I have been doing quite a bit of research recently including interviewing industry experts in the area of the new economic situation and how it is touching us here in the convention and trade show industry.  I put out a call for experts to reach out and tell me about their ideas and opinions.  I have spoken with vendors and suppliers, those in the convention centers, and meeting planners and others all of which have an opinion on how their lives have been effected by the downturn in the economy.  I am finishing up the series of interviews and getting my notes finished up and will be providing a series of posts related to my findings and the results of my investigation.

If you are someone that I have spoken with and are here to see what I have posted, be patient.  As I indicated the response to my call for ideas and opinions was more than I expected.  If you are here as a regular reader, I think the information I have gathered will prove to be informational, inspiring and a little revealing.  If you have not already signed up for our RSS feed or have not signed up to get our posts via email you can do that on the sidebar.  If I have not talked to you yet and you want to add your opinion or ideas to the piece, feel free to email me or just leave a comment here.  I’ll add you to the already overwhelming response for people that have weighed in.

[photo via jenn_jenn]

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A few years back, okay it must be more than a decade ago now, my brother was diagnosed with the adult onset of diabetes.  He now checks his blood sugar level many times a day gives himself insulin shots as needed to control his blood sugar levels.  I wanted to take a moment out of out regular posting to recognize that yesterday was the 4th Annual D-Blog Day in honor of alerting everyone that November is Diabetes Awareness Month.  You can show your support and to get the word out about the disease that is touching the lives of so many people.  I missed getting this post up yesterday but that doesn’t mean we can’t still alert everyone to be conscious of the fact that this month is all about learning and being aware of diabetes.   Go and check out the Diabetes OC Site and check out all of the diabetes blogs that are out there and leave a comment or two.

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It was interesting to see the fallout at the Consumer Electronic Show, when an attendee at the event took into the event a remote control that shutoff exhibitor televisions during presentation at the event. The attendee happened to be from the popular blog Gizmodo. What is more interesting now is the fact that the event planners have decided to have a blog partner for the event.

Organizers have chosen Engadget to be their blogging partner for the event that will be taking place January 8-11, 2009, at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The event has 2700 exhibitors and a huge attendance. I’m glad to see a blog get the nod for the event.

Does your event have a blogging partner? Does your event need a blogging partner? I’m going to follow along with the CES and the idea of having a blogging partner. I’ll be speaking about this in December on why your company should be using social media to enhance your trade show or convention. Pay attention here and we may give you a sneak peek.

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“Times they are a changing”… as I believe the the song goes.  This is what I first thought of as I happened along on a site that talked about the decline of trade shows.  All of this doom and gloom is not as a result of the day, being that it is Halloween and I felt like scaring all of you that read here and those involved in the trade show industry, but it is a time to look at how things are changing in the industry.  Here are some of the reasons they give for the decline of the trade show by those that use them for a marketing tool for their businesses.

• New products are first announced on the Internet
• Vendors and manufacturers do their competitive analysis on the Internet
• Potential buyers or existing customers gather information over the Internet.
• And Sales people are spoiling their time on booths, waiting for a visitor to pass along.

In addition to these that they have listed, they also indicate that the search engines of the world are making it very easy to find products and services:

It is not so much the Internet, which has killed the trade shows, but the search engines. They make it possible to find products and services 24 by 7 in a very easy and convenient way.
The whole Internet with all it’s websites, have become the biggest tradeshow, open night and day and with worldwide reach.

Conventions.net has realized that this is the case and want to make it easy for you and your company to be found on the Internet.  Visit our site today and let us know how we can make your company more findable!  Just Google the word “conventions”, and see where you show up.  How about the phrase “trade show”?  When you enter it into Google where does your company stand?  Let us help you.

Have I scared you yet?  Happy Halloween!!!

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Trade Show Week has put out its list of the 100 most influential people in the industry. As I look through the list of names if becomes apparent I am not there. Actually, I never expected to see my name, but what I did expect is to see some of the names of the people we talk about here and I did see a few, like Colin Reed of Gaylord Entertainment, Jim Rooney at the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority and Paul Ashley at Smart City, but I think we need to reach out and get more interviews from this diverse list.

In the coming weeks I think I will be trying to reach out to these influencers to see if we can get them to come on here and give out some of their words of wisdom and let us know what is happening in the industry. If you are on the list and here reading, give us a shout out on the contact form. We’ll make you a featured guest!

In the meantime, we will continue to try to bring you news about our industry, will provide you with the best resource site on the Internet for meeting planners, convention planners and industry people. Don’t forget to head on over to Conventions.net and tell them I sent you! I’ll get my name on that list yet.

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I have been spending a lot of time lately speaking to and interviewing some of the leaders in our industry of conventions and trade shows and I will be doing a series of posts to reveal the results of those interviews and discussions.  One of the things that seems to occur to me after speaking to these industry leaders is that there seems to be a shift in what is the norm in trade shows and conventions and how they are being handled.  I have heard tell of new technologies being used, new players in the old world of how things were done and show managers that are seeking new ways to plan events and shows.  One thing is certain, there will be some benefit to the show exhibitors and attendees based on the changes I have seen in little areas.  Stay tuned for more information as I get all my notes together and get my posts completed.

If you would like to be featured as a thought leader in the industry or if you are doing things in the convention or trade show industry that you feel is revolutionizing the way we do business, please feel free to drop us a line or use the contact section to let us know about you.  I’ll be contacting many others to find ways to reveal what is happening in the world we live in.

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It’s only 6:30 a.m. where I am and I am already having a case of “The Mondays”.  How is that possible?  Actually I have already been working for 3 hours.  Not because I woke at 3:00 a.m to get an early start, but because of the time I spent with my family this weekend I had a lot of email to look at and before I knew it I had stayed up a little past my bed time and have already had a few hours of work on this Monday morning.  I decided to get a few hours sleep.  I don’t have the greatest of track records when starting my day that way, but I have never had a case of the Monday’s like these folks.  Enjoy your Monday knowing that it could be worse.

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We have not stopped blogging here at Convention Insider, and we haven’t broken our spell check features, we have been busy making adjustments to the Conventions.net site and making plans on how we can be the most used convention resource guide in the trade show and convention world. 

Part of the changes we have made, is the use of a new search feature here on Convention Insider.  Over on the right side of the page here, you will see a search widget, or as the folks at Lijit like to call it, “a search wijit.”  There goes the spelling alarm in my head.  This feature allows you to search not only the content here on Convention Insider, but it let’s you search the entire Conventions.net site, our network of linked friends, or the entire web, you get to choose.  Your search results will be show you directly to the information you are looking for.  If you wanted to find out about moving people for your convention and search for the folks at The Convention Store, you not only get the Friday Feature article written here, but it also send you right over to their spot on Conventions.net .  Feel free to poke around here and use the search feature and we’ll keep providing you with the results.

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It seems that I haven’t posted here in weeks, but it has only been days, but I am still behind in bringing things up to date.  You know what they say about excuses?  Well I don’t have much of an excuse for not posting other than I have been given the Super Bug.  I think it has transmogrified into this super bug after mutating and entering my body.  With the number of children I have and being around even more children for the holidays, I think I have been immersed in a germ infested echo chamber that continues to bombard me with bacteria and virus and all other things bad.

I have been to the doctor and finally been given a big dose of penicillin, and have been on it nearly a week now and as I start the road to recovery I will be able to catch up.  I am going to start with a new Friday Feature this week as I have a few interviews lined up for the next few Fridays.  Thanks for the patience and I’ll be posting much more here in the next few days. 

Now if I can get rid of the cough that is breaking my ribs…

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Funny the things you think of in the middle of the night after eating spicy food, but this one nagged at me at 3:30 this morning.  What is an Expo?  I’m immediately drawn to the Montreal Expos, the baseball team that is now known as the Washington Nationals.  I never really knew then what they referred to when they called themselves the Expos. Come to find out they were named after the 1967 World’s Fair called Expo 67.  If you don’t continue reading you have at least learned something!   I noticed of course that this was the nickname of the more known word exposition, but I went ahead and decided to do my own research.

According to WordNet, expo is:

a collection of things (goods or works of art etc.) for public display.

it also appears by that page that expo is synonymous with the word exhibition.

Expo is also the name of a Swedish magazine that was founded in 1995 with the mission:

“to safeguard democracy and freedom of speech against racist, anti-Semitic and totalitarian tendencies throughout society.”

I’m not sure that covers anything to do with conventions or trade shows, but at least it has a noble calling.

A search of the blogosphere shows all of the usual suspects as it relates to blogging.  It would stand to reason that blog expos and podcast expo are first in the search results being that they update using blogs and podcasts on a regular basis.

What I really have found out about the word Expo is that every society has one, every industry touts one and it is a very overly broad term when describing an event.  I guess I already knew what an Expo was, but I will always relate to players of a baseball team!

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