CORPORATE VIEW

Fear and Learning at Trade Shows

Trade shows are a fact of life for users, vendors and associated hangers-on. It is difficult to imagine life in this industry without trade shows. It's also difficult to imagine trade shows without airport parking, hotels and bad food. Still, for a variety of reasons we all continue to show up for the festivities. Let's face it, either you love trade shows or you hate trade shows. But as you wander the trade show floor and the hospitality suites, one has to consider whether attendees are getting their money's worth.

In many ways, the trade show experience just ain't what it used to be. As you stare into the vacant eyes of the booth dweeb who doesn't even try to comprehend your question, consider the experience of only a few years ago. At every booth you'd find the actual principals of the company. If you had a question on a technology, you could talk to the person who wrote it. At today's trade shows you are pestered by salespeople to come meet other salespeople. As often as not, you walk away thinking "What was the point of that?"

Not that we attendees provide a much better example. If I am pushed aside one more time by someone intent on getting yet another stress-reduction toy, I'm going to take his Nerf bat and beat him to a foamy pulp. I think some vendors have hired the same marketing consultant as McDonald's. First ther e were Happy Meals, now we have the Happy Hub. Do they really think that they can sell anything if it comes with enough plastic toys? Apparently so.

Many people have indicated that it's difficult to justify attending, especially when management thinks you're just going to party. It's hard to blame managers if they've recently attended the local PC conference from hel l. If they didn't fi nd any benefits in attending, they won't anticipate any benefits to sending their staff. One senior network manager told me, "I haven't been to a trade show in 10 years. I got some value out of the seminars, none out of exhibitions. Even though it was my employer's money, I couldn't cost justify it." Once one has this experience at one show, all conferences are colored with the same brush.

The attendees looking to further their education form a quiet contrast to the noise of the barkers and the crowd. Their experience is radically different from those who attend just for the trade show floor.

But the conferences and tutorials cost money, you say. Well, that's because that's where the value is. The people who stage these conferences don't charge for education in order to make it difficult--they do it because education is an asset.

The education available at conferences is valuable to you and valuable to the vendors. For them, educated customers mean quicker sales, quicker sales mean lower costs a nd lower costs mean larger profits. The vendors at trade shows pay booth fees to exhibit. For many companies, especially start-ups, these costs are non-trivial. Some struggle with the question of where to spend that marketing dollar (should we exhibit at show X or do another direct-mail campaign?). For them an educated consumer really is the best customer. Educated customers simply make better leads.

In considering whether to attend a trade show, examine your educational goals. Many managers complain that they have an education budget that they can't spend. That is, they are too busy working to take the time, even though education is thought to be among the most important factors in an organization's growth and in professional growth. While no hard numbers exist as to how much education makes a difference, we do know it is important.

Information Alchemy Fierce competition forces companies to take on ever more complicated and ambitious projects and competition in the job market forces employees to refine and update their skills. Constant education is the only way to keep up. Trade shows and conferences, carefully selected, are some of the best, most cost-effective learning resources. The information is there. It's up to you to turn that information into knowledge.

There is one reason I still attend conferences. Even taking the journals, Web, CBT and other sources of information into account, a decent conference is the best way to achieve your educational goals.

Where successful Web sites and successful conferences are concerned, content is king. Marketing and free tickets might get you in the door, but it's content that makes you feel that your time and money were well spent. It's also what makes you plan a return trip. The trick is to extract the inf ormation you need while you're there.

So, instead of suffering with some suit in a booth at the next event, you can go with a mission and an agenda.

First, know your plans for the coming year. What technologies will be implemented? What changes are on the horizon for next year? What technologies will you be struggling with a year from now? Determine your own interests and shortfalls. These are the topics to get up to speed on now.

Second, find out what you can from the Web and other services. Decide to attend or not based on the conference program, not based on the free tickets you got in the mail. It will do little good to attend a conference featuring quality speakers and a grea t program if you are fundamentally unprepared. But if you do your homework, you can choose which sessions to attend, what exhibitors to visit. You will know the questions to ask and how to distinguish real answers from marketing exaggerations.

The sessions at conferences often cost extra because of their value. But there are many sources of free educatio n available at shows. Keynotes, workshops, hands-on demos and the rare knowledgeable booth staffer all provide opportunities for learning. It's up to you to exploit them.

When you leave the event you should have the tools, contacts and Web bookmarks you need to follow up on your newly acquired knowledge. And since you based your trip around your goals for the coming months, you should have some proj-ects waiting which you can dive into when you arrive home.

Vendors, for their part, must guide their customers. Since many vendors canvass their customers in order to generate booth visits, a suggestion to those same customers on what sessions they might attend would create an environment more conducive to decision-making than tire-kicking.

It comes down to making well-considered decisions and sharpening your skills. Your strategy should be to learn, bargain and buy.