Michael Hart

A Couple Hundred Air Kisses Later

At the beginning of the second day (second for me, at least) of IAEE’s Expo! Expo! and having shaken a couple of hundred hands, I think it’s safe to make the assessment that things are much better this year than last.

The standard answer to the standard question, “How are things going?” was, “This year has been miserable, but I’m optimistic about next year.”

Like many people and many companies in other parts of the economy, the certainty that the sun will come up tomorrow is a good sign. A year ago, there was great trepidation – not just because everybody expected 2009 to be a rough ride – but because people were not sure how bad things could get.

Now, they think they know and they hope the worst is behind the tradeshow industry and 2010 will be the year when they recuperate.

Another of my overgeneralized assessments from here in Atlanta: Many people are accepting what they feel is the fact that the business world is changing drastically, that they aren’t necessarily prepared for the changes yet, but they plan to get prepared.

The subject of Wednesday morning’s general session was social media. Now, I go to more industry meetings than most and I’ve sat through my share of conference sessions on twittering and Linked-in this year. This one was different – and better than most – for a couple good reasons.

First, moderator Guy Kawasaki did an excellent job of keeping a panel full of tech-savvy experts focused on what the audience needed to know, which was the most basic ABCs of tweeting and Facebooking and how and what they could do with it.

Second, the audience seemed receptive and open to admit how little they knew. (A show of hands confirmed that as many as three out of four people there did not have a twitter account.)

To me, that attitude on the part of the audience is representative of almost everyone here: There are a lot of things we don’t know about what, for reasons beyond our control, is a quickly changing business atmosphere, but we’re willing and able to figure it out.

Posted by Michael Hart on December 10, 2009 | Comments (2)