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Fixing industry registration tools
May 6, 2008

I have recently spent a lot of time contacting industry opinion leaders to discuss current software solutions.  I am challenged that meeting professionals do not have better tools to utilize.  One of the greatest headaches involves the deployment of registration software.

My soap box about registration tools is based on three systematic issues with today's systems:

1) Profit margins are so thin that registration suppliers do not have R&D budgets to enhance and improve the tools.

2) Most tools available today are hodge-podge technology that still focus on the services component of the tradeshow, not the efficiency of the software.  If the software becomes more efficient, suppliers are pressured to reduce their prices.  Since there is little additional scope of work without further innovation, what incentive do registration suppliers have to improve their tools?

3) Registration vendors make their money from lead capture on the show floor, not registration.  Since they are often willing to give away registration software in order to obtain the lead capture services, the tools are only enhanced enough to win the business each year.

Shawn Pierce with Hanley Wood recently observed: changing a registration vendor is like having a appendectomy - it does happen every day, but you really don't want to do it more than once.

With these dynamics of the tradeshow marketplace limiting the development of better systems, how does the industry evolve tools that are worthy of purchase?

During a recent family vacation, we visited the MacDonald's Observatory in the Davis Mountains.  Near Fort Davis, Texas, the location was selected as one of the highest points in North America with the least amount of interfering light pollution.  When first built, it represented one of the largest telescopes in the world, funded by the University of Texas.  In 1999, two scientists with limited funds approached the University of Texas to build a better telescope based on new technology.  In a collaborative effort, five universities joined together to fund a significantly superior telescope at 80% reduction in initial costs compared to optical telescopes of similar size.

I propose that our industry needs this type of leadership from some of the larger tradeshow producers and associations.  Major technology advancements have almost always come about as a way to circumvent the road blocks to innovation, not from a feeble effort to slightly improve functionality.

With the risk goes the reward.  Innovators often find themselves in new uncharted horizons, reaping the harvest ahead of the industry pack.

Where are the technology investors of tomorrow?  They are out there.  Have they started down this path already?  In the words of the great philosophers during my youth, Pink Floyd, "The child is grown, the dream is gone.  I have become comfortably numb."

It is time for the technology in this industry to grow up.  No more dreaming for a wish list of better tools.  Buyers have been too complacent with bad technology.  It is time to awake and call for action: better registration tools are a great starting point.

Posted by Stephen Nold on May 6, 2008 | Comments (0)