Trade Show Guru

Just when you think you know everything there is to know about something, you find out there’s something you didn’t know.

I, your friendly neighborhood trade show guru, thought I knew everything there was to know about trade shows… well, at least I thought I was familiar with everything about trade shows. After all, I even know about trade show zombies! But last week I came across a trade show term I’d never heard of before, trade show outboarding.

Trade show outboarding does not mean strapping an outboard motor to your trade show boat, er… booth, nor does the phrase have anything at all to do with outboard motors or engines. Rather, trade show outboarding is done by trade show outboarders (also referred to as trade show parasites and not to be confused with the previously mentioned trade show zombies) and refers to companies that don’t pay for a trade show exhibit booth space, but instead rent a room in a nearby hotel and set up their “offsite” or “outboard” trade show booth in their hotel room or suite. I’m not sure how they manage to get traffic to their hotel room (do they wander around the trade show and hand out trade show giveaway pens with their hotel room number on the pens?), but apparently the “problem” (at least it is a problem to the trade show promoters that aren’t collecting the trade show exhibit space fees) is growing, and trade show organizers are asking the hotels to crack down on these trade show outboards.

As I said, I just don’t understand how the trade show outboarders would get much traffic to their hotel rooms, but apparently they do, or I don’t see why this would be an issue. I’m not sure where I stand on whether or not this tactic is “legitimate”… I support “guerilla marketing” but I also believe in “playing by the rules”. I’ve included a portion of the New York Times article below in which I first read about the practice of trade show outboarding. So what do you think? Would it work? Is it legitimate? [Read more →]

Some of my regular readers may have noticed that I’ve had a bit of a problem with my blogging regularity lately (translation – I haven’t posted in a while… a long while). No, I didn’t venture to the end of the world and fall off, nor was I abducted by trade show zombies. The Trade Show Guru blog isn’t obsolete… at least not yet. I’ve just been busy with other things – mainly work, but also spending time with my family over the holidays and watching an occasional movie (though I haven’t seen Avatar lately – I’m not that wealthy, at least not yet). But I know I need to make a blog post every now and then to keep this blog at least on life support, so what better topic than tradeshow booth babes. [Read more →]

One might think with the rise of the internet and online marketing, that there has been a shift of marketing dollars and resources away from traditional trade show marketing to online marketing and even “virtual” trade shows. That may be true.

One might also think with the recession and economic hard times, that companies have been cutting back on their trade show marketing expenditures. That is probably also true.

And finally, because of these things, one might think that trade shows are becoming a thing of the past, a proverbial marketing dinosaur, a modern day Pony Express. One might ask, “Are trade shows obsolete?” [Read more →]

I hate “upgrading” software. As far as I’m concerned, if it ain’t broke, why “fix” it? I believe that for some software companies, “upgrades” are more about generating cash flow than about necessary new features or improvements. I seldom need any of the new “how have you lived without these” features. And I just don’t like the risk of the upgrade going haywire. Perhaps that’s why I stuck with IE6 for so long, thinking I’d wait until I got a new computer to change to a new version of Internet Explorer (I still haven’t gotten the new computer). Last year I finally got fed up with too many websites not working in IE6, but instead of upgrading to a newer version of Internet Explorer, I switched to Firefox (Firefox now keeps telling me I should upgrade, but I haven’t yet). Once I get software installed and it works, that’s it for me. And this same [crotchety] mindset applies to WordPress, until now. [Read more →]

Every blogger should have a “random stuff” category. I know I am the Trade Show Guru, and you expect to read about trade show marketing here, but sometimes I get brain freeze on the subject of trade show marketing, and need to write about something else (actually, regular readers will know that this happens more often than just “sometimes”). Anyway, this is one of those times, and this is one of those list posts that bloggers love to write and people love to read, or so it is said.

I was working on the zip line out back that I built for my kids and needed a tool out of my tool box. Every good tool box has the basic tools: a hammer, a big screw driver, an adjustable wrench, vice grips, etc, plus enough other tools to make the tool box extremely heavy and difficult to move. But as I was rummaging through my tool box I realized that in addition to the many tools in it, there was also a blog post in it as well, figuratively speaking of course… Looking at the contents of my toolbox, I realized, as any Mr. Fix-It will know, a good toolbox will also have some very important “non-tools”. Here’s my list of the Top Ten Non-Tools for a Tool Box. [Read more →]

You may think that because I wrote posts about Trade Show Zombies and Spamming Zombies, that I have a “thing” for zombies, perhaps even a zombie fetish. Well, I don’t have a zombie fetish, and I don’t believe in zombies either (though I keep a necrosledge in the back of the hallway closet just in case – you can never be too careful when it comes to zombies). The other day I ran across a very funny video, called Zombie Boot Camp. [Read more →]

I knew who Chuck Norris was when I was growing up, but I was never a fan. He was just one of several “tough guy” karate movie actors at the time. I thought karate movies were kind of silly. When the hero was about to fight the bad guy and got into that classic karate stance, why didn’t the bad guy just shoot him? I’ve never seen a karate chop beat a bullet… [Read more →]

A while back I wrote a post asking, “Are You a Trade Show Kinsella?” Of course, to answer this question, you have to know what a trade show kinsella is. Thus, the real question of the post was, “What is a trade show kinsella (and are you one).” Well, here’s the answer you’ve been waiting for… [Read more →]

I may be the trade show guru, but I’m not a blogging guru, and I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know a lot about blogging best practices. But if I wanted to know more about blogging best practices, I would certainly read the blog GrowMap. Not only does this most excellent blog cover the best practices for blogging success, but it is also written by a blogger who knows how to comment and has won my “Spam My Blog – Win a Free Link” contest. The contest was to come up with the best “generic spam comment”, though I later changed it to the worst generic spam comment, as I didn’t want to give the dammed spamming zombies any ideas. In my contest, I offered to give a keyword link to the commenter who who came up with the best/worst generic spam comment. [Read more →]

My wife and son planted some carrots this year. Three of the carrots decided to grow together and create carrot art. I call the “art sculpture” these three carrots created Carrot Love. I’ve never seen anything like it. Have you? FYI: The picture (you can click to enlarge) has three views of the same three intertwined carrots. I know my carrot art may not be the face of Christ on a burnt piece of toast, and I’m not planning to sell the carrots on eBay and make a fortune (I think the carrots have already been eaten)… but I still think my “carrot artwork” is pretty cool. Kind of like the picture I took of balanced rocks.

Anyway, the carrots grew in a large pot in the backyard. We garden in pots and wine barrels as well as the ground because of our gopher problem. I am currently at war with the gophers. [Read more →]