment.

I'm going to post a few things about this event as more information is made available on specifics of how it was done and what the Association hopes to acheive with ongoing social networking initiatives.  The dynamics are pretty interesting as several members of the production team themselves are coffee industry bloggers who put their own content aside temporarily to write and produce for the benefit of the Association and its members and prospective members.

All in all quite interesting to see what a mainstream event (non-tech) can do vis a vis live real-time production.  And that the Association in question did not have a prior reputation for innovation.  Now it does.  The feedback from those in the barista community has been overwhelmingly positive.  The question is, how to measure the value of what was just achieved and how to interpret those results going forward.

Stay tuned...

It Would Be Funny If It Weren't Sad

Those of you still getting the feeds from this site are well aware that I spend no time here anymore. 

As I did a post tonight for a new application, I figured I'd do a quick ego search on this blog just to see where we ranked.

Surprisingly (to me), this blog is still #1 on Google for "trade show blog".  And #3 for "tradeshow blog".  And I've posted a mere 12 times in 2007.  13 including this one.

How come nobody else has even tried, save for Tim Bourquin?  It's going on four years since I started this.  And more than a year since I basically "retired". 

Every other industry you can think of is rife with blogs.  Why not this one?  Is it that we're unable to be transparent?  Unwilling to share?  Too overworked to bother?  Or only in it for the money and not because we really care to evangelize and be a community?

What do y'all think is the reason?

Facebook Apps: Event Connector

I'm doing this one for a new acquaintance who messaged me over on Facebook this morning.

Pete Warden has a Facebook app he's put together called "Event Connector".  It's basically a widget that announces to the world that you're going to some event and will compile a list of friends and friends of friends on Facebook who have also stated their intent to attend the same event.  You can also place the widget on TypePad and Blogger blogs.

I don't yet see a payoff in mainstream conferences (although certainly niche tech and social network events should be all over it).  But it would be a boon for local and regional events near universities or those that target students or recent grads most likely to be Facebook users.

And yes, that would include consumer shows.

The Marketing Conference I'd Like to Attend Even If I Don't Sell to this Audience

Do you ever run across conferences that have little or nothing to do with you, your hobbies, your current business or your golf game - yet you want to go anyway just to attend and sit and listen?

This is my choice for 2007:  Mashup, run by the folks who produce YPulse, the media site for marketing to teens (those of you I met in Milwaukee at NACS - this was the "youth marketing company" I referred to during our session).

The Mashup agenda is extremely compelling.  It's a race for me as to whether I'll need to be marketing to these kids in 10 years or whether I'll be semi-retired by then.  Regardless, I think understanding how this age group perceives media and marketing is already extremely important to anyone in B2C.  That there are teens on the panels is interesting and I expect, fascinating.

Unfortunately I won't be making it out to SF for Mashup.  Other more important priorities and commitments with the coffeehouse.  And I've only got a couple of toes in show biz.  You've got both feet.  I'd suggest checking it out.

Here's the punchline:  organizers told Guy Kawasaki he couldn't speak at the conference because he was too old.  One can imagine they think Tom Peters is already dead.

Besides, if you didn't attend, how else would anyone over 30 year old learn about something like this?

NACS 2.0

Spoke this morning at NACS in Milwaukee on how consumer shows can benefit from deploying/employing Web 2.0 technologies.  It wasn't the biggest audience - 15 hardy folks - but they were a great audience and fun to work with throughout the presentation.

We covered blogs of course, but spend more time on Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and MySpace while offering suggestions on how to harness both the technologies and the opinion leaders and their followers who use these applications.

This was the first time I'd been at an NACS event.  The difference in speaking here vs. speaking at IAEM or SISO or MPI was astounding.  People here wanted to understand the technologies and philosophies as it applied to them being able to build their attendee audience - especially among the under-30 crowd.  It was not about immediately monetizing everything as seems the case with other meetings industry events where I've presented.

The session almost didn't happen.  First, my flight in was 40 minutes late, so I arrived at the Midwest Airlines Center with about 50 minutes to spare.  Still, plenty of time to make sure everything is ready to go...

Except that I had brought my new Powerbook (and I'd advised the NACS folks I was doing so) and the techs did not have the proper connection cables to link the Powerbook to the projector.  Which meant I couldn't present off my Mac. 

Luckily the conference manager wasn't using her laptop and had enough space on a thumbdrive so I could move everything to Windows.  Except the videos, which were in .MOV format.  We were forced to watch those off my 13" Powerbook screen, but everyone got the point and working off the two platforms lent a bit of old-fashioned charm to the proceedings.

As a couple of the folks in my session are on the conference commitee, I heard I might even be invited to San Diego for NACS '08 to talk more about Web 2.0.  And not for a breakout session.

We love San Diego ;-)

Anyone Going to NACS?

Heading off to Italy later today for a much-needed vacation, but immediately upon return I'll be heading to Milwaukee to speak at the National Association of Consumer Shows conference.

If you're planning on going, let me know - and if you know anyone who will be blogging the event, please pass that info on.  Thanks!

The subject is how consumer shows can benefit from social networking applications.  The topic is not for everyone (and as I've just received session counts for all breakouts, that is bearing out - it's the lowest count of pre-registrants on the list by one).  Nevertheless, it should be fun.  We'll talk a little about blogs, more about Flickr, Digg, YouTube, Twitter, mobile apps and related mashups and how consumer show marketers can and should employ these tools to improve customer experiences and hopefully, generate more customers in the process.

There are a handful of consumer shows using blogs and podcasts they've generated themselves.  But few - if any - appear to be capitalizing on media generated by their customers.  I've seen some wild YouTube vids taken at various car shows - a couple of which will be included in the presentation.  That's the sort of thing that gets other aficianados of whatever you're selling to take notice.

One problem I'm having right now - the presentation has been done for a bit, but I've just reloaded QuickTime because my current version wasn't loading AVI files.  Now everytime I reach the slide with the videos, PowerPoint crashes.  Because we're heading out the door shortly and taking care of last minute travel planning, I won't be able to fix this till I get back.  And then I'll have about a four hour window to visit the Genius Bar at the Apple store before heading back to the airport.

Hopefully a Genius can fix it, but meantime, if any readers here have an idea on how to fix this (running Office 2004 for Mac on a new MacBook using OSX10.4.9).  I can still show the videos during the presentation, just not as part of the PowerPoint presentation.  Thanks for any assistance.

Eating on Floors, Overflowing Garbage... Just Another Javits Event

Seth Godin visits Book Expo and has lunch on the floor at NYC's Jacob Javits Convention Center.

No, not the "exhibit" floor.  The actual floor.  Because there weren't enough tables.

There were so many people eating lunch next to the very lame cafe at the Javits Center that we were forced to eat on the floor.

There's a lot of floor. In fact, there's enough floor for at least 1,000 more chairs and tables.

You can't see the overflowing garbage can next to us, or the ketchup smeared on the floor.

Yeah, why is that again? 

Having done some speaking at local not-for-profit events, it seems there's always too much food and too many seats.  Then again, the hallmark of most large show producers has been to concentrate on exhibitors at the expense of attendees since that's where the real money is... seems that still hasn't changed.

Speaking of which, seeing as how Seth is an author and Reed is listening and caring about what authors say... obviously Reed can change this. Right?

Bending to Pressure: Business or Wusiness?

EXPO reports that Reed Elsevier is in the process of divesting itself from any of its properties related to defense.

Sir Crispin Davis, Chief Executive Officer of Reed Elsevier, said:
"Our defence shows are quality businesses which have performed well in recent years. Nonetheless, it has become increasingly clear that growing numbers of important customers and authors have very real concerns about our involvement in the defence exhibitions business.

Granted, Reed reports those businesses represent only 0.5% of total revenue (albeit revenues pushed $16 billion last year, so that fraction is not insignificant - $80 million give or take), so it appears worth it for them to forego that revenue in order to keep the revenue it makes from the hundreds/thousands of academics who contribute content for Reed's educational publishing divisions.

The discussion leading up to this decision has been going on for at least two years, and is best summarized in this excerpt from ideolect.org.uk:

I believe that the DSEi arms fairs are immoral, geopolitically reckless, sometimes illegal (e.g.) and improperly regulated (e.g.). Beyond this, I resent that a publisher which profits from the hard (and publicly funded) work of academics uses those profits to support the sale to undemocratic & repressive governments of such things as depleted uranium shells, cluster bombs, missile technology and small arms. The arms fairs Spearhead organises (yes, DSEi isn't the only one) are a measly amount of Elsevier's business, but it is a part that makes academics complicit in the deaths of civilians, in torture and in political repression around the world.

Still, this type of political action and Reed's reaction begs the question, where is the line?

- Should there not be any defense-related shows?   Who should run them?  (We'd hope "the good guys").
- Should there be pressure to end Reed's participation (or any other media company) in all businesses in all countries that routinely violate human rights?  Who's on that case?
- If defense is being called into question, why not is Reed's stand on genetically-modified foods?  On child labor?  On terrorism?  On smoking?  On cell phone use when driving?

We're not in favor of child soldiers anywhere.  But that's almost beside the point.  It's one thing when a company adopts a policy because of market dynamics.  A good example of that is right here in Pittsburgh, where it was just reported today that 12 of 15 new restaurants launched in May were non-smoking, despite the fact that the smoking ban wasn't passed.  Free market at work. 

But that's a case of institutionalizing a behavioral change.  Ending smoking.  This action doesn't remove arms shows, it simply shifts ownership.  As Matt noted in the comments on ideolect, somebody else will simply take over the shows - maybe somebody in Saudi Arabia.  Or Russia.  Or somewhere equally as distasteful.

It's unclear what threats the "important customers" levied against Reed to influence this decision.  Apparently it was enough.  But we have trouble with Sir Davis's usage of "authors" in the press release as though writers held equal standing with customers.   "Authors" shouldn't be equated thusly.   

However, we're not talking "authors" in this case as much as we are discussing content contributors to Reed's educational businesses - where it appears throughout history, there's been a sort of "one hand washes the other" arrangement.

Anyway, the backstory is interesting and worth investigating some Sunday night when you would normally have been watching The Sopranos

The nagging question for TSMR regarding "authors"... does this mean if me and a bunch of other bloggers decide Reed should divest itself of MIDEM because we demonize the RIAA,  deplore the concept of DRM, decry the existence and unfairness of ASCAP and BMI and everything else that's wrongheaded with the music industry, would Reed do so?

That would be an interesting social experiment.

It's Hard to Evangelize Crap

Guy Kawasaki:  "It's very hard to evangelize a blog that's a piece of crap."

Really, you can watch the whole 15 minutes of video for the details and character development, but the line above is the plotline and the keeper quote.

And it's not just blogs.  It's difficult to evangelize anything that's crap, really.   

One might go so far to suggest that if people don't want to take the time to blog or podcast your event out of their personal love for the content, then your event might be, well... crap.

If that's really the case, can't help you.  But I don't think we're quite at that point yet (and I'll explain a case study situation near and dear in a forthcoming post). 

Still, we might be at that point by 2010 or 2012 when most Americans are getting news from blogs and/or podcasts (maybe without knowing so)  (or not).  In other words, it really is time to start thinking about podcasts and live blogging.  2010 is only three years away.  For some of you, that might be your next event.

So what is it about your event that's worth blogging or podcasting?   And why aren't you encouraging the broadcast of that content already?

If your concern is money or time or resources, you really don't need any of those - they'll find you.  You don't necessarily even have to maintain a blog full time.  For revenue, if you have worthy content on site that merits broadcasting, savvy advertisers will fall all over themselves to give you money.   

Likely there's more than enough potential revenue out there in your industry to pay for hobbyist freelancers or industry pros to create your coverage for you and have some $$$ left over. So you don't really need your own people.  It's self-amortizing, or at least it should be.

Link originally found on Converstations (still one of the most useful small biz marketing blogs, even if Mike does ramble on about Iowa).