Keynote Speaker Has Designs on ECEF

Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 3/26/2007

Tradeshow executives attending the 2007 Exhibition and Convention Executives Forum will be the first attendees to hear a keynote speaker from outside the exhibition industry.

Mick McManus, the president and CEO of Maya Design, will present "Taming Complexity: Separating the Important from the Arbitrary for Greater ROI," during the sixth ECEF at the Washington (D.C.) Convention Center May 10.

"He's someone who walked the walk, and he has evolved and added to his capabilities," said Sam Lippman, producer of ECEF.

Though he's out of the exhibition business now, McManus started his career as a designer for Exhibitgroup/Giltspur and then co-founded an integrated marketing consultancy company, Elan Communications.

Now he heads up Maya Design, a design lab and consultancy that specializes in making complex technology products and information-rich spaces easier to use. He'll share this knowledge with forum attendees.

"Our business certainly needs to improve the environment for our exhibitors, and that's what he's going to talk about," Lippman said of McManus.

Lippman expects about 170 attendees at this year's ECEF, about a 12-percent increase over 2006. Twenty-three sponsors will be at the forum, lowering the ratio of attendees to sponsors to 6-to-1, compared with 5-to-1 in 2006.

"The best way to keep this strong is to keep it valuable for the attendees," Lippman said.