TSMI's Trade Show Marketing Report

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.